Mass Effect

[eugimon]

Yeah, terminator was a big let down but not enough to drag the game, imo. ME2 is my favorite game of the year by a mile and a half.

[Lynx7725]

Yeah, terminator was a big let down but not enough to drag the game, imo. ME2 is my favorite game of the year by a mile and a half.

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.

[HoveringCheesecake]

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.

[BeyondTheGrave]

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.

You missed with the nuke gun?

Edited January 13, 2011 by BeyondTheGrave

[HoveringCheesecake]

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.

Edited January 13, 2011 by HoveringCheesecake

[Wanzerfan]

The final battle is the biggest joke ever if you play as the nicest guy in the galaxy. Granted, I only had it on Veteran. I'll have to see if Insanity is more enjoyable.

And the human reaper is retarded.

The terminator was an upset for a lot of fans. Really easy if you have the nuke gun.

I have yet to try the Nuke Gun on the final boss, probably because I'm in love with the Collector Particle Beam Cannon.

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.

You do know that The Harbinger drops heavy weapon ammo packs when he dies during the final battle, don't you? Edited January 13, 2011 by Wanzerfan

[Lynx7725]

You missed with the nuke gun?

Hey, I missed too with my first playthrough. Warmed up and just as the round banged off that stupid thing leaned back. Off sailed the round into the void....

[HoveringCheesecake]

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.

Edited January 13, 2011 by HoveringCheesecake

[Lynx7725]

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.

Since you've already done it once... Note that my experiences are not on Insanity -- I'm sane, thank you. Infiltrators on Insanity should do ok, but it stresses more on precision marksmanship; Cloak can give you a bit of safety, but with so much more protection on enemies, you need every headshot.

It largely depends on how you want the play the infiltrator. My style is to pick a good spot and just kill everything from there; some prefer to sneak around a bit. The evolved cloak power goes either way -- either high damage or extra sneaking. Think about how you want to play, and then build accordingly.

Whichever the case, learn to hit the Y-button before you shoot. Cloaking gives you large bonuses to damage, so having that habit is good unless you need it to get away. I often neglect it... thankfully I have the habit of getting into cover first.

Cloaking is good for other things besides damage bonuses. Most enemies really don't see you once you cloak; if you are taking a lot of fire, cloak and they would stop firing and refocus on your teammates. Cloak last roughly 6s or sometimes more, which is a lot under combat situation. You can hit a door, cloak (opening animation gives you some room), get in, let the cloak wear off, hack a Loki, and let the fun begin (did that before. )

You should remember you don't regen shields or health, nor can you use other powers while cloaked; shooting will decloak you shortly after the shot, so a good idea is to be in cover before shooting.

The time dilation on sniping makes it easy to line up headshots, so investing in research and equipment that bounces headshot damage up can bring a LOT of grief to the enemy. The Kawa-somthing visor is a cheap 10% more damage on headshots and leaves the handsome mug to be seen, so I like it. Sniper upgrade is both easy to get enough early, and frustrating because you can only fully max out (6/6 with the SB DLC) after the "visit a ship" mission.

Sniper rifles are quite interesting in that you can stack ammo powers on to them and inflict really horrendous damage. Depending on your veteran power choice, you can go with Incinerate, Cyro, Disrupter, AP, Shredder or Warp ammo. Personally, I go with Warp ammo because of the sheer versatility. I won't recommend Incinerate ammo as you already have an Incinerate biotic. I do miss Cyro, but Warp is just too useful to leave out.

Speaking of which, the Infilitrator's main weakness is his inability to crowd control well. If you're the type to choose and manage your teammates heavily, then that isn't a problem; for me, I tend to let my teammates run all over the place, so I need crowd control personally. Evolving Incinerate to do area effect is the only thing I had and it's not quite enough. AI hacking isn't as useful in area effect since it's rather hard to hit multiple bots worth talking about.

If you are going to carry the Widow primarily, do build up the SMG; the Widow gets 13 shots + 1 in the pipe (with all the extra clips some armour allows you to stick around), so you really scrabble around for ammo if you just shoot everything in sight. SMG is a good stand in if you use cloak well, sneak behind, and headshot everything -- 50 rounds in the back with warp ammo makes a right mess.

