THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: KvP on 20 Feb 2009, 15:40
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This is how you tease (http://www.giantbomb.com/news/mass-effect-2-the-wraps-are-off-with-first-trailer/952/?linktags=home,home-news)
Gametrailers has it in glorious HD (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/45798.html)
there are also some concept art wallpapers up on the ME site, but it's getting reamed at the moment so you might have to wait awhile.
(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/30/896021-masseffect2_wallpaper_02_wide_1920x1200_super.jpg)
(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/30/896020-masseffect2_wallpaper_01_hd_1920x1080_super.jpg)
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Oh lord...
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OH JEEZ :-o
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That is one hell of a fucking teaser trailer right there.
Really, all I need to know to get 60 dollars out of me again is that the voice actor for Wrex is back.
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Cocktease!
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~~~
sorry for the mess guys that just kind of happened
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If only I could make videos I could show you that my hand can't stop shaking.
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The makes me wonder where they are going with the story. Is Shepard really dead? Do we get to meet friendly Geth? How will the romances continue? Will more aliens pop up? Etc.
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Holy shit so much want right now you don't even know.
Do you think we can play as Geth?
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I don't want your boring sequel, I want Dragon Age. Hop to it, Bioware.
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Man, they're pretty much done, they're just working on the console versions and the toolset.
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I don't want your boring sequel, I want Dragon Age. Hop to it, Bioware.
hey isaac
how about fuck you
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I couldn't see the game series going any other way EXCEPT for Shepard taking a dirt nap. The number of scenarios they'd have to account for otherwise would be gigantic.
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I will bet someone money that Shepard does not die.
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Same here, why transfer your character from last game just to kill him off in this one?
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Well, I personally would not be surprised eitehr way, but there were several choices from the first game that would make a siginificant affect in the game world with or without Shephard.
Wrex being alive/dead, Kaidan/Ashley status, the Rachni Whether or not the Council views the humans as anything but assholes for example.
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So you gonna put money down or not.
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They said decisions made would affect the game and characters would return, assuming they did not die. I think this game would make a lot more sense were you not to play as Shepard again; I would assume that if Shepard is not really dead they'll be an NPC at most.
I spent a lot more time playing the game than my housemate, running pretty much all of the side-quests, so the last battle was almost trivial for me. It would really hurt our relative gameplay experiences if I had a character so much more powerful than his, and how stupid-powerful would you character be after two full games of leveling up?
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I think it would be a nice upheaval of the sort of story arc Bioware's always pursued (the whole Chosen One deal) but I really don't think they have it in them, honestly. Bioware's a very "safe" developer and that's one of the reasons why they're as successful as they are. I mean, think about it. ME2 is invariably going to be bigger than ME1, and if they can't handle a single character going from one game to another how are they going to expect us to invest anything in our second character? We know he's just going to get killed off if killing off your PC is necessitous as a matter of game mechanics going from game to game, and all the relationships established are going to be discarded and all the consequences of your actions are going to be felt secondhand and wokka wokka wokka. They'd be hamstringing themselves, and if they figured out a way to make character porting feasible from 2 to 3 why wouldn't they implement it from 1 to 2? They've planned this as a trilogy from the start and if they didn't have an idea of how they were going to balance the three games progressively then they aren't the professionals they've proved themselves to be in the past.
And I'll tell you one thing, the Mass Effect storyline is not strong enough to sustain itself without a strong main character. It's been set up as the story of the Galaxy's Last Great Hope and if they renege on that in ME2 and say "whoop, just kidding, this is about Humanity's struggle and blah blah blah, not Shepard's quest to save the Galaxy" or some shit then it's going to be an absolute disaster. This isn't the Lord of the Rings, this is James Bond. They don't call it "James Bond and friends" because it's about James Bond. How is Shepard's replacement going to be special? Is he going to be the second human Spectre? Is he just going to be some grunt? Is he going to be a different race?
I've heard some speculation that Shepard doesn't die but has his brain transplanted into a geth body, which is both a hilariously literal interpretation of the teaser and an incredibly stupid course of action on Bioware's part (even if it does provide widely desired fanservice in a *gasp* geth party member!). We'd be going from Star Wars / Star Trek to Robocop 3, and they'd be turning their established universe on its head in a number of ways. For one I don't think Bioware is willing to take that risk and for two I don't think they'd be able to make that landing even if they attempted it.
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I think there will be more Geth encounters certainly but It is a bit far fetched to have a Shepard cyborg.
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Should I buy Mass Effect 1? The only video game shop here who still sells it sells it for full price, which is ridiculous. Is it really that good?
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Nothing is that good, fuck those guys and buy it off the internet.
Kv, how would they reconcile the fact that I've got an essentially maxed character and my housemate does not? Will the game be easy for me and hard for him just because I put in another five or ten hours of play? It makes more sense to me to have a new character for a new game, and I think I'd enjoy that more.
Also, I have only ever seen it said that 'choices made will continue to have an effect', not that you will get to play your character still. Where is there room for expansion and development in your character now?
That is just the way I see it.
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Yeah, get it from Amazon, $20 brand new.
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Kv, how would they reconcile the fact that I've got an essentially maxed character and my housemate does not? Will the game be easy for me and hard for him just because I put in another five or ten hours of play? It makes more sense to me to have a new character for a new game, and I think I'd enjoy that more.
Also, I have only ever seen it said that 'choices made will continue to have an effect', not that you will get to play your character still. Where is there room for expansion and development in your character now?
That is just the way I see it.
I assume that Bioware will use the same tricks it used in Baldur's Gate 2, that most RPGs have utilized in the past. They set a minimum level of experience for ME2, say, level 50 or 55. Like in most games with a level system the higher you go with it, the less impact a new level has (although in relative terms, ME's leveling system was very, very gradual anyway)
If you saved a character from BG1 and ported it to BG2, it would measure your xp level. If it was below the minimum, it would automatically level you up to that point. If it was above the minimum, then your character was unaffected. That way you don't feel cheated if you went through and did absolutely everything in BG1. If you started a new character in BG2 you were set to the minimum. Another thing, Bioware games and western RPGs in general are very flexible as a general rule - I know of a few eastern RPGs in which you cannot proceed through the game unless you're at a certain level. In games like BG2 and ME they have a system under the hood that adjusts most encounters somewhat based on your character ability (though not to the Oblivion extreme)
Another near-inevitability is that they'll overhaul the character creation system for the higher levels. Using Baldur's Gate as an example again (because it's such a good one), in BG2 when you created a character you had to choose your weapon proficiencies, and there were quite a lot of them. Long swords, scimitars, two-handed swords, katanas, daggers, short swords, etc. But if you started a character in BG1, you'd find that there were only over-arching categories of weapons. Long swords, scimitars, et al would all be encompassed under the Great Sword proficiencies, daggers and short swords would fall under Short Blade proficiencies, and so on. If they had kept BG1's proficiency system in place for BG2 a mid-level warrior would competently be able to use every weapon in the game, which is broken. So they shook up their system. In ME2 they'll probably increase the number of weapons you can use and add more passive skills (like fitness)
I think it's likely that they'll completely overhaul the system. If you had a mage character from BG1 and you ported it to BG2 you'd have to level up your character from scratch no matter your circumstances. They had added and removed a number of spells from the game, so on the off chance that your character had learned a spell that was no longer in the game they let you choose your spellbook again from the new list. The downside to this was that if you had a full spellbook at the end of BG1 you lost a good number of spells. ME2 won't have that problem because you don't gain abilities outside of leveling. But they could very well change things up from ME's rather boring "progress bar" skill progression to something more interesting, maybe something that differentiates different characters of the same class. Perhaps a skill tree w/ stats ala Diablo 2. Really, utilizing one special ability per skill bar was not a very smart move on Bioware's part. If they do change things up in ME2 they'll have to make every single player reroll his character but I don't think that will be a big deal considering how relatively low-hassle it was to level up in ME1. Overhauling the system will also allow them to rebalance the game and make Shepard not quite a God without actually having to explicitly reduce his power.
Continuing the whole BG2 thing (they've said that BG2 is their template for ME2, which is encouraging) I would also expect that some of the party NPCs from ME1 are killed off in ME2. Only a few of BG1's many potential CNPCs made it into BG2. A few were killed off in the time between BG1 and BG2. Whatever event leads to the teaser I would expect would kill a few NPCs. My money's on Tali - relative to other characters she got pretty short shrift with regard to backstory in ME1. Several other characters could bite it. They'll fill their shoes with new NPCs, and they may expand the pool beyond the standard ME1 "one character of every character type" template. Maybe they'll add some NPCs who are less benevolent than "mercenary with a heart of gold".
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Shepard being dead would be a terrible move by Bioware. Releasing a trailer that suggests that (s)he might be, though... genius.
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Also, I have only ever seen it said that 'choices made will continue to have an effect', not that you will get to play your character still. Where is there room for expansion and development in your character now?
I agree with you. I think Shepard will be either dead, offscreen or an NPC. Keeping track of all of the possible NPC reactions to Shepard based on major choices would be too hard.
Mass Effect 2 isn't an expansion pack like Mask of the Betrayers, it's a whole new game like KOTOR 2.
Just coming up with a backstory that takes into account the ending (humans on Council or humans are Council) will require some clever writing.
All that said, I can't wait.
Although I fully expect the ME2 main character to be human, I wouldn't mind if they somehow managed to give you a choice of species.
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Who's going to put money down?
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I will bet you $50 that Shepard is totally for the boys in Mass Effect 2.
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deal
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perhaps Shepherd is believed dead; maybe he's working in the shadows now, pretending to be someone else or something.
but yeah, like Slick said, i seem to remember them saying that it would use your old save file and your choices and actions would carry over to the next game, not that your actual character him/herself would necessarily be used.
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Am I the only one who thinks it's just a ruse, seeing as Shepard is a Spectre now and is allowed to work outside of the law? Faking death to protect the mission?
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No you are not.
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I think you're all desperately clutching at straws.
Looking forward to this game, though. First one was huge, although there was a bit of overkill with the amount of dialogue?
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So I am with the 'yeah sheppard isn't dead' crowd, and my personal opinion is that I don't think you'll be playing your character from Mass Effect 1 in 2, but I don't feel strongly enough to argue for it. I've stated the reasons I have for believing such, that's all I've got.
I will put down $5 that I will feel mostly correct.
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I think you're all desperately clutching at straws.
Looking forward to this game, though. First one was huge, although there was a bit of overkill with the amount of dialogue?
It was a Space Drama first and foremost. In my experience, Dramas tend to be wordier.
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First one was huge, although there was a bit of overkill with the amount of dialogue?
it's an rpg
it's about the words
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First one was huge, although there was a bit of overkill with the amount of dialogue?
it's an rpg
it's about the words
Skippable cutscenes would have been nice though, when replaying it - they didn't really change regardless of choices made throughout the game.
I respect people's backing up of opinion with cold hard cash ITT. I don't feel certain enough either way to be putting down the dough.
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I think they're pulling a Metal Gear Solid 2 on us, in that we're tricked into believing that Shepherd's dead when he's probably in hiding.
Can't wait for this to come out, but it's such a long wait. I couldn't put down the first one until I finished it from the moment Shepherd touched the first beacon.
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First one was huge, although there was a bit of overkill with the amount of dialogue?
it's an rpg
it's about the words
Quality, not quantity.
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they were also good words
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Mass Effect owns, fuck da haters.
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Fuck people that say "da".
Fuck you Bryan.
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don't let the Russians hear you say that.
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I'm pretty sure we'll end up battling sheppard on mt. silver at the end of the game.
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First game was awesome, I will buy this, but man could they please make the side quests more interesting? Like, I cleared so many geth out of so many identical bunkers on so many similar worlds driving that fucking Mako fucking everywhere, and tracking down so many mineral deposits.
Either way, I'ma buy the game.
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I stopped playing the game way back when because I burnt myself out doing side quests (I'd played most of it, and my friends had spoiled everything for me already). Either way, I want to have the right experience with both 1 and 2, so I'm playing all the way through it.
I really don't think Shepard's dead and I really don't see you taking your character from 1 to 2 in a normal fashion. Maybe some sort of brain wipe, or restarting your character with some set of skills based on what you had in the first one, but a full transfer I don't see happening.
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I'm pretty sure we'll end up battling sheppard on mt. silver at the end of the game.
holy shit, wrex is snorlax
we're all fucking doomed
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I'm just hoping this won't be a failure like KotOR 2 was (although that wasn't really Bioware's fault).
I don't know why they'd chose to do this over over any of the other places they could go. The story behind Mass Effect was mediocre at best, and the world the same. The hype of "you get SOO MANY CHOICES" is kinda like the Fable syndrome, although it's been much less pronounced with the Bioware titles. The huge amount of choices is more like 5 or 6. You can boil it down to "are you good or evil" "which characters do you like" and "how much of a dick are you". Less black & white morality please.
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Nothing new, but Bioware says Mass Effect 2 will surpass the original (http://kotaku.com/5172158/bioware-mass-effect-2-will-surpass-original)
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You have to assume they'll say something to that effect, no one is going to say "hey our first game was better but you should still buy this".
I remain unimpressed.
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I rather doubt Blue Kitty really meant that in reply to your post.
As far as Mass Effect's plot being mediocre, it always surprises me when people nitpick about it. It's really the first time I was made aware that there might be gamers out there with some semblance of taste when it comes to their plotlines. Usually the guys I hear prattle on about plots are the same dudes who think MGS is brilliant and jerk themselves off to FF7 slashfic.
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I thought ME's storyline was terribly unimpressive, not relative to gaming as a whole, in which most all stories are shit, but relative to the rest of Bioware's oeuvre. It hit all the same keys but failed to deliver much in the way of the sort of twists that made KOTOR or even Jade Empire halfway effective. They did a fair job on the world-building, though.
On the subject of settings and storylines, Iron Tower (a subsidiary of the RPG Codex *boo hiss*) recently interviewed Brian Mitsoda, the creative lead on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (which was enjoyable pretty much only because of its plot) and on Alpha Protocol in its infancy, on this sort of thing. linky (http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=781.0)
Right, so, I’m not a big fan of saving the world because it’s usually used as a crutch to make the story and its characters weightier. A good story is a good story regardless of the scope of the protagonist’s deeds, but in games I think studios gravitate towards “save the world” because it makes the story sound so much more grandiose – it’s a press release/back of the box bullet point. I’d like to see more games feature well-developed characters and plots more than anything else, epic or not.
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I agree with the saving the world bit. None of my favorite games have ever really been about saving the world/city/galaxy. Oh, sure, you might do so by the end, but it was almost rather tangential. People didn't care about Fallout because you defeated some nasty super mutants at the end of it nor was Grim Fandango ever intended to be "epic."
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Shenmue was critically acclaimed, but for a space opera Mass Effect wasn't that bad and it had a decent grasp of both the grandiose story and the minutiae of its characters.
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Sometimes I just want a game that looks good, sounds good and has characters slightly more interesting than the dipshits in Army of Two. Mass Effect delivered.
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http://twitpic.com/28xfg (http://"http://twitpic.com/28xfg") - Make sure to watch Spike next Friday night, we'll be telling you a lot more about ME2 - Geoff Keighley
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Vague plot synopsis courtesy of ME2's Amazon page -
The second chapter in the Mass Effect trilogy takes you to the darkest reaches of space, where you must uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of humans across many worlds. Prepare yourself for a suicide mission to save mankind. Travel the galaxy to assemble a team of soldiers and combat specialists, and launch an all-out assault on the heart of enemy territory.
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Sounds pretty standard. I'm all about suicide missions, though.
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Get ready to gather a team of dead-eyed fucktards who only want to say three things to you on a week long flight to a deserted planet where you drive your dune buggy for ten hours to survey the land and find crashed satellites!
I surveyed the fuck out of those planets, though. I think I found everything on every planet. After I beat the game, I was disappointed in myself. I will probably borrow ME2 from a friend.
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I'm really excited for the GTTV preview, it seems like they're getting their hands on a lot of high-profile games before anyone else. All I'm gonna say is that I hope they don't do the copout thing and removing all the characters that could have died during the first game and cooking up some half-assed reason why they aren't in your party if your save file says they're still alive.
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Killing off all the characters and rendering the Ashley/Kaidan choice essentially meaningless would be both terrible and completely hilarious.
Other than that, Bioware has killed off CNPCs unceremoniously before.
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I'm just saying, organizing all the current scenarios based on what characters you currently have in your team was difficult enough in the first game. Adding 3 characters that may or may not even be alive to the mix would just make things more resource intensive. It would be easier for them from a development standpoint to have Kaidan and Ashley be 'reassigned' to some unrelated position so that they don't have to work out how to put them in the game effectively. It would be a bad idea, but it's not out of the realm of possibility, I think.
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Stuffs from GDC!
Cutscene design demo (http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/24193) (robovoice yaaaay)
Combat demo (http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/24194)
Giantbomb writeup (http://www.giantbomb.com/news/gdc-09-mass-effect-2s-evolving-design/1021/)
(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/4331/941185-masseffect2_wallpaper_04_full_1280x1024_super.jpg)
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Not a whole lot of new info in the GTTV preview, really. The most significant details in my mind were: the beginning of the game will be different if you use your ME1 save, you may play as different characters throughout the game, and the party size will be much larger than in the first game. They promised much more info at E3, just like everyone else.
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Sounds like they'll be lifting some elements from KOTORII, which is a smart move on their part.
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You wake up on a freighter with amnesia. Then you replay the entire first game.
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Fuck yeah (http://www.kotaku.com/5194793/mass-effect-2-has-shorter-elevator-rides)
Also, GDC Report (http://www.kotaku.com/5195803/what-happened-at-the-mass-effect-2-panel)
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The design timeline for games is the most crucial thing to "nail". Some companies that can afford to do so avoid streamlining this cycle by simply refusing to release an unfinished product, but since Bioware has to make deadlines it's nice to see that the biggest problem with ME1 is being dealt with.
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So, iPhone backstory (http://kotaku.com/5231724/mass-effect-on-the-iphone-will-tell-jacobs-story?skyline=true&s=x) aka Jacob's Story
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Can't be any worse than that MGS Ipod game.
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Shepard probably isn't dead (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/02/commander-shepard-probably-isnt-dead-in-mass-effect-2/)
Also, more info on Jacob's Story (http://kotaku.com/5236574/mass-effect-for-the-iphone-the-real-facts)
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I bet they're gonna drag it out until the last day of E3.
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Shepard probably isn't dead (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/02/commander-shepard-probably-isnt-dead-in-mass-effect-2/)
WHAT NO I DON'T BELIEVE IT
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oh man (http://kotaku.com/5256144/biowares-mass-effect-2-e3-prelude)
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Holy fuck
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Wow
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Holy fuck
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The animations have certainly improved. Looks like they took the BG1->BG2 claims serious enough to maybe back up.
Still, I'll believe it when I play it. And combat wasn't really the problem for ME1 so much as rendering large environments was, which was mostly a problem with 360 architecture. Hopefully they can fix that.
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Oh, fuck, new synthetic enemies. Where the hell are we in this game?
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I was not expecting to be that impressed.
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It would not surprise me if they were a form of evolution for the Geth.
But man that looks might impressive.
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I suppose now would be a good time to finally replay Mass Effect. Yeah. I think so.
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Since Mass Effect 2 is supposed to be better than the first somehow, I've done a little thinking, and this is my guess as to what the plot will/could/should be like;
Sheppard was forced into reclusion by the religious groups and tabloids that ridicule and scandalize her relationship with Liara. When Liara became pregnant, the couple decide to flee on the Normandy to live in a distant, more open-minded colony. On the way, the gang is bombarded with asteroids that Joker claimed to have not been on the map and/or did not exist at all and/or no other pilot could avoid as valiantly as he, the greatest pilot in all the yadda yadda. Their ship, a husk of its former beauty, spiraled through space and ends up desintegrating in the atmosphere of Kahje, the homeworld of the Hanar. Sheppard, dead, drifts through the gigantic ocean until she reaches a very, very polite colony of Hanar, who resurrect her and worship her as a god. There, she must find a way to request a transport off of their god-awful world, but as to not offend them or imply that their hospitality was somewhat unsatisfactory.
Once off of Kahje, Sheppard must take the phoenix mirror and ask around the Citadel for where she can find Lan Di, as well as find a part-time job. One night, after her watch tells her to go to a hotel and sleep, she is visited but the Daedric god Azura, who tells her that she is the Nerevarine and that Lan Di is actually none other than Dagoth Ur. She is sent to Skyrim where she must fulfill some prophesies, as they were written in the Bethesda newsletter as "So, yeah, ES5 will probably might be Skyrim since we trademarked the word, blah blah about other games." Completely bypassing the third and fourth installments in that series, she orders Carth to pilot the Siltstrider to Taris, where they can be blown to shit by Darth Malak in a spaceship that isn't the Death Star, escape with Bastila alive, destroy Dagoth Di using the dragon mirror and the now-fully-explained floating sword (named "Keening"), resurrect some Dwemer/Protheans/Quin Dynasty to find out just what the hell they were, and dramatically fly away from a big explosion in the Ebon Hawk. The end of the game would be the characters landing on Earth in the player's hometown to havoc on their enemies' shrubbery and the like until they pass out from all the FUN.
I think a game like that would satisfy absolutely everybody's needs everywhere so that they can all shut up.
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My guess is more than likely that you will play a character alongside shepard for the first 10 minuites or so. The mission your on is basically on one from the council (wether its human dominant or not, personally I hope not) to go into the outer reaches of the universe and try and find out "wtf are these 'reaper' things we have heard so much about?" You go along with a new team, your old one has either left to try and help the various other areas of the cosmo's or have been substantially promoted and your PC is part of the new team .Your the one who has report him dead after the ship gets damaged/ attacked and then have to start trying to accomplish your mission, either through subterfuge or beating the living snot out of whichever drug dealing snot bag gets in your way.
You won't be in constant contact with the citadel, but they will be able to reach you at certain areas and will try and send out help to try and ensure that the mission goes well, no doubt they are not completly ignorant of what occurs out beyond the light of "civilised" planets. They send out teams (possibly including old Shepard team mates) to help you out. After that the story will probably develop more and more intricacies until eventually you realise if not what the reapers are at least if/when they are coming. After that, its a race against time to either unite the scattered and self-interested crime families and warlords to combat one of the big scout ships or to race back and tell the council, leaving the edge to its fate.
Sheppard will probably turn out to be alive and a rescue mission might be possible.
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I don't know what Mass Effect you guys were playing, but Sheppard was still alive when I finished it.
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Oh, fuck, new synthetic enemies. Where the hell are we in this game?
those are varren in doggy space-suits, apparently
awesome
fuck
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Sheppard will probably turn out to be alive and a rescue mission might be possible.
Sheppard sounds a lot like Goku in the Frieza Saga. The greatest warrior in the universe, but he's really really far away.
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In Mass Effect related news, I've found out a way play as a party member. Having Liara run around, doing your lines is so weird.
Edit: I would show you a screenshot, but they all come out in bitmap. Lame
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Hey there Shepard, you look a little beat up
(http://www.deeko.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2wqqrub.jpg)
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Edit: I would show you a screenshot, but they all come out in bitmap. Lame
Open it in paint and save as into jpeg.
Also I think Gametrailers has a pretty big Bioware episode this week. Don't know if there will be new stuff, but it should cover both Dragon Age and ME2.
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(http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/9004/screenshot00026h.jpg)
(http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/3420/screenshot00019.jpg)
Goddamnit Garrus, you blinked!
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Hey there Shepard, you look a little beat up
Oh, you know they doctored that.
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Shephard... (http://kotaku.com/5272429/shephard-but-youre-dead)
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COMPLETELY BADASS THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THIS TRAILER/THINGS OF NOTE
- A dude gets he neck straight fuckin snapped
- A dude pushed out a window
- The dead dudes wearin some kind of weird armour? huh
- Gameplay looks a lot more action heavy and visceral
- FLYING CAR
- A dude gets he neck straight. fuckin. snapped.
ME is a trilogy, right? So this is the dark middle portion?
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There's not much new, really. The graphics got a facelift but there's a shot with a camera angle (facing Shepard) that won't be available in-game and the rest of the combat looks pretty much exactly like ME1 combat with bigger guns (hard to tell for sure given the quick cuts). I'm reminded how little I liked the male Shepard VA.
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nothing pleases you
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On the contrary, people are too easily excited.
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the last game ruled and this just looks like it but nicer and maybe a bit faster so it's exciting you turd
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I CONCUR, STOP RAINING ON OUR OVERLY HAPPY FUCKING PARADE
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First glimpse of that new alien though. I see tali or some other Quarian makes an appearance.
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Hell's yeah!
Stop raining on the parade dammit! This looks so freakin' cool, I will admit I don't like the default shepard face, but that can be changed with ease. Yeah this is going to be the dark middle portion, will probably end on a bittersweet/ just plain bad ending. Then in the third one... well I will leave that up to bioware.
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Shepard gettin' his Fatality on, throwing Cyrax through a window there.
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Hey guys, I was going to buy Mass Effect and I have a question: Does anyone have experience with the downloaded PC version?
Here's the thing, after someone recommended the game to me I looked it up on Steam, and found that it costs €45 ($63). I thought, okay, that's kinda expensive but it may well be worth it. But then I looked up the game on Direct2Drive UK, and guess what? Twenty pounds. That's half the price of what they're selling it for in the rest of Europe! Dammit, EA.
Now, I'd like to know if the DRM on downloaded EA games has any annoying strings attached, cause I'm trying to determine if the extra 30 dollars is worth paying to get it from Steam.
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On May 6, 2008, BioWare confirmed that it would be using the latest version of digital rights management software SecuROM with the Windows release of Mass Effect.[101] This decision attracted criticism as SecuROM would require online activation after installation in addition to a "check-in", where the product must re-validate itself every ten days or it will cease to operate until the next successful check-in.[102] On May 9, 2008, BioWare decided to remove the ten day periodic re-authentication, saying that it "listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them." Players will still need to connect to the server before they launch Mass Effect for the first time or download new game content.[103][104] The game can be authenticated five times. After that players will have to contact EA Customer Support, who may then on a case-by-case basis "supply any additional authentications that are warranted."[105] EA has since released a De-Authorization Tool for certain SecuROM Protected games released after May 2008, which includes Mass Effect. [106]
The March 2009 Steam release of the game removes the SecuROM DRM and replaces it with Valve's online distribution and DRM system, which ties the game license to an online user account.[107]
Satisfied?
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45 euros? That's fucking ridiculous, it's $20USD on Steam here.
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45 euros? That's fucking ridiculous, it's $20USD on Steam here.
I know, right? The only way to get past it is having someone from the US buy it and gift it.
Zombiedude: At first I wasn't sure if the SecuROM was also installed on the downloaded version, but I took another look at the EULA which says pretty much the same as Wikipedia (buy, verify every ten days, install a limited number of times), only without mention of the word SecuROM. Only it doesn't say if the ten day verification has been removed here too. I'll ask Direct2Drive about that...
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Bioware redesigned their Mass Effect website. They added Faqs about Mass Effect 2 and some other stuff. Go look at it.
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All the news coming out of E3 made me boot up my clear file and start playing through again. I don't think there's a single game I'm more excited for than this one, 2010 can't come soon enough.
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45 euros? That's fucking ridiculous, it's $20USD on Steam here.
This is exactly why, exactly FUCKING why, I'm downloading this game right now. Charging me, what, three times as much with today's rates? Go fuck a duck.
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Just so I can win the 'is sheppard dead' argument I am going to buy Mass Effect 2 and just find the fastest way to die then break the disk and thus will have proven my point
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"This time, Sheppard, stay dead."
*snap*
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No new game plus (http://kotaku.com/5303247/there-will-be-no-new-game-plus-in-mass-effect-2)
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I am totally fine with that.
Edit: Also, Bioware doesn't expect you to survive ME2 (http://kotaku.com/5279409/bioware-doesnt-expect-you-to-survive-mass-effect-2)
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Guys, you've all completely missed out on the key point here.
Will we be able to bump nasties with other characters in the game?
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I can't wait to slide tackle my weenus into some pastel-colored tentacle face for no reason again.
Honestly, the sex scene in the last one was so out of place that it was just hilarious.
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I wanna park my Normandy in her space dock if you get my drift.
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Your drift is the reason your exit port doesn't line up.
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Mild spoilers I guess (http://kotaku.com/5311555/lots-of-new-mass-effect-2-footage)
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Dude I am fuckin' psyched now. Spoilers be damned, that video has some cool shit in it.
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this cannot come soon enough
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How your saved data does it (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175318)
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Mild spoilers I guess (http://kotaku.com/5311555/lots-of-new-mass-effect-2-footage)
Whoever is concerned about spoiling the surprise, damn you. This is a surprise you'll want spoiled. It looks like they improved a lot of critic points from the first game in ME2.
How your saved data does it (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175318)
See, in many of those open-ended, path-choosing games I find it satisfactory to play through once, and maybe twice. After that, finding out what unexplored options are left in the game aren't worth going through all the other stuff you've already seen.
Same with Mass Effect. I wanted to go through it a second time, but I couldn't find a way to play a different class on level 50. But now I feel like going through it a couple more times just to see what kind of effect it will have on the second game.
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You're not Wrex!! (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/18/latest-mass-effect-2-squad-member-is-grunt-a-violent-and-unpr/)
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I'll want that guy on my squad. So much.
Seriously, this is just looking too sexy to be true.
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I want the Green dude.
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Hey, didn't anyone notice the human next to Shepard on the home page of Mass Effect (http://masseffect.bioware.com/)? We haven't seen her before, have we? Gotta get her on my squad: she's hot! Hmm, that probably means she'll die somewhere, which is a shame. Oh, and this guy (http://na.llnet.bioware.cdn.ea.com/u/f/eagames/bioware/masseffect2/assets/images/avatars/masseffect2_avatar_05_100x100.jpg).
Oh look, when you buy the new Dragon Age: Origins game you get a suit of armor to use in the game. That's pretty sweet, even if you need a physical copy for it. I don't usually go for the bonuses that go beyond the hard disk (why would I want a Shepard statuette?), but the prices are very attractive right (hel-lo €1.15 per GBP!) now so I'm gonna go ahead and pre-order both of them!
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That's Miranda. She's been mentioned in a few previews. She's one of the main characters in the iPhone spinoff game, and she's modeled after and voiced by the girl from Chuck (which I've never watched, but her name is really long so it's easier to identify her that way than looking it up).
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All the hulluaballo over the " if you die in this game you can't go on" bothers me. I mean we save our games for a reason.
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That's Miranda. She's been mentioned in a few previews. She's one of the main characters in the iPhone spinoff game, and she's modeled after and voiced by the girl from Chuck (which I've never watched, but her name is really long so it's easier to identify her that way than looking it up).
That would be Sarah Lancaster? I see some resemblance. I believe she was in the Wikipedia character list of Mass Effect, but I didn't read it, that spoils too much for my liking.
Okay, now that I've looked around on the site I found some very interesting things. There is one potential squad member, 'a convicted felon and powerful biotic known to be psychologically unstable', residing on a maximum security starship prison. That could become interesting.
Oh, and in your 'suicide mission to save humanity' you'll be working with Cerberus. That's right, the same bastards that got your unit killed on Akuze, assasinated the lower admiral, and generally conducting unforgivably inhumane experiments everywhere across the galaxy. They're the ally. Well, I didn't see that coming.
Zombiedude: I think the intention is that the game is only over when you die because of the choices you made in the storyline. Surely they won't tell you to start over after a Krogan shoots you in the face with a shotgun. What I'm hoping for is that there aren't too many ending scenarios you die in, or at least not more than there are success (read: not die) scenarios. I mean, we're long past the text adventures in which you walk into a dark forest and a monster eats you, the end.
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Nah, her name is Yvonne or Yvette or something. Like I said, I've never watched the show so the name meant nothing to me.
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Zombiedude: I think the intention is that the game is only over when you die because of the choices you made in the storyline. Surely they won't tell you to start over after a Krogan shoots you in the face with a shotgun. What I'm hoping for is that there aren't too many ending scenarios you die in, or at least not more than there are success (read: not die) scenarios. I mean, we're long past the text adventures in which you walk into a dark forest and a monster eats you, the end.
I know that. I just think its pointless to try kill the player's character when you can reload a save and try again.
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Maybe if you saved 6 hours ago. Y'know, when you hadn't decided to kill player B or nuke planet X. From the sounds of it, though, the moral/whatever decisions you make over the entire context of the game affect whether or not the ending to the game is "canon".
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I think the point I'm trying to make is that Shepard death wouldn't have quite the same impact if you reload a save and figure out where you went wrong trial and error style.
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A discussion of game design w/r/t choice and consequence and death is better suited for the Molyneux thread.
This thread is for discussion of boring, one-dimensional evil Krogans. I didn't think Bioware characters could get more high concept than Black Whirlwind, but I was wrong!
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John, we remember, you don't like Mass Effect.
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No I liked Mass Effect, and I liked its characters by and large, excepting the big fucking wank that was Sovereign (god, what a dumb twist), but this Grunt looks mad dull. I'm sure they'll end up throwing some "shade of gray" into his backstory to make him halfway sympathetic. I'm going to place my money on an Oedipal Complex. He's like Wrex, will probably serve as perhaps a more potent version of the already quite potent Wrex, but they're certainly playing the one note of his being an aggressive badass pretty hard and he looks far less interesting than Wrex was. So either Bioware marketing thinks its customers are essentially 13 year old boys when it comes to the appeal of meatheadedness for its own sake (not a bad assumption, really) and is shortselling an interesting character, or the character is uninteresting. It's probably the former, but given the quality of evil NPCs in ME1 I'm willing to entertain the latter notion.
At the very least Bioware ought to be called on its claims of "moral complexity". I don't know if they're keeping that up but round Mass Effect day they droned on about the disparity between paragon and renegade like renegade wasn't essentially an "evil" option. Bullshiiiiit
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I agree to the extent that he just looks like a poor man's Wrex to make up for the players who didn't manage to save him in the first game. I do like the majority of Mass Effect's characters, though.
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Yeah, I was wondering if maybe Grunt is only a CNPC if Wrex is out of the picture. Perhaps you can come to a juncture in ME2 at which you kill Wrex in and replace him with Grunt, sort of like how you eventually had to choose between Keldorn and Viconia in BG2.
Sort of makes you wonder what the canon storyline of ME1 was, or if there isn't one, how deep they're going to make the retconning process for brand new PCs.
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Yeah, I'm wondering what the 'default' choices will be for somebody who doesn't import save data at all. Hopefully Wrex is still a party member if he's still alive; I have to imagine that Bioware knows that he's by far the most popular NPC, considering how keyed into player feedback they seem to be from all the previews and developer diaries.
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There was a way to kill Wrex? Where?
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*Spoiler oiler*
At the mission where you have to destroy the Krogan breeding facility. If you can't convince Wrex that destroying the facility is better off for the Krogan he'll stick with you. If you can't, you can kill him.
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*Spoiler oiler*
At the mission where you have to destroy the Krogan breeding facility. If you can't convince Wrex that destroying the facility is better off for the Krogan he'll stick with you. If you can't, you or Racist Bitch kill him.
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You could either find his family armor or charm/intimidate so he wouldn't die.
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Didn't know he had family armor...I'll have to look for that on my next playthrough.
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He'll tell you roughly where it is.
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I agree to the extent that he just looks like a poor man's Wrex to make up for the players who didn't manage to save him in the first game. I do like the majority of Mass Effect's characters, though.
After reading this thread, I've realized how much more there was to Mass Effect than I noticed on my first play through. Also, the Wrex dying thing is clearly a case where they rewarded players that had played more side missions; since talking him into following you required one of the speech skills, and finding the family armour required doing an unrelated side-mission (spoiler you stumbled over it when doing the rescue mission that really was a trap, right? spoilerend)
I hope they do the same thing for MF2, awarding players who spend effort on helping (or looting) bigger parts of the galaxy benefits for that, instead of giving them some kind of dicking-around-for-more-than-fifty-hours-penalty. because if there's more exploring to do, I'll explore the shit out of that galaxy before doing the main mission.
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See, I thought I did all the side missions before heading to Virmire...he never mentioned family armor to me. I did, however, charm him out of it. But yeah, I just bought the game again (brother sold it for drug money, so I did the games on demand thing), and I've already managed to do Noveria completely different from the way I did it before. I somehow missed an entire set of side missions.
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most of the main story missions have have major parts that can be completed multiple ways. since the game is meant to be played through multiple times, this is important. did you know there are like 4 ways to get a garage pass to leave hanshan station on noveria?
anyways, i've been playing the first one a lot lately in anticipation of me2. seeing it all again just reminds me how epicly good this game is. i think a lot of people are going to go back through me1 after me2 comes out just to mess around with all the variables that get carried forward. see how things are different in 2 with each choice made in 1.
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How the variables effect the sequel is something that mildly concerns me. By which I mean the first time I played through with my current character I completed pretty much every sidequest that could be done, bar the the exploration/mining shite. Later play throughs - where I was pushing to level 60 - I couldn't be bothered to do them all and just stuck to the main quests. I can see this coming back to bite me when I load the character into the new game.
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Just replay the game one more time and do all the sidemissions. It's hardly a chore.
I actually remember that Wrex thing now that you mention it. I think I completed almost all of the sidemissions, and then I ground all the way up to 60, full spec-ops X weapons. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna go play through it again.
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i replayed the ever-lovin' crap outta ME. i have about a dozen high-level toons saved. hopefully, that will translate into an interesting ME2 experience.
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Just replay the game one more time and do all the sidemissions. It's hardly a chore.
Yes, thank you...
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YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN WELCOME, MY FRIEND.
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Hugs and kisses.
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I liked Mass Effect a lot, but I think playing through every sidequest again would be fairly terrible. A lot of them are pretty vanilla and they throw the game's pacing to hell. It's actually a pretty tightly paced game by rpg standards if you just pretend like all the emergency requests never actually happened. I love Bioware to pieces, but it actually is kind of a chore to go through again.
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It can't be stressed how dull and variety-free so many of the planetary exploration quests turned out to be, especially given how apparent the template was after you scoured your second or third planet and how that template was never strayed from (some planets had extra quest-related things to explore, but all planets had 2 artifacts and 2-3 taggable resources you drove through empty terrain to get to, without fail). If you ignore the sidequest stuff then Mass Effect turns out to be a very short and tightly paced game. It plays smooth and doesn't dwell on any one thing. I've replayed it through maybe 4 or 5 times, which makes it the second least-played Bioware game I have, behind Neverwinter Nights (which blew) and just ahead of Jade Empire. Compare that to the 25+ times I've gotten through Shadows of Amn. I've got two games of that one going right now.
