HoveringCheesecake

I did something crazy, and picked up a Widow instead of the assault rifle for my Shep soldier . Adrenaline Rush + Sniping is actually quite a fun combo as it makes headshots so much easier... much more so than Cloaking and Sniping imo. Though I'm doing this playthrough in normal, not sure if this holds up well on higher difficulties.

That isn't crazy, that's what I wish I did with my Soldier. The Revenant is awful compared to the Mattock, and the Widow is my favorite gun in the game.

Miranda has some serious plot armor, so I think if you keep her on your team during the Suicide Mission you will be ok. You have to TRY to kill her on the last mission, apparently.

Or if you have high enough Paragon you might be able to go talk to her again and get her loyalty back. Or maybe that is just with Legion and Tali.

Since the PS3 version is running an optimized version of the ME3 engine, I don't even know how a comparison is valid. Only reason to do so is to see how ME3 will look. The hardware differences are pretty minimal between the 360 and the PS3, are they not? But I think the lighting we see on the PS3 version is how ME3 will be, with some tweaks I'm sure.

As for PC looking better if it is "nowhere near maxed out," I have trouble believing that. I'd say on high or very high with maximum AA and AF it'd look better, but if you're running on medium or something I think it's all in your head. The 360 version looks great, and it is very stable on my end. I've only had one actual crash, and that was due to some DLC mucking up when I went to the Captain's Cabin. The other crash I had was an Xbox Live problem. And as for glitches, I've only been stuck in terrain (or in this case, crates) once.

So, I guess if you must have the absolute best visuals, then yeah PC is for you. The control scheme is clearly designed for consoles, though, the 360 in particular. And when I play on the 360, I never say to myself "the game looks like poo, wish I would have spent all of that money to upgrade my PC to max out the settings." I think it looks great on all platforms.

I'm getting sick of them putting visors on everyone. Garrus has always had one, fine, but giving it to every character is stupid.

I know the results. Unfortunately, the timing you acquire Legion precludes these if you want to save the crew. I'm playing a RenShep, but not that Renegade.

I think I did take Tali to Heretic Station before, in my 'Filtrator playthrough. Wasn't that memorable though. Would love to try Legion in Flotilla, for laughs.. just not on this playthrough I Guess.

OK good. My Renegade let the whole crew get juiced. I didn't realize Chakwas could die without an escort, otherwise I would have let her run off by herself just to see what happens in ME3.

The hilarity on the Flotilla is worth it. I still don't know how to get the dialogue option that comes after the guard tells you to get that "thing" (Legion) off of his ship. You can reply with something along the lines of "funny, that is what I hear from some people when I go somewhere with Tali." Saw it on a Youtube video.

You did it wrong if you didn't take Legion to the Flotilla. Likewise if you don't take Tali to Heretic Station.

A dating sim? Why... if ME were any more dumbed down it would be bejeweled in space!

Because lord knows it ain't a real RPG unless 90% of the time is spent monkeying around with your inventory and trying to figure out the best gear on an excel spreadsheet.

While I'd agree that the original inventory system was a disaster on the 360 (didn't play the PC version), ME2 did not have ENOUGH RPG elements. I'm hoping that they find the happy medium with the inventory system. More armors, more weapons, and weapon upgrades that I don't just find on missions. "THIS COULD BE INTERESTING!" I want to pick my upgrades like I did before. Maybe not to the level of ME, since the amount of armor, guns from different manufacturers, and upgrades was a little silly. But there has to be a sweet spot.

Likewise with planet exploration. Mako, at least the way it was first used for UNC missions - obnoxious. Hammerhead - a faster "armored vehicle" with armor plating as thick as a tin can that I can't get out of before it explodes. Common now.

At least they appear to have realized that mining planets over and over does not equate to good gameplay. Make people work for resources, fine, but probing planets destroys the flow of the game at times.

For god's sake, though, if you have not played the original Mass Effect you owe it to yourself to do so before playing ME2 on the PS3. I've seen the comic - it does not do the game justice, or cover all of the important plot points! Hell, it gets some of them wrong. Then again, ME2 retconned alot of stuff by itself.

^ I don't think Mal's smile is a mistake.

Scions are still a pain in the posterior with the Widow. It's just that now it's way more than equal footing... you can kill Scions before they even get into range, which is a nice thing. The nice thing is that now you don't really need to aim for the head to kill mooks. A real nice mess downrange, no matter where you hit.

Soldiers have sniper rifle training, right? Then yeah, they could use the Widow. Personally I think the Soldier class powers doesn't quite fit well with Widow, but that powerful a gun goes down well anywhere.