You don't really need a heavy weapon if you start carrying a Widow, so you can start saving for a nuke shot that way -- not sure about Insanity though. On my first run through, after I got the Widow I ended up being an SMG specialist; the Widow simply overkills too many things... but once you hit Collectors territory, you'll need the quick-kill-without-headshot ability.

There might be a glitch in the Widow, in that sometimes you don't reload after a shot, even when you have ammo. It could be because of knockback or some such, but I lost track of the number of time I pulled the trigger only to be greeted with the reload animation. Sheesh.

Alternatively, do the Thane recruitment early. The Viper is a very good sniper rifle, for anything less than a boss, feathering the trigger on that semi-auto is usually sufficient (difficulty changes this of course). The Viper is a good gun, just a different way of using it. For non-Collectors, it's more than enough.

The Incisor is tempting and I did use it, but note that its ammo count is deceptive; it shoots in bursts of 3 so it's not that many shots. I simply found the Viper better.

And oh, Legion can be upgraded to carry a smaller Widow. If one Widow doesn't do the job, I suspect 2 would.

[HoveringCheesecake]

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.

[Kanedas Bike]

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.

Agreed.

I finished an Insanity play-through a few months back and I found Horizon and the Collector Ship as the two most pain-in-the-ass-worthy levels. I also find a certain personal challenge/satisfaction with not using Medi-Gel, but that's just one of my own little game playing quirks .

-b.

[Knight26]

So I am on my second playthrough of ME2, playing on Casual, as I can't devote the time to the harder levels with all the kids, fine by me though. Anyway, I have a comment and want to see if anyone else agrees. It really bugs me that with the exception of Shephard, Garrus, Grunt, and Tali none of the characters switch to a full on pressurized suit when on levels where the atmo is dangerous or non-existant. It also bugs me that none of them are armored anymore on missions, especially characters like Samara, Jack, or Miranda who run around most of the game with their fun bags hanging out for all to see. I know they have shields and all that, but come on, the armor and changing of the armor/outfits on and off ship and between missions added a nice element or reality to the game. So why not equip them with some kind of armor when on missions, especially those that are known to be combat missions. I thought having Shephard change outfits halfway through the Kasumi mission was a nice touch, so why not do that with other missions as well? Maybe ME3 will have an option where, when you start out just exploring the Citadel, for instance, you start in casual clothes, but once you accept a mission that is likely to lead to a firefight you can choose to change into your armor, and then change back when completed. And of course the same would go for your crew. Of course for sudden firefights you would be in whatever outfit or armor you start in, so that would add a whole degree of complexity/difficulty, especially if your casualwear only permits the carrying of a single weapon.

[Kanedas Bike]

So I am on my second playthrough of ME2, playing on Casual, as I can't devote the time to the harder levels with all the kids, fine by me though. Anyway, I have a comment and want to see if anyone else agrees. It really bugs me that with the exception of Shephard, Garrus, Grunt, and Tali none of the characters switch to a full on pressurized suit when on levels where the atmo is dangerous or non-existant. It also bugs me that none of them are armored anymore on missions, especially characters like Samara, Jack, or Miranda who run around most of the game with their fun bags hanging out for all to see. I know they have shields and all that, but come on, the armor and changing of the armor/outfits on and off ship and between missions added a nice element or reality to the game. So why not equip them with some kind of armor when on missions, especially those that are known to be combat missions. I thought having Shephard change outfits halfway through the Kasumi mission was a nice touch, so why not do that with other missions as well? Maybe ME3 will have an option where, when you start out just exploring the Citadel, for instance, you start in casual clothes, but once you accept a mission that is likely to lead to a firefight you can choose to change into your armor, and then change back when completed. And of course the same would go for your crew. Of course for sudden firefights you would be in whatever outfit or armor you start in, so that would add a whole degree of complexity/difficulty, especially if your casualwear only permits the carrying of a single weapon.

LOl...I'm in my 30's and found the time.

Agreed with your statements about how they treated the armor in this game vs. ME1. Although I would stop short of echoing your want of casual or street clothes for certain missions. For me there is a fine line with how much customization I want to have - if I wanted to play like an RPG then I'd play an RPG.

-b.

[eugimon]

Personally, I think there's more than enough customization between the different powers, the different weapons, party members and morality choices. I could use more armor choices, I won't say no to it, and if there were DLC I'd probably buy them as well.. but it didn't cut into my enjoyment of the game.