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I thought it was only me. It really was a chore to go through all those side missions, especially the Turian insignias and mineral deposits and stuff that you had to plow that damn Mako to every time. That was the one complaint of Yahtzee in his review that was justified: It does control like a fat man on a unicycle. Not to mention the thrusters that are completely useless. I was glad to see that they paid more attention to the space exploration in ME2. In the first game every planet was essentially the same except for the color palette, and some enviromental effects (doing nothing but make you die in x seconds) thrown in for good measure. Just like the mines and the bases; You'd think every mining company and merc gang hires the same architect.
That was also why I didn't replay the game. The prospect of combing out those star systems for side quests looked like just that: A chore. Not to mention the gazillion weapons and armor and upgrades for all of them you have to haul around. That was absolute madness. One thing I would have liked is to be able to play the same level 50 character, but as a different class. I was getting pretty tired of using the pistol and sniper rifle all the time, so I figured I could play a Sentinel to get the other medals for using x weapon/skill y times, as well as the multiple playthrough medals. Guess not, and I had to start with grade one weapons all over again. The enjoyment won't weigh up to the effort, I think.
I'll definitely play through the main quest one more time before starting ME2, though. How much do you think the side quests matter in the events in ME2?
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Some of them probably matter a bit. The majority of sidequests not taking place on mission planets are linear except insofar as the reward you get is concerned (using skills to increase payout) One that a lot of people point to is a quest you complete and when you get on your ship you're contacted by an agent of the Shadow Broker who wants what you have. If you agree to give it to him you gain credit with the Shadow Broker that isn't apparently useful in ME1. If you refuse he says that you shouldn't count on the Shadow Broker's assistance in the future. One that the ME2 developers have specifically alluded to is the "superfan" quest wherein you were beset by a deranged fan who wants to join your party. There are a couple of ways you can get him off your back and presumably they each lead to different situations in ME2.
Beyond that I would assume that most C&C from the first game will draw from plot-critical missions. Whether or not you let the Raachni queen live on Noveria is an obvious one, but there are also things like how you get to the Matriarch (there's a path by which you fight everyone in the Noveria lab, and there's one by which you just kill one person and a bunch of Geth), or whether you tranqed / killed all the mind-controlled survivors on that other planet.
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Bioware has specifically mentioned a few side quests that factor in, though obviously not as much as the major choices (which are according to them: whether the Council survived, who died on Virmire, and your romance option). For instance, in the E3 video that introduced Thane, the asari woman he kills is actually a quest giver in the first game. Depending on how you handled that quest, presumably your interaction with her before he ices her will be at least somewhat different. Hudson also mentioned Conrad Verner, the stalkerish fan that was a minor sidequest on the Citadel, will play into ME2 somehow, and that how you behaved towards him would also change things.
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The fat man on a unicycle issue is hardly the only thing that was valid about Yahtzee's review. There was a ton of a equipment in that game and the menus actually are kind of shitty, although it never gave me as much trouble as it apparently did Yahtzee. But what really sucked was how such a clunky system actually amounted to so little. There's tons of items and they accumulate in your inventory faster than horny tribbles. Unfortunately, they all pretty much behave the same and many of the "brands" are fit only for being pawned off (in exchange for credits that I never really needed) or for breaking down into omnigel (which I never really used). I mean, really what's the point of having 3 different versions of the Banshee Assault Rifle in your inventory when none of them are remotely capable of besting the Avenger III that was basically just handed to you an hour ago? If you actually had to purposely work for your items or make decisions like "Do I keep saving for that uber-rifle or do I break down and buy something might save my ass in the next half hour?", I could understand why the system is in place; hell, that question is the very essence of Dragon Quest 1. Likewise I could understand it if some items had unique capabilities that changed the way you approached combat. Unfortunately, that never really happens in ME; the game mostly tosses a steady stream of junk your way and then leaves you to pick out the crap that has the highest numbers. I love fiddling with equipment as much as the next guy (I'm a god damned WoW player, for fuck's sake), but I can't help but feel that ME's gear & inventory system was almost entirely vestigial; as long as you remembered to swap from anti-personnel to anti-synthetic ammo when the Geth show up, you were good to go.
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I kept forgetting to do that so I'd just use something like the poison ammo (which worked mysteriously well against the Geth) instead.
Personally the thing that irritated me the most about the equipment was that when I was buying it would compare with what Shepard had equipped and I couldn't seem to select a different party member to use as comparison (let alone someone I hadn't brought with me that time), which made the process of doing even that basic number comparing incredibly tedious. That and the fact that a well-equipped military ship that was receiving constant arms shipments could never seem to have any grenades in stock.
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I never felt the need to buy from the shop guy inside my ship.
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Well, he did have the only Spectre gear outside of the Citadel quartermaster, but for the rest he didn't have much to be interested in.
I read somewhere that the inventory system for ME on the PC was refined with tabs or something, but that didn't really fix the problem. What would have been a big improvement was to make the new versions of weapons replace the older you have, such as picking up an Edge V when you have four Edge IV replaces one of them with the improved version.
Although I have to admit I liked the addition of weapon manufacturer licences. It was fun collecting them. One thing I didn't get: How the hell did a salesman in the Citadel get his hands on a Geth Armory licence? Now that I bought it, will the Geth supply me, their arch-nemesis, with top of the line weaponry because I paid for it?
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So, the DLC is out now. Anyone have it?
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I haven't gotten it yet but apparently it's a arena-type addition wherein you test your battle prowess in any number of multiplayer-style skirmish modes and see if you can zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Also......NOW YOUR AVATAR CAN WEAR MASS EFFECT ARMOR
In other news, some games cost about as much as a complete set of the armor does.
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I... I kind of want the N7 armor. I was really hoping that sort of thing would be using the new avatar 'awards' system for ME2, considering they were one of the first developers to really get achievements right, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised EA took the chance to make an easy buck. I know I'm a complete idiot for even considering spending 4 dollars on a suit of armor for my virtual Xbox man, but I can't help myself. If I end up buying it, I'll make sure to post about it so you guys can supply the justly-deserved mockery.
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The crazy bitch, Subject Zero (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/27/mass-effect-2s-subject-zero-looks-awfully-unfriendly/)
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I hope we get to see her bare ass cheek.
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She seems like she'll be a fun character to have around.
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Funny, and it's nice that they've added profanity, but we'll see if Bioware is over the sentimentality-as-depth hump w/r/t to their romanceable characters. I suspect that they haven't.
I guess they're trotting out all their evil NPCs first. I suspect that this Subject Zero will be a replacement for Ashley in the same way that Grunt looks like a Wrex replacement.
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Kveep I think you are a little jaded
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Her voice actually sounds like Ashley's, although that may be in my imagination. I don't think her combat role is going to be anything like Ashley's, though, since she's supposed to be some uber-powerful biotic. My only beef is that I hope they're not so fixated on the tattoos-and-scars thing that they won't let you change her armor, because I'm going to be annoyed if she's running around in those straps for the entire game.
So the brief opening of that video shows 10 spots for party members. We have the three revealed already: Grunt, Thane, and now Subject Zero. We also know that both of the characters from the iPhone game, Jacob and Miranda, are in ME2 as party members. I've also seen that Bioware has more or less confirmed that Tali is going to be a party member, but it's not clear if she counts as one of those 10 because she's not a new character. Which means we have at least 4 and possibly as many as 7 (if Tali doesn't count as one of the 10 and the initial Bioware estimate of 13 party members was accurate) characters left to be revealed, including characters from the first game.
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As far as I'm aware this is the rundown:
1.Tali
2.Jacob
3.Miranda
4.Thane
5.Grunt
6.Subject Zero
7.Salarian Scientist (?)
8.Geth (?)
9. ???
10. ???
Bioware dev Jerret Lee said this on their forums: 'Yep, there are 10 potential squad mates to recruit from around the galaxy to take on your mission. The more you take, and the more loyal you make them, the better your odds of survival.'
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Are they increasing the squad size?
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"Now who's the bad-ass biotic, bitch?"
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Are they increasing the squad size?
Nope, it's definitely still 3 people in a squad.
What I don't get is how you would communicate with a geth party member if that rumor is in fact true. The geth don't talk in the first Mass Effect, they just have weird garbled noises that presumably serve as communication to each other. I guess they'd have to give it speech, but do they record voice acting or just make it computerized?
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Maybe that will be the Geth thing. The plot device is you can interact with it because of some kind of addition to the omni-tool or whatever, but it's always just effectively silent.
So, you know, you have no idea what it's doing or what it's thinking or when it will turn on you when it achieves a higher level of consciousness in the middle of a geth firefight.
Or I guess some kind of implant that effectively works as a telepathic link?
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They might do it like KOTOR, where the character understood alien dialects and they just provided subtitles for the player. I thought Saren talked to the Geth in the first one?
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apparently I can't use spoiler tags for some reason....
oh well, the only thing that I disliked about the first Mass Effect game was that you could only get the best gameplay scenarios ie. getting Saren to kill himself, if you were either a saint or a complete asshole.
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They might do it like KOTOR, where the character understood alien dialects and they just provided subtitles for the player. I thought Saren talked to the Geth in the first one?
He did, but in plain English. Give the bots some credit, if they overthrew the race that created them, they can at least learn an organic language or two. Or maybe just one, since there is effectively no other language spoken in the galaxy.
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My point was simply that the guy could communicate with them before receiving any of the crazy implants, which was something maxusy3k was asking about.
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apparently I can't use spoiler tags for some reason....
oh well, the only thing that I disliked about the first Mass Effect game was that you could only get the best gameplay scenarios ie. getting Saren to kill himself, if you were either a saint or a complete asshole.
Actually it has nothing to with your "karma" or whatever. It's got everything to do with your dialogue skills. It was actually kind of dumb that persuade and intimidate were "good" and "evil" 100% of the time.
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Amen to that. It annoys me how it's never considered OK to threaten a dude with violence in such games despite the fact that you likely just got done violencing the hell out of their minions. Poor redshirts.
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Games have always had ridiculous black and white morality. I liked how parts of KotOR II addressed that with Kreia. Unfortunately, Obsidian have no idea what "technology" or "quality voice acting" are. The second I especially can't understand because Fallout and Fallout 2 had fantastic voice acting. Obsidian just needs to get back together with Bioware and start Black Isle II.
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I thought most of the voice acting in Kotor II was pretty OK. Not great or anything, but it didn't really bother me any more than the voice acting in Kotor 1, although admittedly there weren't really any standout characters besides Kreia, which rather hurts.
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You can't really hold KOTOR II to the same rubric as KOTOR I. When Obsidian was developing the second one Lucas Arts decided that they absolutely needed to release the game by christmas, despite the fact that it was far from complete. That's why there are huge chunks of the story (like the droid factory) that are completely missing from the game.
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True, but Obsidian has a history of terrible voice actors, so I don't find it to be a one-off thing.
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I guess that's your opinion. They've developed exactly 2 games and 2 expansion packs and I'm not a fan of Jennifer Hale, so it's hard for me to really sit here and buy into the idea that KotorII's voice acting was so much worse than KotorI's that you're willing to write off their voice acting in the future. About the only character whose voice I remember bothering me a bit was that of the Handmaiden, which is sort of odd since it's not like they went with an unknown for that part. I've never played NWN's single player campaigns because frankly that's a really dumb ass reason to buy a NWN title.
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Oh, wait, Bao Dur was annoying too. Whatever.
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Yeah, Bao Dur was pretty aggravating.
Obsidz' D&D games have consistent voice acting with all other D&D games which is to say, they're largely ridiculous.
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Point taken. I'll still buy every Obsidian game that they ever produce, and Bioware, too. Well, except MMOs, because I just can't get into them.
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Yeah, see, I think the fact that you can so easily marginalize annoying npcs from your party is one of the reasons I tend to be fairly forgiving of voice acting in Bioware and Black Isle/obsidian canon. It's not even an intentional bias, I just say "Oh, well, fuck that guy," and move on. Bao Dur may as well have never existed.
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I actually played through once and got everybody to be a jedi. I was light, so I had Mira instead of...wookie dude. I'd say I spent much more time playing as light side than dark, specifically because of Mira. Redheads. Man. Anyways Bao Dur was so incredibly badass it hurt. I kept pumping up his strength so he did so much damage and had just as high a "to hit" as the dex-based characters. Anybody who looked at him scored a hit, though.
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Yeah they sort of dropped the ball on his armor capabilities.
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Well, when he was a jedi, it didn't matter that much. The biggest hit was that I kept pumping points into strength instead of dex.
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Mass Effect 2 is sorta like The Empire Strikes Back (http://kotaku.com/5377841/bioware-mass-effect-2-is-kinda-like-empire-strikes-back)
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I'll file that under "least surprising news ever." Isn't the second episode of a trilogy usually the darkest? Or, to extrapolate further, isn't the middle of a story usually when things are the worst?
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It finally has a release date! Pencil in January 26th (or the 29th if you're in Europe) because that is when Shepard is gonna fuck up some more aliens, robots, and alien robots.
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At least they're not rushing it for christmas.
This means that I'll have to ask for game shop gift cards. Is it possible to get Steam gift cards?
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Somebody could get you a pre-order for the Christmas thing.
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I will get this, but now I don't know which armor I want more.
(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/10/terminus.jpg)
(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/10/inferno.jpg)
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is that you, Iron Man?
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At least the stupid fucking helmet-visor and crotch guard seem to be gone!
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The Iron Man-looking armor actually gives a bonus to negotiate options, which would be nice. Except that's the preorder bonus for everywhere-but-Gamestop, and the closest place to my apartment that sells games is a Gamestop. God damn it.
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Yeah, I really want the Iron Man looking red armor, but then I would have to go through with pre-ordering it somewhere besides Gamestop. The other armor looks kind of badass though.
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Is there a bonus for Steam preorders? I know there's one for Dragon Age.
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So is it a universal thing? I could probably be arsed to preorder it at Futureshop or EB Games if it means free stuff.
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Combat footage (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/30/shepard-shoots-stuff-in-this-mass-effect-2-gameplay-footage/). Looks like a vast improvement.
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Oh wow, that look like biotic husks! Combat looks really badass too.
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And it looks like it runs a hell of a lot smoother, too...no more sniper shots missing because of uneven framerate yuss
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Wow, that looks way different than earlier footage of the game. The HUD's way simpler and more elegant, and I really like how the new closer camera angle puts you closer to the action. Another thing I noticed is that whoever was playing that demo didn't use the power wheel once, even though they clearly were at least switching ammo types a few times. Hopefully that means there's an easy way to cycle through those if you want to just play it like a straight shooter. Although I can't even imagine going through ME without using all the abilities, even as a soldier.
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:O (http://na.llnet.bioware.cdn.ea.com/u/f/eagames/bioware/masseffect2/assets/images/wallpapers/masseffect2_wallpaper_14_1920x1080.jpg)
Also Dark Horse is making a comic (http://na.llnet.bioware.cdn.ea.com/u/f/eagames/bioware/masseffect2/assets/pdf/darkhorse/me_redemption_preview.pdf)
some concept art too, which may or may not be Tali(if it is Tali, she is probably a squadmate.) It is Tali
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8715/800x600prope.jpg)
The armor looks a lot better designed this time around.
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Holy fuck, that is fucking phenomenal.
Holy fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
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Goddamn does this look like a huge jump in all around quality.
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I also hear there will be a geth ally? His name is Legion supposedly.
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honestly in the first one i didnt like marine girl or science girl, I'd rather hook up with Tali. She just seemed more interesting. Wish more was developed on her, marine girl was a horrible racist, and science girl was just ditzy space blonde. Tali on the other hand, I dunno just seemed more interesting, huge technical/engineering background, her race is a mix of BSG, the blue aliens from Daft Punk "discovery" music video, and several other influences that I cant think of right now (alcoholic limitations) plus she was trying to find something to either fight the geth or help her people. Way more could have been developed with her being that you were fighting the geth.
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Tali always reminded me of Samus
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marine girl was a horrible racist, and science girl was just ditzy space blonde.
I notice nobody's mentioned dude man (Kaiden?). I played a woman (like I always do), and he was clearly a vaguely okay choice. Not a good choice, mind, but a vaguely okay one.
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:O (http://na.llnet.bioware.cdn.ea.com/u/f/eagames/bioware/masseffect2/assets/images/wallpapers/masseffect2_wallpaper_14_1920x1080.jpg)
Uh-oh, here we drop in the Uncanny Valley. That looks good enough to be a real robot that someone took an effort to make it look like a real person.
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I liked Kaiden, dude had an interesting past.
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And if you did things properly you could convince Ashley to rethink her attitude towards aliens.
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Too bad you couldn't convince her to rethink her attitude toward the ladies...
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I hope we get some cool new weapon options. I always like playing the soldier type when I play RPG games.
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They're introducing heavy weapons. Don't know about anything else, though.
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a grenade launcher and a personal anti tank weapon would be sweet too.
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I liked Kaiden, dude had an interesting past.
And he was voiced by Raphael Sbarge. ::lust::
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I liked Kaiden, dude had an interesting past.
And he was voiced by Raphael Sbarge. ::lust::
yeah hes done a lot of voice acting, like the dude form the knight of the old republic whose name escapes me right now. Even look similar haha.
He did deadpool for marvel ultimate alliance and I was a bit disappointed, I was expecting a crazier sounding voice.
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Yeah, Carth Onasi. One of my biggest video-game-fan crushes.
-
the name itself was badass enough :-D
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They're introducing heavy weapons. Don't know about anything else, though.
Hopefully those are for Soldiers only, or at least for classes with some combat specialty. It was kind of a bummer that pure Soldiers had very little going for them in comparison with other classes beyond Immunity.
-
The nice bit there though is that well, Immunity basically did what it sounds like it does. Chaining Immune periods together with Adrenaline Rush was ridiculous. Never really found soldiers to actually be at a disadvantage in practice, even if Infiltrator is probably my preferred class.
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It's not that they were at a disadvantage, they just didn't have as many cool unique abilities as the other classes. Giving them exclusive use of the heavy weapons would do a bit better job of making them 'feel' different and more interesting. I'm still importing my pure Soldier, for sure, but I hope I've got some new stuff to play with.
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The first time I played through, I didn't notice anything else than the possibility of a male pure solider. So that's how I roll. Not having all gun skills from day 1 would've been a bummer.
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First play-through was female soldier, paragon. Second play-through (still working on it) is male biotic, renegade. Pretty interesting to see all the different story options.
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My first playthrough was a male Paragon soldier, second was a male Renegade adept. My third playthrough was a female infiltrator, whose alignment I hadn't quite decided yet, but I didn't get very far in that playthrough or my NG+ of the soldier before getting distracted and finally putting the game down. I do want to go back and finish those before the second game comes out though.
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Which character are you going to import first? Mine is definitely my soldier, but I *really* need to finish up my biotic before ME2 comes out. How many days left in the countdown?
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I think I might go my Biotic first. Biotics were just so much fun.
-
Biotics are definitely a ton of fun, but I think I'll import my soldier first because I'm always a goody two-shoes in RPGs by default and so he was the one I most felt represented the way I play RPGs. That's why I want to finish his NG+ run before the sequel comes out, so I can establish definitively what my choices were.
The game comes out on January 26th, which means we have 2 months and 23 days, or 85 days if you want to get really specific.
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I think I might go my Biotic first. Biotics were just so much fun.
I love the "throw" command. And then making noises for the geth or asari or whatever I was throwing around. Like "AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAA... WOOAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaOOOOOO"
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Oh hell yes. Making cartoon noises for them flying away when you lift and throw planetside and watch them fly over a mountain and into orbit.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooossssshhhhhh... ding"
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Which character are you going to import first? Mine is definitely my soldier, but I *really* need to finish up my biotic before ME2 comes out. How many days left in the countdown?
2 months and some weeks. If you're going to play Dragon Age I advise you get an acceptable playthrough of ME out of the way first - you might not have time to get one done once you've finished DA.
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I did a female infiltrator mostly paragon and a male biotic who was pretty strongly renegade. I want do do a third playthrough with a character that I will be able to stand looking at for that many hours (there were slight things in the female that just made her look slightly odd and the male is hilarious, so I'll play with him at some point).
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My Vanguard is probably the only one I'll port over. I replayed that thing like 5 times to get to level 60.
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Second returning character confirmed. (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/1041365p1.html)
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hurray! I loved garrus, he was my best friend and favorite squad mate. I liked having him and tali with my soldier character
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I really like Garrus too! Except my party consisted of me (my female paragon soldier), Garrus, and Kaiden. Best party ever.*
*Only rivaled by KotOR I, with my female light side guardian Jedi, Carth, and Canderous
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Canderous was awesome, He was just a badass and made me think of Ron Pearlman.
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Enemies of Mass Effect (also Legion) (http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/26986)
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Stoked about Garrus. It was me (Vanguard), him, and Wrex, all day long. Fuckyeah.
-
More of a Tali/Wrex man myself
-
You guys are just handicapping yourself if you don't bring Liara. She becomes some kind of fucking avatar of destruction after you put enough points into the right powers.
-
I like my characters to actually be interesting, though. Hence my three different characters always being flanked by Tali and Wrex/Garrus. Much as I love Mass Effect, the majority of Sheperd's squadmates are so terribly boring. (Aside from Ashley, who is so terribly detestable.)
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I was so glad when I got to kill Ashley off.
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You guys are just handicapping yourself if you don't bring Liara. She becomes some kind of fucking avatar of destruction after you put enough points into the right powers.
True, but a Tali-Wrex-Shepard combo is basically invulnerable due to the grotesque amount of shielding you can get whereas Liara's a pinch flimsy. I guess it depends if you prefer ending the fight ASAP or being able to text someone on your cell phone while feeling completely confident everyone will still be standing when you pick the controller back up.
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I fucked Ashley's xenophobic brains out.
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I don't know, I have never really gotten the Ashley hate. She's a hard ass and a xenophobe initially, but it's not terribly surprising considering her family history and it was kind of nice going through her story and helping her through the old vs new conflict for her character.
Wrex, Garret Garrus and Tali were definitely a hell of a lot more fun though.
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Who is Garret?
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Obviously Garrus's psychotic robot clone that Wrex had manufactured for his entertainment.
That or a brain fart.
One of the two.
-
I'm betting the first.
Also hey there might be a possibility that Garrus is a spectre.
Calling it.
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Fuck that, Wrex should be a Spectre.
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But Wrex isn't a council race.
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And that's a problem because....?
Wrex's badassery knows no bounds. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOg-nLWe71w)
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Tali is still my favorite
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Legion, the geth ally (http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/104/1041365/mass-effect-2-20091103045852564.jpg)
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Yeah Garrus was awesome and came off as the "best friend" archtype.
I always ran with Tali(shotgun), Garrus (assault rifle), and Me(Soldier) with my assault rifle. Areas were cleared in 10 seconds.
Dude garrus as a spectre and a teamate would be sweet!
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Legion, the geth ally (http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/104/1041365/mass-effect-2-20091103045852564.jpg)
I shall call him beaker...
(http://blogs.delawareonline.com/secondhelpings/files/2009/08/beaker.gif)
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Casey Hudson has confirmed that the romanceables from ME1 will not be CNPCs in ME2.
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(but they might still show up)
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prolly
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I wonder exactly how they will handle romances this time around, considering that there are holdovers from the last game and new options. Like, will Liara get jealous if I go after Miranda and kill us both in a horrifying storm of biotics? That would actually be kind of hilarious.
Also, it's not really surprising at all that Ashley and Kaidan aren't going to be party members, since for half of the players one of them will be dead. Little bummed about Liara though, she's a fucking monster once she levels up enough.
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I assume part of that is a new leveling system, which I'm not sure is officially there but I would be surprised if they didn't implement one. Same thing happened in the jump from BG to BG2 - spells and weapon proficiencies changed to such a degree that you basically had to remake your character if you ported it.
Has there been confirmation of any of the ME1 party members returning as CNPCs in ME2? Obviously they'll be making appearances but I want to know if they're actually going to be in the party.
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pardon my ignorance but does the firs C stand for in CNPC?
as long as garrus and tali are there im happy. Be cool to see either a couple of new races or perhaps a salarian team mate. Oh and are we ever going to see female/male characters from the races we've seen (excluding the Asari of course)
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controllable non player character.
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Tali has been confirmed as a companion. Maybe Garrus too
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Bioware has confirmed that every party member from the first game will appear in ME2 in some capacity, provided they survived your playthrough of course. Tali is, as far as I know, the only one who's actually been confirmed as being in the ME2 squad so far.
Gametrailers TV had a Mass Effect 2-centric episode (http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/gametrailers-tv/78&ch=1&sd=0?ep=78&ch=1&sd=0) that premiered last night, gave (very brief) reveals of both the Illusive Man character (who, if my internet sources are correct, is voiced by Martin Sheen) and the Salarian party member. It also looks like they're giving classes more unique abilities. They specifically talk about the Vanguard in the GTTV episode, which has a new biotic charge ability which basically looks like a short-range teleport/ramming ability that allows them to get up close and stun one enemy, which you can then shotgun in the face from close range. If you put enough points into the ability, you get a bullet time effect after the charge too. Looks pretty neat, I'm curious to see the spins they put on all the other classes too.
Also, I'm really impressed by how slimmed-down and slick-looking the HUD is this time around. It takes up much less of the screen and complements the new closer camera angle well.
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would be sweet to geta melee weapon, or batnoets. sometimes when you get up close and personal it would just be handy.
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batnoets
What are these? I also recall hearing that there will be no increased melee capability found in the game. Just the same if they get to close to you, you hit them instead of shooting them.
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haha my bad, bayonet. typos!
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(who, if my internet sources are correct, is voiced by Martin Sheen)
:o
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Watching the video, I'm pretty damn sure it is Martin Sheen.
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Mark Meer, who voiced the male version of Commander Shepard, was on the CBC program "The Debaters" today, taking the pro side in a debate over whether or not androids were going to take over and kill everyone.
And he did it in his Shepard voice.
When ME2 hits I'm going to dub his rant against gynoids over top of any Geth killing in the game.
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(link please to the videos please)
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For those of you who want to hear President fuckin' Bartlet voice a cigarette-smokin' space underworld boss, look no further. (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-illusive-mass-effect/58990)
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(link please to the videos please)
RADIO MOTHERFUCKER
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Old man
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Salarian Squadmaaaaaate (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-scientist-mass-effect/58986)(maybe)
Fancy new Vanguard powers (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-vanguard-mass-effect/58988)
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Nice to see the interrupting mechanic in action. I like it.
Biotic Tackle? Nice! And those are new creatures too, by the look of it. I'm not too thrilled by the look of the enemy health bar, though. I liked it better the way it was in ME1.
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If he isnt a new squad mate, he should be. He seems to have more personality than most you run into.
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Unless he's a super-efficient millitary machine who only looks like someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I'm not confident he'd make a good fighter. Or maybe it's just a Salarian character trait we haven't gotten to know, due to the small number of Salarians we've gotten to know.
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I think the way Salarians are described is as extremely impatient, extremely intelligent creatures. He's talking very fast because their lifespan is much shorter than ours, and therefore they live much quicker. I think he's going to be the full tech option (whichever that was).
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Engineer. Tali was the option in ME1, but she's coming back, so who knows.
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The salarian scientist is a party member from my understanding. So the roster as revealed so far is: Tali, Jacob, Miranda, Thane, Grunt, Subject Zero, Mordin, and Legion. That means there are two reveals left, maybe only one if Garrus is a party member but they weren't totally clear on that.
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(http://epicbattleaxe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/me2newcover1.jpg)
Finalized box art. I think they realized no one cares about grunt.
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Old > New
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no no, CE > All
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9527/500xcustom1257427995600.jpg) (http://img4.imageshack.us/i/500xcustom1257427995600.jpg/)
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Okay, but what I'm wondering is, why do they have to have the incredibly generic and unexciting box art for the regular edition on one hand, and the intristically detailed and good looking box art that says nothing whatsoever about the game for the collector's edition on the other? Why can't they do art that looks both appealing on the shelves and captures the feel of the game? Might even look pretty, too. How hard can it be? [/Clarkson]
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I actually think the CE boxart is some of the best boxart I've seen for a game period. It actually manages to capture what seems like the feel they are going for in an incredibly understated manner.
The regular game's boxart is just ass.
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Okay, but what I'm wondering is, why do they have to have the incredibly generic and unexciting box art for the regular edition on one hand, and the intristically detailed and good looking box art that says nothing whatsoever about the game for the collector's edition on the other? Why can't they do art that looks both appealing on the shelves and captures the feel of the game? Might even look pretty, too. How hard can it be? [/Clarkson]
Cause they want you to buy it. Besides, we already know everything the box art is trying to tell us.
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The Collector's edition comes with armor that make you look like a Collector (http://www.gamerlesque.com/storage/post-images/collector_armor_illustration02.jpg)
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Yeah, that armor looks fantastic.
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I personally love the collector's edition box art. I think it says *plenty* about the game.
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it's an obvious play into gamers' ~fetishization of the object~ but they aren't going to stop making them if i stop buying them so nice looking box it is
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oh hey (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect2workingtitle/video/6241256/mass-effect-2-character-profile-tali\)
oh gee (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/1049370p1.html)
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Tali gets banned? Oh man, that has got to hurt. As for the other one, the Adept looks massively overpowered, but maybe that was the impression they wanted you to have.
-
Just started a new run threw with a new character in Mass Effect yesterday. Playing as a male Vanguard, kinda' Paragon-ish. So far I've been playing with Ashley and Wrex because I like shooting things? And I'm totally going to bone Ashley this time round, but I do not really want Kaidan to die because he has that cool best friend vibe and I think bros before hoes should translate to videogames?
Also, has everyone else found that its really hard to not make an ugly Sheppard in this game?
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Minus the big nasty scar on my guy, he looks ok. Hard to make a good girl, I think.
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My first guy looks like a frog decided to mate with a human then slash his cheek up.
-
Not gonna lie, I just used the default model.
-
I made a chick who was okay, and I made a male who was terrible, but totally on-purpose.
-
Not gonna lie, I just used the default model.
Default model is ugly
-
After a few attempts it becomes more likely that a custom model will be decent looking.
I've made some okay dudes, but a lot of times when Shepard is supposed to exhibit facial expressions they go from okay to absolutely hideous. Especially at the finale when Shepard's supposed to break into a wry smile.
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Or on Noveria when you bust that salarian boss
-
I made a chick who was okay, and I made a male who was terrible, but totally on-purpose.
Yeah, I made the famously ugly "Manbearpig" Shephard who was all ashy and wrinkly, had GIANT ears, no hair, and lips that would make Angelina Jolie cry.
He was fucking hideous. Like, so hideous that just thinking about it makes me want to go home and delete him from my harddrive right goddamn now.
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Well, on the other hand (http://i48.tinypic.com/2mzgwtt.jpg)
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He is truly the saviour of the galaxy.
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(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2313/2328688074_c31337e0ee.jpg)
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New character reveal! (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect2workingtitle/video/6241565?hd=1)
This one seems to pull off the 'ruthless biotic' vibe much better for me than Subject Zero, who just smacks of trying way too hard to be 'edgy'. More importantly: if we count Jacob, Miranda, and Mordin as confirmed playable characters that haven't gotten teaser videos, that means if Legion is really a recruitable squad member there's only one left to be revealed, or possibly none if Garrus is the tenth. I don't think Garrus is a party member though, I didn't get the impression that he stays after you roll with him for that one mission on Omega.
-
wait, that name sounds familiar from the first game. was she the one that was possessed by the giant plant?
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"Your choices are my choices. Your morals are my morals. Your wishes are my code."
Shepard is so going to bang her.
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Yeah I am going to take the "bang the creepy blue biotic chick" option every time.
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I am reading a shocking amount of posts regarding people frustrated that there was no Tali romance option. And I'm guessing not all of these people have weird orthodox Jewish girl fetishes. (Cuz she's covered up and has a Jewish name... you know forget I said anything)
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Tali was hot.
Sort of.
From what you could tell.
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I am reading a shocking amount of posts regarding people frustrated that there was no Tali romance option. And I'm guessing not all of these people have weird orthodox Jewish girl fetishes. (Cuz she's covered up and has a Jewish name... you know forget I said anything)
Yeah, I thought that was odd too.
wait, that name sounds familiar from the first game. was she the one that was possessed by the giant plant?
That was Shiala
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I liked Tali but I never got a 'hot' vibe from her at all. Maybe it's the whole forbidden fruit thing, since you really have no idea what she actually looks like. Samara and Miranda seem like improvements over Liara and Ashley, though. Subject Zero... not so much.
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Dude the voice acting for Subject Zero in this teaser (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0AdV6-rAY) is some of the most inappropriate voice acting I have ever heard. Sounds like the voice you would expect in a tampon commercial. I really hope that isn't the voice in the game.
Oh do we have confirmation on whether the choice you made at the end of the first game (let the council die or save them) is going to affect the beginning of Mass Effect 2?
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Hey guys, I kind of like the Subject Zero character. She's just straight-up over the top, and I'm kind of okay with that. After all, wasn't that basically Wrex's character? She might be a little less one-dimensional than Wrex, too. I'm not a huge fan, but I definitely feel that her inclusion, especially in the slightly darker chapter of the game, is not a poor decision.
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Oh do we have confirmation on whether the choice you made at the end of the first game (let the council die or save them) is going to affect the beginning of Mass Effect 2?
Yeah, it will.
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The simple answer is that a lot of people respond to exaggerated sexual characteristics and Tali's silhouette is all hips and tiny waist due to the Quarrian reverse joint leg thing she has going on-- and the reverse leg thing probably won't dissuade people much because in most conversations with her you don't see anything lower than her belt.
Also, BB: Subject Zero is terrible and you should feel bad. Wrex wasn't really that over the top. He had his moments where he was, mostly when he was telling someone off as a blatant attempt to intimidate them, but in one on one conversations he hit me as rather low key, whereas the intro clip for Subject Zero sounds like a Mountain Dew commercial with angst.
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Plus they have apparently renamed Wrex "Grunt." That's kind of like naming the science guy "Brains" or the assassin guy "Shanks."
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Yeah, I thought that was sort of lame too, and I'm the guy who named his WoW rogue Intruder.
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I'm still sad that I couldn't think of a better name for my Dragon Age dog than Barkspawn. Damn you Penny Arcade. I ended up with Cujo on the first playthrough and Barksimus on the second. Both are better than Grunt.
Of course if it were Yahtzee he would just go with Tits or Tittees or Boobs or Fagballs or you get the idea....
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Wrex wasn't really that over the top. He had his moments where he was, mostly when he was telling someone off as a blatant attempt to intimidate them, but in one on one conversations he hit me as rather low key, whereas the intro clip for Subject Zero sounds like a Mountain Dew commercial with angst.
Yeah, but they also made Samara seem like a 100% submissive slave, and that's about the most boring thing I can imagine. I'm figuring that in the 30 seconds they had, they highlighted the main aspect of the character, because Bioware is way above that sort of character. I think the actual character they hinted at was very interesting. Also, I'll probably end up using her a lot for the exact same reason I used Wrex; that class is very useful in most situations.
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You can apply that argument to both characters though; if both depend on being more than what they have shown us, then we're definitely damning what we've seen with faint praise. I don't really have much interest in Samara or Subject Zero from what I've seen, to be honest. I give the edge to Samara because I find creepy/mysterious slightly more interesting than tattooed/doesn't shut up.
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I bet you can romance Thane.
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I'd say that there were subtle clues to make me believe that both of them are going to be far deeper than they appear. I think Subject Zero will be 1) very entertaining while interacting with other characters and 2) actually quite reserved most of the time. She's definitely an adrenaline junkie, which should mean when there's no fight she's going to be low until her next fix. I'd say that I'm quite hopeful that Bioware will deliver characters that aren't boring when they're not kind of supposed to be boring. Really, I'd say that I'm cautiously optimistic (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/3/1/).
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I'm rather curious how many romanceables(inventing a word, wooo) there will be in this one.
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I'm still sad that I couldn't think of a better name for my Dragon Age dog than Barkspawn.
I've got several.
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- Arl Scruffy
- Fetch
- A Dog
- Wishbone
- "Iron" Mike Tyson
- Death To Falses
- President Bark Obama
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I like that you saved the best for last. That shows style.
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'cept they don't allow spaces in the names. My warrior's hound is named Joebiden.
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You realized you missed a perfect opportunity to name your hound JoeBitem, right:?
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I named the dog Princess on my first character. My rogue, however, named his dog Roger. This is the fantasy Republican, to recall one of my previous posts in the Dragon Age thread, so anybody who can guess which person that name refers to wins an unspecified number of politics nerd points.
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Political consultant Roger Stone? Google says there are a lot of Republican Roger types.
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'cept they don't allow spaces in the names. My warrior's hound is named Joebiden.
They do... I named my first dog Mr. Growley, what with still being on a kick from the Brutal Legend soundtrack.
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Political consultant Roger Stone? Google says there are a lot of Republican Roger types.
Not quite. Think bigger.
-
Fox news chief and all around douchebag Roger Ailes?
-
Yes! The joke, of course, is that Fox News is a dutiful lapdog to the Republican party.
Take that, you multimillionaire. Feel the digital scorn of a politically aware college student!
-
Finished my playthrough of the first Mass Effect today. Played as a goody Vanguard and realized pistols are way easier to use than shotguns. So now I'm basically an Adept with shit loads of health and armour but no Singularity. Anyway, I don't really want to play through with this character again because I'd probably miss something and I'm worried that'd affect the crossover from ME1 to ME2. I like how I played through this time, so I might roll a renegade Adept next.
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Yes! The joke, of course, is that Fox News is a dutiful lapdog to the Republican party.
Take that, you multimillionaire. Feel the digital scorn of a politically aware college student!
Rarely has satire been so subtle. I would have gone for something more along the lines of RogerAilesIsADouchebagBark.
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I named my dog Scooby because I'm not creative and don't know how to properly spell "Scoobie"
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Hello new blue girl (http://kotaku.com/5416083/mass-effect-2s-new-blue-girl-kicks-ass)
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So she doesn't have any weapons
huh
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Twas already linked.
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A teensy bit more info about the game (http://pc.ign.com/articles/105/1050760p1.html)
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Here's a new (and pretty long) interview. (http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/mass_effect_2/preview-2130.html) Some interesting new tidbits out of that, some of which sound like really good ideas. I especially like the idea of Shepard having an assistant who will tell him when new party member banter is available. It's a good way to notify the player of that within the game world.
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That interview has me So Pumped.
Really, my favorite thing about Mass Effect is that it feels like a very much fleshed-out universe. The lore behind Mass Effect 1 was so incredibly deep and satisfying that I couldn't help but admire not only the narrative but the history, everything about the game felt like it had been built on hundreds of years of stories and adventures.