The other one to watch out for is the Boomstick with a Vanguard. From reputation, just as nasty as the Widow, but need to get real close and real careful with the ammo. Got to try it some day, but Vanguard isn't my favourite class.

Oh yeah, my Adept playthrough. Going Renegade but it's a bit discomforting -- I'm not THAT badass. Just finished the Shadow Broker mission, and I have got to say, having 2 almost identical biotics in the final boss fight isn't optimal... the boss broke quite a lot of furniture, including the pillars. It was more than a bit annoying, verging on frustrating -- that one is hard for an Adept on any difficulty, since you don't really have a choice on the squadmates. Great going in, hard coming out.

Widow + Adrenaline Rush would be a perfectly fine combination. Hell, half of the time I forget to cloak before I shoot now.

Vanguard was my favorite class in ME1 once I got Singularity as a bonus power, but now that biotics just don't pack the punch they used to it doesn't look all that fun to me. They improved the Infiltrator, though, so at least they fixed something.

For Mass Effect 3, squadmates should have a casual appearance and a combat appearance. Just like Shepard does. Seeing them wear crummy Empire Strikes Back breathers instead of armor and helmets bugged me as well.

Anyway, I used to fear the dreaded Scions when I was playing on Veteran as a Soldier. Now, on Insanity as an Infiltrator I just introduce them to my Widow. Best gun in the game! I really wish I would have picked that as my Soldier's bonus power instead of that crappy machine gun.

I have to say - so far, Insanity isn't that bad. In fact, just like I eventually came to believe with the original Mass Effect, it feels like THIS is how it should be played. You actually have to tell your teammates where to take cover or fall back, and you're toast yourself if you stand out in the open for more than a few seconds. Oh, and you actually use that Medigel instead of getting 100 credits every other step.

Horizon was a pain in the ass - more because of how the game only autosaves at a certain point near the end, but it only took two tries to get it right. Watch me get my ass kicked now that I said I enjoy the difficulty.

You do know that The Harbinger drops heavy weapon ammo packs when he dies during the final battle, don't you?

Haha no I did not.

Regardless, I usually just stuck with the Arc Cannon since I rarely used the heavy weapons and it looked the least intrusive on Shepard's back. The nuke gun is huge in comparison.

Going to start my Renegade Infiltrator Insanity playthrough today. Any hints, Lynx? I'm going to grab the Widow when it is available, but beyond that I'm not sure what to do. The imported character is level 60 so I will have that going for me at the very beginning.

You missed with the nuke gun?

I thought the same thing... I only had 190%, so is that only enough charge for one shot? Maybe I'm using it wrong. Either way, I must have launched it a second before the Reaper ducks down, because it just missed its head. I had no problems hitting it yesterday when I played the mission. So instead I had to plink away at it with my pistol and sniper rifle after my Mattock ran out of ammo.

To be honest, the terminator really added nothing more to the game other than a reason for me to expend the nuke gun. 2 hits and a Widow shot, FWIW. I don't think it was worth it -- might have been better to have a running battle with Collectors to the ship.

I played through it again and my only shot with the nuke gun MISSED wide. The ending still feels hollow, but since it is just a setup for an epic ME3, I'm fine with it.

No. The second you start to romance another character the option is not available.(will explain later)

Good to know. I'll save her for the next space bad-ass playthrough. Still have yet to wrap up my nicest motherfarter in the galaxy one. One thing I didn't realize until now: I'm not going to have access to all of Legion's dialogue options because I did all of the N7 assignments already. Maybe it won't be an issue with the new DLC later this year.

Either way, sorry Kelly, but looks like Legion is getting picked up asap next playthrough. We're going to have so much fun together!

And does anyone else find it odd that they recorded every squadmate's dialogue for every single mission? Why restrict the damn dossiers, then? Bah!

I haven't done Zaeed's loyalty mission yet, but I thought Kasumi's was fun. A little short, but fun.

Romance question:

Lair of the shadow broker has dialog about just that very subject.

Haha yeah that's why I added the . It's true, though!

Some thoughts on the Shadow Broker DLC while I'm at it:

All in all, it was fun and I hope that the last DLC we are apparently getting this spring or summer is something similar. Since I'm still not done with the game, I have yet another question. If I decide to keep playing after the end of the game, that means that I will be able to get the DLC mission on that character if I fire up the save after I've downloaded the DLC, right? I'll just get an e-mail or what not at my terminal?

Miranda used to be worthless, but once I picked up a new SMG she started doing better. Archangel is one of the best, though, I would agree. SCOPED AND DROPPED! And those silly calibrations of his.