The only armor related thing that does bug me is that the helmets dont fold away during cut scenes.

And I was far more annoyed that fem shep has the same body animations as male shep more than anything else.

[BeyondTheGrave]

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.

Supposedly you can get two shots but that would be over kill.

[Lynx7725]

Eh, mine took 2 shots and was still standing. Must've hit its skull...

Anyhow, supposedly the interactive comic for the PS3 release will be DLC for all platform. Anyone got it yet?

[Knight26]

LOl...I'm in my 30's and found the time.

Agreed with your statements about how they treated the armor in this game vs. ME1. Although I would stop short of echoing your want of casual or street clothes for certain missions. For me there is a fine line with how much customization I want to have - if I wanted to play like an RPG then I'd play an RPG.

-b.

I'm in my 30s too, but have five kids, so I can't lose myself in the game enough to pay the amount of attention the higher levels would require.

Also, ME1/2 are RPGs, hybrid action/rpgs, but RPGs just the same.

What I am talking about with the armor/clothes though would go something like these examples.

Archangel/Garrus:

Arrive on Omega in casual clothes (pick an outfit before leaving the normandy)

Talk to the head asari and merc recruiter, opens up additional dialogue depending on how your party is dressed.

Head over to the taxi area, talk to the driver and leave (option box opens, change outfit (yes/no, select armor/outfit(s) for party members)

Proceed through mission.

Dr Solus:

Arrive on Omega in casual clothes (pick an outfit before leaving the normandy)

Talk to the head asari.

Head over to quarentine area. Talk to guard, again additional dialgue options depending on how your party is dressed. (option box opens, change outfit (yes/no, select armor/outfit(s) for party members)

Proceed through mission.

Now IIRC at least for those operations once you proceed on mission you have the option to change your party members anyway, so you would select their gear at that same point. Maybe you wouldn't get the same level of gear customization as in ME1, but just selecting armor would be good enough.

For instance:

Jacob/Miranda: Cerberus Armor

Garus: Some repaired, kestrel, or even Terminus armor

Grunt: Full Krogan Armor

Samara: just an armored version of her ourfit or blood dragon, something medieval looking

Jack: Terminus or inferno armor

Kasumi: unique or Basic merc armor, if any

Zaeed: Basic merc armor, terminus armor

Legion: not needed

Tali: unique or terminus

Thane: unique or kestrel

Mordin: unique or collector

Just some ideas anyway, I wonder if the game could be hacked to allow for that.

[HoveringCheesecake]

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.

[Lynx7725]

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.

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.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Lynx7725

[HoveringCheesecake]

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.

[Lynx7725]

I just feel Adrenaline Rush is better combo'ed with auto weapons. IIRC AR negates recoil, so you can really dish out the damage accurately. I agree though, the Widow is so powerful it doesn't need the cloak bonuses.. Gotta get back into habit.

Biotics, I find they are great for thinning out the herd, but once it hits a boss with lots of protection it gets very underpowered. I think it'll just become a case of stacking lots of powers on the boss, then throw a warp. The exploding biotics do additional damage, but it's a hard combo to set up.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Eh, mine took 2 shots and was still standing. Must've hit its skull...

Anyhow, supposedly the interactive comic for the PS3 release will be DLC for all platform. Anyone got it yet?

really? where's last heavy weapon upgrade?

Apparently a glitch occurs and screws up the heavy weapon upgrades. On the N7: Blood Pack Communications Relay mission.

Edited January 20, 2011 by BeyondTheGrave

[Lynx7725]

really? where's last heavy weapon upgrade?

Zaeed's mission provides the sixth (IIRC), but only if you go Paragon (IIRC); go Renegade and you get the Assault Rifle upgrade

And oh, I was wearing that extra ammo pants.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Lynx7725

[BeyondTheGrave]

Zaeed's mission provides the sixth (IIRC), but only if you go Paragon (IIRC); go Renegade and you get the Assault Rifle upgrade

And oh, I was wearing that extra ammo pants.

I have 6/6 WH upgrades. I'm still only getting 190%

[Lynx7725]

I don't think I picked up any ammo.. but sometimes on the same mission my widow will tell me I have 13 rounds, sometimes 14 rounds. I did know I had to nuke that boss twice, and one more Widow round into an eye.