I spent hours reading about their FTL technology, how humans had reacted to the martian technology and the discovery of sentient alien races, even about how their damn guns fired. More than any other game (and probably most sci-fi movies, too) Mass Effect felt like a universe that had been grown long before I picked up the controller, and I'm really glad that they seem to be expanding on this tenfold for the sequel.
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hungh hurghh unf unf aahhhhh
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I agree.
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That interview has me So Pumped.
Really, my favorite thing about Mass Effect is that it feels like a very much fleshed-out universe. The lore behind Mass Effect 1 was so incredibly deep and satisfying that I couldn't help but admire not only the narrative but the history, everything about the game felt like it had been built on hundreds of years of stories and adventures.
I spent hours reading about their FTL technology, how humans had reacted to the martian technology and the discovery of sentient alien races, even about how their damn guns fired. More than any other game (and probably most sci-fi movies, too) Mass Effect felt like a universe that had been grown long before I picked up the controller, and I'm really glad that they seem to be expanding on this tenfold for the sequel.
Same here, I read through every log I got, hoping to get new ones, and was disappointed when I didn't get the achievement because I knew that I had missed some log I would have loved reading through.
-
Same here. My roommate was the same way, but he'd mainly read through the planet information, which I didn't really care for. He discovered a great Farscape reference, though.
-
Here's a new (and pretty long) interview. (http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/mass_effect_2/preview-2130.html) Some interesting new tidbits out of that, some of which sound like really good ideas. I especially like the idea of Shepard having an assistant who will tell him when new party member banter is available. It's a good way to notify the player of that within the game world.
I can't think of a way this will be organic at all.
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Yeah, it does hit me as pretty weird, tbh. I couldn't imagine Wrex arranging for an appointment.
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Seems like they're trying to make it much more immersive this time round.
-
Immersive like, story-wise? Or immersive like, WoW-wise?
I'd rather have the former.
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A little bit of both, I think.
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I can't think of a way this will be organic at all.
I can.
If the crew doesn't just stand around the Normandy doing nothing all the time, then your assistant can inform you of events meaning you should go talk to them. For example, if Wrex had something to say, inform you that there's a disturbance in the mess hall and find Wrex yelling at a Turian or something, starting a new convo.
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Could be. But I'm gonna roll the dice and assume that's not how it'll be. You might get some sort of little reading like "Subject Zero is looking pensive after that last mission..." That would be pretty standard. I don't really expect "organic" from Bioware after the 2 dozen fetch and kill quests I took from pen pals in Dragon Age.
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Enginners get robot drones (http://kotaku.com/5398690/notebook-dump-mass-effect-2s-new-helpers-a-failed-quest-and-more-%5Bupdate%5D)
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good because being an engineer SUCKED in the first game
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Yeah, I'd take an Infiltrator over Engineer every time for a Tech Shepard. Immunity beats the piss out of Hacking, and the Commando specialization gives something ridiculous like 20% increased pistol damage when maxed out.
-
You thought Dragon Age had a lot of content? Get this: Mass Effect 2 is going to require two DVDs for installation. This is gonna be something.
Collector's Edition (http://masseffect.bioware.com/info/collectors/)
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And one DVD is going to be nothing but human on alien gay cutscenes. It's like they've discovered a niche.
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I knew it. Finally some Shepherd/Garrus action.
I'm joking, of course.
Or am I?
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Enginner in action (http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14235013/mass-effect-2/videos/masseffect2_trl_engineer_120309.html)
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It's really interesting how committed they've been to making the classes feel more unique in this game. Before, the 'pure' classes had their exclusive talents and the hybrids had a skill tree that mixed the two disciplines. Now, it looks like they've give each class a unique feature on top of all the skills from before. Now classes have more of a specific role in battle, as opposed to just strengths. It reminds me almost of an MMO, and I wonder if developing Old Republic was what influenced them to make that change.
-
News about the new elevators (http://kotaku.com/5419999/completely-new-transition-system-in-mass-effect-2-is--loading-screens)
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Mandatory.
(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/221858835_PP6z6-L-2.jpg)
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I love the PA Wrex. It's a perfectly respectable representation, yet he's almost huggable.
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Most of the elevators, I didn't mind. The one on the Normandy was the worst thing ever, though. I will defer to Tycho on this one:
other elevators in the game are long, so you're trapped in a box, but it's a box that moves quickly. The one in the core of the ship moves a centimeter at a time, inching its way to the belly of a ship the way a basketball might travel through a python.
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I love you homicidal space turtle.
I enjoyed the elevators, it let me get to know my teammates and things that are going on better.
-
Alex find the comic where Wrex is "working the back door" and post it. I can't for the life of me find it.
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(http://cache.shishnet.org/_images/acdf23d37c6d8b4c8a6b2bafaebe3d9e/98939%20-%20Liara_TSoni%20Mass_effect%20Shepard%20Wrex%20asari%20commander_shepard%20krogan.png)
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<3
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The top hat adds class.
I didn't really mind the elevators to be honest.
-
I didn't mind them but I think they sort of outsmarted themselves and would have been better off with plain old loading screens. That being said, the loading screens in Dragon Age were making me psychotic on the PC after multiple playthroughs. I'm not really certain if it was a problem with the game or my PC, but something wasn't working right.
-
What happened?
-
Loading screens were just taking forever in the last hour of the game. Like 3-4 minutes on the map screen with the blood blots and shit. I'm running an I7 chip, the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series video card, and 4gb RAM, so I'm assuming it wasn't a hardware issue.
-
Oh my god those comics are fantastic. :3
-
I'm still in awe of the Mass Affection one. I mean the cigar I get. The top hat and monocle? That's inspiration.
-
I am pretty sure the top hat and monacle were added in, because I'm 95% certain that I've seen a version of that comic without them. The comic is still great either way, though.
In other news, I heard through the same channels where I found out about Martin Sheen being in the game that Michael Hogan aka Saul motherfucking Tigh is also voicing a character in the game. But unlike Sheen, I have no indication of what character that would be.
I wonder if it would be too much to ask for his character in this game to be an alcoholic just because I really love his drunken giggle from the first few seasons of BSG.
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I did not know that was the name of the actor. It is kind of weird, because Michael Hogan is the name of the president of my college. o_o
Also. Saul motherfucking Tigh, hell yes. Bioware has some of the best voice actors ever. Period.
-
Yeah, and UConn's Michael Hogan is a big fucking cock.
(Also, I support this new cast member!)
-
He's a nice-seeming guy. Better than previous president, Austin. Neither, however, come anywhere *near* as awesome as Harry Hartley was.
Uh, sort of off topic?
-
What was really weird was when I found out Tigh's name was Michael Hogan a week after my friend Michael Hogan fell off a cliff and died.
-
Well, you aren't a grad student, so you probably don't have the same issues with him that I do.
...and yes, we are in fact off topic.
-
Jordan: :-(
Reed: Oh man, hahaha grad students. Is there anyone that you do not despise?
(Back on topic)
They've got Tigh, now they just need Adama. If Bioware got Eddie James Olmos as a voice actor for even a small part, I would...
Hell, I do not even know what I would do. Die of happy, probably.
EDIT:
HOLY CHRIST WHY DID YOU GUYS NOT TELL ME THAT ADAM BALDWIN IS ALSO A VOICE ACTOR FOR ME2.
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I think EJO would be harder, because he's apparently super wary of taking sci-fi projects because he doesn't want to get typecast. If you listen to BSG commentaries, it sounds like it was a definite uphill battle to get him to agree to do the show, so I imagine trying to convince him to do a game would be even harder.
And yeah, according to IMDB Adam Baldwin is voicing the new Krogan dude. That's cool and all, but since I've never seen Firefly he won't be able to replace Wrex in my heart.
-
Sorry, sore subject.
Let's keep talking about how great ME2 will be!
-
It looks like the Collector's Edition isn't going to be released outside the US. I could order it from Amazon.com, but there's $55 on shipping and import fees that comes on top of that. Damn.
-
If it doesn't have night vision goggles, is it really a collector's edition?
-
Did you look at that box?
-
I did. And I'm still convinced that Collector's Editions are to nerds what lottery tickets are to the stupid. But then, I don't spend a lot of time looking at my video game boxes.
-
If you really want to go crazy on your bonus content, you should check out Bioshock 2's CE. Mass Effect 2 has a reasonable price in comparison. Oh well, I can drool forever over those special editions, but I never end up buying one.
-
I'd definitely consider it if it came with the costume on the right.
(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2007/12/bigdaddyvga.jpg)
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Adama...Eddie James Olmos
He will always be Gaff (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mLlzOnL7nec/R17bDKSmsRI/AAAAAAAAB4E/ORe6hC5V6gQ/s1600-h/bladerunner____4.jpg) for me. Even a good re-imaging of BSG is able to erase how badass Gaff was.
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And yeah, according to IMDB Adam Baldwin is voicing the new Krogan dude. That's cool and all, but since I've never seen Firefly he won't be able to replace Wrex in my heart.
Also, I had Adam Baldwin on Twitter for all of like 4 days and it was pretty disillusioning because all he did all day was argue about politics and he was very conservative.
I can understand any of his characters beign a Republican, but the shooty shooty kind, not the argue on Twitter about socialism kind.
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Goddamit Jordan why did you have to tell me this. I have now fallen slightly out of love with Adam Baldwin. Good job. :cry:
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I did it because of my deep seething hatred for you.
Also, I'm getting paid to destroy your carefully constructed reality by secret members of these forums. But I'd do it for free.
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Well the cat's out of the bag now. Thanks Jordan
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AHHHHHH aaaaaaahhhhhhhh ahhhhh ah. :|
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Hey. Hey Ibby.
You will not live up to whatever potential you think you have.
-
Would you have less of a deep seething hatred for me if I gave you a pony?
-
Actually, yes. Yes I would.
Are...are we having a serious pony discussion?
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I can't believe that just happened.
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l79/JeepJeep8/facepalm.jpg)
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I love you all. So much.
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Do you know what people who love us do?
(Hang out with us more hey why do you hate Meebo goddamn yeah I'm still harping on you about it wanna fight?)
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Do you know what people who love us do?
(Hang out with us more hey why do you hate Ted's goddamn yeah I'm still harping on you about it wanna fight?)
FYP
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Hey Grunt is only 22 years old. I'm wondering how they'll explain that, considering the Genophage and whatnot.
oh hey magazine scan too
(http://filesmelt.com/downloader/1260415043822.jpg)
You're working for/with Cerberus, I guess.
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The Mass Effect wiki specifically says that Grunt is one of the very, very few krogan who were born after the genophage. The first game does mention that the genophage isn't 100% effective, just in the vast majority of cases.
-
Convenient Krogan is convenient.
It's hard for me to conceal how pumped I am for this game, though. The article in this month's GI pretty much sealed the deal.
-
It's not so much that he's convenient as much as that's a defining aspect of his character. They could have very easily made another older Krogan like Wrex who was born before the genophage, but presumably being one of the few krogan born after the sterilization of the race would add a different dimension to Grunt.
There's a Miranda video going up on Gamespot today, according to Bioware's Twitter feed. I didn't play the iPhone game, so I'm curious to see more information on her.
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I'd definitely consider it if it came with the costume on the right.
When it comes to costumes, Harrison Krix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5vps6lizg0) is the Big Daddy of Big Daddies.
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Yeah I read the making of thread for that costume. I'm still kind of amazed he got the drill to rotate like that.
-
Mass Effect 2 is full of stars (I'm a sucker for this kind of thing)
(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2009/12/500x_masseffect2voicemontage_01.jpg)
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Michael Dorn's best role was not Worf, it was this guy:
(http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2897/marcusthesupermutant.jpg)
Unfortunately, Black Isle isn't around to make awesome characters any more. Bioware is only okay at it.
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Hey Grunt is only 22 years old. I'm wondering how they'll explain that, considering the Genophage and whatnot.
oh hey magazine scan too
You're working for/with Cerberus, I guess.
Eh, old news. But as I recall, every time you ran into Cerberus in ME1 they were doing supervillain-type stuff and you had to kill them, kill them hard every time they crossed your path. How come we're turning sides all of a sudden?
-
Humans are being specifically targeted by these Collector things. Shepard is sure to be pigeonholed into working for Cerberus no matter what his history with them. It is the Bioware way.
-
Do you know what people who love us do?
(Hang out with us more hey why do you hate Meebo goddamn yeah I'm still harping on you about it wanna fight?)
Ugh, fine. I'll be on Meebo more often. Goddamit.
Also, BlueKitty (sorry, I do not know your name) do you think you can possibly tell me who all those actors are? I recognize a few but am kinda fuzzy on the rest of them.
-
All those actors are actually Adam Baldwin wearing different masks. That's how good he is.
-
It's sort of weird how many games Tricia Helfer is showing up in all of a sudden. Also, I've never seen FlashForward so I didn't recognize her voice, but according to what I've read Shohreh Aghdashioo is (possible spoilers? It's stated in the Tali trailer, more or less) the head of the Quarian Migrant Fleet.
And, if what I've read about the beginning of Mass Effect 2 is true, there's actually a better justification for Shepard working with Cerberus than you'd think.
Edit: I don't know if this is the Miranda trailer that Bioware was talking about, because Miranda's definitely in it, but it does show all of these new people. (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect2workingtitle/video/6242706/mass-effect-2-voice-cast-reveal-video) Apparently Adam Baldwin isn't voicing Grunt after all, from his character's name and the brief bit of dialogue from him I'm guessing he's a Quarian character.
-
from a different site
* Martin Sheen (Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez's dad) -- Illusive Man commanding Cerberus
* Shohreh Adhdashloo (sexy voice lady from FlashForward) -- Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay
* Seth Green (hand in your geek card if you don't know) -- Joker
* Yvonne Strahovski (wiener lady, lust of Chuck) -- Miranda Lawson
* Adam Baldwin (a man named Jayne... or the man they call Jayne) -- Kal 'Reegar
* David Keith Keith David (Halo's Arbiter) -- Admiral David Anderson
* Michael Dorn (Star Trek TNG's Worf) -- Gatatog Uvenk
* Tricia Helfer (2020 Oscar winner after people stop treating her like meat) -- EDI, voice of the "new Normandy"
* Michael Hogan (Colonel Saul Tigh) -- Captain Bailey
* Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity from The Matrix, singular, no sequels exist -- especially not Revolutions) -- Aria T'Loak
-
* Michael Dorn (Fallout 2's Marcus) -- Gatatog Uvenk
FYP. We've been over this.
-
I know, I just choose to ignore it
-
You don't have to rub the fact that you're a dong in everybody's face.
-
* Martin Sheen (Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez's dad)
(http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp181/Dannynono/Rage.jpg)
-
* Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity from The Matrix, singular, no sequels exist -- especially not Revolutions) -- Aria T'Loak
Why would you even mention sequels? There were never any sequels to the Matrix. Never. It was a fantastic stand-along movie whose image was never sullied by inferior following films.
-
And there was never a sequel to Fallout 2.
You're deluding yourselves, that isn't healthy.
-
I support both the above assertions.
-
Nerd blindness is so cliche.
The Matrix sequels are wholy disappointing in the massive wake of the cultural phenomenon that was the original movie. They are, however, decent enough sci-fi movies if you remove them from that context and come on, it's not like we get those often enough. They're a darn sight better than something Bay-level for instance.
Fallout 3 is a great game and one of Bethesda's best. While it doesn't have the charm of the first two Fallouts, it has revitalized the franchise financially which has resulted in the New Vegas game by Obsidian, which houses much of the original Black Isle team. Its existence is a good thing and good video games are always welcome.
Jerks.
-
from a different site
* Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, The West Wing) -- Illusive Man commanding Cerberus
* Keith David (The Thing, Platoon, There's Something About Mary) -- Admiral David Anderson
Also Fallout 3 rules! A lot!
-
Nerd blindness is so cliche.
The Matrix sequels are wholy disappointing in the massive wake of the cultural phenomenon that was the original movie. They are, however, decent enough sci-fi movies if you remove them from that context and come on, it's not like we get those often enough. They're a darn sight better than something Bay-level for instance.
Fallout 3 is a great game and one of Bethesda's best. While it doesn't have the charm of the first two Fallouts, it has revitalized the franchise financially which has resulted in the New Vegas game by Obsidian, which houses much of the original Black Isle team. Its existence is a good thing and good video games are always welcome.
Jerks.
I wholeheartedly agree with this post. Fallout 3 is tons of fun, haters gonna hate.
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Just because it's cliche doesn't mean it's not a good idea. Some things are cliche for a reason. I appreciate that you thought the 2d and 3d Matrix movies were decent enough, and the special effects were indeed great, but as movies I found them literally unwatchable. In the sense that I stopped watching them, they were so poorly plotted, written and conceived.
As for Fallout 3, I liked it well enough but got too bored to finish it. I'm not sure why. I wasn't aware that there was such a backlash against it, though.
-
Actually, maybe "wholeheartedly" was a poor descriptor. I've actually never seen the third Matrix movie, and I barely remember the second. I was mostly referring to the Fallout 3 stuff.
-
I saw Matrix Revolutions on a bad movie night, loaded, and it was still like the worst Dragonball Z episode I have ever seen. But hey, that's just me.
-
I wasn't aware that there was such a backlash against it, though.
Consider yourself lucky!
-
Ugh, fine. I'll be on Meebo more often. Goddamit.
Well if it's such a chore maybe we don't want you anyhow.
Just thought, you know, if you're going to waste time on here anyway, might as well do with with the cool kids (the ones who have so little life and so much free time that they literally just spend hours in a chat room)
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Hey, Jordan. I'm on meebo. Where are you. Ass-face.
-
Nerd blindness is so cliche.
The Matrix sequels are wholy disappointing in the massive wake of the cultural phenomenon that was the original movie. They are, however, decent enough sci-fi movies if you remove them from that context and come on, it's not like we get those often enough. They're a darn sight better than something Bay-level for instance.
Jerks.
This whole thing always makes me feel so torn. On the one hand, I don't really feel the Matrix was sullied by the existence of the sequels and so I don't really have any nerd rage on this subject. On the other hand, I thought the sequels were really boring and perfectly illustrated all the reasons why sci-fi movies tend to be kind of bad in general. The first movie is honestly pretty simple, all things considered, even if it kind of drags near the end; I thought the movie peaked around the time the agents implant that weird transistor bug thing in Neo, to be honest. But overall, the underlying "Reality is more hostile than you ever knew and you cannot trust your senses" theme works really well for an action-thriller and I'm glad I saw it on the big screen. The sequels, on the other hand, are just kind of lost up their own asshole.
-
Fuck revisionism. The Matrix sequels were like the original movie, just devoid of all the things that made it any good at all. The sense of wonder and possibility, the pacing, the relative simplicity, the use of the Matrix itself as a setting, even the story, as standard "Hero With a Thousand Faces" as it was. They were bloated, boring, and hilariously overplotted. The only movies that compare are Lynch's Dune and The Chronicles of Riddick.
-
Yeah, there just isn't anything like the interrogation scene I mentioned in the later movies. In that scene, Neo still thinks he knows how the world works. The guy in the suit is being an asshole and trying to intimidate him, but Neo decides he doesn't have to take that shit, so he asks for his phone call. That's about when they seal his mouth shut, knock him on his ass and implant him with a freaky sci-fi critter. If he's going to survive in that film, he has to quit thinking like he knows what the hell is going on. It's as adroit a scene as you can ask for from a movie that will eventually devolve into a series of gun and fist fights.
Reloaded, on the other hand, has white boy dreads and motorcycles.
-
Please note though that I'm not really that big a fan of the original due to the last act. The "You can't die because I wuv you" stuff was a real groaner.
-
Goddamnit guys stop making such good points. At least let me keep the first movie at least let me have that.
-
I'm still coldly furious about the whole using humans for their body heat thing. In the Dan Simmons series Hyperion, the computers set up a network of teleporters to use human brains as processors in their super-computer for developing a computer Ultimate Intelligence. They could have used the same theme in Matrix. Instead they opted for farming humans for their body heat. Fuck you Wachowskis. Fuck you. Despite all its deficiencies, I still liked the first movie, though.
-
Yeah, it's a silly film in many ways, but it's still erring just far enough on the side of "Show, don't tell" to be decent as opposed to slamming right into a solid wall of exposition.
-
You want to see a great science fiction movie that doesn't do exposition, see Primer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)). Woah.
That's the movie with the timeline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)) that xkcd recently made fun of (http://xkcd.com/657/large/).
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Primer was brilliant in its unwillingness to be kind to the viewer in any way, shape, or form. It is the low-budget "fuck-you" of movies.
-
Fallout 3 is a great game and one of Bethesda's best. While it doesn't have the charm of the first two Fallouts, it has revitalized the franchise financially which has resulted in the New Vegas game by Obsidian, which houses much of the original Black Isle team. Its existence is a good thing and good video games are always welcome.
While I have obviously not played the New Vegas game (I will try it once it comes out), I found Fallout 3 too boring to play. I tried, but after a very short amount of time, I ended up with no desire whatsoever to play it. There was just no character to the game. The world didn't feel real or exciting at all.
Anyways, we were talking about Mass Effect 2.
-
The Sentinel (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/105/1054419p1.html)
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I love the adept's video, but I think I'm leaning towards sentinel for ME2.
-
If you specialize in Overload and Warp you'll become a deadly direct damage expert. Any enemy you face you'll be able to burn down with power damage alone. This specialization path makes the Sentinel the strongest direct damage power class in the game.
Yeah, I think I'm going to be playing a Sentinel.
-
You know, at first I got the impression that some of the classes kick much more ass than the others, but now I start to think that they're all equally super-powered. Hopefully they thought of giving the player a challenge instead of letting them play god.
-
Engineer didn't look all that interesting, tbh.
-
Awesome (http://kotaku.com/5425151/the-mass-effect-2-cinematic-trailer-at-the-vga)
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Sentinels are for suckers. Unless the Soldier has some new badass stuff they haven't shown off yet, I'm switching my Paragon Shepard to Vanguard for ME2, since that charge move just looks too sweet to pass up.
-
Martin Sheen has a pretty good voice.
-
I'm still coldly furious about the whole using humans for their body heat thing. In the Dan Simmons series Hyperion, the computers set up a network of teleporters to use human brains as processors in their super-computer for developing a computer Ultimate Intelligence. They could have used the same theme in Matrix. Instead they opted for farming humans for their body heat. Fuck you Wachowskis. Fuck you. Despite all its deficiencies, I still liked the first movie, though.
You want to see a great science fiction movie that doesn't do exposition, see Primer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)). Woah.
You. You're on the list.
The list of people who are awesome, that is.
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Martin Sheen has a pretty good voice.
ya, but one of the bad things about having such a well known voice is that sometimes it's hard to hear it coming out of someone else's face. even given that, it's a pretty rad list of names for the voice acting.
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The Illusive Man looks a lot like a younger Martin Sheen, though. Bioware's facial modeling is actually kinda freaky, really. Try looking up a photo of the model they used as the template for the default Shepard. Or even weirder: there's a sequence in the trailer that shows all those voice actors where it cuts between Carrie-Anne Moss and her character, and the facial resemblance is striking. Provided Carrie-Anne Moss was a purple alien, of course.
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If you thought human to purple-faced alien was impressive, you should see Shark Tale where they did human to fish.
I caved and I'm reinstalling Mass Effect now. The Infiltrator I played before is gone because I was playing the game on a different computer, so I'm going to play a Soldier now and then go Commando. Maybe it's possible to get a paragon/renegade hybrid too?
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I'm going to play a Soldier now and then go Commando.
I think you can do both at the same time, really.
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Har har
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Yes. I was going to take that Soldier and specialize it to Commando, if that's what you're wondering.
But first: Painkiller!
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rumors (http://filesmelt.com/downloader/xboxmagmasseffect.jpg)
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Kinda sad that Kaidan won't be in my squad, but I am glad to know that they plan on having that storyline continue to the end of the trilogy. That's why I love you, Bioware. :-D
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Oh man, that's kind of cool that the love interest thing carries through the entire trilogy.
OTOH, I wanted to bone new people a lot.
Conflicted!
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Agreed. I guess I'm going to have to play through the trilogy multiple times. I've got to play the first one again to create a paragon character that I actually like. Namely, she'd be my primary character.
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Oh man, that's kind of cool that the love interest thing carries through the entire trilogy.
OTOH, I wanted to bone new people a lot.
Conflicted!
Yeah, does this mean I have to not bone anybody in my NG+ run if I want to go after Miranda or Samara? I think they're both much more interesting than Liara or Ashley, at least from what I've seen so far.
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The whole reasoning behind the weapons in Mass Effect is completely lost on me. I don't understand why they would do away ammo clips entirely and instead have the weapons overheat and equip ammo upgrades. I thought the whole point of magnetic acceleration was not to overheat? And now they're sticking with that and instead giving you interchangable heat sinks. Riiiight.
Hmm, I wonder how my Shepard will take it when I romance Ashley and then kill her off at the end of ME1? I will try it. Bros before ho's, amirite?
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Here's how he takes it: you feel bad about it, unless you develop no emotional attachment to a video game character.
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Yeah it doesn't affect the plotline too much if you kill your fuck buddy.
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Hmm, I wonder how my Shepard will take it when I romance Ashley and then kill her off at the end of ME1? I will try it. Bros before ho's, amirite?
In all likelihood, the same as if he had never engaged in a romance.
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It'll probably be a long time before a player is able to emotionally devastate their own characters in an RPG. Oh well.
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Apparently the Normandy will now have an aquarium. You can buy fish for it.
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Hmm, I wonder how my Shepard will take it when I romance Ashley and then kill her off at the end of ME1? I will try it. Bros before ho's, amirite?
In all likelihood, the same as if he had never engaged in a romance.
Actually I'll amend this - it makes more sense for Bioware to make your status with Ashley essentially a non-issue, which is to say if you sacrifice her, you can act as though you romanced (or didn't romance) her whether or not you actually did in the first game.
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What makes Mass Effect 2 Mature (http://kotaku.com/5427950/what-makes-mass-effect-2-mature-future-blouses-alien-pole-dancing--drugs)
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"Future blouses" and "space furniture"? Fantastic.
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I truly hope that the future blouses are all directly copied from blouses that Lady Gaga has worn.
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can't wait for a dramatic soft-focus reaction shot of a space futon
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So Joystiq has a write-up of the first 90-minutes, and like a sheep to slaughter I read the spoilers.
HOLY CURVEBALL, BATMAN
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Could we have no spoilers outside of tiny text in this thread until launch day pweeze.
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Yeah, if there's spoilers I'm afraid I'll have to crash the next forum meetup just to bludgeon some of you guys.
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I'm spoiling so much of the game for myself just out of my voracious appetite for more info about this game holy fuck iwantitsobad
Liara's working for the Shadow Broker? What the fuck?
Also, for people who want info on the new preview but don't want spoilers, 1up's writeup (http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3177363) is pretty good, and hides all the spoilers behind highlight-able text.
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I've got a preview article from the Escapist where they talk about the Five things Bioware fixed for ME2 (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/op-ed/6918-Five-Things-BioWare-Fixed-for-Mass-Effect-2).
The elevator loading screens of Mass Effect are practically legendary for the way they brought the game to a screeching halt - a complaint the developers BioWare didn't actually see coming because they saw them from a completely different perspective. "People said [the elevators in the Citadel] were slow," explains Hudson with a bit of a laugh. "We didn't think they were slow because we knew how far you were going. You're going from one end of Manhattan to the other in 30 seconds."
Well, that explains something.
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this is what I hear:
Defualt Shep:
Male earthborn, sole survivor, soldier class
Ashley dies
Council was destroyed when Sovereign attacked
There’s apparently a Q and A section with Miranda near the beginning where you can ‘clarify’ what Shepard did in the first game.
Armor is now five pieces: helmet, chest, shoulders, arms and legs
Normandy: Now with a VI and toilet. The captains quarters has a fish tank and you can collect fish on various worlds.
Upgrading your companions: Each character comes with a research project that they can complete on the ship. By collecting raw materials out in the world, Shepard can give himself and his allies a bevy of improvements.
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"Shepard, what are you doing?"
"Playing with the toilet"
FWUSH
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Also Thane will swim in the aquarium, I bet you.
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I think that 'who dies' is not predetermined if you don't import. I read in a separate preview that their game had decided that Kaiden was dead. In fact, based on two separate reviews I read I had surmised that the game just picked the character of Shepard's gender to off, but the information KvP has contradicts that, so I'm assuming they just do the figurative coin flip. Both previews did have the council being destroyed though, so that may or may not be the 'default' story path if you don't import data. Either way, I gotta finish my playthroughs before January 26th. I think I'm gonna change class though, the new bullet time effect for Adrenaline Rush just seems so pedestrian in comparison to the flashy new shit for other classes.
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Perhaps the default is random
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So what are your big choices going to look like when they get to ME2? Myself, I was a male infiltrator, colonist, sole survivor, mostly paragon, Kaidan died, council destroyed, Anderson For President. Too bad that savegame is gone.
At the end of Mass Effect I was convinced that Sovereign was going to escape if I decided to help the council. So I thought, fuck them, they're just politicians. Politicians can be replaced. Then Sovereign came down in flames. I was satisfied, until I loaded a previous save point and resued the council. As it turns out, it's not a choice between council dies+Sovereign dies and council lives+Sovereign lives. It's a choice between council lives+nameless humans die and council dies+nameless humans don't die. I was disappointed.
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I am interested. What did you guys do, as far as saving the council versus saving a large number of nameless humans?
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I saved the council.
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I've started up Mass Effect again, and I'm really trying to get the most out of it now. Putting lots of points in charm - if only because being an asshole is no fun - and getting everyone to give in, looting every possible container, etcetera. Until now it's basically a pain in the ass. I only have room for three points in charm, and with these it's not possible to get all of the dialogue options for that guy Powell. "You should make amends." Arrrgh.
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In my paragon Soldier playthrough, which is the first one I'm going to import, I saved the council, put Anderson as the new human councilor (because Udina's a fucking prick), romanced Ashley, and let Kaidan die on Virmire. I can't remember my background exactly but I think I was a colonist? I may change my romance decision for my second playthrough of that character, and that may affect who I let die on Virmire too, I'm not sure yet.
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Wait, so Legion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLW_S70UV8E&feature=rec-rev-rn-1r-7-HM) is trying to hunt you down. And We get to visit the Quarian Flotilla!? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5RjsNsCxhY&feature=channel) The Tali trailer fills me with excitement! And we see male Quarians! hope to see the other gender of all the other races too (except Asarii) I mean come on I doubt the Salarians and Turians keep all their women folk in the home.
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Krogan do.
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Salarians do too. You can read about them in the codex. Only 10% of Salarians are female, and they have to stay at home.
Legion looks like the biggest badass ever. Even though he has a giant gaping hole in his chest. No, especially since he has a giant gaping hole in his chest.
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Moar
All armor for Shepard is customizable. If you want every piece of armor Shep wears in the game to look like the black N7 armor, or the Red Dragon armor, or the Cerberus basic armor, you can do this. I believe you can buy different designs as the game progresses (I'm betting there's an armor pack DLC in the future). You can't change armor design on the fly, but have to go back to your ship to customize it.
There is no NG+ in ME2. Rather, after the ending, you can still roam the galaxy finishing side quests and playing the various DLC adventures.
'Default' Shep seems completely renegade. The council dies, the Rachni queen dies, Wrex dies, and the squadmate of the opposite sex of the PC dies (for dudeShep it's Ashley, for femShep it's Kaiden), Conrad ended up killing himself, you kill the asari that was inside the big plant monster and all the colonists on Feros, etc.
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that worries me so much tbh
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Bioware's new "dark sci-fi" epic, Mass Effect 2,
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Bioware's new "dark sci-fi" epic, Mass Effect 2,
You get covered in the same blood-spatter after combat, and must pick between two Quarian Flotilla captains, Shehlen or Quarrowmont.
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I saved the council, thinking "if this won't get the humans on the council, nothing will". I was right. That was kind of awesome.
i also want to go visit the home planet of those jellyfish-people. Just to see what design they've come up with for their dwellings and stuff. I'm guessing that it'll be awesome.Moar
'Default' Shep seems completely renegade. The council dies, the Rachni queen dies, Wrex dies, and the squadmate of the opposite sex of the PC dies (for dudeShep it's Ashley, for femShep it's Kaiden), Conrad ended up killing himself, you kill the asari that was inside the big plant monster and all the colonists on Feros, etc.
That was completely different from what I did on all points. Although I'm not sure what I did with that Conrad fellow. I talked rough to characters I didn't like (like that guard chick on that winter planet that wanted to kill you?), but was nice to the rest, the way I usually do in RPGs. I'm not quite sure why, but I rarely bother to bring myself to doing anything else.
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I realized not long ago that I hardly remember any of the story of the game. I remember searching for the crab men on the giant space station. I remember riding in my dune buggy for hours on end. I vaguely remember shooting a dude. Other than that, I have nothing. I have also since traded the game in. I do want to play the sequel, so I hope there is a quick rundown on what I did with my character at the beginning.
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If ME2 is going to have quests that depend on choices you made in the first game, that might explain why they made the default Shep kill everyone. That way no one is able to come up to you and say "hey, remember how you saved me three years ago?" cause they're all dead. If that's the case, they're going to make ME2 really hard on you if you default without all those allies. When they're all dead there will be no one left to bust you out when the going gets rough. I think I'm going to save the Council at the end anyway, because I see the Ascension coming in handy in future space skirmishes. I'd hate to have Joker go "Boy, the Ascension would sure have come in handy in this battle, too bad you decided to let the Geth destroy it and all" while the Normandy is being torn apart by a Collectors' ship.
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I think talking about the default settings is interesting but sort of silly because ultimately, BioWare has gone to some pretty impressive lengths to make sure that the "canon" story for Shepard is whatever you make it to be.
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The Infiltrator (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/105/1056591p1.html)
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Shit, why they gotta make all of the classes look awesome as hell to me.
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So nobody has a reason to complain about limited replayability?
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I would say that, but I regularly read Kotaku comments. I think it's hurt my capability of not hating the gaming community.
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Tour of the Normandy (http://www.gamespot.com/shows/today-on-the-spot/?event=mass_effect_220091221)
Acheivements (http://kotaku.com/5431734/mass-effect-2-achievements-revealed)
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People may not want to look at the achievement list if they're super sensitive about spoilers, as none of them are flagged as secret. Specifically, it more or less confirms that the last two unrevealed party members are Garrus and Legion, and gives some indication of how the game begins.
Thankfully, it looks like this game is much better about the achievements than the first. You pretty much have to play through the game at least four times to get all of the achievements in ME1.
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They confirmed Legion wasn't one though.
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First of all: dude, did you miss the point of the tiny text? Secondly, either they're lying, or the achievement list is. Or there's a tenth squad mate who doesn't have an achievement associated with recruiting them and 'gaining their loyalty', but that seems unlikely.
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Did I cross the line by exposing your tiny text? God I am such a jerk.
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I don't think that tiny text was really needed brah.
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Full Cinematic Trailer (http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/m/masseffect2/)
Wow
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So very very good.
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.asx format? What's that? I got the Youtube version here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxQci156ey0).
I didn't know Thane was a biotic. As for everything else, I wholeheartledly agree with the above. Only one thing... My default Shepard had blue eyes. What's up with that?
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The part where Grunt blows the thresher maw's head off after it swallows him is my favorite. If he does anything nearly that badass in the game itself I'll have to reconsider my initial assessment of him as a poor man's Wrex.
Between this, the Old Republic reveal trailer, and the Sacred Ashes trailer for Dragon Age, whoever Bioware gets to do their CG is earning their fucking keep.
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Man, my Gamestop is out of the Collector's edition. I didn't really care for the other stuff, but I really wanted the armor and the gun
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i got freaked out when i watched the cg trailer for dragon age again and realized who the characters were supposed to be
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I hope the second part will allow you to screw people over like the way you could on Noveria in the first part. Cause I just did that, and it was the funnest thing.
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So the 'new' cinematic trailer was attached to Avatar when I saw it earlier. It was easily the best thing.
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Oh shit, I would pay to see that on the big screen.
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holy shitting balls
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I am sure this will create some new questions. Please ask them in this thread and, post Xmas break, I will try to get them answered for you.
Save Game Import
* Upon starting a new game from the main menu, players can import a character save from Mass Effect 1
* The Player chooses which character to bring in. Bringing in more than one character is possible, this will create a second or additional profile(s), just like in Mass Effect 1.
* For Xbox 360 players need to be signed into your profile that you used to play through Mass Effect 1.
* On PC players will select the .MassEffectSave files to import.
* The profile and save data must be present on the hard drive and not an MU.
* There is a limit of 11 end-of-game saves that can be imported into ME2. This means that if the player was to complete ME1 12 times, regardless of the number of unique playthroughs used, the 12th save will not be available for import, but saves 1 through 11 will be available.
At this point we have revealed that the save game import system will carryover all your decisions and plot decisions from ME1 into ME2. Did you save the Council? Who survived Virmire? And how did you handle your most ardent fan? We don’t want to list everything out and spoil the surprises we have in store for you, but rest assured you will be pleased when you see just how much carries over into Mass Effect 2.
Up until now we have only discussed the plot impacts of this feature, however, there are also certain gameplay perks as well. If you finished ME1 as a high level character you will receive greater bonuses than those who finished at lower levels. Ex, if you finished ME1 as a level 35 character, you will receive a bonus, but if you finished ME1 as a level 50 character, your bonus will be larger. That being said these bonuses will not put new playthrough characters at a severe disadvantage. For example, some of these bonuses include a monetary boost at the start of the game, or additional research resources for use at the Normandy’s Tech Lab. Another perk is if you finished the game as a Paragon or Renegade, part of your alignment will carry over making it easier to access certain dialogue options.
Finally, some technical information regarding the feature as well. If players start a New Game + after beating the game they will be able to re-use the same character import file they did for their first playthrough. Yes New Game + is making a return to Mass Effect 2! Additionally as mentioned above, make sure you are playing on your Xbox 360 profile that you completed ME1 on and that the profile and save data is present on the Hard Drive and not a MU. If you want to do a quick check and make sure you are good to go, load up Mass Effect 1 and see if the New Game + option appears. That will let you know your save game is ready for Mass Effect 2.
We are definitely excited to share this brand new feature with everyone, and remember what you do in Mass Effect 2, will have consequences in Mass Effect 3!
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Awesome.
That answered everything I needed to know.
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Jennifer Hale is so good. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSox9_vXXYE)
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Oh man I almost forgot about the mad seer on Eden Prime.
Even in the future Bioware's writers are lazy.
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You keep having opinions and every time you do it's obvious you should stop.