I really hope we have to pick and choose our crew for the last game. Give us both crews and force us to exclude some of them. I know who I'd pick.

Oh, and I forgot to mention another huge leap forward that the second game took: NO MORE SIMON SAYS FOR EVERY LOCKER! I do wish we could just slap omni-gel on everything, like we used to, though. I was angry about that upgrade.

Did they put that track up somewhere? I didn't know it was available outside of the trailer.

For that matter, what track is playing on the official site for the movie? Sounds like a few tracks mixed together.

I'm about a year behind the curve and I have not finished the game, but here's my thoughts so far. I did run into the annoying "bug" that forces you to do the

after only five missions, even if they are only N7 non-storyline missions. I wanted my entire team, damnit. I also found out that being a Soldier does not fit my play-style at all. Gonna try Infiltrator next time.

Improvements:

-I like some of the new teammates.

-The graphics look better, and the texture pop-in is almost completely gone.

-Interface is much improved, but I'm not sure if I prefer the blue color of the first game or the orange color they used here. The orange does make sense given the color of most of the displays shown in-game.

-Armor, ship, biotic, tech, and weapon customization/research. The lack of armors may bug some people, but I want my Shepard to wear N7 armor that isn't worthless like it was in the first game. Less is more in this department, but I could stand to see more weapons and armor added to the third game. I just hope they don't go overboard as in the first game.

-No more Mako. The Hammerhead is only OK in small doses, though.

-No more cookie cutter stations!

-^Along the same line, the non-essential missions are much more fun.

-No more mountainous planets that I need to drive the Mako around on!

-The galaxy map is much improved with some exceptions down below.

Beefs:

-DLC is horseshit. Especially having to download DLC to get teammates. Yes, I wasted the money, but DLC is getting out of hand.

-I can't stand some of the new teammates.

-Maybe a little bit too much running and gunning. There needs to be a happy medium between this and the first game for #3.

-I'm undecided on this one: ammo clips. It looks cool, and makes sense, but I also enjoyed the original game's weapon system as well.

-Mining. Who at BioWare thought that I wanted to be some kind of space prospector? The Illusive Man has all of these resources and I have to fly around strip planets myself? For Chrissakes, why does it take me 4-5 complete turns of the planet to completely scan it? This bugs me more than anything else and is what I'm dreading on my next play-through. I'd rate this worse than collecting minerals in the first game. And why is my scanner the same size for a gas giant as it is for a dinky dwarf planet?

-Only 3(4) powers per team-mate, and only a few more for Shepard? A step down from the first game.

-There are "only" 30 levels, but it certainly seems like it is taking me forever to reach 30 despite the fact that I'm doing any and every mission. Since so many people complain about there being only 30, I assume I'll be reversing this and complaining about the cap once I've finished.

-Cover system is useful, but it can also use some tweaking. Nothing like getting shredded by enemies with cat-like reflexes and amazing accuracy and being unable to take cover behind that random box for this reason or that. For that matter, what is this, Counter-Strike?

-Planet close-ups in the galaxy map. The garden worlds look OK, but with the exception of the Sol System, every other planet type looks the same with only minor variation. The first game may have shown only a small portion of each planet, but I almost preferred that over what we have now. Hopefully they find a happy medium for the third game. Give us the ability to scan to a certain extent, but make each planet have a completely unique appearance instead of cookie cutters.

-Why were some of the original codex entries downgraded by having their narration removed?

Dang, that's a long post. I'm a year late but I had to get that out there. Now if you don't mind, I'm in the middle of some calibrations.

I've had the soundtrack on my playlist for a few months now, and my favs are Dream Is Collapsing, 528491, Dream Within A Dream, and Time. Even if a full soundtrack doesn't come out, they didn't muck it up as bad as Blade Runner has over the last 28 years.

Did each of those sets come with a totem? Willing to, say, sell one?

But hopefully if a special edition pans out, it'll include more extras for US fans. We got shafted on that collector's release.

Yup, it definitely has slab fins:

http://alert5.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/PLA-J-20132.jpg

(cut and paste link)

Interesting--the formation strip lighting. It's incredibly "American".

I didn't even notice the slime lights until you pointed them out. Has China used them in the past?

I'm near sighted with astigmatism as well, I've never had a problem with 3D movies.

But yeah, 3D at home needs to be figured out because the current system of competing, proprietary, incompatible systems is unbelievably stupid.

Oh it's you with that avatar. I didn't realize you had changed it and was wondering who the hotshot posting everywhere was.

I think it depends on where you sit and how you wear the glasses - over your real glasses. With Tron I was able to get them set at the perfect angle, so maybe that is the key.