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Really?
Jennifer Hale?
She's like, one of the most prolific voice actors ever and a Bioware mainstay (Bastilla erc.)
I had one planet that started out Rich, went to Good after a few probes and then went from Good to Depleted in one probe.
I also generally only grab mineral deposits of 4 or more on the scale.
You can upgrade the number of probes you can carry. I forget who unlocks the upgrade now. Go around asking your team members about upgrades on the Normandy.
By the way, I just experienced a moment, the golden shining moment that defined just how great this game is:
By the way, I just experienced a moment, the golden shining moment that defined just how great this game is:
I got to punch the reporter again! Yay! 
Yup, I did that too. Except it seems I didn't do it the first time, so it was more satisfying now.You can upgrade the number of probes you can carry. I forget who unlocks the upgrade now. Go around asking your team members about upgrades on the Normandy.
By the way, I just experienced a moment, the golden shining moment that defined just how great this game is:
I got to punch the reporter again! Yay!
W
WolfOfOdin
Two things:
Mordin is now my absolute most favorite character, even beating out Wrex.
And
Zaeed's loyalty mission:
Mordin is now my absolute most favorite character, even beating out Wrex.
The level of shame and horror in his voice on Tuchanka when he sees the experimental victims is moving, along with the fact that he had a breakdown and became religious....which is something we've never, ever seen from a Salarian
And
Zaeed's loyalty mission:
Burn you son of a bitch." He's like HK-47, Crocodile Dundee and Dirty Harry rolled into one sociopathic core of bounty-hunter awesome
I'll take some next time I play.
Well I've been playing through ME1 a couple of different ways and my GF decided she wanted to take the reins of the character creator and make a virtual version of RL me. She made me sit still as she recreated every contour of my face. She got an eerily similar doppleganger of me out of it (different hair)
I told her it felt really strange to be staring practically AT myself as I was playing so I returned the favor and had her sit for me:
Finally some shots of the character I'll be playing in ME2. Shegokigo Shepard:
ME1 Spoiler (sortof)
I told her it felt really strange to be staring practically AT myself as I was playing so I returned the favor and had her sit for me:
Finally some shots of the character I'll be playing in ME2. Shegokigo Shepard:
ME1 Spoiler (sortof)
I've been playing a couple of hours a day and I don't think I'm anywhere close. I think a lot of people in this thread are poop-socking it.
Hmm, F11 isn't doing it for me. I'll have to check my keybindings.
And thirdly, I've seen a lot of complaints about this game on the official forum. Lots of people are actually telling Bioware they preferred the combat in the first. That is madness. It's not even a matter of taste, they made a competent shooter this time.
Hmm, F11 isn't doing it for me. I'll have to check my keybindings.
And thirdly, I've seen a lot of complaints about this game on the official forum. Lots of people are actually telling Bioware they preferred the combat in the first. That is madness. It's not even a matter of taste, they made a competent shooter this time.
I
Iaculus
OK, just one small question about this game, in need of nothing more than a simple yes/no answer (spoilered, if necessary):
Do we learn more about the Reapers and/or their motivations?
Do we learn more about the Reapers and/or their motivations?
No really, but you do learn a lot more about the Geth, Krogan, and Qurians.
(This section has to deal with the ending. Don't read it if you don't want it spoiled.)
Does anyone know if there are any variables to determine who dies during the ending? It seems the first 3 people to die may be random, but I'm trying to figure out if there are any factors to it. Chime in if it happened differently for you. I'm thinking it may be tied to these factors:
Least Loyal: Jack died first in the playthrough I watched, and the guy playing broke up with her for Tali near the end. She wouldn't even talk to Shepard after that.
Least Amount of Story Revealed: Legion died next. The player did his sidequest, but barely talked to him on the Normandy because of how late he got him.
Least Used: Thane died last. He was only used during his sidequest and one other time than that.
I'm also wondering about the other times you split up the team... during the playthrough I watched, the person sent into the ventilation ducts died (Garrus) but the Biotic-Field maker (Samara) and person sent back with the Crew (Tali) did not. Did this happen differently for anyone else?
Least Loyal: Jack died first in the playthrough I watched, and the guy playing broke up with her for Tali near the end. She wouldn't even talk to Shepard after that.
Least Amount of Story Revealed: Legion died next. The player did his sidequest, but barely talked to him on the Normandy because of how late he got him.
Least Used: Thane died last. He was only used during his sidequest and one other time than that.
I'm also wondering about the other times you split up the team... during the playthrough I watched, the person sent into the ventilation ducts died (Garrus) but the Biotic-Field maker (Samara) and person sent back with the Crew (Tali) did not. Did this happen differently for anyone else?
I've been playing way too much, I'm probably about 2/3s or more through the main plot but I'm still flying around exploring stuff so while I probably could be done tonight if I so chose, I'm not going to be.