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Nah, it's shitty writing. I mean how can you let your players know that the threat of Sovereign is real unless you've got a schizophrenic with the
magic powermass effect of sight beyond sight foretelling the end of all things. It's almost as if there's some sort of ancient slumbering evil that's awakening after an extended hiatus to destroy the world. No wait, that's not Mass Effect that's Dragon Age. And Neverwinter Nights. Also it's Mass Effect. You just haven't seen the visions.
The space visions.
Honestly I don't really mind Bioware having a formula. I just think it's stupid and ridiculous that they'd put a mad prophet in a sci-fi future setting half an hour after they first show you footage of Sovereign, which is ominous enough by itself.
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This is part of why I can never tell if you actually like the games you play that aren't 10+ years old.
Not really a jab at ya mind you, I just genuinely can't tell a large chunk of the time.
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Jesus Christ, gaming forums. I've played Mass Effect like 8 times. It doesn't mean that Bioware tries hard all the time. Like I can only like a game if it's flawless. There are plenty of other people to do the overblown cocksucking. I'm not on the Bioboards. Let them do it.
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You keep having opinions and every time you do it's obvious you should stop.
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If I make "Team Bioware" shirts will you all wear them?
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I CONCUR, STOP RAINING ON OUR OVERLY HAPPY FUCKING PARADE
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Maybe you should just stop overcompensating for this perceived 'cocksucking'. Does Mass Effect have flaws? Sure, plenty of them, but Christ you could stop being so fucking negative all the time.
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titties!
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TITTIES
(http://www.fanboy.es/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/mass_effect.jpg)
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Maybe you should just stop overcompensating for this perceived 'cocksucking'. Does Mass Effect have flaws? Sure, plenty of them, but Christ you could stop being so fucking negative all the time.
I was recently in this Psych of Gender class which (understandably) was mostly about the history of psychology up to the present and how psychiatry has been heavily stacked against females since Freud's day, and how most gender-related psychological issues are disproportionately felt by women. At the end of the class we got this jarhead dude speaking up about how the class would be better if there was a more well-represented male point of view in the class. What the dude had failed to realize was that all he had to do was go to any other psychology class, or any other class on campus outside of those with the word "gender" in the title, and they would be immersed in the male point of view. Similarly, if you don't feel comfortable with my point of view, which is that popular gaming is on the whole badly written, ridiculous, and praised as "art" all too readily, all the while still being a fun and worthwhile pastime, you can go anywhere else on the internet, where you'll find widespread consensus on how everything is awesome forever that won't make you uncomfortable.
I think Bioware makes good games, I really do, even if I don't like the sameness of their narrative structures post-KOTOR. I think Mass Effect 2 looks really good. I also think that every line of tough-guy Rambo bullshit that Shepard says is awful, glorious camp for people like me who wore out their Total Recall VHS tapes as kids. When I hear Jed Bartlett say "he's making an impressive team, he's scouring the galaxy for the best" all I can think about are those commercials for the army / air force / marines that look and sound just like video game trailers so much that actual video game trailers sound dumber for it. I also think the antagonists in both ME1 and Dragon Age were uninteresting and largely anonymous, respectively. Bioware makes big, fun, well polished games that really aren't mind-blowing as they're made out to be. Except BG2, which actually did do things that no RPG has done since.
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It would be so dope if intimidating the crazy seer character in a Bioware game so hard that he runs away or gets punched into oblivion or whatever was something you could also carry over
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Also John how fun is it being an iconoclast
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Do you enjoy it
Does it give you... pleasure
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Why don't they let me write video games, I'm asking this unironically
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Well, Shamus Young (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6862-Experienced-Points-The-Writers-of-BioWare) seems to agree (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6876-Experienced-Points-But-I-LIKE-this-Clich). I don't see what was wrong with the crazy scientist's assistant though. It's not entirely impossible that he saw Saren with an army of Geth following him while everyone else was busy getting shot.
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I didn't like the crazy assistant at all-- I thought he came across as silly and jarring. It's hard to voice act a disturbed character in a way that's remotely believable, so perhaps in the future they should just cut out the ones that happen to be completely and utterly unnecessary next time.
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Also John how fun is it being an iconoclast
I don't know, why don't you tell me all of your thoughts on how great the new Paramore is and we'll compare notes.
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John, let's find a programmer and make a video game together
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Maybe you should just stop overcompensating for this perceived 'cocksucking'. Does Mass Effect have flaws? Sure, plenty of them, but Christ you could stop being so fucking negative all the time.
I was recently in this Psych of Gender class which (understandably) was mostly about the history of psychology up to the present and how psychiatry has been heavily stacked against females since Freud's day, and how most gender-related psychological issues are disproportionately felt by women. At the end of the class we got this jarhead dude speaking up about how the class would be better if there was a more well-represented male point of view in the class. What the dude had failed to realize was that all he had to do was go to any other psychology class, or any other class on campus outside of those with the word "gender" in the title, and they would be immersed in the male point of view. Similarly, if you don't feel comfortable with my point of view, which is that popular gaming is on the whole badly written, ridiculous, and praised as "art" all too readily, all the while still being a fun and worthwhile pastime, you can go anywhere else on the internet, where you'll find widespread consensus on how everything is awesome forever that won't make you uncomfortable.
I think Bioware makes good games, I really do, even if I don't like the sameness of their narrative structures post-KOTOR. I think Mass Effect 2 looks really good. I also think that every line of tough-guy Rambo bullshit that Shepard says is awful, glorious camp for people like me who wore out their Total Recall VHS tapes as kids. When I hear Jed Bartlett say "he's making an impressive team, he's scouring the galaxy for the best" all I can think about are those commercials for the army / air force / marines that look and sound just like video game trailers so much that actual video game trailers sound dumber for it. I also think the antagonists in both ME1 and Dragon Age were uninteresting and largely anonymous, respectively. Bioware makes big, fun, well polished games that really aren't mind-blowing as they're made out to be. Except BG2, which actually did do things that no RPG has done since.
I don't know what parts of the internet you frequent, but the gaming boards I read are normally all too quick to dismiss or tear down any game for internet cool points. Seeing people bitch and moan about minor details of a video game is not fun to read and it's even less fun to talk about. Painting yourself as a lone voice of reason in a giant sea of complacency is laughably melodramatic, as is comparing your plight to institutionalized sexism, especially since we're talking about video games on the internet. Is it too much to ask to discuss the parts of a video game you actually like?
Furthermore, if you want to talk about the uninspired central plotting of Bioware games post-KOTOR, that's one thing. But using a character who takes up a grand total of a minute of screen time to make a broad, sweeping generalization of the quality of Bioware's writing is extremely reductionist. Are most games badly written by the standards of film or television? Sure, but if you can only enjoy games with 'actually good' writing then you become one of those insufferable jackoffs who talk about how they replay BG2, Torment, and the first two Fallouts constantly. Maybe they'll throw in Bloodlines or Mask of the Betrayer if they're particularly open-minded.
As for the whole "games as art" thing, I consider that to be an entirely different discussion. First of all, it depends on your criteria for what the minimum threshold for something to be "art" are. I think the artistic design of Super Mario Galaxy is absolutely unparalleled, but is that enough to make it 'artistic'? I think that's for everyone to decide on their own. There are some games that I think pose interesting artistic experiments, but they are by far in the minority, and I think games are such a commercialized industry that's extremely difficult for the creative people involved to make that kind of effort. Do I think Mass Effect is one of those games? Not really, unless you consider creating an enjoyable, well-contextualized ode to 80s science fiction to be artistic. But that doesn't prevent it from being wholly enjoyable on its own terms. The vast majority of film doesn't attempt to be any kind of high art either, it's just the way society works. I think games have a lot of potential as an artistic and storytelling medium, but the added element of interactivity makes things very difficult and even the most creative people in the industry are still figuring it out.
I also think that link that LTK posted is reductionist to the point of absurdity. If you're going to tell me that Morrigan and Bastila, Tali and Leliana, and especially HK-47 and Wrex are indistinguishable characters, I'm going to call you an idiot. Was Obsidian's plotting and characters more original in KOTOR 2? Definitely, but if we want to discuss Obsidian's merits and failings there's plenty to talk about there as well. Maybe Chris Avellone will set an incredible new standard for video game writing with Alpha Protocol, like he did with Torment. I frankly doubt it, but I'm hoping and definitely willing to be surprised.
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I don't know what parts of the internet you frequent, but the gaming boards I read are normally all too quick to dismiss or tear down any game for internet cool points. Seeing people bitch and moan about minor details of a video game is not fun to read and it's even less fun to talk about.
I strongly disagree here; hell, this is actually the first time this thread has actually interested me for a while now. A negative opinion can be every bit as interesting as a positive one. The thing is to avoid being a broken record. In all honesty, most of the posts in here are only interesting as a links depository, as is demonstrated by your "Jennifer Hale is so good," link/post. I would have been just as interested in it if you had linked it under the heading "Jesus Christ, they hired Jennifer Hale again." Hell, I probably would have been more interested, since it implies that there may be weaknesses to using known quantities in every role. At what point, if ever, does a "house style" and familiarity start undermining a performer's ability to become less notable than the character they are trying to embody? For example, I find President Sheen's presence in the trailers somewhat distracting, despite the fact that he's certainly not a bad performer.*
*I actually have the same issue with the West Wing. Hearing his voice just makes me start thinking of Apocalypse Now.
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But... she is really good in the first game? She may be in a lot of games, but that's mostly because the games industry doesn't really feel like paying voice actors very well except when they get marketable people from Hollywood (like... Martin Sheen), which means that the pool of dedicated voice actors is very, very small and they have to do a lot of projects to support themselves. Besides, why would they replace her in the middle of the trilogy? Again, this seems like a really pointless thing to complain about.
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I like Jennifer Hale and I understand why they hire recognizable people. It's not really a complaint so much as an acknowledgement of the issue of type casting etc. I was really going for a general question rather than a complaint. I'm mostly just curious whether you think getting a big name to nail the recognition factor helps or hurts the final product when you discount sales as a factor. You know, so there could be a discussion rather than a bunch of guys linking to shit like Kotaku for 12 boring pages.
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I don't know what parts of the internet you frequent, but the gaming boards I read are normally all too quick to dismiss or tear down any game for internet cool points. Seeing people bitch and moan about minor details of a video game is not fun to read and it's even less fun to talk about. Painting yourself as a lone voice of reason in a giant sea of complacency is laughably melodramatic, as is comparing your plight to institutionalized sexism, especially since we're talking about video games on the internet. Is it too much to ask to discuss the parts of a video game you actually like?
I am! I'd rather not call anybody stupid for liking Bioware games (like I said, I like them plenty myself) but it seems that in general people don't seem to be as comfortable as I am with criticism of the games. I don't know if it sounds like I despise them, but I don't and I never really have.
Furthermore, if you want to talk about the uninspired central plotting of Bioware games post-KOTOR, that's one thing. But using a character who takes up a grand total of a minute of screen time to make a broad, sweeping generalization of the quality of Bioware's writing is extremely reductionist. Are most games badly written by the standards of film or television? Sure, but if you can only enjoy games with 'actually good' writing then you become one of those insufferable jackoffs who talk about how they replay BG2, Torment, and the first two Fallouts constantly. Maybe they'll throw in Bloodlines or Mask of the Betrayer if they're particularly open-minded.
It was kind of a flippant comment. And all of the games you listed have their niggling problems - BG2's romances are all gross violations of the therapist / patient arrangement, Torment is really extremely wordy and intentionally confusing, and Fallout 2 had Modoc.
As for the whole "games as art" thing, I consider that to be an entirely different discussion. First of all, it depends on your criteria for what the minimum threshold for something to be "art" are. I think the artistic design of Super Mario Galaxy is absolutely unparalleled, but is that enough to make it 'artistic'? I think that's for everyone to decide on their own. There are some games that I think pose interesting artistic experiments, but they are by far in the minority, and I think games are such a commercialized industry that's extremely difficult for the creative people involved to make that kind of effort. Do I think Mass Effect is one of those games? Not really, unless you consider creating an enjoyable, well-contextualized ode to 80s science fiction to be artistic. But that doesn't prevent it from being wholly enjoyable on its own terms. The vast majority of film doesn't attempt to be any kind of high art either, it's just the way society works. I think games have a lot of potential as an artistic and storytelling medium, but the added element of interactivity makes things very difficult and even the most creative people in the industry are still figuring it out.
Really the whole "art" argument thing is just the only way I can comprehend why anyone would get so up in arms about the games that they love being criticized. I think it's just indicative of a larger issue of defensiveness within the community of gamers, who are still trying to prove that games aren't just kids' play. It's understandable I think, but I'd rather give my entire opinion and weather the outrage than hold off. I love games, I love playing them and I love analyzing them, and I wouldn't have any fun if I couldn't talk about them.
I also think that link that LTK posted is reductionist to the point of absurdity. If you're going to tell me that Morrigan and Bastila, Tali and Leliana, and especially HK-47 and Wrex are indistinguishable characters, I'm going to call you an idiot. Was Obsidian's plotting and characters more original in KOTOR 2? Definitely, but if we want to discuss Obsidian's merits and failings there's plenty to talk about there as well. Maybe Chris Avellone will set an incredible new standard for video game writing with Alpha Protocol, like he did with Torment. I frankly doubt it, but I'm hoping and definitely willing to be surprised.
I wouldn't agree with some of the particular parallels in the articles, but it should be blindingly obvious to anyone that Bioware uses familiar tropes as templates for many of their characters. The drunken berserker has shown up in more than one Bioware game (Black Whirlwind and Oghren are basically the same character, except Oghren has an added level of tragedy with his wife and all). There's the "Lancer" character who has suffered a personal loss to be overcome (Carth Onassi, Jaheira, Ashley / Kaidan, Allistair, several characters from Jade Empire including Dawn Star, Sagacious Zu and Sky) and the ambiguously evil, proud sorceress type (Viconia, Morrigan) Canderous Ordo and Wrex are both morally neutral mercenaries who come from dying cultures.
But really all of that's fine, because by and large Bioware makes their characters different enough to be interesting on their own, as you said. I don't follow David Gaider very closely but I'm willing to give thought to the idea that all this coming back to the same wells for character templates is less laziness than it is good old-fashioned auteur-ism. Like I said earlier, what frustrates me about Bioware is the more recent repetition of overall narrative arcs, with the ancient evil awakening (Elder Race / The Reapers / The Blight) and the "herald" standing in the way of ending the threat (Aribeth, Saren, Loghain) I've always felt that adventure stories like the ones in games are only as good as their villains and this "Ancient evil" template has yet to produce a villain that's been interesting to me. Aribeth, Loghain and Saren all could have been interesting but they were never the real focus of the game, and so they died before you faced the Big Bad, who's always pretty boring.
As for Obsidian / Chris Avellone, they do the same things and they have similar problems, actually. Khelgar from NWN2 is a berserker character, Ammon Jerro is a male Morrigan, etc. Chris Avellone actually does have the auteur thing going on, as he has his own tropes and his own thematic obsessions that show up in every game he helms - There's always blind antagonist / mentor with maternal feelings of love toward the PC (Ravel in PS:T, Kreia in KOTOR2) or, as in Mask of the Betrayer, towards a party member. Avellone also has a fascination with codes and oaths (Dakk'on in PS:T, The Jedi and Echani codes in KOTOR2, the oaths to the Betrayer in MotB) and how they affect those who bind themselves to them in ways they can't predict. The main problems with Avellone's approach is that he can be excessively wordy, and he's had the habit since Fallout 2 of telegraphing his villains from very early in the story when they would have been more effective as mysteries.
And as far as Alpha Protocol goes, the "suave" dialogue path is going to be much stronger cheese than anything yet done by Bioware. I've already heard one double-entendre involving a gun. I'm more interested in seeing how he's going to adapt his pet obsessions for a modern real-world setting, if he does at all.
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There's always blind antagonist / mentor with maternal feelings of love toward the PC (Ravel in PS:T, Kreia in KOTOR2) or, as in Mask of the Betrayer, towards a party member.
Yeah, he's said in interviews that Kreia was essentially an exploration of Ravel ideas that he couldn't be fit into Torment. Plus, the whole character idea is that Ravel has existed before all over the planes, and so Avellone snuck her into the Icewind Dale games in one incarnation or another.
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Oh yeah, there was a blind cat-lady seer in the prologue of Icewind Dale II (not unlike the mad seer in Mass Effect, really) I hadn't thought about it since that was a JE Sawyer project, not an Avellone one.
I don't recall their being a blind woman in Van Buren. Hecate (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Hecate) might've been one.
Anyway, what are we left with in terms of ME2 classes now? Soldier and biotic? Or have they already been covered?
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Adept has been covered, I have't seen soldier yet, though. Has Vanguard been revealed yet?
Aww damn, Ashley got killed but Liara doesn't want me any more after the "just friends" talk. I'm gonna backtrack and pick Liara, because I do want to see how ME2 plays out after you've romanced someone.
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Yeah, their special ability is the biotic bull-rush thing.
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All of the class-specific abilities have been revealed at this point. Vanguard has the biotic charge, Infiltrator has cloaking, Engineers the combat drone, and Sentinel the special shielded armor. Of the two you mentioned, Adepts are the only class with access to Singularity, which is easily the most effective crowd control ability in all of Mass Effect, which I assume holds true in the sequel as well. Soldiers have the revamped Adrenaline Rush, which has been changed (since reducing cooldown times is less relevant since they cranked up recharge times for all powers anyway) into a bullet time mode. That's the one which sounds the least interesting to me, which is why I'm probably changing my Paragon Soldier to a Vanguard when I import. Not sure what I'll do with my other two characters yet.
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Oh yeah, there was a blind cat-lady seer in the prologue of Icewind Dale II (not unlike the mad seer in Mass Effect, really) I hadn't thought about it since that was a JE Sawyer project, not an Avellone one.
Yeah, I read somewhere that they divvied up the chapters/areas amongst the various designers, with Avellone getting the intro as well as polishing up some of the spots that Sawyer was personally heading prior to leaving the company. I also vaguely remember an interview where Avellone said point blank that the Cat Lady is Ravel. Of course, I don't know what's a more unreliable source: my memory, or the internet. It'd make sense though, considering that Targos is quite a bit more wordy and atmospheric than the rest of IWDII. At any rate, it's certainly not hard to believe that they'd sneak in Chris's favorite pet character, particularly since she doesn't really do anything that changes the overall story arc.
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Also - we're all clear that something can be all kinds of flawed and still be "art," no?? Surely I'm not the only dude who's bothered reading a Dom Delillo book, for example.
("art" is such a lame word, i'm gonna start using the word "text")
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Certainly. Hell, it's part of why I'd argue that on the whole my relationship with "art" is somewhat antagonistic.
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Now the rumor is that new game + is in
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Just pre-ordered the Collector's Edition. Man oh man oh man who's excited? I'M EXCITED.
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Deep thoughts with: Thane (http://masseffect.bioware.com/universe/characters/thane/)
Deep thoughts with: Grunt (http://masseffect.bioware.com/universe/characters/grunt/)
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Yeah... those videos are pretty bad. But hey, no Marilyn Manson at least.
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Just pre-ordered the Collector's Edition. Man oh man oh man who's excited? I'M EXCITED.
What's in it anyway?
I just remembered there was DLC for Mass Effect. I wonder if those will have any impact on Mass Effect 2? Oh hey, all you need for Bring Down the Sky is a CD key. I didn't know that. Downloading it right now.
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I doubt it.
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Actually, Bring Down the Sky I could pretty easily see playing a part.
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Can't be too hard to find out: As a Bioware writer states on the forums: "Potentially" (http://meforums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=698306&forum=144&sp=0). Well, that's good to know.
Steam's CD key bounces on the download. Hooray.
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Man there better be a mission in ME2 for people who chose the Paragon path through Bring Down the Sky.
I have a score to settle with a Batarian terrorist.
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Yeah if that guy shows up in ME2 I am gonna put a fucking bullet in his head.
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Heard this, not quite sure of the veracity, some of it has already been confirmed, but it's there. Turns out I was right way back when about overhaul of character systems. -
Mass Effect 2 allows the player to import their characters from any completed Mass Effect playthrough. This means that all decisions made by the player in Mass Effect will carry over into Mass Effect 2 and have the potential to impact the story. Decisions confirmed to have an impact on the game include:
* The decision to save either Kaidan or Ashley.
* Whether or not the player kills Wrex on Virmire.
* Whether or not the player decides to save the Citadel Council at the end of Mass Effect.
* The player's choice of love interest.
* Whether the player spares or destroys the Rachni Queen at Peak 15.
* The player's treatment of Conrad Verner.
* Whether or not the player completed the UNC: Asari Diplomacy sidequest.
* Whether the player chose to allow the Alliance to conduct experiments on Nirali Bhatia's body.
Due to massive gameplay redesign, your level will not transfer over to Mass Effect 2 and you will start out with basic abilities. However, the game will acknowledge if you were a level 60 character and if you were a Renegade or Paragon and adapt it in ways that map across to the new system. Also, the physical appearance and class of imported characters can be changed at the start of the game, if desired.
If a player has no Mass Effect save files, Mass Effect 2 will start with an introduction sequence which, in combination with interactive decisions made by the player, introduces new players to the storyline and establishes a “canon” backstory.
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Those are all culled from various interviews with Bioware, mostly from Casey Hudson himself. I think the only one of those that didn't come directly from him was the one about Nirali Bhatia. Supposedly there are even more beyond those, but they won't say what they are, so take that with a grain of salt. They also aren't specific about how exactly your character's level and Paragon/Renegade status will map into the new game, except that it will be recognized and benefit the player, but that it 'won't upset the balance of the game'. I am glad that they're letting us change our character's class and appearance upon import, though. I definitely want to change my Soldier (probably to Vanguard), as my later playthroughs led me to discover that the game is a lot more fun when you can throw powers around a lot.
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I'm also hoping the new game will feature improvements to the appearance system that will help my characters to look less like walking asses.
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Yeah, starting my female playthrough a few days ago really brought the limits of ME1's character creator into stark relief. I think my Soldier looks OK, at least.
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It was kind of pointless how default Shepard was not one of the presets you could scroll through in the character customization menu. Maybe I wanted a Shepard with a moustache, or other hair or something, but the first preset you get is a Conrad Verner lookalike, if I recall correctly.
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I just took that to mean that default Shepard had been created using separate tools than the ones given to the player. There's no benefit to allowing the player to fiddle with his appearance because it can only make him look worse than he does.
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That makes sense, given that there's a model for him and all. For this one I just used the default male look, since everything I attempt to create comes out ugly anyway. I beat the game now, saved the Council's sorry asses, so that Destiny Ascension had better be there for me in ME2. Got the Tactician achievement, too. Still haven't got Bring Down the Sky, hopefully support can help me get the damn thing to install.
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I don't know, I had no real problems making different models look fairly good. I mean, it was incredibly easy to make a fugly ass mongoloid, but you could get a pretty good variety of male faces.
Females were... lacking in variety to say the least though, i agree.
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hit the button to put the helmet on, not too bad anymore haha
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My first shepard was pretty good. I feel like he needed a eyepatch though, with the huge scar he had.
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My second playthrough when I made Chocolate Shepard, he looked pretty damn good. Too bad his voice sounded so different it made me and my brother laugh every time he said anything.
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Yeah if you're looking to make anything other than a White Canadian you're out of luck.
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Yeah, while I don't really get the hate for male Shepard's voice actor it's hard to deny that he sounds like a very white dude. But that's kind of been a problem in games in general: Bethesda made your father actually look like your created character in Fallout 3, but they couldn't change that Liam Neeson's voice sounds very out of place coming out of a black dude.
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I never understood all the hate either. I actually found Jennifer Hale's more aggressive moments to be a lot more distracting than Meer's (perhaps unintentional) understatement. He was pretty flat, sure, but I generally mind that a lot less than the scenery chewin' you get in most games. I guess some people aren't happy unless you've got someone who sounds roughly a million times more emotive than half the people you'll ever meet.
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The only reason I didn't like the guy's voice was because they gave me the leeway to create my own face. There are at least as many faces that the voice doesn't "fit" with as there are faces it meshes with perfectly, maybe more, and that's a problem if you really like the faces that don't fit. All in all I prefer things old school, with no VA for the PC. This avoids aesthetic problems, but it also cuts down recording budgets somewhat and it can allow for some more flexible and interesting dialogue design (Mass Effect's dialogues, as dialogues go, were very simple in structure) But with games headed in a decidedly more "cinematic" direction that's becoming more and more of a niche. But VA can work. I'm a big fan of JC Denton's voice in Deus Ex, though I know a lot of people who don't like it at all. The quality of the VA in that game was shaky across the board but it was rarely awful (though it got pretty bad in Hong Kong) and overall I found it endearing.
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Anyone else go out of their way to make a silly looking character?
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When I'm all done with "roleplaying" or whatever and I'm just playing to dick around I go Maximum Face, in which you set all feature sliders as far to the right as possible.
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When I'm all done with "roleplaying" or whatever and I'm just playing to dick around I go Maximum Face, in which you set all feature sliders as far to the right as possible.
This in an Elder Scrolls game and/or Fallout 3 makes for some hilarious results.
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Anyone else go out of their way to make a silly looking character?
YES. I did it for my male Shepherd character. I also named him Titty (a la Yahtzee), and I could not play for more than ten minutes due to the silliness of it all.
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Word is the game has RTM'd. So, no delays to look forward to!
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It has what?
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Read... the... Manual...'d?
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Released to the manufacturer, aka, gone gold.
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Other than being an absolute BITCH as my dwarven noble (which made me hug my stuffed monkey hard when Gorim said, "I am nowhere my lady.") I've been disappointed with this game. It's like they made an elder scrolls game and slapped on 50 gallons of blood.
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I definitely loved my Dwarven Engineer Colonial Space Marine. Bitch was rad.
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Word is the game has RTM'd. So, no delays to look forward to!
Makes sense. 4 weeks is pretty standard for a manufacturing period.
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Terminus Armor and Blackstorm gun (http://youtube.com/watch?v=cDwKH-n8RHs)
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jizz
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What happened to the Iron Man-esque armor?
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That's the preorder bonus for everywhere but Gamestop, if I recall correctly.
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YES AND THAT IS THE ARMOR I AM GETTING. HOO-RAH.
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What does EB Games count as?
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EB is owned by Gamestop, so switch your preorder to Amazon or EA's online store if you want the "Inferno" Armor.
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Is the other armor for literally ANY other preorder? I mean, there's a Futureshop up the street from me.
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Why are they doing this to Gamestop?
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Is the other armor for literally ANY other preorder? I mean, there's a Futureshop up the street from me.
No idea, you'd have to ask them. I don't know how your weird Canada-only retailers work.
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Futureshop is Best Buy, if that makes it any easier to understand.
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The Vanguard (http://redirectingat.com/?id=629X1198&url=http%3A%2F%2Fxbox360.ign.com%2Fdor%2Fobjects%2F14235013%2Fmass-effect-2%2Fvideos%2Fmasseffect2_trl_vanguard_10510.html%3Fshow%3Dhi)
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I was already switching my Soldier to Vanguard before I saw that trailer, and now it just confirms that I'm making the right decision.
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Deep thoughts with: Miranda (http://tv.gamestar.hu/video/mass-effect-2-miranda-trailer)
Fun fact - Miranda was originally much darker-skinned. Then presumably she became romanceable, and Australian.
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--Charm and Intimidate have been consolidated into Persuasion. Your points in Renegade or Paragon determine which options you can use. (This fits with the vids we've seen; I was wondering about that.)
--Contrary to ME1, sidequests take place on unique locations. One might give you more info on the main story, another offers you a special mission, and yet another would provide a completely different experience from what you'd normally find in the game. The more planets you explore, the more you'll realize what can happen in the many corners of the galaxy.
--The Mako is replaced with a vehicle that's about the same size, but has more fluid controls. You can strafe left and right, point and aim, and it's easier to aim at enemies straight ahead, and it navigates a lot more easily over terrain. Better level design for the planets; they connect perfectly with the abilities of your new vehicle.
--Normandy; its role is expanded. There will be epic space battles where the result will depend on what you did with the Normandy in the meantime; how you've built it. By exploring the galaxy, you can find resources to use for research projects and use the resulting upgrades for the Normandy. That way it's you who controls whether you win the fights or the Normandy gets riddled with holes, which will of course determine the life or death of your crew. The interior of the ship has been redesigned; in your captain's quarters you have a computer which you can use to read e-mails to get new missions, thank-you notes from grateful people, or tirades from people you didn't help. Your personal assistant keeps you up to date on current events, such as people who urgently want to speak with you.
Hmmmm
This is that new vehicle supposedly, replaces the mako
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/estelindis/ME2/gttv_tungel_N51_2.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/estelindis/ME2/gttv_tungel_N51.jpg)
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looks more like a limo than a lean mean fighting machine.
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Deep thoughts with: Miranda (http://tv.gamestar.hu/video/mass-effect-2-miranda-trailer)
Fun fact - Miranda was originally much darker-skinned. Then presumably she became romanceable, and Australian.
Well, then they modeled her after a real person. But made her brunette, for some reason.
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gameplay video (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ces-10-mass-effect/60623).
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So I'm too late/too lazy to preorder ME2 now. Here's to hoping I either get the armor with the CE edition, or can buy it for MS points.
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Sometimes it occurs to me that it's too bad that they can't just do a game like this without humans in it. I really like the designs of some of the aliens in these games, particularly the Turians, and aliens neatly sidestep uncanny valley and the occasional weird body language issues for obvious reasons. I mean, I'm not disappointed in how the game looks by any means, and I'm continually pleased by how far along games have come since my youth, but if it weren't for humans in games I could probably be convinced that there's really no pressing need to bother improving graphics at all, since I rarely want to change a thing about more abstract games.
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I had a long, complicated response, but basically most science-fiction protagonists are humans because they're more easily identifiable with than alien characters.
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And that's why I said it's too bad that they can't, not that they should. What you just said is basically considered iron-clad law by a lot of people. Even if there wasn't a grain of truth to it someone would nix the idea.
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I was musing in Meebo the other day how much I would love a Mass Effect Gaiden where you played various interesting storylines from the universe. As a human during the First Contact War, a Krogan in the Rachni Wars, a Turian in the Korgan Rebellions, a Salarian League of One member on the run, a Quarian during the Geth uprising...
It would be pretty excellent, I think.
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Once the trilogy finishes who knows where they'll go with it next. On the other hand, all of those potential stories predate humans discovering FTL space travel (by a lot), which as previously mentioned is kind of a huge stumbling block. But maybe Mass Effect will be a big enough name after ME3 that they'll be able to get over that.
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If they're doing anything like that I'm going to say it's gonna be a browser or handheld game. Maybe an ipod app.
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A Live A Live style game would be crazy fun!
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Some more info is coming out from the OXM review and CES.
There are 6 different heavy weapons in the game, but only 4 of which are explicitly named: missile launcher, grenade launcher, a particle beam, and the Avalanche, which apparently is essentially a freeze gun. These replace grenades from the first game, as previously mentioned.
Matching armor provides set bonuses, like Dragon Age. You can customize your party members' armor (including cosmetics) and weapon loadouts as well as your own.
The really obnoxious camera shake when you look down the scope of the sniper rifle is gone, so it's a much more viable weapon this time. Picking up heatsinks from enemies or the environment will add ammo to all weapons, but ammo is not interchangeable between weapons.
The review doesn't specifically talk about who is/isn't romanceable, but does mention specifically that you can bang at least some of the aliens, if that's your thing.
Enemies now have different AI based on species, e.g. Krogan opponents will be much more aggressive than humans. Squad mates will also have their own individual AI patterns, provided that you aren't directing them. Both your squad mates and enemies are much more talkative in combat as well. Enemies will also talk to directly to you: for example, one guy heard a krogan insult him for using the cloak ability, as well as telling him to 'use a man's gun' after shooting the krogan with a pistol.
This part's a little vague, but apparently the bonus for importing a high level character is just credits (and maybe some bonus experience? I'm getting conflicting info here). There are supposedly three tiers of bonuses for levels 35, 50, and 60. However, other stuff can get you bonuses at the beginning too. If you were a dumbass like me and tracked down all those minerals, you'll get more at the start of ME2, which will get you a head start on the research projects which determine upgrades for your squad/the Normandy.
On the 360, the bumpers and the Y button can be used as hotkeys, for either Shepard or your squad members. Left and Right on the D-pad each control an individual squad mate, and can either be used to position them separately or as additional hotkeys. Up is to direct them both at once, and Down is to pull them back. I'm guessing that the power wheel is now used with the Back button, since there are no more grenades.
Supposedly, nearly every decision in the first game will have at least some impact on the second game. People you saved on various side missions will show up, as will the batarian terrorist from BDtS if you let him go.
Unexplored planets are now scanned remotely, and you'll only send down a landing party at all if you find an anomaly. Examples given were merc outposts, mining facilities, and missile bunkers.
The framerate and pop-in problems from the first game are fixed, according to hands-on accounts from the CES floor. Cover is much better and closer to Gears style now, including the ability to vault over low cover.
Charm and Intimidate are no longer separate skills. Instead, your class-specific skills (Combat Mastery for Soldiers, Biotics Mastery for Adepts, etc.) will give you passive persuasion bonuses as you rank them up, and the extra dialogue options will be determined directly by your Paragon/Renegade score. Those still go up independently of each other, and apparently there is enough content in the game to max both bars in a single playthrough.
That's about all I got out of the past few days in terms of ME2 info. Anybody decide on who their squad will be in the second game yet? Since I'm playing a Vanguard my first time through, I'm going to want to roll with a sniper so I'm not charging into huge crowds constantly, so I think I'm gonna need either Garrus or Thane. The third person will probably depend on what I still need (if I take Thane over Garrus I'll need at least some tech skills on my third member) and/or whose jib I find sufficiently cutting.
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Thane and Tali probably
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Tali and Miranda
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yo bryan if you followed me on twitter I would tweet about how i was beating you at mass effect
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Charm and Intimidate are no longer separate skills. Instead, your class-specific skills (Combat Mastery for Soldiers, Biotics Mastery for Adepts, etc.) will give you passive persuasion bonuses as you rank them up, and the extra dialogue options will be determined directly by your Paragon/Renegade score.
What? Actions should determine alignment, not the other way around.
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They do. Paragon Actions -> Paragon points, which in turn make you a more persuasive good guy. Presumably, you'll get a boost to your Paragon/Renegade score at the beginning of the game depending on the standing of your imported character.
Also Fraser, if you're beating me at Mass Effect why do I have 500 more points in the game than you?
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Because Xbox games are your only conquest?
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Charm and Intimidate are no longer separate skills. Instead, your class-specific skills (Combat Mastery for Soldiers, Biotics Mastery for Adepts, etc.) will give you passive persuasion bonuses as you rank them up, and the extra dialogue options will be determined directly by your Paragon/Renegade score.
What? Actions should determine alignment, not the other way around.
Right, there's one skill for persuasion, but the "charm" and "intimidate" options are still in the dialogue. Success just depends on a combination of your persuasion skill and your paragon/renegade(depending on the option) score.
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They do. Paragon Actions -> Paragon points, which in turn make you a more persuasive good guy. Presumably, you'll get a boost to your Paragon/Renegade score at the beginning of the game depending on the standing of your imported character.
I could also easily imagine some conversation paths not opening up unless you have the rep to back up your attitude, so it shouldn't be too big of a deal unless it's very restrictive.
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You got locked out of charm/intimidate conversation branches in ME1 if I remember right.
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Yeah, and as long as it's sensible I think it's pretty appropriate. If you've never been anything but a saint to people, I can understand why they don't really give you a chance to try to intimidate a guy Renegade style-- sure, they could just arbitrarily have you fail an intimidate check instead case or something, but let's be honest, a lot of people would just reload and do the conversation again in that case.
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So I just finished my Hardcore playthrough of the first game as a female Infiltrator. As much as I love Mass Effect, I don't think that I'm going to be able to stomach another 30-40 hour playthrough on my Soldier just to have a clear save with the level 60 flag on it for whatever minor bonus that gets over the one I'll get for being 59. So I'm probably done with the first game at this point.
Roll on, January 26th.
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Pfffft I got to 60 ages ago.
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I got to 60, I just don't have a clear save with a level 60 character. I ended playthrough 2 at 59 with about 30,000 experience to go, so I just booted up the character again and ran through Eden Prime real quick to unlock the achievement. I would have to go through the other 98% of the game to actually import a level 60 character, and I just don't think I have that in me after playing through the game twice with 100% completion since Christmas.
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Anyway, I intend to get the regular version of the game. I don't really like the frilly stuff they tack onto a game.
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Also, scans of the OXM review are here. (http://www.allgamesbeta.info/2010/01/first-mass-effect-2-review.html) Most of it was covered by the summary I transcribed earlier, but in case you want it in a longer form, there you go.
It is an exclusive review, so take the score with a grain of salt (of course). On the other hand, I heard a rumor that it's getting a perfect score from Edge as well, although that could be a lie for all I know.
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With the mainstream gaming press, unless an Event Game has obvious and glaring gameplay flaws, near-perfect or perfect scores are to be expected. 8.5/10 counts as a pan. Halo:ODST, for example, has a metacritic average of 83 yet is widely considered a failure. Famitsu reportedly gave FFXIII a 39/40 but the user reviews on Japan's Amazon affiliate (which is apparently a pretty good yardstick of street-level consensus) are split almost evenly the 5-star span (as of Jan. 8, 353 are five star reviews, 259 are one star reviews, and four, three, and two number 283, 229, and 268). At this point I'm skeptical whenever I don't read a breathless review of a major game.
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I don't know if ODST is widely considered a failure, it's just obvious that they padded out what was going to be an expansion into a 'full' game so they could charge 60 dollars for it. But hey, I'm not exactly in touch with the Halo fanbase so maybe you're right. And I've heard the opposite thing about Amazon Japan user reviews, to be honest. From what limited experience I've had with English-speaking Japanese gamers, I've been told that apparently high-profile games are almost always flooded with highly negative reviews from 2chan trolls just on principle. It happened with Dragon Quest 9 too, even though that game took the entire country by fucking storm when it came out.
That being said, I'm not trying to say that the OXM review proves anything one way or another. I just thought the details that it reveals would be interesting from a purely factual perspective.
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Yeah, honestly I'm getting a bit nervous by talk of a "weak central story". I was really hoping Bioware would step up their game like they did with the transition from BG to BG2.
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When has the middle of a trilogy offered a compelling and genuinely enjoyable central story? It's no mistake that The Empire Strikes Back is the darkest of the original Star Wars, because if there wasn't all that angst it would be a horribly boring "get-from-point-A-to-point-B" adventure. The terrible part about a trilogy format is that you have to play things very safe: you can't mire yourself in introducing the universe you created, and you're not allowed to concretely wrap anything up. If Mass Effect 2 managed to bump the formula, I'd be pretty damn surprised.