Progress tonight under Adept is that I've recruited Thane. Once you max out Singularity, it gets a bit more interesting, since it now pulls wider and more enemies. Crowd control becomes much easier and your other powers get more usage with all those things floating in the air. Mini bosses with protection still gives issues. I guess that's why higher difficulties, it's better to have a class that can sandpaper the protections better.

On the down side, you get to hear a lot more mooks screaming. One area, I singularity a whole bunch of Eclipse, and somehow one got flung out and landed on a lower structural level (which you are not meant to go to). She was screaming the whole time, even after the singularity expired, until I had to use Warp to shut her up.

[Duke Togo]

Back to ME2 after almost a year. Finally picked up Overlord and Shadow Broker, and three other armor/weapon DLC packs I didn't have (I have every single DLC besides the digital download pre-order sniper rifle). Will get to playing it in a few days, start prepping for ME3!

[Lynx7725]

really? where's last heavy weapon upgrade?

Apparently a glitch occurs and screws up the heavy weapon upgrades. On the N7: Blood Pack Communications Relay mission.

Really? What's the glitch? I've done that mission twice, hate it on its own mis-merit (Chlorine atmosphere my @$$...), but never realised there's any problem with the HW upgrade.

[Wanzerfan]

My only complaint for the game so far is that when you get a new weapon, the ammo count for all your weapons get reset to normal amounts, but that's if you have the extra ammo armor piece equipped.

[Zor Primus]

Just played the demo for PS3...must get full version!

Its Dragon Age in space...I <3 Bioware.

[Lynx7725]

Just played the demo for PS3...must get full version!

Its Dragon Age in space...I <3 Bioware.

You PS3ers get a good deal. It's all the DLC with no extra charge, plus it's on the new ME3 engine. Let us know how it goes.

[HoveringCheesecake]

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.

[Lynx7725]

Progress tonight -- did Miranda's Loyalty mission, and Tali's recruitment. By now my Singularity has gotten maxed to Wide singularity, and Warp's been upgraded.

Miranda's Loyalty mission isn't terrible; Adept has issues with mini-boss synthetics because they can't AI hack, but Miranda's mission is all humans or low level synthetics. The fun part was when I finally confronted the Eclipse boss for the mission, the two of us somehow ended up next to each other hurling biotics. I really should have just punched her lights out.

In my first runthrough, when fighting the boss Vanguard in Shadow Broker, she actually charged and ended right next to me. Sniper rifles are jack in close, so I butt-stroked her and killed her. It's just one of those odd moments that sticks to the mind.

Parts are quite fun. There's some spots where the scripted enemy comes out from an elevator or doorway. In this case, there was a spot where I could slap a singularity on the door. Turns out quite cute as all the mooks started swimming when the door opens, and when Warp slaps into them the explosion typically clears the wave 'cept for the inevitable Eclipse Vanguard or Engineer.

Tali's mission though, was a lot more annoying. Lots of Geth, and you can't be quite sure when biotics would work as some of them are shielded and some aren't. I've seen biotics work on some geth destroyers and not on others in this mission. The final boss is really annoying and I had a difficult time getting rid of him -- not because he was tough, but more because he kept stealing my targeter, and made it a lot harder to target the mooks running around and causing more damage.

Don't know why, but I'm doing these missions faster now as an Adept. It sorts of annoy me to biotic artillery something to death from far away. Maybe it's because ranged biotics is not as accurate as sniping -- you need that targetting lock to maximize your biotics. When I was an infiltrator some times I'll hang back and shoot something from out of targetting range; now, I can't accurately place biotics enough to do that, and have to close to work it sufficiently.

Edited January 22, 2011 by Lynx7725

[Scream Man]

I'm playing through Mass Effect now. I gotta say, it's hard to get back to after Me2. I wonder if after ME3 they would do some kind of Mass Effect trilogy set; You get all three games on the ME3 engine along with all the DLC and stuff. i can't lie; Update and modify the original and Id buy it again.

[Ghost Train]

ME1: Hybrid RPG Shooter

ME2: Pretty much a shooter.

If the trend holds up...

ME3: Dating sim

[eugimon]

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.

Edited January 23, 2011 by eugimon