The play I watched was about 16 hours in length. However, the guy playing didn't do any planetary exploration aside from planets tied directly to the story, didn't buy any star charts, nor did he go out and do any probing. He didn't have any of the DLC ether. That's probably at least another 5-10 hours of content alone... so the whole game should clock in at around 20-25 hours in length, if you do everything in one play through. Double that if you want to go through as the alignment you didn't pursue.
F11 is not taking screenshots for me and I don't know how to map it. Maybe in the ini. I'll check.
Also, maybe this has been posted already in spoilers, which I haven't been reading, but man, new favorite moment in the game by far:
What the? Youtube videos no longer show up in spoiler tags? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE!?
Also, maybe this has been posted already in spoilers, which I haven't been reading, but man, new favorite moment in the game by far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXiU6kiq_Ms
What the? Youtube videos no longer show up in spoiler tags? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE!?
This. The whole "charges to mitigate overheating" thing is a bit lame when we had unlimited ammo in the previous game and just had to wait for the gun to cool down like it would in real life.
I love the Automatic sniper rifle I got. It's great to be able to pump a lot of rounds into a target that has barriers up from long range. Though the stopping power trade off kinda sucks. So, if I want stuff killed from a distance quickly, I bring Thane along with me.
Just finished the game. Spoilers first, including a reply to AshburnerX. If you haven't completed the game, I strongly recommend you avoid spoilers, the game is definitely better without being spoiled.
Oh, and before we get to the spoilers, I would say the answer to Iaculus's question would be "yes, a bit."
All in all, I would say this was an excellent game, 10/10 for me. But as a sequel to Mass Effect, it only gets a 7/10. (Which averages out to 8.5, that's not bad at all!) Let me explain. The gameplay, storyline, graphics etc are all top notch. However, as a sequel, it is inevitably compared to the first game, and it feels like they tried to fix a lot of stuff that wasn't broken. The weapon heat mechanic from the first game was good and different, there was no need to change it, and I would say by changing it to an ammo system they turned the game into every other shooter. Also, there are aspects of the heat sink system that don't make sense: the heat sinks are meant to be universal, so when I run out of heat sinks for my assault rifle, why can't I use some from my shotgun reserves? Are they irretrievably loaded into the shotgun the moment I pick them up? Do I instantly change them into a form that can only be used by shotguns and not assault rifles at the moment of pickup?
Squad members now have much fewer powers available to them, and they're no longer neatly divided into biotics, tech and combat. That leads to lesser attachment to some characters, because they become largely interchangeable - basically just bots with guns, along with a power or two. Compare this to the first game, where I would use Liara because she's obviously the best at biotics, or Tali because she's the best at tech etc. Having clearer specialties made the characters more memorable in the first game, both as gameplay assets and as characters.
The additional weapons and removal of armors also didn't do much for me. Gone is scouring every nook and cranny for gear to use and sell, now we just shoot things while occasionally running into a box of platinum. Apparently in the space of two years, every armor manufacturer in the galaxy went out of business. The new weapons felt somewhat unnecessary - is there really that much of a difference between submachine guns and assault rifles, from a gameplay perspective? Do I really need so many heavy weapons, when half of them have such dramatic drawbacks they're virtually unusable?
These aren't gameplay flaws, of course. If these features existed in another game, I would have no reason to nitpick. But these are gameplay changes, differences from the first game, that are unnecessary and sometimes harmful.
To me, it feels a bit like Mass Effect 2 is a completely different game, with only superficial resemblances to the first game. There's nothing wrong with this, naturally. Half-Life 2 was very different from Half-Life 1. Doom 3 was a huge shift from Doom 2. This didn't stop these games from being good. Similarly, Mass Effect 2 is different in many ways, but it's still a kick-ass game from beginning to end. I just can't help but wish it was closer to the first one.
Oh, and before we get to the spoilers, I would say the answer to Iaculus's question would be "yes, a bit."
My order of dying at the end was this: Legion was sent into the pipe, but he survived that part without any problems. I managed to open all the valves with plenty of time left, I don't know if that had anything to do with it. However, Legion was headshotted trying to close the doors, and was the first to die.
Jacob was my biotic during the shield section, he survived. However, Grunt (one of my squad mates) got killed at the end. You know how pissed that made me? The one single purest krogan in the galaxy, gone.
Everyone else survived, only two people died. I assigned Zaeed to lead the first fire team, Garrus to lead the second one. My own squad was Miranda and Grunt, except after Grunt got killed, I replaced him with Tali. I did everyone's loyalty quests, though if I had to estimate I would say Legion is probably the one I talked to least. Not sure where Grunt falls on the scale.
The revelation of the human-Reaper was definitely a nice WTF moment. Appropriate, too. The Reapers we've seen so far are all insectoid, and the Collectors (and by extension, the Protheans) were insect-like. I'm guessing that after the Reapers' cleansing of the galaxy, they base their next iteration on the most dominant and/or worthy species they find during that pass. Also, I thought the tube-shooting fight was the final battle at first. I was all disappointed until a giant Reaper skull reared up and scared the crap out of me.