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Yeah there's definitely that whole thing. They kind of tipped their hand because god bless Bioware, their most devoted and ornery fans are the ones who care deeply about romances. When it was revealed that the ME1 squeezes were only tangentially related to the story of ME2 they had to pretty much make explicit that ME2 was more or less a scenic stopover in the journey towards what would be the resolution of ME1's intraparty narrative. To do less would invite widespread panic and suffering amongst the fan forums.
Plus there's the ME2 marketing buzzword, suicide mission. I don't doubt that the events of ME2 will be wrapped up in ME3 to some extent, but from the sound of it they're gearing up the player to burn off all the ME2 shit so they can start fresh on ME3. They've stopped just short of saying that all your party members are totally expendable. Which, to be honest, is quite refreshing. Ever since KOTOR Bioware's been so in love with their characters that many of them are forced to come with you whether you like them or not (though aside from Morrigan and Alistair, Dragon Age was pretty good about making recruiting optional).
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Technically, the only party members you had to recruit in ME1 were Kaidan, Ashley, and Liara, if I remember correctly. You could even leave Tali behind once you got the dirt on Saren from her, I think. And like Fraser said, the middle of the trilogy is often where things drag a bit. And from the way the OXM reads in the text, beyond just the bullet points, it sounds like the story ends well, it's just a slow burn. But that was honestly true of the first game as well: Virmire to the awesome fight up the Citadel Tower was by far the best part of Mass Effect.
And I'm pretty sure that Bioware has come out and said explicitly that the game can end with everyone on the team, including Shepard, dying. That's not how my Shepard rolls, though.
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moar magazine scans (http://www.allgamesbeta.info/2010/01/mass-effect-2_10.html)
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Why on earth does that article start by spoiling half the game?
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Because they hate their readers
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Are they ever going to announce the tenth recruitable party member?
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Everyone knows who it is, they just think they're keeping it secret.
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Legion?
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Nope. Legion wants to kill you. Or something.
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(Yes it is Legion come on, there's nine achievements for getting characters and then "obtain geth technology", Bioware is terrible at this)
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Well, it's complicated. How far did that go over my head?
I was watching those cheesy video diary type videos, and the facial animation is pretty damn good in some of them, Psychopath especially. Miranda goes deep into the uncanny valley, though. And so far all they've been saying is "I was made to kill", "I like to kill" or "I'm good at killing".
-
Bioware wouldn't waste an actual personality on a geth who wasn't at least nominally on your side.
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Tiny phrases are obnoxious to read.
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Well then tell them to get the spoiler tags to work then, miss can't-be-bothered-to-copy-paste
-
You can also just hit the quote button and read the text normally inside the size tags.
Also: two weeks left. Heard there was a leak of the PC version earlier today, but apparently it was fake.
-
Subject Zero: Fight For The Lost (http://youtube.com/watch?v=TqmyIta0peo)
Casey Hudson talks about ME 2 (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ces-10-mass-effect/60755)
Did he just hint at a Garrus or Tali romance?
-
It really can't be stressed enough how important romances are to Bioware's most fervent fanbase. The Bioboards are like QCD on an epic scale.
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I'm really disappointed in how heavily they seem to be hinting at a Tali romance. It would really bum me out if they compromise one of the fundamental characteristics of the quarians just because some creepy nerds want to virtu-bone the lizard girl.
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I remember seeing a comic where Shepard finally got with Tali, but she died a few minutes in because she can't survive without her suit.
-
I'm guessing the final panel is Shepard thinking "Totally worth it."
-
Maybe she had a thing for auto-erotic asphyxiation?
-
When this same topic came up in the SA threads, some interesting ideas came up that I hadn't previously considered. The serious one was if Bioware will use Tali as a platonic, nonsexual relationship rather than the standard one we've come to expect between the first game and Dragon Age. The joking but still intriguing one was if you go through all the trouble to get the suit off and it turns out that she's totally ugly. I don't expect that Bioware has the balls to do either of those things because that would royally piss off a lot of people, but I kind of wish they would try.
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I'm guessing the final panel is Shepard thinking "Totally worth it."
(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs46/f/2009/198/c/1/REAL_Tali_Love___Mass_Effect_by_MiGo_Go.jpg)
Sometimes I wish I wasn't so smart.
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Don't they need the suit because of their acclimation to the sterile environment of the flotilla? So if they were in a sterile environment and Shepherd went through a biocontaminant scrub-down, it should work, at least as far as Tali not dying, can't say and wouldn't want to speculate about the physical compatibility or physical attraction.
You know, when I saw the Miranda trailer, I thought she reminded me of someone. Now I see the VAs and I realize that it is because she is based off of the woman that plays Sarah on Chuck. And Adam Baldwin is in it too. It would probably count as a decline in his career, the way he has gone from being in a Kubrick film to being a supporting character in TV shows and doing bit parts voice acting in games, but it is still cool to see him in more stuff.
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Because nothing's sexier foreplay than a full-body decontamination scrub.
-
Hey, we all make sacrifices for those we love.
-
If all the brain energy that has gone into determining how and whether Tali and Shepard could make the beast with two backs had gone into something useful instead, we would have cured cancer by now.
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Back up, Alec Baldwin's in this game?
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Adam
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oh, right. bummer.
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Steam preorder is upppppp
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Soldier class is online (http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/60377/PC/Mass-Effect-2/Trailer/Soldier-Trailer) and zzzzzzzzzzzz
-
They really should have released Soldier first. Then it wouldn't look half as lame, being compared to all the videos that came out before it. :|
-
Agreed, particularly since having access to a variety of weapons usually amounts to jack squat in most games, and Mass Effect 1 was no exception. At the end of the day, you can only really fire one gun at a time and if one weapon outperforms the others what the hell is the point? They made all of the weapons effective enough to beat the game with, and ironically, the most common weapon type was probably the very best-- if you wanted to do maximum damage, nothing really topped a Renegade Infiltrator or Vanguard popping their Master Marksmen cooldowns and unloading on people with their pistols. That's one of the reasons I tend towards Infiltrators-- the sniper rifle is the only gun that does anything the pistol can't really do, and even then putting points into sniping was highly optional, since merely being a class that is proficient in sniper rifles was enough to cut down on the annoying reticule wobble and the right sniper rifle usually owned whatever it hit from a safe distance regardless of bonuses. Well, that and I wanted to roll with Wrex and Liara while still having some tech.
If anything, the clip worries me a li'l, since all being a soldier in ME1 meant was the ability to withstand ridiculous amounts of punishment even if you didn't really know what to do with your skill points. That's probably still the case, but that's obviously just speculation since they've hardly touched on that at all.
-
There's no light/medium/heavy armor segregation anymore, but they did spell out in the IGN article that accompanied that video that the soldier does have more health than any other class. There's nothing quite as broken as Immunity spam anymore, but they should still be able to take the most punishment.
-
I'm still going to roll Soldier.
-
That's because you're lame.
-
Ok, just finished the first one for the first time today (shut up I live in Australia, games are expensive). Straight up renegade solider class. Going to play through it again with a vanguard and see how fucking shit up with my mind works.
Seriously, can't wait for ME2 to come out.
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No, Jimmy, nooooo.
If you're starting a new biotic, go full adept. You can transfer over one of your soldier's weapon skills so there's no reason to go vanguard. Full biotic + assault rifle ftw.
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Adepts are a ton of fun, but only after you reach level 15 or so and can put a decent number of points in a couple powers. High level Throw, Lift, and Singularity are awesome, but at first you have very little armor and can only plink at dudes with the pistol after you use your powers at the beginning of a fight. The Assault Rifle talent will help that a bit, but not that much because early game ARs have really low accuracy.
So if you pick Adept, make sure you do as many sidequests as you can on the Citadel before leaving so you can hold your own better in combat.
-
Actually, yeah, you're right about the accuracy.
Maybe shotgun then. Then you pretty much just are a vanguard but with all of the biotic powers.
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Honestly, I'd rather give the Pistols skill to an Adept than the assault rifle or shotgun. It is the superior weapon type overall. Oh, wait, they already get it. : P
I'll admit it's a pain in the ass that's an unlockable though. Half the benefit of pistols is that they're so good early and the other half is based on the fact that the higher level Marksman abilities handily make up for the damage disadvantage just as the other weapon types finally become more practical. Having to put points into armor first kinda takes the shine off it.
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(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4651/capturejr.jpg)
This is Bioware's (EA's?) new policy I guess. Wonder if the DLC-exclusive party member is included in the 10 confirmed.
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Supposedly the day-1 DLC character is this guy
(http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1173/zaeedmessani580.jpg)
Zaeed Messan, a bounty hunter.
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That really looks like a real dude.
I am not so sure how I feel about this.
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The first male human party member. And he's ugly.
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Can't go making competition for a male Shepard. And if you're a female Shepard it basically forces alien sex or girl-on-girl.
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Guys, ok. I've realised what my problem was with this game. It's a shooter and I tried to play it on my xbox. I'm gonna give the first one another go on PC and see how I go, because basically some of these gameplay vids remind me of of the Jedi Knight series, minus the lightsabers but plus some cooler guns and abilities.
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That really looks like a real dude.
I am not so sure how I feel about this.
I thought it was shopped the way he looks so real
The first male human party member. And he's ugly.
Dude, what about the K-man? I know I let him die, but I still remember his name.
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No, Kaidan isn't a party member in Mass Effect 2, right?
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But Jacob is. I think he's actually the first party member.
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He looks like Jean-Claude Van Damme.
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I bought my own refurbished XBox 360 today. Now I will not have to fight with my brother about who gets to bring the XBox up to college with them. I predict my GPA will hit an all-time low this semester.
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Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey
(what's yr gamertag)
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Yo Ozy, I quoted you because you reminded me of a song I knew when I was 8.
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Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey
(what's yr gamertag)
I need to make one/buy a Live account. :| I'll let you know when I do, though.
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Man.
I will never understand people w/o XBL. Like, 33% of having an XBox is the Live stuff.
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I canceled mine cuz I don't have any games that I use it for. So the only advantage would be the demos a week early or whatever. Also, I didn't have enough money to renew it at the time.
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Well, I mean even just Silver. Gold is only useful for a subset of people (though if you take advantage of their Gold member XBLA sales as much as I do, it tends to pay for itself).
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the dlc-only character looks like howard dean, or maybe the one dude from mad tv pretending to be howard dean.
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He looks like Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Also, I never had Live before because I never really had games to use it for. I mostly play RPG's, so it's not even like I can play co-op or against people.
In other news (semi-unrelated), I found out that my brother deleted my Oblivion save file from the XBox we used to share. So now I have to start over again from scratch, once I get my new XBox. :-(
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Yeah, but but but but
DLC and showing off your e-peen. These are the defining characteristics of the current generation!
Also holy crap deleting an Oblivion save file is the worst thing you can do to a person. I would not be able to make myself go through it again. In fact, I didn't when I accidentally overwrote my 360 profile with a different version of it (long story), including nearly 75% of the Oblivion achievements. SO I had an endgame save, with everything done, except the 360 refused to acknowledge it.
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Yeah, I'm gonna end up getting a Live account for those exact reasons. I'm dead serious, actually (no sarcasm).
And my Oblivion save file had the main storyline done, fighters guild done, mages guild done, thieves guild done, and Dark Brotherhood half-completed. These all still show up in my achievements page thing (if I lost 500+ achievement points I would be PISSED).
I started an attempt to re-build my character, but it's tough. I don't know if I can get back to the same level as before. :cry:
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That didn't happen to me in Oblivion, but my friend accidentally overwrote my Fallout 3 save, which had the '100 locations found achievement'. So the next run-through I picked the perk that gives you all locations. Luckily this was before all of the DLC, so I did not have to repeat any of those.
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I guess the DLC character will be for free, or something along that line
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Yeah, it's probably going to be pack-in DLC like Shale in Dragon Age.
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Just to merge the XBLA convo into the thread's topic: All ME1 DLC is 40% off for Gold members this week. That means they're $3(240 points) each. If you don't have them, this is probably the time to buy.
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Slight spoilers (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-sci-mass-effect/60945?type=flv)
Ashely pops up.
Polish gameplay video (http://tvgry.pl/?ID=808)
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Slight spoilers (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-sci-mass-effect/60945?type=flv)
Shepard's face towards the where he talks with that human chick is completely insane.
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Why was The Game in that video? For like 3 seconds, even?
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Some intern was told to book people to talk about the game so naturally they got the Game HAW HAW
nah generally it's because when the Syfi channel wants to pimp something they want to make it look like it's not just important to pasty white dudes.
My favorite part was the inclusion of John Teti, the AV Club's game section guy, because the AV Club's game section is easily the worst thing about it.
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Just to merge the XBLA convo into the thread's topic: All ME1 DLC is 40% off for Gold members this week. That means they're $3(240 points) each. If you don't have them, this is probably the time to buy.
But isn't the only good one the first one?
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Yeah, the first one is the better one. The second one is good for XP and has a pretty kickass reward if you do it mid-game, though. Of course if you already have a 60 character you want to port of ME2 there's no reason to get either, really, unless they confirm DLC decisions also have an impact.
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Also holy crap deleting an Oblivion save file is the worst thing you can do to a person. I would not be able to make myself go through it again.
You are crazy.
I've played through the entire damn thing from the beginning like three times on 360. On purpose!
wait which one of us is crazy again
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on 360
You just answered your own question.
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I watched the Polish video, now I'm extra excited. If that's what typical side missions are like now, I'm more than happy with it, plus the new way you handle lock-picking and hacking is definitely cooler.
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Polish gameplay video (http://tvgry.pl/?ID=808)
Unless somebody switched your link, that's Mass Effect 1.
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Someone switched my link
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Here is another trailer (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/19/mass-effect-2-marketing-goes-full-tilt-with-flood-of-new-trailer/).
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Supposedly the day-1 DLC character is this guy
(http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1173/zaeedmessani580.jpg)
Zaeed Messan, a bounty hunter.
Yeah that's gonna be packaged in game
source (http://kotaku.com/5452099/mass-effect-2-is-latest-ea-game-to-sweeten-the-deal-for-original-purchasers)
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Is it just me or does he look a little bit like Arseface?
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iWXvPQkfaOA/SgyM4B1GxuI/AAAAAAAAAQA/4FoDW5_lu4I/s400/arseface.jpg)
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(http://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/def/624/def6248d-6736-47e7-b25b-110f6e75919c)
I kinda see what you mean.
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Supposedly the day-1 DLC character is this guy
*image*
Zaeed Messan, a bounty hunter.
Yeah that's gonna be packaged in game
source (http://kotaku.com/5452099/mass-effect-2-is-latest-ea-game-to-sweeten-the-deal-for-original-purchasers)
All's I see is confirmation of what I already posted.
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good for you
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Heyooo (http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/6228/mirandatits.png)
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Whoa.
Oh, Bioware has confirmed that the trilogy will not be the end of the Mass Effect universe (http://kotaku.com/5452971/bioware-there-will-be-more-mass-effect-after-trilogy-ends). Which it better goddamn not be. There's a lot of beautiful work put into making this universe and three games isn't enough.
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It will just be the last of Shepard.
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i'd say they should just make a full blown mmo, but besides the mechanics needing an overhaul, it'd probably be too much with swotor as well.
-
MMOs as currently constructed are kind of a shitty place to tell stories though, or at least big stories, at any rate. They're inherently social games and the second time people see content they have at real tendency to start giving things the full MST3K treatment over Ventrilo, since it's basically the only way to stay sane after the 30th wipe. If it happened in the mountains (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yBY-T2MDkU) or if your raid leader was a douche bag (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yBY-T2MDkU), someone might even build a shitty remix around it. Now, obviously, not all MMOs are built like WoW, but you'd be dealing with much of the same player base and as a whole they value results and planning over novelty and exploration-- there's exceptions, of course, but they're generally not the people you can expect to keep renewing week after week. If you really wan the fine degree of control needed to present an engrossing world or narrative, you're often just better served sticking with a single player experience.
-
Well, Bioware already stands at the precipice of challenging that idea and possibly constructing a truly magnificent MMO. I'm going to go ahead and consider SW:TOR a dry run for Mass Effect: The Fucking Awesome MMO Where You Bone Alien Chicks.
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It might be a good game, but would it be as good as if they had gone with a single model? I rather doubt it. Building an MMO that is playable as well as engrossing is bound to require compromises. Compartmentalizing it into a smaller experience might work, I suppose, but I rather wonder what the point would be other than to try and grab that subscription money.
-
How dare you question the ability of Bioware.
-
good points, alex. but wouldn't it be worth it to see bioware try? they already have the entire back story and world fleshed out. so it's just a matter of putting it into an mmo context. if swotor works out the way i have a good feeling it is going to, then they're going to have plenty of money and hands on practice to go looking for more with ... meo? wome? well, they'll prolly be able to come up with a better name than i can. =P
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I don't really like MMO's anyway, I doubt Bioware can change that.
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I don't really like MMO's anyway, I doubt Bioware can change that.
Same here. I'd rather have a real KOTOR 3 than The Old Republic any day.
On another subject: Launch trailer! (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect2workingtitle/video/6246724/mass-effect-2-launch-trailer) Warning in advance: hella spoilers.
Tali noooooooo
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good points, alex. but wouldn't it be worth it to see bioware try?
Honestly, I rather wish they wouldn't. I like World of Warcraft and all (Full disclosure: I'm a fairly accomplished raider), but it is a massive time and resource sink for Blizzard. It makes them a ton of money and I wish all of those guys the best, but I'd be lying to you if I said that I felt WoW was really worth not having any other Blizzard games come out for 6 years. A company like EA doesn't acquire Bioware and the Star Wars license with the hopes of creating a dinky li'l game, either, so I don't think I'm stepping out on a limb saying that SW:TOR is a WoW sized undertaking-- Bioware has stated themselves that the sheer amount of content writing has already dwarfed their other projects.
Basically, here's how I see it: If SW:TOR isn't a big success, I don't see them creating a Mass Effect MMORPGer. And if it is a big hit AND they do eventually look into a Mass Effect MMORPG? Well then, we're either talking about a serious time lapse between the SW:TOR and the MEMMO being released or else a company that is orders of magnitude bigger than what Bioware is now. Keep in mind that Blizzard has ballooned to over four thousand employees post-WoW. That's far bigger than Bioware, even if a huge portion of that number is "merely" tech support and customer service reps as opposed to developers. They'd have to become a different company in many ways and I'm not really sure that's conducive to them creating the games I love to see from them.
So, yes, in a vacuum, the Mass Effect MMO idea is interesting. But when reality rolls around I get leery.
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If The Old Republic succeeds, then making a Mass Effect MMO would be a bad idea because another sci-fi MMO would just cannibalize their own customers. That's why Blizzard's next MMO is supposedly 'very different' from WoW. If they can get people to keep paying for a game that's much easier to maintain, why make the new one?
And Bioware may be smaller than Blizzard, but they're still much bigger than the vast majority of game developers. There's over 500 people at Bioware these days, although admittedly only Austin is working on TOR and the others are on their single-player RPGs.
Also: Gamespot has pulled the launch trailer for some reason, but it's too late to stop the Internet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOoG06FP6E). In case you missed the last post, I will reiterate: this video has a lot of stuff that sensitive people would consider spoilers.
-
I'm betting thane will be a romance.
-
Well, Bioware already stands at the precipice of challenging that idea and possibly constructing a truly magnificent MMO.
bahaha
-
I'm betting thane will be a romance.
This is terrifying for me simply because of a certain Thane I know in real life.
-
Macbeth?
-
Nope. This man. (http://mcb.uconn.edu/fac.php?name=papkert)
Trust me, he's fucking creepy.
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Also: Gamespot has pulled the launch trailer for some reason, but it's too late to stop the Internet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOoG06FP6E). In case you missed the last post, I will reiterate: this video has a lot of stuff that sensitive people would consider spoilers.
Video got taken down already. Also, I can't believe no one has mentioned Illusive Man's eyes yet. Remind anyone else of Dune? No? Just me, then.
Is this it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2O-0-fQOOs
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FUCKING BAD ASS
-
I've got the shakes I want it so bad
-
Also: Gamespot has pulled the launch trailer for some reason, but it's too late to stop the Internet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOoG06FP6E). In case you missed the last post, I will reiterate: this video has a lot of stuff that sensitive people would consider spoilers.
Video got taken down already. Also, I can't believe no one has mentioned Illusive Man's eyes yet. Remind anyone else of Dune? No? Just me, then.
Is this it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2O-0-fQOOs
Yes, that's it.
And Thane is indeed a romance for female Shepards. There are three romance options for each gender, supposedly. We know about Subject Zero and Miranda for dudes, and Jacob and Thane for ladies, but Bioware is being cagey about the last ones for whatever reason.
-
Tali for both?
I have this mental image of shepard planting a big sloppy kiss on her face. Window wipers then come out.
-
Liara again?
-
don't think you can romance people who aren't in your squad.
-
GRUNT
MAKE IT SO BIOWARE
-
don't think you can romance people who aren't in your squad.
This isn't clear, but something Bioware did say explicitly is that they decided to not make any of the ME1 love interests squad members in ME2 specifically because they want them to survive until ME3 to 'culminate' that plot thread. Since supposedly anyone and everyone can die during the endgame of ME2, they couldn't do that.
What I'm really curious about is how cheating on your ME1 love interest in this game will affect ME3. I think it'd be really interesting (and gutsy, because it would piss a lot of people off) if they punished players for infidelity somehow.
-
I am now damning that I'm going to Albuquerque next weekend instead of this weekend.
Why?
My dad has ME2 as of today.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
-
You have a pretty cool dad.
-
Leak has hit for both platforms.
-
Yeah, there are live streams of the full game all over the place. Despite my best efforts, I've heard a handful of spoilers, but nothing major. Maybe I'll track down the list of non-spoiler impressions from the SA thread. Everybody who's watched the streams seems to love Mordin, for the record.
-
ME2 Podcast (http://www.giantbomb.com/podcast/)
-
Here are some impressions from the SA thread from people who already have the game or have been watching the live streams. Since most of them aren't playing the game themselves, it's mostly about cutscenes and dialogue stuff.
-The Background NPC Banter is flawless
-The voice acting is awesome and the jokes are actually funny
-The textures, physics, animation, and lighting are extremely improved
-Interrupts are pretty common
-Armor gets visually damaged if you make bad choices
-If you decide to wear a helmet, you're wearing it till you get back to the normandy
-Load times are longer but there are less of them, there are none on the galaxy map
-There isn't a health bar? and there is ammo, powers reset near instantly
-It seems like you now pick up codec entries, they are data discs you find around
-Combat feels like a shooter, its a lot less clunky and the guns feel like they have some kick, hard to explain but the feel of combat is a lot more engaging
-Level design is about the same, pretty linear
-In no oxygen areas you can shoot people's air supplies and yeah, they don't like it.
-When a class can use, say, heavy pistols and machine pistols, they each have their own slot so you can carry one of each to switch between.
-You need money for fuel, probes, upgrades, probably other stuff besides just gear.
-The normandy tells you what to do (I've located the explosives, you need to go left here to destroy the control panel.)
-It moves you right to important areas, like in ME1 the first time on the citadel you would have gone straight to the council rather than walking all the way there.
-There is a mission complete screen that tells your stats (think end of chapter in RE4)
-When you customize your armor you pick 2 textures, 1 pattern, and 2 colors.
-There is now a % bar above systems so you know if you found everything.
-You can run in and out of combat indefinitely, but its not as fast as ME1
-be careful what you hide behind because some cover can be destroyed
-heavy weapons are unbelievably powerful
-you can bounce your biotic powers off walls/the ground
I'm impatient and have poor self control, so I've been watching the streams. One thing i will say that has nothing to do with spoilers is how they've stepped up the body acting in this game.
Instead of just standing there and occasionally waving their arms, character move about and interact with the sets more. This is the next step of what they did in ME1 and really raises the bar for immersion and storytelling quality for every other RPG out there. I couldn't play Fallout 3 because after ME1 the characters felt like talking mannequins that just stood around. ME2 makes ME1 seem like fallout 3 in that regard. I hope they keep the same level of body acting for the sidequests, of which i have seen nothing so far.
I think they've managed to make the content so much prettier by cutting out a lot of the chaff. There's still a lot of content, but there's less 'wasted space' that's just filler where you don't 'do' anything.
The awkward 90 degree turn to exit a conversation and the confused jerky looking around movements are a thing of the past.
Conversations and body acting are so fluid, it's really nice. Characters will walk, sit, lean on benches, show a larger range of gestures.
In my opinion DA didn't really push the boundaries with conversation acting. ME2 definitely raises the Bar. It's the biggest improvement I've noticed.
It doesn't stream stuff at all in that way now so you won't have to worry about temporarily blurry textures.
Judging from the stream that was up, the load times themselves are fairly average and they didn't have a hard drive install.
The in-game transitions are faster than Dragon Age's. The initial load was a good length though.
the player went to bed just after he got grunt but I actually really like the Subject Zero character when I thought I'd hate her, she's only slightly like her preview's personality.
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Man, it is going to be so hard to wait the 3 months after release for someone to Lets Play this game. I hope it is the same guys that did the LP for the first one.
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5 fucking days to do a complete run-through and level my soldier up to 60. Goddammit.
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Not doing it. I'm sure there's enough content in the game to get me to max level so that extra skill point isn't worth the aggravation.
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This is probably the first time I've actually really wanted a game. Bought the first one a couple of weeks ago and nearly done my second play through (same character). I just need a little more money to get the pre order on Amazon :cry:
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If all goes well I'll be playing the game in about 2 hours. I'll give my non-spoiler thoughts afterwards.
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Space Hamster? (http://i48.tinypic.com/2qtby1e.jpg)
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It's not a reference, but this (http://img.waffleimages.com/8f49d6274007f2e8f343c41e455a8e3b7a858baf/1fornax.jpg) is pretty good too.
So John, is your dirty illegal download done yet? What's the deal?
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Definitive list of romances.
(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/8/89/Mirandanew.png/120px-Mirandanew.png)(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/6/6f/Subject_Zero_Character_Shot.png/120px-Subject_Zero_Character_Shot.png)(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/9/98/Kelly_Character_Shot.png/120px-Kelly_Character_Shot.png)(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/6/6c/Jacob_Character_Shot.png/120px-Jacob_Character_Shot.png)(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/a/af/Thane_Character_Shot.png/120px-Thane_Character_Shot.png)(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/3/3f/Tali.png/120px-Tali.png)
The Orange haired girl is Kelly Chambers, your administrative assistant Not Samara though, hmm
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Guess shep doesn't go for the milfs huh
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I've heard that the assistant is not actually romanceable, and that the third romance for ladies is Garrus.
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Kid von Pirate can tell us
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Is that Tali? I am so disappointed.
Also, I hope I can make Shepard gay.
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Unless there's romance options that we haven't heard about yet, they're all heterosexual. It's kind of disappointing to see them take a step back from the first game and Dragon Age, but what are you gonna do.
Anyway, Jordan was asking for it on Meebo, so here's a (reported) list of in-game bonuses for character imports:
Your Shepard will start at level 2 if your ME1 character was 40-49, level 3 if he/she was 51-59, and level 5 if he/she was 60.
10% bonus to Paragon or Renegade score from your corresponding score in ME1 (Note: I don't know whether you need to have fully maxed Paragon/Renegade to get this, or only the 75% achievements)
150,000 bonus starting credits if you had the Rich achievement on your save file.
10,000 bonus to each of the four minerals (Palladium, Iridium, Platinum, and Element Zero) if you've finished the collection sidequests in the first game.
That's all the gameplay-related stuff. Everything else relates to your character's actual choices.
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One thing I really like about ME2 is the recruitment angle and how it looks like you have less reason to just trust every potential squad mate that you come across. I always kind of felt like just leaving Kaiden and Ashley on the Normandy seemed kind of weird, considering they're both fellow Systems Alliance soldiers and all. Ditching one of 'em for the shady Krogan bounty hunter or Liara "I'm-a-bad-guy's-daughter" T'Soni seemed... odd. By contrast, if I have to choose between that wacky Subject Zero and Thane the creepy assassin, it'll seem like more of a coin flip situation than a no brainer choice thematically. Of course, that probably means I'll feel somewhat compelled to roll with Garrus and Tali, which kinda sucks, considering they have a bit of overlap in terms of abilities. Fuck, I almost sound like I give a shit about roleplaying or something.
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Eh, I'm probably going to roll with squad members who are most compatible with my character from both an alignment and skill standpoint, that's not that weird. The only problem that creates is that I'm trying like hell to find out what the skill sets for the teammates are without actually watching the streams myself. It's a pain in the ass, the SA thread is moving so fast I can't seem to get anyone who has the game early to pay attention. And it's not already on the wiki yet, which surprises me considering how absurdly comprehensive it usually is.
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Also, IGN review is up. (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/106/1062898p1.html) I assume that means that the online embargo has passed, so we'll probably see a bunch of them pretty soon.
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Yeah, alignment-skill does play into it somewhat, but to me that's a natural outgrowth of the going with what seems like it would make the most sense from a character perspective angle. Kind of like how you didn't see me trying to get any drow tail in BGII while playing a paladin. I mean, she was Neutral Evil, for chrissake! I probably should have just burned her myself if I was going to be a real stickler about it.
Anyway, I dearly hope there's a conversation path like this in ME2:
*Subject Zero does something insanely risky*
Shep: "Hey Garrus."
Garrus: "Shepard?"
Shep: "In retrospect, you weren't so bad."
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Per karmic law the pirated version of the game I have is very touchy. On my Windows 7 system it crashes just before facial construction. On my Vista system, it looks like it crashes about an hour and a half into the game. So I'll probably just have to wait for my preorder... or a different pirated version. One hopes the bugs are related to the hack job and not the game itself.
Anyway, hour and a half in and it's looking pretty good. I'm unhappy that you don't have much control over ME1 choices for new characters - I don't have any final saves on my PC and I'm not relishing grinding through ME1 several times to be able to experience all the variation, if there is indeed variation.
Combat's tightened up a lot, animation's better, and I've already had what looks like one dilemma, though I'm not sure at this point what consequences there will be for the choice. I'm actually guessing the outcome is going to be pretty much the same no matter what you do.
Also Miranda's VA is not all that good.
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Received my new XBox 360 and... three red lights. Hardware error.
Fffffffffffff--
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Also Miranda's VA is not all that good.
Ugh, that sucks. Something about Miranda already sorta bugs me to begin with, so that's not welcome news at all.
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VA?
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Voice artist.
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What's wrong with it then?
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It's just... I don't know. I don't like it. I don't think it's the accent.
If any of y'all are playing on the PC, make sure to have all your drivers up to date. Turns out a number of the bugs I've run into have been smoothed out by updating video drivers. Played for another couple of hours and it's turning out a lot like Dragon Age, as in you have looooooooooong missions. The combat is pretty fun though. I made a mistake choosing the Sentinel though - Charge isn't as useful as I hoped it would be.
Also if you're like me and you're burnt out on completionist ME runs, this website (http://www.annakie.com/me/home.htm) offers final saves of various Shepards having made various choices.
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Yeah, just from the intros I saw I immediately disliked Miranda's VA. I knew she was Australian from the get-go, and for some reason that plus her actual voice and the way she talked seemed like the wrong choice for what her character seemed to be in the intro.
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Yeah I think the thing might be that she doesn't pull off "intense" very well. And when you're playing a die-hard for a racial supremacist organization you need to pull it off.
Also from the looks of things the personal assistant might actually be a gay love interest. I doubt there's a male same-sex love interest - Bioware said after ME1 that the "desire amongst the fanbase" just wasn't there. I'm fairly certain that the only reason gae stuff was in DA was that David Gaider insisted upon it. Bless his heart, he believes in the worth of romances. ME, on the other hand, functions as little more than oblique porn for nerdy boys, as it comes only in the flavors that boys like - straight and lez.
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I got a hardware problem too, maybe you guys can come up with a solution:
I played my best play through on someone else's hard drive. I was WONDERING if I could start a game of Mass Effect two on THAT hard drive, put the save game on a memory card then continue to play on my own hard drive.
Anyone think that might work?
Edit: question pertains to the xbox 360.
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On a 360? That is a Question.
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I miss playing my loving, functional gay couple + child in The Sims.
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John, can you do me a solid and just post the goddamn skill sets for everyone you've recruited so far? The SA thread is fucking useless at this point, there's literally like 5 fucking pages about people arguing about the Tali romance.
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Skill Sets?
Well I've only played extensively with Miranda, Jacob and Garrus at this point. Miranda has Overload (I know) and Warp (I think). Jacob has Pull and Incendiary Rounds. Garrus has Concussive Shot and... something else. I think the Salarian has the freeze ability. All party members have a third skill that is unlocked when a higher degree of loyalty is attained. I'm two missions into the story and I have no idea how loyalty is tracked or if it has been tracked at all - there's no influence counter, which can be good or bad, depending on how it works out.
Combat is pretty good, as I said, and the rock / paper / scissors game with weapons / powers and enemy protection types keeps things somewhat interesting. Miranda is particularly valuable as her powers are useful against any potential armor type. Recharge time is greatly reduced - for a level 2 or 3 push it's about 2 seconds, but that's balanced out by the relatively small amount of damage it does on its own. I dropped my biotic soldier type for a adept/engineer hybrid (I can never remember class names) and it's working out a lot better. I lose out on the shotgun (which is actually hard to use given the considerably increased level size from ME1) but gain a significant degree of toughness.
One of the things that's strange about ME2 is the complete removal of an inventory system ala Jade Empire, though it works better here. What special ammo you can use is determined by your class (and as far as I know everybody outside of pure biotic gets at least one) and two missions in I've only had one weapon upgrade whose usefulness is debatable (power and accuracy +, clip size and ammo pool - - - ) I'm also annoyed by Bio's insistence on my character being in a romance - at least two characters have acted as though Shepard has been acting interested when I've been trying to avoid that. But that's Bioware for you.
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I got a hardware problem too, maybe you guys can come up with a solution:
I played my best play through on someone else's hard drive. I was WONDERING if I could start a game of Mass Effect two on THAT hard drive, put the save game on a memory card then continue to play on my own hard drive.
Anyone think that might work?
Edit: question pertains to the xbox 360.
I would've thought it'd be fine. So long as you use your own gamertag on both Xboxes.
I have a friend who changed hard drives and copied pretty much all his saves from one to the other, as far as I remember the only thing he couldn't copy was Rock Band DLC.
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Mordin is a pretty good singer (http://youtube.com/watch?v=SKgFBgJ8wbg)
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Skill Sets?
Well I've only played extensively with Miranda, Jacob and Garrus at this point. Miranda has Overload (I know) and Warp (I think). Jacob has Pull and Incendiary Rounds. Garrus has Concussive Shot and... something else. I think the Salarian has the freeze ability. All party members have a third skill that is unlocked when a higher degree of loyalty is attained. I'm two missions into the story and I have no idea how loyalty is tracked or if it has been tracked at all - there's no influence counter, which can be good or bad, depending on how it works out.
Combat is pretty good, as I said, and the rock / paper / scissors game with weapons / powers and enemy protection types keeps things somewhat interesting. Miranda is particularly valuable as her powers are useful against any potential armor type. Recharge time is greatly reduced - for a level 2 or 3 push it's about 2 seconds, but that's balanced out by the relatively small amount of damage it does on its own. I dropped my biotic soldier type for a adept/engineer hybrid (I can never remember class names) and it's working out a lot better. I lose out on the shotgun (which is actually hard to use given the considerably increased level size from ME1) but gain a significant degree of toughness.
One of the things that's strange about ME2 is the complete removal of an inventory system ala Jade Empire, though it works better here. What special ammo you can use is determined by your class (and as far as I know everybody outside of pure biotic gets at least one) and two missions in I've only had one weapon upgrade whose usefulness is debatable (power and accuracy +, clip size and ammo pool - - - ) I'm also annoyed by Bio's insistence on my character being in a romance - at least two characters have acted as though Shepard has been acting interested when I've been trying to avoid that. But that's Bioware for you.
I thought I read in an interview that squad mates had 4 skills with a 5th unlockable. Maybe they need to level up more, or what I saw was hearsay through somebody else, I can't remember anymore. Thanks anyway, though.
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Does it still have a film grain-y look? Replaying the first game has given me a real appreciation for that negligible aesthetic detail.
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Film grain is optional, as it was in ME1.
Maybe you're right, Brizzle Brozzle. I know one of their skills is their class skill (+ to health, cooldown, etc.) I'll check again today.
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(http://i49.tinypic.com/2lwvexc.jpg)
Fanserviccccce
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Pretty expensive for fan service, too.
Edit: Apparently it makes the sound effect from BG2 when you activate it in your quarters.
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Pretty expensive for fan service, too.
Edit: Apparently it makes the sound effect from BG2 when you activate it in your hind quarters.
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Hey. Hey.
Hey.
I did not actually say that.
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That is pretty great.
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Hey. Hey.
Hey.
I did not actually say that.
Dude it's right there in a quote.
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Yeah Bryan, quotes don't lie.
Jeeze.
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it would be funnier if you had to pay for that in real money
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I bet if they sold a miniature giant space hamster for your 360 Avatar that would make a shitload of money.
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Mordin might be my favorite character (http://youtube.com/watch?v=mAP92rvm1hQ)
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That's not all (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-HgVM6JSIY).
Yeah, at 9 or so hours in Mordin's the best character in the game so far.
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I'm also annoyed by Bio's insistence on my character being in a romance - at least two characters have acted as though Shepard has been acting interested when I've been trying to avoid that. But that's Bioware for you.
I guess that I don't necessarily mind the idea that an NPC might show some initiative on that end, really, but the way it's been handled in the past has always seemed a bit goofy to me. For example, I played through the prologue with both a male and female Shepard right away in the first game. I played the female Shep first, so I noted that Kaiden's body language seemed sort of conspicuous when you said everything wasn't his fault, but I didn't really think much of it. But when I got to the male Shepard? First off, just seeing her there instead of Kaiden was a real "Oh, I see where this is going" moment. Second, her body language was even more exaggerated, to the point where I think that if Servo was there he would have said something like "I think she just started spontaneously ovulating."
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People with Xboxes who like free shit, pay attention!