There were other nice WTF moments in the game. The revelation that the Collectors were once the Protheans caught me by surprise. The Collector attack on the Normandy was tense, I was so used to having a huge stockpile of guns on my back, getting used to running around without them took a bit of time. Mordin singing was also a WTF moment, but in a good way.
There were still some strange unexplained moments in the game though. Ashley survived my imported game, and she was at that colony that was attacked by the Collectors. We watched her get paralyzed, and everyone else was taken, so how did she survive? Also, I don't think the Reapers' fascination with Shepard is fully explained. Do they target him because they see him is a particularly dangerous threat?
Finally, I romanced Miranda during my normal play through. After completing the game, I had the option to continue playing, so I immediately broke up with Miranda and seduced Tali - mainly because I wanted to finally see what she looked like under that mask. Intimate scene comes up, Shepard removes her mask... and the camera immediately cuts away. FUCK THAT!!
Jacob was my biotic during the shield section, he survived. However, Grunt (one of my squad mates) got killed at the end. You know how pissed that made me? The one single purest krogan in the galaxy, gone.
Everyone else survived, only two people died. I assigned Zaeed to lead the first fire team, Garrus to lead the second one. My own squad was Miranda and Grunt, except after Grunt got killed, I replaced him with Tali. I did everyone's loyalty quests, though if I had to estimate I would say Legion is probably the one I talked to least. Not sure where Grunt falls on the scale.
The revelation of the human-Reaper was definitely a nice WTF moment. Appropriate, too. The Reapers we've seen so far are all insectoid, and the Collectors (and by extension, the Protheans) were insect-like. I'm guessing that after the Reapers' cleansing of the galaxy, they base their next iteration on the most dominant and/or worthy species they find during that pass. Also, I thought the tube-shooting fight was the final battle at first. I was all disappointed until a giant Reaper skull reared up and scared the crap out of me.
There were other nice WTF moments in the game. The revelation that the Collectors were once the Protheans caught me by surprise. The Collector attack on the Normandy was tense, I was so used to having a huge stockpile of guns on my back, getting used to running around without them took a bit of time. Mordin singing was also a WTF moment, but in a good way.
There were still some strange unexplained moments in the game though. Ashley survived my imported game, and she was at that colony that was attacked by the Collectors. We watched her get paralyzed, and everyone else was taken, so how did she survive? Also, I don't think the Reapers' fascination with Shepard is fully explained. Do they target him because they see him is a particularly dangerous threat?
Finally, I romanced Miranda during my normal play through. After completing the game, I had the option to continue playing, so I immediately broke up with Miranda and seduced Tali - mainly because I wanted to finally see what she looked like under that mask. Intimate scene comes up, Shepard removes her mask... and the camera immediately cuts away. FUCK THAT!!
All in all, I would say this was an excellent game, 10/10 for me. But as a sequel to Mass Effect, it only gets a 7/10. (Which averages out to 8.5, that's not bad at all!) Let me explain. The gameplay, storyline, graphics etc are all top notch. However, as a sequel, it is inevitably compared to the first game, and it feels like they tried to fix a lot of stuff that wasn't broken. The weapon heat mechanic from the first game was good and different, there was no need to change it, and I would say by changing it to an ammo system they turned the game into every other shooter. Also, there are aspects of the heat sink system that don't make sense: the heat sinks are meant to be universal, so when I run out of heat sinks for my assault rifle, why can't I use some from my shotgun reserves? Are they irretrievably loaded into the shotgun the moment I pick them up? Do I instantly change them into a form that can only be used by shotguns and not assault rifles at the moment of pickup?
Squad members now have much fewer powers available to them, and they're no longer neatly divided into biotics, tech and combat. That leads to lesser attachment to some characters, because they become largely interchangeable - basically just bots with guns, along with a power or two. Compare this to the first game, where I would use Liara because she's obviously the best at biotics, or Tali because she's the best at tech etc. Having clearer specialties made the characters more memorable in the first game, both as gameplay assets and as characters.
The additional weapons and removal of armors also didn't do much for me. Gone is scouring every nook and cranny for gear to use and sell, now we just shoot things while occasionally running into a box of platinum. Apparently in the space of two years, every armor manufacturer in the galaxy went out of business. The new weapons felt somewhat unnecessary - is there really that much of a difference between submachine guns and assault rifles, from a gameplay perspective? Do I really need so many heavy weapons, when half of them have such dramatic drawbacks they're virtually unusable?
These aren't gameplay flaws, of course. If these features existed in another game, I would have no reason to nitpick. But these are gameplay changes, differences from the first game, that are unnecessary and sometimes harmful.
To me, it feels a bit like Mass Effect 2 is a completely different game, with only superficial resemblances to the first game. There's nothing wrong with this, naturally. Half-Life 2 was very different from Half-Life 1. Doom 3 was a huge shift from Doom 2. This didn't stop these games from being good. Similarly, Mass Effect 2 is different in many ways, but it's still a kick-ass game from beginning to end. I just can't help but wish it was closer to the first one.
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