Thanks to good old fashioned sloppy database management by Microsoft, a ton of the day 1 ME2 DLC is on the Xbox Marketplace right now. Why is this important, you ask? Well... it includes shit that consumers shouldn't be able to download directly from the marketplace, like the preorder bonuses and the Dr. Pepper helmets. And it's all free! Just log in with your Live account through Xbox.com and add the items to your download queue, and your Xbox will automatically start downloading them the next time you turn it on. I not only got the Inferno armor, which I wouldn't be able to get normally, but the special Collector's Edition loot as well. Pretty minor stuff, all told, but you can't beat free so here it is:
Collector's Edition stuff (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf0004-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce)
Terminus Armor and Blackstorm Weapon (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf0006-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce) (Gamestop preorder stuff)
Inferno Armor (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf0007-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce) (preorder bonus for everywhere except Gamestop)
Sentry Interface (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf0008-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce), Umbra Visor (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf0009-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce), Recon Hood (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf000c-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce) (Dr. Pepper items)
Incsior Sniper Rifle (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf000a-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce) (This is, as far as I know, supposed to be exclusive to the Digital Deluxe version on PC, so all Xbox users should download this one)
Blood Dragon Armor (http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/games/offers/0ccf000b-0000-4000-8000-0000454108ce) (Bonus for buying Dragon Age: Origins)
You'd better move quick though, because I doubt this stuff will stay up for long. I got everything except the Gamestop preorder items and the Dragon Age armor, because I'm already getting those normally.
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This makes up for you saying "do me a solid" a few posts ago.
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I did your mother a solid last night.
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Seriously though, this is pretty cool.
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It is cool he did your mum a solid?
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She deserves a good turn now and again, yeah.
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Boo. They fixed it. It just tells me the items aren't available from the web.
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Dang, I'm not finding it on the Xbox Live Marketplace either.
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Apparently you can cuddle with all of your love interests. Hey thar Tali (http://cdn.solidfiles.net/i/BFnn.png)
Maybe there is a sex scene with tali, talking with people who torrented it and they aren't being clear.
Fox is gonna throw a shitfit just because if Kelly Chamber's cuddle moment
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My copy is finally shipping and should be here tomorrow. It's ridiculous how much I'm jonesin for this game right now.
I need hot alien dickings damnit.
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(http://www.facepunch.com/fp/emoot/monocle.gif) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ja3EjKOqTU#t)
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do not skip listening to the advertisements in game. they're freaking hilarious.
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Apparently you can cuddle with all of your love interests. Hey thar Tali (http://cdn.solidfiles.net/i/BFnn.png)
I'll admit, I mentally went "awww" when I saw that.
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Bryan, Is your gear still on your Xbox? I haven't checked, but I was debating with a friend whether it'd be there when I got home.
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Once you download it onto your hard drive, as far as I know there is literally no way for them to remove it. If you had it queued up through the xbox.com Marketplace and didn't turn on your Xbox to download it, they may have been able to remove it from the queue when they took everything down, I don't know how that works.
Edit: I just turned on my Xbox to verify, and yes, I still have all 6 items I downloaded on my hard drive. There were 9 in total, but I didn't download the Gamestop preorder stuff and the Dragon Age armor (because I'm already getting them), or the special ninth item that I didn't even link to because it's a spoiler and because it comes with the Cerberus Network so everyone who buys a new copy of the game should get it anyway.
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It's a bit before release now and before I get back to playing here are some good things and not so good things about the game as I'm probably about 80% through it now.
Pros:
- Combat is much improved. I've got to hand it to the lady who designed the system but it actually works pretty well, and the Soldier will probably turn out to be more useful than we all believed he would be - the weapons have relatively distinct strengths and drawbacks, and as far as I can tell only the assault rifle works against all types of defense. Direct damage powers (incinerate, throw, etc.) only have their intended effect when all defenses are destroyed and the enemy is left with only their health bar, but in the meantime they do some damage to defenses. Tech and Biotics both have powers specifically designed for reducing defenses as well.
- Pace. It's good, and varies a bit. As a whole it feels a lot more like KOTOR than ME, and that's good.
- Characters are all pretty well done, the adverts were always bullshit meant to draw in the Halo crowds. Subject Zero and especially Grunt are not nearly as ridiculous as they might seem initially. Mordin remains the best character.
- Exploring planets is now a bit better. You don't do any exploring of worlds ala ME1, instead you scour the planet using a sensor and send probes to collect resources. It's not bad, usually takes no more than a few minutes per planet. "Anomalies" that you investigate are relegated to approximately one planet per star system (there are several in a cluster) and in general these are about as robust as the side missions in ME1 which is to say they're usually boring.
- Jennifer Hale is great as Shepard. Meer is ehhh.
Cons:
- I'm disappointed by the "Loyalty" system. They played this part up a whole bunch but it really ends up just like any other Bioware game, wherein you go out and go on missions that are of personal interest to your squad and they get "loyal" when you complete them. It's not really bad, it's just a letdown since they made it seem like gaining trust would be, you know, hard. These side missions are actually quite robust otherwise, about as lengthy and involved as a core path mission.
- The inventory system's a letdown too. Maybe it's just the way Bioware's conditioned me, but it doesn't seem right somehow that I'm 80% through the game and I'm still using the submachine gun I started the game with. Far as I can tell there are three different variations per weapon type you can use (aside from heavy weapons, of which there are 5) and I'm tired of the machine pistol.
- No Lance Henriksen.
All in all this is probably the most consistently good game they've put out since Baldur's Gate II, and in my opinion it's much better than Dragon Age. I'm looking forward to ME3.
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I was worried about the lack of Lance Henriksen, since you're not working for the Alliance anymore, but hearing it confirmed is kind of a bummer.
And as far as the inventory goes, I think their goal there was to make the upgrades the important part, not just getting tons of loot where the vast majority of it is useless vendor trash. I would like if ME3 had more unique, specialized high-end loot like Dragon Age, though.
Also John, fire-based powers like Incinerate are effective against armor defenses, but not shields or barriers.
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I think you're projecting a bit with the Soldier. I know at least myself and Melodic planned on rolling soldier from the outset. And really, soldiers were never actually bad in Mass Effect 1, they just didn't do anything particularly flashy. Basically, you just ran around spamming Immunity while your class ability regenerated your health faster than you actually took damage. Crowd control abilities are pretty superfluous when incoming weapons fire basically just bounce off your rock hard abs. My only worry was that perhaps soldiers might be left out in the cold if they actually fixed the ability to never, ever die again.
Also, I always thought the Vanguard Charge ability looked like a flaming pile of shit. My money is on the Infiltrator of once again taking the crown of most secretly effective class, since yeah, Incinerate nukes armor and they have Disruptor ammo for shields AND a cloaking device. It's just too bad that I won't be able to load up a sniper rifle with explosive ammunition anymore and turning it into AoE 1 shot cannon of doom.
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I tried Infiltrator, thought it was kind of shit. The Sentinel is whooping ass, though.
And this is not really spoiler-y, but at a certain point you can use 2500 Eezo (Element Zero) to respec your skills and 5000 Eezo to gain one of the "special abilities" your teammates gain when they become loyal. You can have up to two extra skills.
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Oh, I thought it was only one, that's interesting. Some of those sound interesting, I especially like the sound of Miranda's. You can't max out all of your skills on a character though, there just aren't enough skill points. Maybe if they release DLC that raises the level cap or give you more skill points, but even if they do it'll have to be pretty substantial to max out all your skills.
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Oh huh apparently you can only have one extra skill :[
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Damn, then I'm gonna have to choose between Jacob's and Miranda's.
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The amount of junk I have piled up in Dragon age and Mass Effect is ridiculous. The changes to the inventory sound good.
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John, you wouldn't happen to remember where to find the second shotgun, would you? According to the SA thread the default one isn't very good, so I want to look for an upgrade as soon as I can.
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http://www.masseffect2faces.com/
If you think your character is ugly and don't want to go through the effort of remaking him/her.
Or if you want your shepard to look like a certain celebrity.
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Guys, there isn't a Neil Patrick Harris Shepard yet.
We can do this.
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the mass effect forums will have him
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John, you wouldn't happen to remember where to find the second shotgun, would you? According to the SA thread the default one isn't very good, so I want to look for an upgrade as soon as I can.
Well I don't know if this is a spoiler (all ye opposed to weapons placement info turn back hence) but the few weapon upgrades I do remember are from recruitment missions. The Salarian = heavy pistol and Garrus = assault rifle, I think the shotgun might be in the second "round" of recruitments. I got mine after I picked up Grunt.
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I am rather disappointed we don't get a shit-ton of upgrades and guns. Laaaaaaaame.
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in my head, the expectation that this game is going to be truly epic best game i've ever played has built to something pretty fierce.
now that i've played it, it even exceeded those expectations.
also, destructoid (http://www.destructoid.com/review-mass-effect-2-161584.phtml) agrees with me.
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OK, taking a quick break to type up some impressions and eat some cereal. I'm almost done with the first batch of recruits, I'm just landing on Purgatory right now to get Subject Zero.
On the most basic level: the two main parts of Mass Effect, shooting and dialogue, are much improved in this game. The reviews aren't lying, you really need to use cover in this game or enemies can take you down quick. The characters feel a lot less wooden, direction in the cutscenes is vastly improved, and the incidental dialogue is much, much better. I'm surprised at how many minor quest characters from ME1 have shown up considering how early I am in the game. I'm also happy to see that the celebrity voices aren't phoning it in. I was really impressed by Carrie-Anne Moss's character in particular, and Martin Sheen (from what little I've heard of him so far) is good too.
Grunt comes off much, much better in game than he did in the trailers, and I can already see why Mordin is the fan favorite. I think Jacob and Miranda are stronger characters than Kaidan and Ashley too.
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Picked the game up literally twenty minutes ago at the shop. I still have four hours of work to get through before I can play. Then I have to drive home and probably render my girlfriend unconscious. I may not get to play for long tonight!
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and probably render my girlfriend unconscious
He is truly the best love-maker in the world.
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GOD DAMNIT, WHERE'S MY FREE CHARACTER. I DEMAND I HAVE HIM NOW!!!
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On the side mission front specifically, the improved pacing means the MAKO is eliminated. Once a planet is scanned and a landing zone is found, you'll go to the desired location and resolve conflicts on foot. These diversions are brilliant -- each one (of many) brings something new to the game and does something with a subtle piece of the Mass Effect fiction.
I don't know what she played, but found side missions in this game are functionally identical to ME1 side missions, right down to everything being conveyed via datapad text. It's really just one step above procedurally generated content.
The lack of EXP from enemies remains a sore spot with me
guuuuh
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Translation: Why no grinding?!
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whoops I accidentally bought this game on my lunch break when I went to Best Buy to pick up Moon. I also bought The Prestige because I love that movie and it was $10.
peace out, money!
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Look at the back of Garrus's armor when you get him.
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The lack of EXP from enemies remains a sore spot with me
guuuuh
I know I already commented on this, but it still makes me wonder why some people have a job reviewing games and I don't. Mass Effect isn't WoW. There isn't a minimum requirement to use most gear-- hell, it doesn't even sound like there's much gear to speak of in the first place! Nobody locks you out of content for being level 28 instead of 80. I wasn't even all that terribly aware of what level I was while playing through the first game, to be honest. I just spent my skillpoints as they came and hitpoints accrued as I leveled automatically anyway. At no point did I think "Whoa, I better not go there; that place is dangerous," so it cannot be said that experience level was ever intended to factor into your thinking or otherwise try and figure out whether you are tough enough to meet a challenge. There's no reason why leveling or grinding experience should be really supported in Mass Effect because leveling manifestly wasn't a very large part of the experience to begin with.
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I wish you could go down a list and choose the outcome of events when making a new character.
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Yeah, Penny Arcade wasn't the best place to accidentally release bad information.
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I'll be honest; I didn't really read much about the game other than here and I just skimmed most of it. Additionally, I don't actually remember much of the original other than driving the Mako up mountains. These are a few things I found myself asking while playing it last night:
Why isn't there an inventory screen? Why does the first new pistol mention in its description that it is an upgrade over your original pistol? I feel like I should be comparing numbers and spending an hour at a merchant between missions. The only thing anyone drops are clips? Where are my tons of useless items that I can try to cram into my pockets to sell later? Does armor protect you or is it just for looks? Even the stupid preorder armor just augments your skills. Where is my downloadable character and the stupid preorder weapon?
I may be acting in haste, but it seems like they set out to make Gears of War: The Novel: The Game.
Keep in mind that I have only played for around 4 hours.
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I'd rather play Gears of War: The Novel: The Game than have all that vendor trash clogging up my inventory again. As Sid Meier once said, a video game should be designed as a series of interesting decisions-- if you are given a choice between "obviously better" or "obviously worse," then it can hardly be called an interesting decision. Mass Effect's inventory system didn't really provide interesting decisions, it just gave you a bunch of shit to sell and perhaps one or two items every hour or so that were marginally (but obviously) better than your last item. Like with most RPGs, it was really just busy work. I never even bought and used any weapons or armor in ME1 until I got access to spectre gear, and I never even died on my first play through.
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Yeah, I'm quite fond of the fact they ditched the inventory entirely. I mean, all it really did was bitch at me that my inventory was full in ME1 and I can't recall the last RPG that I played that 99% of the loots you get wasn't trash anyways.
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Inventories really are almost purely vestigial these days. There was a place for RPG loot back in the day, since games like the original Dragon Quest were all about inventory management and risk assessment-- game play boiled down to realizing when you needed to leg it back to town. Getting a hold of the fanciest broadsword available was like getting a passport to new lands since you could finally then take on the nastier regions that would have beaten you down like a bad monkey. It really had very little to do with blasting geth with a mass accelerator.
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Does armor protect you or is it just for looks?
The different pieces of armor offer different bonuses, on top of being used to customize your look. In the case of the DLC suits, it's just one big piece, though, so you can't customize it.
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I'm having a ton of fun with the Sentinel for my Paragon player, but I'm sorely tempted to use my Renegade Soldier (which the soldier I think is actually a lot more fun this time around) and go the mantra of "What Would Clint Eastwood Do?".
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I bought space porn advertising something called 'Krogasms'.
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Oh yeah, it's also a hell of a lot of fun, as a female, making Jacob uncomfortable with flirting.
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so I was 99.999% sure that I deleted my ME1 save data a while back but sure enough, when I popped this bad boy in, I went to check just in case...and it was still there! Level 50 Earthborn, Sole-survivor Sentintel Paragon.
Hellloooo, free money and experience points I wasn't expecting.
So far I've only probed and mined a couple planets, and I've just recruited Archangel (hehe). I've spent about four hours on the game so far, about 1.5 of which was spent reading codex entries. here we go again.
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Yeah. I spent a good 30 minutes this morning telling Miranda that she should have better self-esteem. The downside is that I won't have another chance to play until Saturday. I will probably not check this thread again for a while.
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Got it yesterday. Only had a chance to play through Freedom's Reach, but so far it's been awesome.
Of course my roommate's sister is crashing in our living room, so I probably won't get a chance to play again for another day or two.
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Fuck I don't even need to be at school right now.
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Hey guys, help me decide: Mass Effect 2 download from direct2drive plus Inferno Armor or disc from play.com plus Terminus Assault Armor? They're both the same price, not sure which one to get...
Just did Bring Down the Sky for Mass Effect. Looking forward to come across that Batarian again. Although I expected that final decision to be more dramatic. I thought the asteroid was going to hit if you weren't gonna let that guy go. That'd give you a substantial amount of Renegade points, methinks.
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Just pick whichever one you're okay with looking at in cut scenes, the bonuses on the Blood Dragon and Terminus armor were pretty much the same. I imagine the Inferno armor is the same deal.
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Some of Shepherd's dialogue is written in such a way that, when coupled with the male voice actor's reading, makes him sound fucking retarded.
[minor spoilers]
EDI: "This ship is twice the size of the first one, so it needs a shuttle which is stored here."
Shepherd (defensively): "My old ship didn't need a shuttle."
EDI: "This ship is twice the size of the original."
Shepherd: "Derp. Despite being a hugely successful space captain, I don't know shit, apparently."
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Yeah Mark Meer is just... eh. I don't usually play as female characters in RPGs, exceptions being in games where gameplay is quite different between genders ala Fallout 2, but Jennifer Hale is just so clearly superior to Mark Meer. It just kind of sucks.
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I'll have to play as a chick next time then.
Plus, I'd get to bone Garrus which is, like, totally awesome because he's, like, so darn dreamy teehee.
like
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I've got the Blood Dragon Armor - shit, I'm never going to get around to playing Dragon Age like this - as for the others, the Inferno Armor looks best. I'm just gonna get it from Direct2drive, it's more convenient to download it and I like being able to use paypal.
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The Terminus armor package comes with a heavy weapon too, don't forget.
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I thought only Gamestop got the heavy weapon? I don't see it mentioned on play.com. Oh wait, the wiki says it's there. I think I'd rather download it, anyway.
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i lurve this game :3
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Ditto what you said...I've spent literally half the time I've been awake since its release playing it.
SO FUCKING GOOD
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So the heavy weapon you're supposed to get with the terminus armor... Why didn't it just get delivered to me like the effing armor did?
I really need to stop reading this thread before I ruin shit for myself.
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dude that Carnifax Handcannon thing is freaking awesome. Not sure if that's the actual name, but it's something like that.
it makes heads disappear.
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Not reading the earlier part of this thread in case there are spoilers but oh my goodness this game is great. I was skeptical about the dumbing down of the combat system at first, but some of the scripted encounters are tight.
Given that we don't have spoiler tags and tiny text is annoying, does it make sense to start a spoiler thread and keep this one spoiler free?
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Even starting a spoiler thread would maybe be a little dicey, because I'm pretty sure John and I are much further than everyone else, so what we've seen is probably spoilers for everyone else.
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I don't really see the problem with tiny text. it's really easy to hit "Quote" or to just zoom in a bit (if it's not too small).
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Literally every facet of Mass Effect 1 has been improved in some way. This is, without a doubt, the most polished sequel I have ever played, and it fixes every single problem with the original. It is the Perfect Game.
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Man, I keep reading opinons that the RPG has been taken out of ME2 and I do not understand this opinion. It is the most ridiculous opinion in fact.
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Yeah the RPG element is definitely still there but different. Micromanagement ME1 style for 10 dudes would have been... unwieldy.
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Yeah, it seems like they've just made the choices actually, you know, affect how you go about your business a little bit as opposed to just making your gun hit hard enough that you don't lose the arms race and hence the game. Making it so that you're no longer just swapping from the 120 dps Assault Rifle to the one that does 140 dps isn't removing the RPG elements from the game, it's just cutting out busywork. The dialogue and character advancement is still there.
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The Normandy has real leather!
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Also my fish died on me. I think the hamster had something to do with it.
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The Normandy has real leather!
It's Cerberus, dude. The leather is probably made out of babies. By the way, if it turns out at the end that every time the Illusive Man says "Would you please" you have to obey his command because of implants, I am getting my money back for the game.
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For the record, my favorite parts of the game so far are Samara and Tali's loyalty missions. Samara's has a concept that I admit was making me roll my eyes a little at first, but they executed it really well and the end of it is especially good.
Doing Subject Zero's loyalty mission now, then I just have to do Zaeed's and look for more N7 missions before going to what I understand is this game's equivalent of Virmire. If you guys want to know for sure where the point of no return is, check the tiny text.
It's the derelict Reaper where you go to get the IFF. Apparently you can still do side missions after that before going through the Omega 4 Relay, but if you do that will have... consequences.
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I thought I would hate grunt but I was wrong.
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yeah, dudes pretty chill
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For the record, my favorite parts of the game so far are Samara and Tali's loyalty missions. Samara's has a concept that I admit was making me roll my eyes a little at first, but they executed it really well and the end of it is especially good.
Doing Subject Zero's loyalty mission now, then I just have to do Zaeed's and look for more N7 missions before going to what I understand is this game's equivalent of Virmire. If you guys want to know for sure where the point of no return is, check the tiny text.
It's the derelict Reaper where you go to get the IFF. Apparently you can still do side missions after that before going through the Omega 4 Relay, but if you do that will have... consequences.
Note that you can't run with Legion AT ALL if you want to avoid said consequences. It might be the only straight-up dilemma in the game, considering what you barely avert if you do happen to go through Legion's loyalty mission.
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Also hey I was disappointed in the soundtrack as well, there was not a single song that I can remember (well actually that's a lie - the Freedom's Progress / side mission music is very reminiscent of the Alien Soundtrack) aside from holdovers from ME1. So I've just put Autechre's Amber on repeat and it works smashingly (one of the benefits of playing on PC - the "borderless window" mode allows for seamless alt-tabbing and multitasking)
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just finished 2nd run through. each with my characters from me1. first was paragon. hit maybe 30% of the systems out there. but did all the loyalty missions. lost 3 members in the suicide mission.
second was renegade. i didn't upgrade anything, no loyalty missions, and didn't keep the 'geth technology.' it was kinda sad near the end when i was giving the hold the line speech and only garrus was left to do so by himself.
now i am going to go through with the paragon character shooting for 100% completion and everyone surviving.
this game is seriously everything that it needed to be and even more still. me3 has big shoes to fill but i can't wait to see it.
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I'm gonna stop reading this thread until I finish it.
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Oh shit pretty stoned right now and using the garbage compactor is awesomely fun.
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This conversation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRf_bfVWQuw) makes me wish the game had more spontaneous party banter like Dragon Age. Hopefully that's something they'll add in ME3, although considering the absurd amount of voiceover they already have in these games maybe that's just wishful thinking.
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Yeah the RPG element is definitely still there but different. Micromanagement ME1 style for 10 dudes would have been... unwieldy.
Wait, what, you play with all the ten guys at once?
I've got to get around to finishing Dragon Age so I can get this.
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Oh shit pretty stoned right now and using the garbage compactor is awesomely fun.
This pretty much sums up my night last night. Ejecting garbage into space + wandering around the Citadel. Some of the random citizen conversations are amazing. In the store that sells fish, there is a really great dialogue between an Asari and Turian that are dating; I'd type it up but it's too good, you just have to hear it.
Also, advertisement spoilers, i guess?:
"Commander Shepard, you've recently been dead, don't you DESERVE Such-and-Such Burial Shrouds? They are made of only the highest quality silk, for your comfort!"
Something like that. It made me laugh.
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Wait, what, you play with all the ten guys at once?
No, it's still 3 at a time, but they are mostly different enough so that it makes sense to swap them in and out to optimize your team for a given mission. Although I have to say, on Veteran difficulty I haven't had much issues running with just Mordin and Miranda for the non-loyalty missions.
Has anyone started a playthrough on the two hardest difficulties yet?
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I'm doing my first playthrough on the most difficult setting. It's extremely frustrating sometimes, but ultimately really rewarding, and I think the rock-paper-scissors dynamic works better on the more challenging levels because almost every enemy has either armor, shielding or biotic barriers.
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I may or may not do an insanity playthrough with my Infiltrator when I import her, or I may wait until NG+. I should finish the game for the first time tonight, I've been really meticulous about sidequests so it's taken me longer than most people.
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pshh you're probably lightyears ahead of me. I got it on release and I've only recruited two people so far and done a small handful of sidemissions.
I intend to explore and exploit every inch of every planet, and do all the sidequests, before I finish it. It's a compulsion.
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Unfortunately my first Shepard can't be brought over, but the Infiltrator I finished a day before it came out is doing just fine.
I can't be the only one that doesn't like the new ammo based weapons. I'm stuck using the SMG because I run out of ammo way to fast, and usually it's against enemies with rocket launchers. So far I like everything else though.
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I actually much prefer the ammo based system now. It makes the combat feel much better in my opinion.
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I just started playing, and yeah, I must say, it feels a li'l less dopey than the old ways. Scram rails and explosive rounds in a sniper rifle made you into a one shot machine, for example. Why worry about overheating if one shot can kill multiple people at once?
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Or you could go the other way and use snowblind rounds in the SPECTRE assault rifle so that it never overheated. Most sandbox type games have very lopsided difficulty curves with easy endings if you use a gamebreaking combo or if you were just scrupulous with upgrades. I find that the best approach is the one taken by most JRPGs with additional bosses harder than the final boss, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be very popular in American games.
Cain is a ridiculous though. I'm not sure if I like having a weapon that takes some bosses out in one shot at the cost of all your heavy weapon ammo.
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Yeah, having the Cain made the end boss kind of anti-climactic.
I just finished it, by the way. Even managed to keep all my people alive, and for the record I had the time to get the last party member and do the associated loyalty mission too. I just didn't have time to do literally anything else, so make sure you do everything you want before that set piece I mentioned in tiny text a few posts ago. The end choice is interesting and is arguably tougher than any of the choices you had to make in ME1.
Ended up going the Paragon way and blowing the base. Telling the Illusive Man to fuck off and then having Miranda back me up was sooo satisfying.
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The thing you have to remember is that for non-soldier classes, the weapons are meant primarily as de-buffing tools to soften up targets before hitting them with the real goods, your class powers. That's why all classes get the SMG and heavy pistol - the latter breaks down armor quickly, the former shields and barriers.
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Yeah, having the Cain made the end boss kind of anti-climactic.
I just finished it, by the way. Even managed to keep all my people alive, and for the record I had the time to get the last party member and do the associated loyalty mission too. I just didn't have time to do literally anything else, so make sure you do everything you want before that set piece I mentioned in tiny text a few posts ago. The end choice is interesting and is arguably tougher than any of the choices you had to make in ME1.
Ended up going the Paragon way and blowing the base. Telling the Illusive Man to fuck off and then having Miranda back me up was sooo satisfying.
I could've sworn it wasn't just me, but at the point right before they reveal the Human Reaper (which in itself was kind of goofy, but might offer some insight down the road as to how the synthetic race of the Reaper came about) there's a shot of the ceiling of the chamber and I swear to God there's like a crack in the ceiling that's a TV screen and you can actually see the Illusive Man for a brief instance through it. When I saw that I thought "he's behind it all" and so I fucked him. Did anybody else see that or was it some bizarre glitch?
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Yeah, having the Cain made the end boss kind of anti-climactic.
I just finished it, by the way. Even managed to keep all my people alive, and for the record I had the time to get the last party member and do the associated loyalty mission too. I just didn't have time to do literally anything else, so make sure you do everything you want before that set piece I mentioned in tiny text a few posts ago. The end choice is interesting and is arguably tougher than any of the choices you had to make in ME1.
Ended up going the Paragon way and blowing the base. Telling the Illusive Man to fuck off and then having Miranda back me up was sooo satisfying.
I could've sworn it wasn't just me, but at the point right before they reveal the Human Reaper (which in itself was kind of goofy, but might offer some insight down the road as to how the synthetic race of the Reaper came about) there's a shot of the ceiling of the chamber and I swear to God there's like a crack in the ceiling that's a TV screen and you can actually see the Illusive Man for a brief instance through it. When I saw that I thought "he's behind it all" and so I fucked him. Did anybody else see that or was it some bizarre glitch?
I agree that the human Reaper is a little weird, but it at least gives context as to why the Reapers have the cycle of extinction. I didn't notice that ceiling thing you described, but the Illusive Man plays fast and loose with your life enough during the course of the game that I didn't feel like leaving Cerberus was out of character, especially as a Paragon. The revelation of how the Reapers reproduce makes me wonder what the race that Sovereign and the other Reapers are modeled on was like. Maybe some sort of proto-hanar.
Maybe we should make a spoiler thread soon. I suspect enough people will finish the game in the next few days to make it worthwhile. My save file ended up being just short of 40 hours, but as far as I know that was 100% completion.
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Insincere endorsement: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the voice of elcor.
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Insincere endorsement: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the voice of elcor.
that one's my favorite that i've heard so far.
also, insanity is really hard at level 3 when you don't have any cool abilities yet.
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God dammit, i'm broke and my pc's power supply just died and now I"m stuck on a shitty laptop that couldn't run this game if the fate of the universe depended on it. Best case scenario is that it's just the power supply that has issues. FML.
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Insincere endorsement: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the voice of elcor.
that one's my favorite that i've heard so far.
My favorite is the one for the energy drink. Something along the lines of:
"I knew a guy who went three days without this energy drink. He got hit by a shuttle!"
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If you go to Uranus you can launch a probe on it. The difference being EDI will say "Probing Uranus"
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WHO DESIGNED THIS PLANET SCANNING BULLSHIT
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Miranda's ship upgrade increases the speed of the cursor. Overall I find it 9x better than ME1's planet exploration system.
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It's a little tedious, and it's definitely the weakest part of the game, but it didn't bother me too much. I would just throw on a podcast and then do a bunch of them at once.
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I can think of two reasons why they did it that way. They learned from WoW that gamers will do tedious shit in a game that you couldn't pay them to do in real life. And they really enjoy fucking with OCD gamers who will now spend a hundred hours scanning every planet to "Depleted", sort of like the guy who put a bonus in Braid you can only get if you wait 8-12 hours (depending on your system). Sick bastards.
One of the things I am loving about this game is the degree to which the writers have incorporated responses to fan culture generated by ME1 into the game. For instance the discussion between the Quarian and Turian in the bar on Ilium regarding the human she dated who was all "Oh I wonder what she looks like under the helmet" and tried to convince her to "go natural." "Then I had to explain about cross-species fluid transfer and it totally ruined the mood."
Also, Miranda's frustration with the elevator going too slowly in her loyalty mission. Brilliant.
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Miranda's ship upgrade increases the speed of the cursor. Overall I find it 9x better than ME1's planet exploration system.
I don't understand why cursor speed is important when it still moves at the same speed when you're scanning. Is there an easy way to scan planets? Really?
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No it increases the scanning speed to just shy of normal speed, if not normal speed.
One of the things I am loving about this game is the degree to which the writers have incorporated responses to fan culture generated by ME1 into the game. For instance the discussion between the Quarian and Turian in the bar on Ilium regarding the human she dated who was all "Oh I wonder what she looks like under the helmet" and tried to convince her to "go natural." "Then I had to explain about cross-species fluid transfer and it totally ruined the mood."
You love that? It tends to peeve me, because I've been to the Bioboards many a time and let me tell you, any and all popular culture-related forums exhibit a pattern, wherein you have a vast sea of mouthbreathing idiots and creepers, and an island of reasonable people more or less unaffiliated with the rest (see: QCD vs. the rest of this forum) only the Bioboards doesn't have that enclave, it's just a massive, wretched hive of scum and villainy. And being as intimately acquainted with that crowd as I am, it's worrying how plugged in Bioware is to that fanbase. The ever-growing emphasis on "tasteful romance" is an example - Do you realize how much griping there was that you couldn't fuck Tali in ME1? Remember that quote from a QCD guy imagining what the nipples of the QC characters looked like? Yeah, there was a lot of that, but for aliens. I didn't think Bioware would placate those people. But they did. I don't give them credit for that overheard jab, because they're more than happy to give those people exactly what they want.
I don't think Bioware would ever go full-on CD Projekt (I hope) but that's certainly the ideal for a sizable portion of the gaming public - turning the fucking of hot-to-trot women in the gameworld into a minigame. They've already taken the first step by making a non-party NPC into a love interest.
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I take your point but writ large responsive game designers make for better games. The elevators are a good example. Slow elevators were annoying. Gamers complained. Slow elevators were removed. Sounds elementary, and it is, but look at all the game designers who produce a hit and then turn the cash machine back on for the sequel with new skins and missions but ignoring all the feedback.
Planet exploration is another example. Personally I didn't mind the Mako that much (I never really got tired of falling off really, really tall mountains), but you were basically doing the same thing about 200 times and that thing was fairly time consuming. The new resource gathering is no less boring but it's faster. It's a damned shame they didn't put in a minigame like the hacking minigames in ME1 and ME2 -- I'm not sure what the thinking was on that.
On the subject of planet exploration, having tried a few different methods I find the fastest way is to put a probe at the far right on top, drag the cursor back and forth over the available surface from top to bottom, then once you're done, turn the globe until the reference probe is now on the far left and repeat. With a little practice you can get a rich planet down to poor or depleted in about a minute and a half fairly consistently. If someone has an easier method, I'm interested to hear it.
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Sure, but there's a fairly distinct line between a fan's ideas of how nuts-and-bolts gameplay can be improved that can go into a sequel (Planet exploration and load times from ME1 to ME2, level scaling from Oblivion to Fallout 3) and a fan's ideas of what game content should actually be (Moar tits plz) The latter tends to serve the game, the former can but often doesn't. the touchups to gameplay from ME1 to ME2 were about perfect, but the alien romances were a little odd, logically and logistically.
As for planet scanning, I never really found myself lacking when I needed a resource - usually between missions I would go around and scan one system, taking 5-10 minutes and that would be about enough for all the upgrades I needed at that point. In ME1 the achievements provided gameplay incentives that made me much more completionist in that regard than I usually am (they could've managed them a lot better though - resource collection and companion achievements were very, very easy to fuck up irreversibly) but I'm not even sure ME2 keeps track of how much resources are left in a system vis a vis achievements. Exploring a system only involves going into orbit around all the solar bodies, not scanning them.
Also, starting the game with resource bonuses from previous playthroughs greatly alleviates the need to go out of primary star systems to find Element Zero.
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Yeah the only resource I've really found lacking is Element Zero because I would have liked to switch around my bonus ability on Shepard a bit more for fun. On the other hand, although I haven't found many anomaly missions the ones I did find were very well executed.
The alien romances are fan service to a certain extent, but I think the designers' attitude is essentially "if you don't like it and don't think it fits the character, don't do it." It's not like you need to bang an alien to kill a Reaper (so far, don't tell me if you do). On the other hand, for obvious reasons, I'm going to be annoyed if there is a Samara romance (again, don't tell me please).
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Care to explain your scanning system more? Because what I've been doing is dragging the scanner across the x-axis of the planet, only "scanning" once every second or so. Once I get back to my start point, I move it up or down and do it again. And it takes 5 fucking minutes.
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I usually just go along the Y axis, the X axis is harder to gauge and thus easier to encounter blind spots. I just go up and down and investigate any spikes in the reading. Individual planets rarely take more than a few minutes. It helps to ignore minor spikes and look for big deposits.
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Did anyone else hear the ads for Blasto the Jellyfish? It's the Hanar version of Dirty Harry.
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Basically if it's not white and making a sound, don't probe it. Kind of like the advice racist southern parents might give you. And yes the Blasto ads were awesome. As were the follow-up ads regarding protest from the Hanars.
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I just started playing tonight, for like 20 and minutes and so far it's all very meh. I'll need to sit down and start it over again when I have more time, but I don't like playing as a Vanguard from the get go for some reason, but thats probably because I don't get what Charge actually does. Might go for an Adept instead.
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I strongly recommend you stick with Vanguard at least until you max out charge and upgrade your shotgun. At first I hated it, but since I've maxed it out and figured out how to use it properly it the most enjoyable ability I've ever used in a shooter. By midgame, maxed out charge with upgraded shotgun will let you take down normal dudes with just half biotic barrier and health in about 2 seconds, in slow motion, causing the dude to fly across the room while you fill him full of buckshot, and you can yell expletives while doing it, and it moves you to another part of the map. The key for me was figuring out that it's suicidal to use on a guy in midfield with three other guys shooting from across the room, but awesome if it's two guys in a flanking position behind cover and you are simultaneously blowing up the other dude with a maxed out tech ability.
So, long story short, it's awesome if:
-- you can kill the guy you are using it on with your shotgun in a couple of seconds
-- that guy is behind cover or there is no one else on the map
-- you are simultaneously killing or incapacitating any other dudes next to the guy you are charging with your allies' abilities
and suicidal in every other situation.
It's also slightly bugged in that it will only work occasionally on a guy in melee, but shockwave is good for that so no biggy.
Another fun thing you can do with charge to take advantage of the temporary double strength shield you get once you upgrade it is charge a land based boss, shoot him a couple times with shotgun and then run away to cover before he clobbers you. This sometimes gets you killed but when it works, it's hilarious.
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Sentinel is so much fun. Also Infiltrator.
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Insanity is no joke. I just started it on when I imported my Infiltrator earlier today, and I'm stuck on Omega, of all places. There's that big battle at the beginning of the mission to recruit Mordin where you first meet the Blood Pack. I can handle the vorcha guys OK, but as soon as the two krogan show up I get my ass handed to me. I must have retried that part half a dozen times before giving up and shutting it off for the day. I should really be studying anyway.
Also, playing Vanguard is worth it just for the occasional time where you hit a guy off-center and he goes flying off a ledge to his death. Shockwave is great for that too, especially against crowds of husks. It's a challenging class to play at first, but once you get a few points into your skills it becomes so much more fun.
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Every so often you think you've knocked someone to their death but in turns out they landed on a lower spot on the map and they come back about a minute later with 10% hp left. That's even better. Inevitably, though, my thoughts turn to wonder at why the enemies' pathfinding is so much better than my allies'.
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Playing an Adept is obviously much better than in ME1, now that powers are actually a strength. Pull + Maxed throw is the best, you get enemies onto all kinds of crazy level geometry. On Illium, for instance, there are catwalks and byways several stories up above you, and a well-placed throw on a weightless target can get enemies onto them.
Also it should be noted how the "bending" system for biotics works so well. Cover is almost completely ineffective unless the enemy is on high ground.
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Also, we'll definitely be seeing the end of the trilogy, because EA announced earlier today that 4 days after its American launch and just a day after its European release, ME2 has already sold 2 million copies. If I recall correctly, it took a full year for the first game to sell that much.
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I am impossible to kill with my assault tech armor.
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Man, did anyone else get unreasonably sad at the beginning of the game?
Like, hell of sad?
Like oh my god my ship I am crying because my ship is dying sad?
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And then there's the mission where you visit the site. They do their best to portray Shepard as having post-traumatic stress disorder. It's hilarious.
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Man, did anyone else get unreasonably sad at the beginning of the game?
Like, hell of sad?
Like oh my god my ship I am crying because my ship is dying sad?
I was all get to the game motherfuckers. Mostly that's because the pirated version I had did not play nice with Win 7 and as such it crashed right at the point where you get to create your face. I went through the first 30 minutes 3 or 4 times trying different things to get around the problem until I gave up and loaded it onto my Vista laptop, where it worked fine.
Also I think they could've included some time on the ship before the game formally begins, feel the calm before the storm. I was really annoyed when Assassin's Creed II came out and there was so much bitching about the length of the intro. They're trying to tell a story you assholes.
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Also I think they could've included some time on the ship before the game formally begins, feel the calm before the storm.
They had about 30 hours of time on the ship before the game begins.
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Man, did anyone else get unreasonably sad at the beginning of the game?
Like, hell of sad?
Like oh my god my ship I am crying because my ship is dying sad?
Not really, because I knew it was coming. One of the downsides of following the game obsessively before release.
Walking out onto the bridge for the first time and seeing the entire fucking roof being GONE is an awesome moment even if you're expecting it, though.
There's another similar moment near the end of the game, where you technically have control of the character but it's just a storytelling setpiece. That one is almost as good, in my opinion, plus it ends with one of the funniest moments in the game.
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Overheard in the Citadel: "I miss those games where you had to remember to take a drink of water and it took 5 hours real time to fly somewhere. These days it's all big choices and visceral combat." Heh.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=0CRPScZ-FOI
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The game publishing houses should probably all write Jeph a thank you note for this forum.
Because of the level of attention ME2 get here, I went and bought it. Because I didn't want to feel left out, I also bought the original ME which I am playing through now. Yes, ME2 is on my computer and hasn't been so much as launched once yet, nor will it be until I beat the first game.
Also due to this forum I've bought and played Dragon Age, Borderlands, and Torchlight.
Y'all are going to make be go broke unless I stop clicking on this damn forum.
Edit: Forgot about Torchlight.
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Phew! Just beat my first playthrough (Veteran Infiltrator), gonna go back later tonight and load up my ME1 saves (for whatever reason, my box didn't recognize my previous games so I had to load up the last saves before Saren and beat him again) and see how different it is (based on what I've seen, nearly all of my decisions were different than the default backstory they give you).
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Phew! Just beat my first playthrough (Veteran Infiltrator), gonna go back later tonight and load up my ME1 saves (for whatever reason, my box didn't recognize my previous games so I had to load up the last saves before Saren and beat him again) and see how different it is (based on what I've seen, nearly all of my decisions were different than the default backstory they give you).
there is a config you're supposed to run outside of the game in order to tell me2 where your me1 save files are. otherwise it won't give you the option to use them.
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Ok. I don't know if I am playing this game wrong or what, but I am furious at the planet scanning. I have 1320 Element Zero, 71593 Iridium, 6652 Platinum and 36494 Palladium.
It is so unbalanced that I spend most of my time screaming at it as the stupid cursor inches across the screen. It seems like it takes 5 or more minutes for every planet, too. I even have the stupid upgrade. Bah.
Otherwise, the game is fun. I have sunk two full afternoons into it now. Recruited half the people, done whatever side missions I come across.
I still feel like I should be picking up more items. I have only gotten two new weapons since I started. Plus, stores are almost useless when you can't sell anything to raise funds. Want to buy the space hamster? Better finish some chapters, chucko.
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I have 100,000 Palladium right now. FML.
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yeah, I got over 200,000 of that useless junk.
and yet i keep on scanning planets. huh.
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Oh god, alien spam mail and a krogan reading poetry. What is wrong with the universe?
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yeah, I got over 200,000 of that useless junk.
and yet i keep on scanning planets. huh.
they really enjoy fucking with OCD gamers who will now spend a hundred hours scanning every planet to "Depleted", sort of like the guy who put a bonus in Braid you can only get if you wait 8-12 hours (depending on your system). Sick bastards.
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My scanning methods are like an elephant painting.
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Oh god, alien spam mail and a krogan reading poetry. What is wrong with the universe?
Hell, everything is right with the universe! I loved Charr.
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The economy is gonna crash on the citadel because I endorsed every shop in it.
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Walking by every store in the Citadel and hearing the same recorded message was pretty funny.
Another minor dialogue feature I really enjoyed is krogan NPCs constantly referring to 'quads'. It's a nice callback to ME1, since they never say exactly what it's referring to in ME2 as far as I know.
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I like how Zaeed is the villain from a Guy Ritchie picture.
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Walking by every store in the Citadel and hearing the same recorded message was pretty funny.
Another minor dialogue feature I really enjoyed is krogan NPCs constantly referring to 'quads'. It's a nice callback to ME1, since they never say exactly what it's referring to in ME2 as far as I know.
Even funnier when you tell the C-sec guy to keep you off the books.
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Just finished my first play through last night. I did normal soldier cause I'm not good at shoot'um ups. I do have to say, at first I didn't like the combat system but quickly got used to it. I feel kind of bad for my boyfriend cause I forced him to come to the midnight release with me then proceeded to play non stop for like three days.
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Hey mysterious (maybe dlc) character
(http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6594/masseffect2201001311338.png)
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Woahz! Is that new content?
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The economy is gonna crash on the citadel because I endorsed every shop in it.
I don't understand why I can keep doing that. I justify it because aren't they supposed to be the weakest stores in the Citadel anyway?
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Oah lahck hah Zaeed's th' vill'n fr'm a Guy Ritchie pitchah.
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Woahz! Is that new content?
Maybe, a guy I know did some fiddling with the game files and found that.
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Yeah, word of Kasumi leaked a couple of weeks ago.
She's mentioned in-game, actually, on Illium in news reports as a thief.
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Can you recruit her and learn a steal skill that will give you some other way to find credits other than hacking people's personal data assistants?
I don't like having to wait for payday to get that shiny new weapon upgrade.
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Man, I beat the game the other night and now I'm horribly torn on what class to play next. Mainly, I love the Sniper Rifle but am not a big fan of the Infiltrator (To be fair, I haven't given it more than a few levels chance thus far) and I like using lots of Biotic Powers, so Soldier is kind of out. Also I'd like a class I think can I need a quick reminder...
When you infiltrate the Collector ship the first time, was Sniper Rifle one of the weapons you could gain training in?
Also, I'm trying my best to do a Samuel L. Shephard playthrough, but goddamnit the voice throws me off so bad. Maybe I should just follow my original plan and do a female playthrough and follow a "WWSLJD" mantra.
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yeah, I got over 200,000 of that useless junk.
and yet i keep on scanning planets. huh.
they really enjoy fucking with OCD gamers who will now spend a hundred hours scanning every planet to "Depleted", sort of like the guy who put a bonus in Braid you can only get if you wait 8-12 hours (depending on your system). Sick bastards.
up to 450,000 or so! why oh why do i do this
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Oh god, there's something incredibly wrong with Thane, especially when they zoom in and you can see his eyes.
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up to 450,000 or so! why oh why do i do this
have i got news for you (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/888565/1#891542)
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That... pisses me off.
Why isn't there some way to sell excess resources? I am seriously bothered by the fact that outfitting your team has become such a ridiculous hassle. Part of my definition of an RPG is having the choice to gather up items and credits and use them to buy the best gear for my team in order to be more prepared for coming battles.
I have like 2000 credits, but I have more Iridium than I need in the entire game. I should have some options there.
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your option is GET FUCKED welcome to bioware's new design ethos :evil:
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how are you so low on credits though, you find like 50k every time you do a mission
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Tuchanka is one hell of a dump
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I visited the citadel between missions. Killed my credits. Not to mention that I'm technically not very far in the game (I hope) at 17 hours. I only have half the team recruited. Been doing loyalty missions for the members I have.
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Man, I beat the game the other night and now I'm horribly torn on what class to play next. Mainly, I love the Sniper Rifle but am not a big fan of the Infiltrator (To be fair, I haven't given it more than a few levels chance thus far) and I like using lots of Biotic Powers, so Soldier is kind of out. Also I'd like a class I think can I need a quick reminder...
When you infiltrate the Collector ship the first time, was Sniper Rifle one of the weapons you could gain training in?
Also, I'm trying my best to do a Samuel L. Shephard playthrough, but goddamnit the voice throws me off so bad. Maybe I should just follow my original plan and do a female playthrough and follow a "WWSLJD" mantra.
yes, it's basically any weapon class you don't have. adept starts with none and had the choice of all at that point
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Finally downloaded Zaeed.
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Zaeed's loyalty quest, while short and decent, also pissed me off to no end because it's in a palladium refinery.
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haha bioware you dicks
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I'm surprised that every conversation in the game doesn't hinge around the fact that fucking iridium and palladium are nearly impossible to avoid.
"Shepard."
"What do you do here?"
"I run a shop, but lately all this palladium has been building up underneath it. I'm afraid it's going to burst through the surface and destroy my home."
"Maybe I can help."
PROBE DEPLOYED
Alternatively, that could be the setup for Ass Effect.
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Hey guys I decided to pull up some old naysaying quotes from this thread for funzies.
I will bet someone money that Shepard does not die.
Get ready to gather a team of dead-eyed fucktards who only want to say three things to you on a week long flight to a deserted planet where you drive your dune buggy for ten hours to survey the land and find crashed satellites!
There's not much new, really. The graphics got a facelift but there's a shot with a camera angle (facing Shepard) that won't be available in-game and the rest of the combat looks pretty much exactly like ME1 combat with bigger guns (hard to tell for sure given the quick cuts). I'm reminded how little I liked the male Shepard VA.
This thread is for discussion of boring, one-dimensional evil Krogans. I didn't think Bioware characters could get more high concept than Black Whirlwind, but I was wrong!
So either Bioware marketing thinks its customers are essentially 13 year old boys when it comes to the appeal of meatheadedness for its own sake (not a bad assumption, really) and is shortselling an interesting character, or the character is uninteresting. It's probably the former, but given the quality of evil NPCs in ME1 I'm willing to entertain the latter notion.
Unless he's a super-efficient millitary machine who only looks like someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I'm not confident he'd make a good fighter. Or maybe it's just a Salarian character trait we haven't gotten to know, due to the small number of Salarians we've gotten to know.
Also, BB: Subject Zero is terrible and you should feel bad. Wrex wasn't really that over the top. He had his moments where he was, mostly when he was telling someone off as a blatant attempt to intimidate them, but in one on one conversations he hit me as rather low key, whereas the intro clip for Subject Zero sounds like a Mountain Dew commercial with angst.
Plus they have apparently renamed Wrex "Grunt." That's kind of like naming the science guy "Brains" or the assassin guy "Shanks."
Unfortunately, Black Isle isn't around to make awesome characters any more. Bioware is only okay at it.
You know, at first I got the impression that some of the classes kick much more ass than the others, but now I start to think that they're all equally super-powered. Hopefully they thought of giving the player a challenge instead of letting them play god.
Hilarious times.
Addendum: Fuck you John.
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To be fair, ME2's ad campaign was by and large dumb shit, meant to broaden the game's audience to people who are intimidated by the idea of RPG gameplay not being entirely like FPSess (DA:O's ad campaign was the same way, with its Marilyn Manson songs and big CGI battles). Also the first combat vids were not final builds.
Also I started coming around to the game once more info was released in the final months of last year.
Also Mark Meer still blows and will continue to blow, far into the future.
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Plus they have apparently renamed Wrex "Grunt." That's kind of like naming the science guy "Brains" or the assassin guy "Shanks."
(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1907/1265387551918.jpg)
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I still don't like Subject Zero.
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Yeah Subject Zero sucks but the game is by and large excellent. Bioware delivered.
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Their taste in music is terrible and their ad campaigns suck though.
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I just don't like the implication that I was wrong about something so subjective when the clips were so bad or that I was down on the game because of it. One of my favorite things about bioware games is that you can just go ahead and bench the characters that bother you. I genuinely consider it a non-issue.
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So what A-list celebrity is everyone shaping their face into for the second playthrough? I went with George Clooney!
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My second playthrough sentinel is what E.T. would look like if he was an Asian American member of Generation X.
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Also, Maximum Face isn't all that unpleasant unless you crank the complexion. I'm kind of impressed.
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Free equipment DLC tomorrow. Cerberus Assault Armor (+10% health, shields, and heavy weapon ammo), and Eviscerator Shotgun (longer-range, armor piercing).
The Hammerhead and its associated mission(s?) are supposed to come out within a few weeks as well.
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Someone from EA said there's something far-reaching (http://kotaku.com/5467071/ea-something-far+reaching-coming-from-mass-effect-in-2011) coming next year and oh god could they just release mass effect 3 already for fuck's sake just give it to us you assholes GIVE ME THE GODDAMN GAME I WNAT IT TT GHHG HGHGH GNGHGFDH GHG GHG GH DFLHGHFJS:FGKS N:Ha'sjkgl;as kslK:GIjla;np aknps aklnp
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I kind of miss the Mako now that I can't drive around planets for fun.
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i don't cause it lets me get to the shootin' and the talkin' faster
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I actually liked driving around planets.
Yeah, it needed way more variety but, to me, it was much much more enjoyable than that awful planet-scanning.
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I disagree, I found driving around planets for cookie-cutter side missions and minerals that were often not even marked on the map infinitely more tedious than planet scanning. Probing isn't the best solution, but as far as I'm concerned it's a marked improvement.
And the 'something far-reaching' for Q1 2011 probably is an expansion-size DLC pack rather than ME3. With as much content as they'll have to cram into ME3 to make it account for all the variables in the first two games, there's no way they can turn that around in a year.
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I think they should just make a Mass Effect platform for historical DLC, like the Mass Effect Gaiden idea I floated earlier in this thread. Sort of similar to what Bethesda did with the first FO3 DLC.
It falls in line with EA's new business strategy AND I give a shit about the universe so I would actually play it!
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I was hanging out with joker and this happened. clicky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRSyRRBHcXI)
Hilarious
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Trust me, when you decide you want to start a character from scratch in ME1 and bring him/her through to ME2 after beating ME2, you'll start to get annoyed with the side-mission design in ME1, very fast.
I think they should just make a Mass Effect platform for historical DLC, like the Mass Effect Gaiden idea I floated earlier in this thread. Sort of similar to what Bethesda did with the first FO3 DLC.
Honestly I would really rather see BG / NWN style (ie 10+ hour) expansions again, instead of DLC that doles out piecemeal bits of content, like ME1's. Preferably these would tie into the main game, and I honestly don't see "into the past" DLC doing that very well in the Mass Effect universe.
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Trust me, when you decide you want to start a character from scratch in ME1 and bring him/her through to ME2 after beating ME2, you'll start to get annoyed with the side-mission design in ME1, very fast.
Blah, totally this.
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Honestly I think Bioware saw that coming, hence the 50,000 bonus resources in every category you get in all your new games after your first completion of the game. It makes the OCD resource collection quests effectively irrelevant to your ME2 import.
Also, new armor + shotgun next week. Yay?
Cerberus Assault Armor
Cerberus assault armor is designed for shock troops, turn the tide of battle against creatures or forces that would decimate normal soldiers.
Increases heavy weapon ammo capacity by +10%
Increases shields by +10%
Increases health by +10%
M-22a Eviscerator Shotgun
The M-22a Eviscerator Shotgun is a longer-range shotgun with armor-piercing loads. This design also violates several intergalactic weapons treaties, so the M-22a is not distributed to militaries.
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Preferably these would tie into the main game, and I honestly don't see "into the past" DLC doing that very well in the Mass Effect universe.
Considering the lifespan of some races, it could work pretty well I think.
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The Blue Suns aren't known for their bravery. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-FjEF1p_G4)
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Mass Effect 2: Who Left These Fucking Boxes In The Hallway?!
Still haven't found any exploration missions. I'm a shitty explorer.
23 hours in now.
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Mass Effect 2: Who Left These Fucking Boxes In The Hallway?!
Mass Effect 2: Goddamn It Trevor I Told You Not To Leave The Explosive Crates And Canisters Just Lying Haphazardly Around The Warehouse. Trevor Don't You Turn Around. Goddamn It Trevor Don't You Walk Away From Me. You Fucking Come Back Here And Face What You Did Trevor. Trevor Can You Fucking Hear Me
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(http://www.hlcomic.com/comics/concerned021.jpg)
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Oh my god I miss Concerned.
I think they should just make a Mass Effect platform for historical DLC, like the Mass Effect Gaiden idea I floated earlier in this thread. Sort of similar to what Bethesda did with the first FO3 DLC.
It falls in line with EA's new business strategy AND I give a shit about the universe so I would actually play it!
I do honestly think this could work very well!
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I know right? I hate that it when webcomic artists like Livingston and Gurewitch move on to bigger and better things.
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Honestly I think Bioware saw that coming, hence the 50,000 bonus resources in every category you get in all your new games after your first completion of the game. It makes the OCD resource collection quests effectively irrelevant to your ME2 import.
Also, new armor + shotgun next week. Yay?
Cerberus Assault Armor
Cerberus assault armor is designed for shock troops, turn the tide of battle against creatures or forces that would decimate normal soldiers.
Increases heavy weapon ammo capacity by +10%
Increases shields by +10%
Increases health by +10%
M-22a Eviscerator Shotgun
The M-22a Eviscerator Shotgun is a longer-range shotgun with armor-piercing loads. This design also violates several intergalactic weapons treaties, so the M-22a is not distributed to militaries.
No new missions?
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No new missions.
I just managed to crash the game spectacularly. I was surrounded by a near dead scion and a bunch of Husks, with my team dead. As a last ditch, I cloaked. Unfortunately, they were so tight around me I couldn't get out. As I faded back into view they killed me, but I was right next to an explosive canister. So they killed me and blew up the canister at the same time and, as the game over thing played, they all died too, making the game very confused as to why I was dead when I wasn't in battle.
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It's mostly superfluous, but if you want the codes for the Dr. Pepper items you can get them here (http://www.destructoid.com/get-mass-effect-2-dr-pepper-promo-dlc-without-dr-pepper-162580.phtml)
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No new missions?
Not with this pack. It's up now, and apparently the shotgun is better than of the ones in the base game. It penetrates all defenses like the Claymore, but it's got longer range and a bigger clip.
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They were clearly waiting until I finished my Vanguard playthrough until releasing that. I look forward to the Sentinel "instakill laser" feature that will be released one week after I finish my insanity Sentinel playthrough.
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It's mostly superfluous, but if you want the codes for the Dr. Pepper items you can get them here (http://www.destructoid.com/get-mass-effect-2-dr-pepper-promo-dlc-without-dr-pepper-162580.phtml)
I used the code once to get the recon hood now I can't use them again because it's telling me I've already used the code.
:oops:
*EDIT*
Ok no, I just made multiple accounts. Yay!
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(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4342333798_8bcc83deac.jpg)
Shark Tank go!
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wut
wut the fuck is that
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Yeah what is the Hammerhead even used for?
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So what's the deal with having cabins not open to you from the beginning? When I got Samara I was ecstatic to see the stars through the port.
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You unlock parts of your ship as you get crew members, I don't see anything odd about that. Also notice there is a port observatory you never get access to HUH I WONDER WHAT THAT MEANS.
I assume the Hammerhead comes with Hammerhead missions otherwise it would be silly. Also, I presume future DLC will also make use of it.
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Tali has always been my favourite character since I meet her getting ambushed in that backalley way back in ME1. I've just done her loyalty mission and did the opposite of what she asked me to do in her trial. Now I feel really really bad about it, I don't think I've ever felt this bad about letting down a fictional character.
Also, I felt so bad I reloaded it and did what she wanted then I got the achievment, so that was pretty nifty.
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Yeah I had a moral quandry at the end of Garrus's mission, torn between the paragon thing to do and what Garrus wanted.
Ultimately, I felt loyalty to my team was as important as their loyalty to me and went with Garrus's desires. I am still conflicted over whether or not I did the right thing.
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Yeah but then at the end of the day fuck my team members I just want a craggedly ass face.
Still, conflicting morality choices oh no!
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Yeah I had a moral quandry at the end of Garrus's mission, torn between the paragon thing to do and what Garrus wanted.
Ultimately, I felt loyalty to my team was as important as their loyalty to me and went with Garrus's desires. I am still conflicted over whether or not I did the right thing.
You can still do the paragon option and get his loyalty, in fact I think it's a really great moment when you do.
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Well maybe I'll do the paragon thing on my Renegade playthrough. Justify it as just being a dick to Garrus.
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My Renegade Shepard was always good to his crew, but a colossal dick to everybody else. It works well.
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I know right? I hate that it when webcomic artists like Livingston and Gurewitch move on to bigger and better things.
What the crap is Gurewitch doing?
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I don't know, but I do recall that he had links to sculpture and a bunch of other media projects on his original website. I say we find him, and strap him to a kafkaesque device that puts 20,000 volts of electricity through his genitals if he doesn't make the funny.
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My Renegade Shepard was always good to his crew, but a colossal dick to everybody else. It works well.
That's mostly what I do, I am the nicest person in the world to my love interest but an asshole to everyone else. Hell, I punched a reporter for trying to get an interview.
You unlock parts of your ship as you get crew members, I don't see anything odd about that. Also notice there is a port observatory you never get access to HUH I WONDER WHAT THAT MEANS.
So wait, if you don't download Zaaed can you still launch trash into space?
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Nope.
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So far this game has done nothing to alleviate my stance that Batarians are mother fucking assholes.
Also, has anyone found out what that one Vorcha near Ken's Salvage was talking about?
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Ok. I must still be ignorant about this game.
The people you hear talking but can't interact with can still be interacted with, right? I mean, I heard some asarian bitching about how she lost a necklace or something and then when I was doing Miranda's loyalty mission I found a necklace in a warehouse that was filled with bad guys. Coincidence?
There has to be more to this game than putting a team together and finishing one mission. Seriously. Scanning planets is awful. I wish I could still drive around on them.
Someone help me truly enjoy this game.
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Do you like the combat?
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Ok. I must still be ignorant about this game.
The people you hear talking but can't interact with can still be interacted with, right? I mean, I heard some asarian bitching about how she lost a necklace or something and then when I was doing Miranda's loyalty mission I found a necklace in a warehouse that was filled with bad guys. Coincidence?
Nope, you should be able to talk to that asari now and give her the necklace. There are a few quests like that, if you hear people bitching about something but can't talk to them yet you'll probably find something to solve their problem on a later mission.
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The combat is OK. Basically, I cloak Shoot a dude with my 50 cal to one-shot kill him, crouch, repeat. Maybe If I was a different class the combat would be more... involved. I really don't do too much with the team members. I have hotmapped their best commands and use them every once in a while, but it seems like a lot of the time, they'll just spray bullets from a shotgun at dudes 300 yards away and behind cover.
With the necklace thing, that doesn't even feel like a quest. That's "Hey, I found the necklace you were bitching about."
What happened to my huge open areas where geth were waiting to ambush me and I could see the dramatic landscape of planets as I tore across it in my shark tank?
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Perhaps you should try Sentinel.
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Sentinel is the best. Tech Armor, Throw, Overload, Warp maybe.
It's espescially good if you pick Sniper Rifle for your bonus weapon training, then you're ready for anything.
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Assault rifle or Sniper rifle, it won't make too much a difference.
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Meh, I found the Assault rifle too similar to the SMG. The Sniper Rifle has a much more specialized function (poppin' domes).
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The combat is OK. Basically, I cloak Shoot a dude with my 50 cal to one-shot kill him, crouch, repeat. Maybe If I was a different class the combat would be more... involved. I really don't do too much with the team members. I have hotmapped their best commands and use them every once in a while, but it seems like a lot of the time, they'll just spray bullets from a shotgun at dudes 300 yards away and behind cover.
Once you start fighting waves of husks, you're going to regret this. Infiltrator has no short-range defensive capabilities basically so if you don't build a team capable of crowd control on waves of melee fighters, you're going to find yourself dying a lot.
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Not necessarily. Provided you get recharge upgrades and "advance train" yourself a decent biotic power (I use Slam), you can handle husks fairly readily on your own.
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Well yeah.
You can also opt to go with shotgun training instead of getting the Widow, but I mean...
Insanely powerful sniper rifles are so satisfying.
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I love my Space Anti-Space-Material Space Rifle.
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space furniture durp durp
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Husks die pretty quick to the heavy pistol. I can usually give them a headshot and put them down. If they get near me, I just make Jack use a power to knock them all down. Not a problem, really.
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Throw Field makes Husks laughably weak.
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Insanity gives Husks Armor. The bastards.
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I just shoot husks like mad with the submachine gun. If I get surrounded, Tech Armor deals with it easily.
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Vindicator worked spectacular against husks on Veteran. Hell, it worked great against virtually all enemies. On the off-chance husks got too close, I used the SMG.
Fun tip: go after abominations first, since they tend to explode in a fabulous explosion of pain when they're killed by headshots damaging and likely killing all husks close to them. It's possible to take out a full horde of husks with a few well aimed bursts and no usage of powers.
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Oh hey (http://youtube.com/watch?v=xQz7u0BWD9c)
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fucking loooooooooooooooooool
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There's more! (http://youtube.com/watch?v=C5vvjOwtcg8)
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That might just be the creepiest thing I've seen in a while.
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I've seen some of the body-mapping stuff in the SA thread, but never Grunt's. Jesus Christ.
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There's a Tali on Tali video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSKzqWl74II&feature=channel) by the same person in there. Had to happen eventually, I guess *shudder*
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If we could airdrop that video into the bioboards I wonder if we'd get out in time before the tides of semen submerge the city like the ocean over mythical Atlantis.
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Rapping about minerals yo (http://tindeck.com/listen/lqip)
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The Hammerhead DLC has a formal title and release window: it's called the Firewalker Pack, and it's coming in late March. It contains 5 new missions, presumably all centered around the new vehicle. There's a screenshot of an ice planet that looks pretty badass.
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Man, Kotaku's title to their article on this DLC is so good:
Firewalker with ME2
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Holy shit the tali thread is huge (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/1295538)
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I'm also betting it'd be sticky to the touch were it tangible.
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Holy shit the tali thread is huge (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/1295538)
Do you realize how much griping there was that you couldn't fuck Tali in ME1?
I mean seriously, there is a "Team Tali" ala Team Edward / Team Jacob
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oh sweet, I didn't realize that the new stuff coming out was gonna be free!
shit yeaah
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I KNOW YOU FEEL THIS GARRUS (http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6140/1267409530828.jpg)
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Do you realize how much griping there was that you couldn't fuck Tali in ME1?
Hmm to be honest I did want my Shepard to hook up with Tali in ME1, but mainly because the two love interested didnt have me interested. Liara was a ditz, and Ash was being a bitch. Tali was a little more down to earth (get it? :wink: ) and came off as the "sweet girl new to the galaxy on her pilgrimage" and got along fine with everyone and was knowledgeable. To be perfectly honest, if Miranda was in the first one I would have pursued her. Liara and Ash were terrible paramour choices IMHO (and Ash reminded me of one of my exGF).
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This is exactly why I liked Tali more than any other character in ME1 and why I'm really happy with the romance options in ME2.
Saying that though, ever since I failed the loyalty mission for her on my first playthrough I stopped using her and have moved on with Legion. Who isn't a huge bitch towards me.
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This is exactly why I liked Tali more than any other character in ME1 and why I'm really happy with the romance options in ME2.
Saying that though, ever since I failed the loyalty mission for her on my first playthrough I stopped using her and have moved on with Legion. Who isn't a huge bitch towards me.
haha, did you bring legion with you to the migrant fleet? he adds some dialog. :mrgreen: I'd like to know how you failed but this isnt the spoiler thread. ;)
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http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7394/20100301210133.png
Shepard totally wants Jacob.
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Hammerhead gameplay (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-hammerhead-mass-effect/62772)
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well that looks pretty sweet.
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New Heavy Weapon
"New FREE ME2 DLC Arc Projector Weapon. Electrify your targets and arc to more."
(http://www.cinemablend.com/images/gallery/s23336/_12681564189094.jpg)
Here's a picture of the Arc Projector
(http://na.llnet.bioware.cdn.ea.com/u/f/eagames/bioware/masseffect2/resources/assets/universe/weapons/arc_projector.jpg)
looks awesome
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So it's force lightning fired from a huge shotgun-claw device...
I think that may be my favourite sentence ever.
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It rips apart YMIR mechs like a motherfucker on Insanity, too.
(Also, so far I've tried Insanity with Soldier, Vanguard and Adept and Adept is having the easiest time of it. Warp detonations are awesome.)
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I'm almost finished insanity with soldier
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I'm almost finished with starting Mass Effect 2
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How's that working out for you?
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I think it is fair to say that if I do not play at least four hours of Mass Effect 2 daily I will lose control of my bowels and go into epileptic shock.
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Kasumi DLC confirmed, due out April 6th. No details on cost yet.
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Looking forward to it.
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Apparently her section of the ship includes a bar, and her loyalty mission somehow involves Michelangelo's David.
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I hope she isn't a one way conversation person. Like Zaeed
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Or Taking Back Sunday.
But seriously, Zaeed was balls. I got his ass killed and didn't feel bad for a second. Until, that is, I realized that I missed out on an achievement because that scarred-up twat got himself killed.
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Just for the hell of it I started taking Zaeed with me on most missions during my renegade playthrough. Ship conversations or no, he has a tendency to totally rule.
"Thass gorram suicide!"
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Zaeed was a pretty big badass in my opinion. Overall I was pretty okay with taking Bullet Tooth Tony with me everywhere I went.
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Kasumi screeeennnsss 1 (http://xboxlivemedia.ign.com/xboxlive/image/article/107/1077334/mass-effect-2-kasumis-stolen-memory-20100312030739435.jpg) 2 (http://xboxlivemedia.ign.com/xboxlive/image/article/107/1077334/mass-effect-2-kasumis-stolen-memory-20100312030742122.jpg) 3 (http://xboxlivemedia.ign.com/xboxlive/image/article/107/1077334/mass-effect-2-kasumis-stolen-memory-20100312030744872.jpg)
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just finished this game, I wish I had Live so I could have dlc fun times
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Oh good, Kasumi links! I've been busy all day and wanted to check out what Kasumi looked like but GIS just comes up with the damn Dead or Alive character and I didn't feel like trawling the gamer sites in what little time I've had..
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She looks very, very quarian. Not sure what to feel about that... it suggests some laziness in designing the character in that they could just be using existing assets to craft her, which makes me worry there'll be further laziness on the part of her mission and dialogue.
We'll see, I guess. I'd be lying if I said I'd felt let down by Bioware DLC before, even Ostogar for DA:O was pretty fun even if it only lasted all of five minutes.
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That was my first thought as well, but you'll notice that all women of the future seem to have two body types - rail thin and skeletal. The main thing that I think makes Kasumi Quarian-esque is her posture, always kind of leaning back a bit.
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Also the hood.
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and the nerds obsessing over her
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Also the hood.
I was thinking of a lady Garrett, actually. Too bad so few people played Thief.
and the nerds obsessing over her
That doesn't make her Tali, that makes her a female game character.
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I think Tali's fanbase is bigger than pretty much any other Mass Effect character, so for the sake of the joke I'm ok with generalizing things.
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Dunno man Wrex's is pretty huge
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No he's right, Tali gives the Bioboards an unprecedented collective hard-on. Juhani from KOTOR1 was the same way (and a pretty similar sort of character) The appeal of Female characters tends to correlate with how girlish they are and how much they need the PC. Thus Tali wins by a country mile. Jack and Miranda are far too assertive.
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Personally I don't get it. The Quarians as a species are neat, but Tali bores me. Even at her most interesting she can't muster more than a "meh" out of me.
Then again, I almost exclusively used Garrus and Wrex in ME1, so that may have something to do with it. When Archangel took his helmet off and was revealed to be Garrus I fistpumped in the air triumphantly, and when Wrex showed up on Tuchanka I used every single option under "investigate" just so I could hear his delightful dulcet tones again. Here's hoping he's playable again in ME3.
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i have to concede that tali's emotional attachment to shepard is actually justified fairly well
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I really like Tali as a character but her fanbase creeps me the fuck out.
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Oh hey guess what Bioware is listening to its forums again (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/13/bioware-designer-talks-about-goals-for-mass-effect-3/).
Great.
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ugh
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I'd rather like to slap around the "It's not an RPG" people. Mass Effect 2 is totally a role playing game. It's not an inventory management simulator, but I'm pretty okay with that.
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If listening to the forum means banishing the mining simulator to the deepest pits of hell for whence it spawned, I think we can get on board with that. On the other hand, experience has shown us that it will be replaced by an even more annoying "minigame" in ME3, possibly involving a Mavis Beacon typing tutor interlude every time you want to recover some McGuffinite.
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I would totally consider playing a ME game if it had some sweet Mavis Beacon action
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Oh hey guess what Bioware is listening to its forums again (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/13/bioware-designer-talks-about-goals-for-mass-effect-3/).
Great.
OK, really? I know we like to mock the Bioboards at every opportunity, but the gameplay designer saying 'we're going to keep listening to fan input' is not a groan-worthy statement. It's what got us all of the substantial improvements between Mass Effect 1 and 2. I think we can give them the benefit of the doubt in this case, it's not like she specifically said "and you'll get to see Tali's face when you build her the house she wants because she's your special little alien waifu".
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It's Bioware. You know that's gonna happen.
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i have to concede that tali's emotional attachment to shepard is actually justified fairly well
too true, hell she even explains it point blank in Mass Effect 2
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Nah I'm with Bryan.
Listening to complaints about the game is not a bad thing step off.
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I'm not willing to swap spit with Tali but I still wanna see her face.
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It's Bioware. You know that's gonna happen.
DO WE REALLY KNOW IT JOHN, DO WE KNOW IT FOR A FACT
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In all seriousness there was really very little about ME2 that needed improvement. Fair enough that they want to undertake the impossible task of coming up with a resource collection system that people don't hate, but the people who keep talking about how ME2 isn't "a real RPG" are functional retards, without fail. ME2 is a fine RPG, it has choice and consequence on par or better with the mean. What these people mean is that there isn't constant feedback from gameplay in the form of per-kill experience and l007. People like these things because they're familiar, not because they add anything to the game. ME2's lack of an inventory system was actually identical to ME1's inventory system, it just cut out all of the bloat. Instead of accumulating a thousand weapons and mods and selling off all but the best, ME2 just gave you the best. ME2 was better without those things. Any and all useful improvements can be gleaned from reviews or other sources that aren't as ridiculous as a dedicated gaming forum. I honestly do not believe that aggregating the opinions of the Bioboards and putting them towards game design can do ME3 any favors.
And yeah, romances are fucking stupid, and they're only going to become a greater part of the gameplay in future Bioware games.
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hey now the romantic exchanges are often hilariously awesome.
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Yeah I ain't getting my shit all twisted just because oh shit not fairly well written romance side-dialog better throw out the game.
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I like how you're giving him shit about criticizing what is one of the weakest elements in the game after he's already acknowledged that ME2 needs very little improvement.
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I think there's a happy medium to be found between the RPG systems of ME1 and ME2. If they had a slightly wider variety of skills per class or a greater number of weapons that weren't necessarily vertical upgrades, that would add to the game without the player having to spend 10 minutes converting a bunch of junk drops to omni-gel like you did in the first game. I fully agree that people who are saying that ME2 isn't an RPG because it doesn't have loot drops or per-kill XP are clinging to outdated conceptions of what an RPG is, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be more fully-featured in ME3 while still keeping the core things that ME2 did well intact. And when she says 'fan feedback', I'm sure she doesn't mean the Bioboards exclusively. Bioware's smart enough to know that fan communities exist beyond their own website, they wouldn't have become the largest RPG developer in the West otherwise.
Basically, if the slide from that Joystiq article represents the overarching goals of ME3's design then I don't see why that's anything but encouraging. The four things she singles out are all features that I would welcome (provided that they're implemented properly, but I think that goes without saying), and stuff like romances are obviously beyond her purview. And while I think that convincing romances are definitely the weakest element of Bioware's games, they're pretty easy to ignore. Who knows, maybe they'll get better at that too.
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Also, if listening to fan feedback means I can toggle off the goddamn helmets of the unique armor sets in ME3, then I'll put up with a dozen creepy alien romances.
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the romances in me2 were also more convincing than the romances in the first game, on account of personalities
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(http://i44.tinypic.com/mtny2s.gif)
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I couldn't really imagine getting into the romances from the first game. Liara was kinda boring and Ashley is basically the exact blueprint of the kinda person I'd avoid dating even if I do think some of the Ashley-hate out there is overblown.
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I'm not willing to swap spit with Tali but I still wanna see her face.
I want it to be shown, and to be absolutely hideous.
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A Legion/Tali rom-com would be the best thing ever.
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the romances in me2 were also more convincing than the romances in the first game, on account of personalities
How so? I haven't gone through Tali's but the rest seem to be Bioware's usual first-the-therapy-then-the-coitus plotlines. Jack's childhood, Thane's dead wife, Miranda's self-esteem issues, etc. etc.
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I'm not willing to swap spit with Tali but I still wanna see her face.
I want it to be shown, and to be absolutely hideous.
By the way (http://i.imgur.com/Y2bjy.jpg)
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that's actually really cute!
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Alright Kasumi will be released on April 6th for 560 MS points on the Xbawks. No clue what that translates into dollars.
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How so? I haven't gone through Tali's but the rest seem to be Bioware's usual first-the-therapy-then-the-coitus plotlines. Jack's childhood, Thane's dead wife, Miranda's self-esteem issues, etc. etc.
except that you don't unlock any of them until after the loyalty mission, meaning that you have to go through actual character development first, and the character development in this game is largely very good. so like i said, it's personalities - as in, they have them, the game explores them, and then you choose if your shepard is attracted to one. besides that they're almost all well-written and i can think offhand of exactly one scene which felt clumsy.
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How so? I haven't gone through Tali's but the rest seem to be Bioware's usual first-the-therapy-then-the-coitus plotlines. Jack's childhood, Thane's dead wife, Miranda's self-esteem issues, etc. etc.
except that you don't unlock any of them until after the loyalty mission, meaning that you have to go through actual character development first
They've never not had character development in romances. There are a couple of apparently unavoidable issues with game romances, most of which have to do with time. You have to get two characters from having just met to being lovers in the space of a 15-30 hour game, with only a small portion of that time relegated to intra-party conversations and downtime, and you have to make it seem natural. You could go down the Witcher route and just toss out that whole idea, and have the PC be able to sleep with literally every named female character after 1 or 2 dialogues, or you could try and simulate an actual relationship, which is much harder.
The only RPG "romance plots" I found halfway good were Baldur's Gate 2's, for a few reasons. One was because the game was so incredibly long, probably around 80 hours total with the expansion, and the romance plots were designed to stretch out over roughly that time frame. As such it didn't really feel like the sex was actually the point of the plot - in fact the romances were pretty well tied into the critical plot of both the game. In both ME1 and ME2 the romances are tangential to the critical plot and seem to end with the consummation (though I'd be surprised if that would be repeated in ME3) and in Dragon Age only Morrigan's and (probably) Alistair's are. Another reason was the irregularity of the romance plot advancements, because you didn't initiate them, and the game was not rigidly set up in incremental stages like every game Bioware's made since. Having the romance advance incrementally at the end of every mission turns the romance into its own sort of mission.
Having missions you undertake with a character to advance a romance plot is probably the best way to do so, in all actuality. Bioware has gotten a lot better at that, and they're pretty much the only ones doing it. But it's hard to overstate how frustrated I am with the Therapy Love template that just keeps getting used (all romances in BG2, all romances in Jade Empire, Juhani and Carth in KOTOR, Liara in ME, Alistair to some extent in DA, etc.). Characters are woobified (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie) because it makes short-term romances a little more sensible, which is fair even if it is tiring, but several of the characters who are supposed to be strong, independent types end up chickified (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Chickification) (every female love interest except Aerie, Ashley and Morrigan) When your love interests are solely dependent on the protagonist to heal their psychic wounds and make them whole again, it makes you really long for a character that has his / her shit together. Ashley and Kaidan were actually pretty okay in this regard. Most of the ME2 romances were not. It's a dilemma because game designers at Bioware and elsewhere are always wanting the player to feel accomplished, so it makes sense to put them in the role of "personality healer" so they can good about themselves. It just happens to make a lot of the romances one-note, more or less. Bioware's also flirted with rape as drama (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeAsDrama) in their plotlines on more than one occasion, but that's an entirely different bag of worms.
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Dostoevsky seems to have liked his woobies:
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John you're smart enough to know what I'm getting at here, which is ultimately an admiration for Bioware's dedication to writing and craft that shine through in this game. Those tropes bother you for really broad reasons but don't really address what I'm talking about, which is that - regardless of tropes, which is an interesting avenue for talking about the politics of text but never have nearly as much bearing on the actual quality of a text as you seem to be placing on them - the game and its characters are well-written and well-developed. I take a lot of issue with your classification of several of the characters as "woobified" because that seems to be based more on a fan response to them than, well, their actual characters. I'm also mystified because you seem to be confusing what you want, which is, well, I don't know what but it's something to do with sex, with what the game accomplishes, which is that it rounds its characters out the way it wants them rounded out while delivering romances.
In terms of the Therapy Love thing, it applies to - who? The characters have motivations that the game establishes were formed independently of Shepard; as such, you don't so much push them to realize and fulfill them as you facilitate what they see as inevitable. Your choices, as a necessity of the gameplay Bioware developed, help shape the direction that fulfillment goes in, but it never feels particularly forced or unnatural, and that's again due to the strength of the writing.
I have a few complaints with Mass Effect 2's depiction of sex - the actual act itself, which is admittedly far less embarrassing than the sex in Dragon Age but still not quite mature in a small-m sense, and the occasional snippet of dialogue, such as Miranda asking Shepard if he'd like to admire her butt sometime - but by and large the model works, and it works on the strength of the writing, and it works regardless of those tropes. Mostly what distinguishes it from the first game is the writing, and I'm willing to give Bioware the benefit of the doubt for the third Mass Effect based exclusively on how much they improved between the first and second.
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Can there be a new internet law stating that if you have to link to TVTropes to explain your point, you lost the argument?
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Can there be a new internet law stating that if you have to link to TVTropes to explain your point, you lost the argument?
Second.
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thirded
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I interrupt your argument and submit to you thusly.
(http://www.gossipgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/masseffectgirl.jpg)
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John you're smart enough to know what I'm getting at here, which is ultimately an admiration for Bioware's dedication to writing and craft that shine through in this game. Those tropes bother you for really broad reasons but don't really address what I'm talking about, which is that - regardless of tropes, which is an interesting avenue for talking about the politics of text but never have nearly as much bearing on the actual quality of a text as you seem to be placing on them - the game and its characters are well-written and well-developed. I take a lot of issue with your classification of several of the characters as "woobified" because that seems to be based more on a fan response to them than, well, their actual characters.
It's been awhile since I've conceived of Bioware's writers as being divorced from their fans, not just in aspects of game design but in characters and writing as well. David Gaider at the very least has not-so-subtly indicated that the fan reactions to his characters in KOTOR had a heavy impact on his subsequent characters (Kaidan in ME1 actually directly quotes fan complaints about Carth, if I remember correctly) As for the actual quality of the text, I don't necessarily agree that ME2 was particularly well written, aside from some notable exceptions (particularly Mordin and the Illusive Man). ME2's strength was largely in its combat design and choice / consequence, both of which were quite good, and both of which are most likely to be changed down the road, unfortunately.
As far as the woobification (I do wish there was a better word for that) I don't think it's something like seeing the constant misery in Dostoevsky's writing and going "huh". I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on whether the woobification is an intrinsic or extrinsic element of the writing. There are many elements of Bioware's writing and game design that are, if not repetitive, variations on core themes. The durability of these tropes doesn't speak to a weakness in Bioware's writing, but to their efficacy in eliciting reaction from the player. Big-name AAA game development is highly competitive and very, very expensive, and there's very little about those projects that isn't vetted w/r/t player reactions. The woobification is most obvious with Jack and Miranda, both of whom have tough exteriors that, it's heavily suggested, are defense mechanisms compensating for deep insecurity.
I'm also mystified because you seem to be confusing what you want, which is, well, I don't know what but it's something to do with sex, with what the game accomplishes, which is that it rounds its characters out the way it wants them rounded out while delivering romances.
My gripe with the Bioware romances has very little to do with the sex (though it has gotten more ridiculous in the last few games) and everything to do with the therapy in the "first-the-therapy-then-the-sex" plotline. What I'd like is for there to be greater variation in relationship dynamics between characters. I don't think that's possible in ME, for reasons I'll get to soon here. Beyond that, I'd be much happier if romances were better integrated into critical paths and used to raise stakes.
In terms of the Therapy Love thing, it applies to - who? The characters have motivations that the game establishes were formed independently of Shepard; as such, you don't so much push them to realize and fulfill them as you facilitate what they see as inevitable. Your choices, as a necessity of the gameplay Bioware developed, help shape the direction that fulfillment goes in, but it never feels particularly forced or unnatural, and that's again due to the strength of the writing.
I don't agree at all that the growth of these characters was in any way "inevitable". Whether or not you play life coach with the characters directly correlates to their survival chances in the endgame, so in a very real sense the need for healing is vital and solely invested in the player. Both Miranda and (to either a lesser or far greater extent) Jack are in deep denial about how much their insecurities affect them, and the player has to gain their trust and "fix" them, hence "Therapy Love". As I said, the use of unresolved trauma and self-esteem issues as bonding agents between characters is a staple in RPGs by now. In BG2, the bulk of the romances consisted of getting your companion far enough out of full-blown PTSD (from Aerie's lost wings, Viconia's torture/rape/constant betrayal, Jaheira's murdered husband, Anomen's child abuse, etc.) to be in a relationship.
The big problem with ME in regard to this is that there's literally nothing else that Shepard can do besides save people. From the establishing shots of ME1 Shepard is characterized as a John McClane class badass, a flawless demigod who's inevitably going to save the galaxy no matter what he / she is up against. What's the point of the Superman / Lois Lane pairing if Lane can do everything herself?
I have a few complaints with Mass Effect 2's depiction of sex - the actual act itself, which is admittedly far less embarrassing than the sex in Dragon Age but still not quite mature in a small-m sense, and the occasional snippet of dialogue, such as Miranda asking Shepard if he'd like to admire her butt sometime - but by and large the model works, and it works on the strength of the writing, and it works regardless of those tropes. Mostly what distinguishes it from the first game is the writing, and I'm willing to give Bioware the benefit of the doubt for the third Mass Effect based exclusively on how much they improved between the first and second.
There's nothing I particularly minded about ME2's sex (I did find it funny when people got angry over Miranda's bra, as if anything less than suggested total nudity was a slap in the face of gamers) and they've set up the Kaidan / Ashley / Liara romance as something that's going to make a big difference in ME3, so I'm looking forward to seeing to what extent the romance will be integrated into the endgame. Hopefully well.
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I didn't even realize that Gaider did any of the writing in Mass Effect, I thought he was the Dragon Age dude these days. Unless he wrote for the first game and is no longer part of that team.
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I'm pretty sure Gaider wasn't a part of ME2's writing team, but he wrote at least one character (Kaidan) for ME1.
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Can there be a new internet law stating that if you have to link to TVTropes to explain your point, you lost the argument?
Why? Using their terminology, no matter how much others hate it, doesn't invalidate an argument. And it can help as a shorthand for something that would take a lot longer to describe. The link's purpose is so that if someone doesn't know what it means, they can look it up. The same courtesy would be a good idea if you are using more obscure "proper English" words, but for the most part people either think that the words they use are common knowledge (I had an entire classroom of people get confused when I used the term misanthropist a few weeks ago), or are trying to sound like they are smarter than everyone else.
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New squad appearances will come with the dlc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYiViFVEa6k)
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Garrus looks like he was in the tron movie.
felt this was somewhat related to the discussion.
(http://images.roosterteeth.com/assets/media/9_4b6de6e091b79.jpg)
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Jack stole Miranda's boobs!
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Someone finally gave Jack some clothes, huh? I don't see that particular alternate costume being too popular.
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I'll use it.
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Same. I'm always vaguely annoyed by how boobs are apparently a perfectly viable alternative to chainmail and hardened combat suits in most fiction.
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Is it because game designers, having never touched boobs, automatically assume that they are rigid and dense enough to stop projectile weaponry?
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like a bag of sand
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Well it makes no sense with jack mostly because you are in space. You should not be able to wear nothing in the coldness of space.
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Bet they could cut glass in such conditions.
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Is it because game designers, having never touched boobs, automatically assume that they are rigid and dense enough to stop projectile weaponry?
:x :x :x
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Wait a minute, isn't "space is cold" one of those hollywood science things? I seem to remember reading that there is no heat transfer in space aside from what little bits of matter you might occasionally hit, so the issue would be more keeping cool than keeping warm.
And to be fair, that leather jacket is not going to do much more for Jack than the gravity-defying breastband, considering the weaponry you are facing in this game.
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Well if you're close to stars it gets rather warm. Otherwise I would think no heat transfer would mean space is very cold.
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Yeah, temperature is a characteristic of matter, and space has very little matter for how vast it is, so it really depends on how you want to look at it. On average, it's all barely above absolute zero, but given how fuckin' big space is that doesn't mean all that much in regards to a given object.
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Well if you're close to stars it gets rather warm. Otherwise I would think no heat transfer would mean space is very cold.
But you don't get cold, because you aren't transferring your heat to space. So technically, space is cold, but that doesn't mean that things in space are cold, you would have more issues with making sure your ship has enough heatsinking, not making sure it stays warm.
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nerds
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Does Mass Effect 2, and maybe Dragon Age, need more relationships? (http://kotaku.com/5495405/mass-effect-dragon-age-creators-consider-the-post+release-romance-pack)
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lol.
It wouldn't be an issue if there were better modding tools out for both games. There were some disgusting (and wildly popular) text-based mods for BG2. Like interactive fanfic.
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It'd be great if they actually added some high profile homosexual romances to ME2. Why can't Shep be a massive badass who saves the universe and has hot gay sex. I'm just sayin'
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I doubt they would, not because of any controversy, but because Bioware has said repeatedly that the demand hasn't justified their inclusion (if that sounds like bullshit it probably is!)
Plus, John McClane doesn't have sex with dudes.
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Obviously there's enough demand for fem-shep "lesbianism" though.
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Mark Meer is a homophobe.
No, really.
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According to the developers, that rumor isn't true. They recorded dialogue for all romances regardless of gender before Bioware scrapped their inclusion partway through development. Supposedly people found romantic dialogue for ManShep and Kaiden/FemShep and Ashely still on the ME1 disc, just like how Legion has dialogue for missions way before his point of recruitment because originally recruitment was not throttled by plot progression.
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I want some hot Shep/Legion sex.
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Would that count as an orgy?
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After watching the ending where everyone dies I've started to wonder, who will you play as in the next game?
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After watching the ending where everyone dies I've started to wonder, who will you play as in the next game?
they said if you died you still play shepard in ME3 but you cannot import your dead ME2 character. You just play a default shepard.
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I doubt they would, not because of any controversy, but because Bioware has said repeatedly that the demand hasn't justified their inclusion (if that sounds like bullshit it probably is!)
Plus, John McClane doesn't have sex with dudes.
Omar Little, motherfucker
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After watching the ending where everyone dies I've started to wonder, who will you play as in the next game?
Joker.
*limp limp limp, shoots gun, falls over*
nooooooo
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The alternate outfits will cost money, which is pretty lame.
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Kasumi in action (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/kasumi-trailer-mass-effect/63466)
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well that looks like a rad addition to the team. still more interested in cruising around with the hammerhead tho.
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I was under the impression that all DLC would be included under the Cerberus Network D}:
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cerberus net is the free stuff. anything you have to pay for will likely be a different system.
also, as expected, the hammerhead is fun to drive. missions are pretty short unfortunately.
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Wait, I downloaded it, but it's not letting me do the missions.
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did you install what you downloaded?
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I have the 360
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You have to complete the download and then restart your 360 for any DLC to work.
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I've never had to restart my 360 for DLC. Most I've ever had to do was exit out of the game and restart.
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Maybe I was just exaggerating
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It works fine now, but I've never had to do that before.
Also what's with dying and having to do the whole mission over? I thought their were autosaves in place to prevent that kind of thing.
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There are. Check your settings.
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It doesn't seem to do the same in the Firewalker missions.
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ah, I haven't downloaded that, so I have no clue
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Also what the hell ass balls there is a countdown on the mass effect website.
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I was wondering that too.
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It's on the Dragon Age site too, which leads me to believe it's either an announcement of more than one DLC-related thing, or a new game announcement of some kind.
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or....MASS EFFECT 2 DRAGON AGE CROSS OVER!!!
yeah probably not
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I don't know, man. Blood dragon armor.
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Commander Shepard crashlands in Fereldan and many shocking discoveries are made:
The Archdemon is actually a descendant of a rogue Reaper.
Darkspawn are husk descendants.
Grey Wardens are descended from Spectres who crashlanded.
Admiral Xen was actually just Morrigan wearing a suit.
The Dwarves are PROTHEANS
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In all seriousness, there were a few references to "The Maker" in ME2. I'm expecting a few easter eggs in ME3.
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I missed those references I guess?
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There was a reference on Eden Prime in ME1. Don't remember any others.
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Maker is such a generic term too, so it's hard to tell how much to read into it. It's right up there with thanking the light these days.
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is there anyway to romance mordin
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I think if you don't romance anyone and do the "how to release stress" talk, he thinks you're making a move on him.
I think, I could be wrong.
(no you can't romance him)
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You cannot romance Mordin, probably because the Salarians as a species tend to not engage in long-term mating relationships.
I know way too much about this game's universe.
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He'd be wild in the sack, were he a species that procreated via sexual relations.
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He'd be wild in the sack, were he a species that procreated via sexual relations.
He once failed a mission, just to see what it felt like.
He knows this hurts you, Shepard.
He is, The Most Interesting Man in the Terminus.
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Every once in a while, I load up one my ME1 save games just to watch Captain Anderson coldcock Udina.
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(http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/7702/1269878547436.png)
Only applies to people in the United states though. :|
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So that's what that countdown was for. I was kinda oping for announcement regarding DA2 and/or ME3.
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Yeah, or like super fun free DLC.
Instead, we get sweepstakes.
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I was shooting for some kind of modding program.
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What I wanna know is why can't I romance Wrex in ME1, or have him on my god damn team in ME2? He is my most favorite character, and basically, it disappoints me that I can't have him following me around in ME2 saying "I wanna go kill something" or making other funny quips. Seriously. I actually just recently started playing ME1(after watching my boyfriend play through 1 and 2, which is how I got re-interested in ME), and basically my team is the best because Wrex is a fucking bad ass.
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It's too bad he wasn't as aggressive in actual combat as his personality and rep implied though. He was a good teammate thanks to his sheer durability and the shotguns (I swear the NPCs don't even know what burst fire means) but the AI just never lived up to his skillset's potential. Ah well, the AI isn't his fault. It just bums me out that out of all the NPCs I always found Liara to be the most useful. She is so goddam boring. Still, singularity is always good and it's not like the other NPCs actually hit what they shoot anyway, so into my squad she went.
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They made Grunt's AI super aggressive in ME2, though, so I think they actually realized that Wrex wasn't aggressive enough and fixed that with Wrex 2.0.
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He charges at pretty much everything. I don't tell him to do it, he just does.
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also you can't fuck everything in the universe that you like, it's just not done
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The downer is that Grunt, as tough as he may be, simply isn't in a game where you can openly tank everyone and win. Wrex had Immunity, Shield Boost AND Barrier. Even with the dog shit AI it took a small miracle to down him. I suppose an effectively invulnerable NPC would probably be considered unbalanced by many people, but I for one could get behind a "Wrex Wrecks Everyone's Shit" edition of ME1.
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If you pump Grunt's regen and immunity abilities he is damn near impossible to take down.
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Trust me, I'm not tryin' to hate on the guy. He's my overall favorite squadmate from a pure gameplay standpoint. Grunt and Zaeed/Thane make great buddies for an adept, engineer or sentinel thanks to their raw damage output, even if the latter two have somewhat crappy loyalty powers. On normal or veteran Grunt is basically a death machine. I just get annoyed playing with him on hardcore and insanity sometimes-- he's got a bad habit of charging pairs of vanguards when I'm not looking.
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or those damn praetorians
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Grunt's survivability on Insanity is insane if you get both of the Krogan Vitality research upgrades.
50% extra health on a guy who has the highest base health of anyone on your team in addition to a 100% armor bonus?
Then again, pretty much all of your characters are crazy powerful when upgraded fully, and Insanity becomes quite easy anyway.
As for an Adept on Insanity I used Jacob (for pull and his shotgun and general survivability) and Miranda (for the 25% health bonus and Unstable Warp and Overload) the most, while using Zaeed for all Geth missions.
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A new Secret Romance (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/secret-romance-mass-effect/63942)
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Woo beat the game on insanity. It wasn't controller breaking difficult anywhere except the Collector Ship Platform.
What really helped was having blood dragon armor and the extra 10% biotic damage boost from the Firewalker DLC. So in total I had a 90% biotic damage boost, so my warps were absolutely decimating everything.
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I coulda swore I mentioned this earlier, but I just wanted to share how funny I thought it was when Alenko wore Ashley's pink armor during the destruction of the Normandy and was super upset at Horizon when meeting up with my male Shep. It made me wish there was a "Holy shit, you have dialogue now!" Renegade option. Don't get me wrong; I thought the Alenko character was pretty alright. But his ME1 interaction was pretty threadbare for a male Shep, so it's kinda hard to spin the encounter as a brothers-in-arms kinda deal, especially when I got to respond with a "THAT'S OFF LIMITS!" to the Illusive Man when he asked if the relationships were going to get in the way.
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breaking news: bioware hints at gay relationship for me3
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It'd certainly make my Kaidan experience make more sense. The man got a li'l surly on me for some guy I never talked to much. Normally, I wouldn't be raising an eyebrow, but I was kinda struck by how slightly lazy it felt. It comes across as a something that's supposed to be a real mission centerpiece but ends up feeling like one of the more obvious cut 'n' paste jobs in the game. Then again, my opinion is probably just being colored by how damn bland/restrained Kaidan is in virtually every other moment of the series. It just seems to scream "Well, shit, we thought you'd save Ashley."
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Yeah I was kinda annoyed by the disparity in Kaidan's character establishment between Shep genders. Luckily for me the clear superiority of Jennifer Hale made male Shep runs infrequent. And shit, it really does seem like you're supposed to kill Kaidan. He's barely a character in ME1 when you're male.
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What the fuck are you talking about? Me and Kaidan talked about that one time he kicked a turian in the face. We are bros 4 lyfe.
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Kaidan never wanted to talk to my male Sheps. Always told me to come back later. Might've been a bug, but it was a pretty frequent and unpatched one if it was.
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Even on my female playthroughs I always kill Kaiden.
Always. :evil:
Ashley is a more compelling character, even if she recites poetry in an attempt to be deep. (Although it actually does make sense for her character.)
Although one thing I don't get about Kaiden's justification for not joining you is "a leopard doesn't change its spots" in reference to Cerberus being bad dudes and will always be bad dudes. Um, hello, Shepard is way more of a leopard than Cerberus and so neither should his spots have changed! Talk about a double standard.
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kaidan was a way more compelling character and was developed fairly decently in my me1 run-throughs. the only awesome thing about ashley's poetry reciting is that she quoted "in memoriam a.h.h." in me2. it was shockingly apropos!
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Kaiden whined, though.
I do not tolerate whining on my vessel.
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What did you call Ashley bitching about the aliens?
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kaidan was a way more compelling character and was developed fairly decently in my me1 run-throughs. the only awesome thing about ashley's poetry reciting is that she quoted "in memoriam a.h.h." in me2. it was shockingly apropos!
I always spammed the space bar to tear through her poetry recitals ASAP, personally. I will say one thing: I have vague memories of Kaidan actually disagreeing with you 'n' shit from time to time if you're a renegade Shep, but I never actually went all the way through ME1 as a Renegade, so it's a pretty sketchy memory. I'm not an Ash, Kaidan or Liara fan by any means, tbh, but Ashley stands out a bit more in my mind simply because she disagreed with my Shep on some things and took a stand every now and again. My Kaidan interactions, on the other hand were mostly limited to things like "Thorians smell bad," and "Wow, Reapers sure are scary!"
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Kaiden is better than Jacob. Jacob needs some sort of shut the fuck up button.
What's the sense in telling a girl to say hi to the ship AI when her species was pushed off their planet by the geth?
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See, I interpreted that as being passive aggressive rather than completely oblivious, particularly since it was in response to Tali being openly hostile. Jacob's got a couple of lines here and there that have some real bite to them if you consider all the implications.
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Jacob was a weird character. I feel like the whole thing with Illusive Man cultivating an organization without any sort of ideological prereqs outside the most basic and loose pro-human sentiments probably sounded a lot cooler on paper than it ended up being in the game. Having played through the game a few times I'm fairly certain I've heard everything he's able to say (outside of romance stuff, which could be the problem) and I still don't know why he is where he is. I mean I'm aware of his backstory with the Batarians and all that but for a member of a pro-human partisan organization he seems immensely conflicted, and if it weren't for his B-type personality he doesn't seem like the type to ever engage in "Renegade" style activities. He just follows orders.
Anyway, I do actually think Jacob was just being thick when he told Tali about EDI. Jacob can be (sort of) biting when he's sullen (which is more often than not) but on the whole he is a painfully sincere and sorta naive dude.
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I definitely intepreted Jacob's comment to Tali as being a pretty snarky remark. She was being pretty anti-Cerberus for that whole meeting and there wasn't a whole lot he could do to come back on it, so I think that last comment was a purposeful kick in the ribs to her, otherwise there doesn't seem to be any sort of point in saying it whatsoever.
Still need to get around to completing a Paragon playthrough of this. Kinda sucks though that every time I think about starting a brand new character, I feel like I sort of have to get the same character through ME1 as well, just so I can build some kind of concrete narrative across both stories. Kinda want to do a playthrough where everybody dies, as well.
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I have to warn you that I think I'd rather try pulling off a non-import Mixed or Renegade than a non-import male Paragon (fem Shep has an edge here via VA). As much as I hate to speak ill of the tweaked body language,* it does have the unfortunate side effect of emphasizing just how much of a ginormous space pussy a straight up Paragon Shep can be at times. I could handle the boy scout thing much easier when the talking head would just woodenly spit out some by-the-book bs and then be forced to shoot people. The friendly animations kinda reinforce the notion that he really does try to talk down half the criminal assholes in the galaxy, and it's not really terribly convincing. It's part of why I'm glad I imported-- with that big fat pile of renegade/paragon points I had laying around from the first game I felt pretty comfortable just being a snarky asshole whenever the situation warranted it without having to worry too much about not being able to complete some random ass quest conversation. On the bright side, there's a few more tough-but-fair Paragon options in ME2 than there seemed to be in ME1, which is a bonus. Plus, there's always the chance that I'm overestimating just how many conversation points you likely need to accomplish whatever you want, but you'd probably have to ask KvP or someone else more knowledgeable to know for sure.
*Seriously, please believe that I'm not trying to be combative about the body language tweaks that have been made. I am thrilled that progress is being made in this area at all.
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What did you call Ashley bitching about the aliens?
Something that actually makes sense.
All Kaiden did was whine about being pushed around by a Turian in his school when you talk to him, but otherwise his interactions outside of the Normandy with you are incredibly... Plain. Like Alex C pointed out, all he has to say about things are just general, good two shoes thing. Ashely, on the other hand, has a much stronger moral code but at the same time it's at odds with a lot of things. If she were Shepard she wouldn't be entirely Renegade or entirely Paragon - she'd be a realistic balance.
Kaiden, on the other hand, is just boring to me. He mildly complains when you do something he doesn't like - Ashley goes, "What the hell, Commander?"
As for Jacob: I like him, but he does seem like a fish out of water with Cerberus. It still kind of makes sense, though: if you ask him why he joined Cerberus despite its past, he says they've changed some and he wants to be with them because they're actually doing something, whereas he felt like he was wasting his time in the Alliance and with the Corsairs. I also like him because he's an awesome squad member (pull, squad inferno ammo and high survivability? Yes please!) and I like his theme.
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Jacob is basically paragon shepard.
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breaking news: bioware hints at gay relationship for me3
Yaaay.
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Jacob is basically paragon shepard.
Yeah, I really liked how Jacob acted on his loyalty mission. And the music on that mission was very epic and catchy.
He was pissed, but he still couldn't shoot a man (and technically his own father) in cold blood. Although you could convince Jacob to leave his dad there with everything he made, which is kind of a Sith thing to do.
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Bioware explains (http://kotaku.com/5509870/bioware-explains-why-theres-no-homosexuality-in-mass-effect-2)
Also Kasumi tomorrow
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I always spammed the space bar to tear through her poetry recitals ASAP, personally.
well this one was in an e-mail so it was easy for it to not be cloying
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Bioware explains (http://kotaku.com/5509870/bioware-explains-why-theres-no-homosexuality-in-mass-effect-2)
Also Kasumi tomorrow
Bullshit you could have written it for Jack quite easily
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People were saying before that they always saved Ashley. I guess I'm kind of vindictive because when she killed Wrex on my first playthrough I have killed her every single playthough since in revenge. Regardless of whether Wrex survives that playthrough or not. Basically she just seemed like a racist country bumpkin to me so I slaughter her.
I don't find any of the humans very interesting in either game to be frank. They have their own petty motivations but nothing truly interesting or insightful as far I'm concerned. The aliens are far more interesting.
Currently trying to play renegade but with everyone surviving. Next playthrough I think will be renegade with no ship or weapon upgrades and no loyalty. Basically just play only story missions backtoback.
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So anyone else do the Kasumi mission yet?
I enjoyed it. Fun plot, lots of shooting, lots of fun side stuff, two fascinating Codex entries about pre-relay Earth, and a silly Dragon Age reference.
From a gameplay perspective, Kasumi has two unique abilities, Shadow Strike (hell of excellent) and Flashbang (I am not even sure I want to try it, sounds pretty useless), and the mission gives you a damn nifty SMG and a tech upgrade. Oh and platinum. Motherfuckers.
Worth $7? Ehhhhh, no probably not.
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Flashbang (I am not even sure I want to try it, sounds pretty useless)
Improved Flashbang makes enemies incapable of shooting their weapons, using tech abilities or biotic abilities for six seconds regardless of if they have shields, barrier, or armor up. That's not useless at all.
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Yeah, but Shadow Strike does that PLUS massive damage PLUS it can't really be guarded against by cover.
Yeah flashbang can strike multiple enemies but goddamn I am awful at that.
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Kasumi looks like a great addition to any team, but man I don't feel like paying 7 bucks. Some kind of mental block there for me.
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I hear the mission itself is quite good and the new SMG and casual outfits are pretty boss. I'll probably buy it next time I play through ME2.
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I'm kind of bummed you can't use Shadow Strike, but I enjoyed the mission even though i died 3 times.
I thought that was a Dragon Age reference, but I've never played the game.
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Here's the real question: does her on-ship dialogue just resemble Zaeed's?
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Yes, sadly
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Yes, it does, unfortunately.
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I didn't really mind.
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Also, every time someone says that this game is the first fully realized story-shooter I mentally light li'l candle for Deus Ex (and to a lesser extent, System Shock).
That's not to denigrate anything Bioware has accomplished, mind, but it occurs to me all the same.
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Am I the only one that really, really wants a System Shock remake?
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oh god the new female outfit is so much better than the male. The male outfit is just a recolor. :[
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Am I the only one that really, really wants a System Shock remake?
The rumor was that Dead Space was originally a SS sequel / reboot (EA holds the rights) but they decided to make a fresh IP of it instead.
I'm one of those guys who thinks that the only SS game worth seeing is a "hardcore" sort akin to the first two games. A Bioshock-esque conventional shooter seems less appealing, but it's the sort of game that would get made today.
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There was also a rumor that the Starbreeze developed 'Project RedLime' was going to be a System Shock reboot too, although that was later supplanted by speculation that it was a new Syndicate game, and then recently the project got canned anyway after EA went through restructuring so I guess it's all kind of moot.
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Don't get me wrong, I really liked System Shock (and really, really liked System Shock 2!). But I can't help but think that it is one of the few games that has ever been truly limited by the technology it premiered on.
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Agreed. That kinda ambition doesn't really match up well with 640x480 max resolution. Plus, there's some niggling control issues here and there that could be cleaned up with some hindsight and revisions. I can't fault them for the final product though. Amazing game. Glad I searched it out back in high school before I got too spoiled by modern standards. I remember reading about it at release but considering I was 12 at the time I wasn't really in a position to insist that my parents get me a PC capable of really playing it in its full glory.
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those control issues are probably intentionally to make the game more punishing
i hate punishing games
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Also, every time someone says that this game is the first fully realized story-shooter I mentally light li'l candle for Deus Ex (and to a lesser extent, System Shock).
has anyone said this
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Not in here. There's articles like this (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26955/Analysis_Mass_Effect_2s_Surprising_Genre_Experiment.php) though, and while I assume that the writer is likely familiar with games such as Deus Ex and System Shock, many of their readers won't be, or at least many of them will only be passingly familiar with their existence via the success of Bioshock. You definitely run into forums and conversations where people are divided into camps that believe Mass Effect 2 to be a somewhat logical extension of steps developers were already experimenting with and those who view the whole thing as akin to a virgin birth. Granted, I'm biased, because a lot of the people in my WoW guild fall into the latter camp and my guild is primarily made up of idiots,* so perhaps I'm overestimating the prevalence of that sort of thinking.
*I love them anyway, and they put up with my stupid bullshit, but we're still all idiots in there.
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I guess what I'm saying is that even Deus Ex is really fuckin' old for a video game these days, and so it has led to some alarming conversations for me lately.
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i hate punishing games
EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP AND PLAY THIS GAME
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in the interests of full disclosure i kept getting my ass kicked in dr. wily's fortress and stopped trying but up until that point it was a very fun and not actually all that trying experience, and the game isn't as sadistically difficult as system shock 2 is from like fifteen minutes in. basically the first second you encounter a robot firing rockets and silently hoping for your death you are fucked mister, fucked to death
Not in here. There's articles like this (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26955/Analysis_Mass_Effect_2s_Surprising_Genre_Experiment.php) though, and while I assume that the writer is likely familiar with games such as Deus Ex and System Shock, many of their readers won't be, or at least many of them will only be passingly familiar with their existence via the success of Bioshock. You definitely run into forums and conversations where people are divided into camps that believe Mass Effect 2 to be a somewhat logical extension of steps developers were already experimenting with and those who view the whole thing as akin to a virgin birth.
well outside of the really broad definition of "shooty game with talky bits" they are really different games, and certainly ME2 doesn't have a lot of similar stuff in its idiom. even previous action-y bioware games are in a different category - outside of "shooty game with talky bits starring commander shepard and featuring the storyline wheel" there's honestly not even that much in common between the first and second games in the ME series.
deus ex did things in its idiom that were audacious, thrilling and new, and mass effect 2 is doing the same thing. it's not the first fully-realized shooty-talky but its particular kind of shooty-talky hasn't really seen a game quite like it.
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Help me something is wrong with my Kasumi (http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t171/Darkian_Moon/My%20Shepards%20Mass%20Effect%20and%20Mass%20Effect%202/Gottalovegitches.jpg)
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Help me something is wrong with my Kasumi (http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t171/Darkian_Moon/My%20Shepards%20Mass%20Effect%20and%20Mass%20Effect%202/Gottalovegitches.jpg)
Marty Feldman, get out of Mass Effect 2!
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I drew a comic illustrating what it's like to fight Harbinger as an Engineer.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v114/Xegar/harbingerhateddrones.jpg?t=1272652781
Pretty much, no matter how much an enemy hates you, no matter how sworn that enemy is to defeating you, no matter how much damage you have dealt that enemy, and no matter how long you charge your Cain at them, the enemy will always always always hate the Combat Drone you summon more. Always.
Makes the game a piece of cake on Insanity.
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Been having a lot of fun with this game. Started playing on Veteran with an imported character, went to play Infiltrator. Veteran in ME2 is much, much easier than Veteran in ME1, but you do have to use powers or you're toast. I like how the Paragon/Renegade scores are only dependent on what choices you make instead of how many points you put into those skills. I've mostly been playing Paragon but my Renegade bar is always half as full as Paragon is, so I can still threaten to rip the balls off people I don't like. Renegade options have started to get greyed out on the latest missions after I got off the Collector ship, so I've got to go kick some ass on the other missions so I can play bad cop again. Also, I've only just found out where to get my DLC from. Yaay, Blood Dragon Armor.
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Bioware releases so much DLC that I've just stopped paying for it.
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Oh, I didn't actually buy the DLC. I got the armor from Dragon Age, and the rest of the stuff just came with the Cerberus Network. Beats me how the Network is supposed to help me other than by showing news reports.
Planet scanning, the most tedious part of the whole game, is surprisingly enough starting to grow on me. At least it's better than the Mako. It actually feels good if you hit a major deposit of element zero somewhere on a small island. Although it's a shame you can't do all the research there is by stockpiling minerals and then upgrading everything in one go. There are a lot of upgrades that you can only get in shops, and those are expensive. It's really hard to make a lot of money in this game, you really need to get out and do a lot of missions in order to get some decent funds. Not many games can strike a good balance between money sources and money sinks. It seems like you really have to make choices about what to buy and what to leave.
It's similar with the powers the different characters have. It's all very minimalistic, where you only have a handful of powers and points to upgrade them are rare. It's a step forward from ME1, where you really had too many powers and too many points to spend on them. But they still haven't struck the perfect balance. Leveling up powers doesn't really give you a feel for character progression.
I'm spending way too much time on this game.
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I didn't find it was hard to make money. Heck, I bought every piece of armor the shops gave me to see how they would look.
In my current play through I had the Cain before I even got Garrus, then again I decided to mix it up and get Grunt first.
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Well, actually, upgrades cost more money than missions alone provide by a pretty healthy margin. If you don't have the Long Service Medal AND the Rich Achievement then it can definitely be tedious to get everything on the first play through since I think the only real source of infinite income out there is gambling on varren. You can get the majority easily enough though, particularly if you're concentrating on upgrading only stuff you and a few favorite squaddies use.
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The next Mass Effect 2 adventure (http://kotaku.com/5537970/mass-effect-2-gets-new-man-vs-robots-downloadable-content)
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This thread is amazing (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/2448914/1)
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so that's what an aneurism feels like
thanks!
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Here's a question based on this article (http://kotaku.com/5539398/the-helmet-question), did you leave the helmet on or take it off?
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Sentry Visor all the way.
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Sometimes I put on the Death Mask to get over that tiny little Renegade dialogue requirement, but that didn't work. Visor for +10% headshot damage? Easy choice for an Infiltrator.
I watched some youtube videos on ME2, you know, the standard fare 'Shepard being an asshole' compilations and in one of them I saw Shepard wearing a pair of creepy blue goggles. I haven't come across those in my first game, is it from a DLC pack?
Also, what parts and colors did you put on your armor? In the first game I used the Capacitor Chestplate a lot because I was careless about being shot a few times, which didn't really matter on Veteran. Amplifier Plates on shoulders, Heavy Damping Gauntlets on arms, and Life Support Webbing on legs. I colored the suit red with dark red stripes and white joints. For the second game I switched it up and went with white armor with a gray camo pattern.
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In the beginning I really wanted to see Shepard emote, but I loved the Death Mask way too much and ended up using that. In my second play through I used the Recon Hood cause my renegade Shepard was starting to get all kraggly in the face.
I mostly use dark colors with my Shepards. My current run I have a red, white, and blue theme going on.
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I watched some youtube videos on ME2, you know, the standard fare 'Shepard being an asshole' compilations and in one of them I saw Shepard wearing a pair of creepy blue goggles. I haven't come across those in my first game, is it from a DLC pack?
these maybe? (http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100126030237/masseffect/images/thumb/2/2b/Umbra_visor.jpg/165px-Umbra_visor.jpg)
list of all dlc armors here (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/N7_Armor).
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That's the one, thanks. I hadn't found pictures of it because I only looked on the wiki page on Armor instead of N7 Armor. The Dr. Pepper items don't have much better stats than you can get from other armor pieces... Wait, these are still available? To everyone? For free? Well, forget I said anything, let's have it!
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Considering they ain't no thang to get I didn't really care much if the stats weren't great, just that I wasn't missing out on stats at all. Besides, I thought the Sentry Visor looked sorta cool in a cheesey sci-fi sorta way as I sauntered around in the Afterlife's lighting. Besides, you don't get the goofy muffled effect or look like an idiot when you order a drink.
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Hm, looks like the codes did expire by now. Too bad.
Hey, you know what? Insanity is really hard! When I played on Veteran, enemies' health regenerating was hardly noticable. Now, I shoot a Vorcha in the head with my Widow rifle and take his health down to a sliver. And by the time I reloaded my gun, he's already back to full health! That's harsh. I don't regret my decision of choosing Neural Shock instead of Dominate as my bonus talent yet, though. Krogan are a bit of a problem now that they can crush me beneath one foot, and Neural Shock is just as good as Concussive Shot or Pull for quickly stunning an enemy that gets too close. Plus, using a biotic power as an Infiltrator feels a bit like cheating to me.
So is it just me, or is the whole 'bad guys are actually good guys' a bit too overplayed here? First it was the Rachni in ME1, who 'lacked decent upbringing'. Then Cerberus, with "They did not have permission to do evil experiments!" Then it's the Geth, with "An equation with a result of 1.33382 returns as 1.33381, which makes them want to kill all organics." So, was everything I killed not really evil after all?
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Well, it's all slightly more complicated than that to be fair. The Rachni in the first game went insane, and the old brood basically had one massive misunderstanding with the rest of the races. Think Ender's Game misunderstanding with the Buggers. The Geth are simply much more interesting if there is an actual split in the base (and it makes a lot more sense considering the lack of reasoning and the religious undertones the geth had displayed thus far in pushing their goals) and Cerberus is... complicated.
I mean, the Geth haven't really proved themselves as good guys as this point, they just happen to share a common goal, and Cerberus is working only in what they see as the best interest of humanity. This on many occasions ends up as something not very good at all.
The Mass Effect universe has, for the most part, done a pretty good job of painting all of the major factions you actually deal with a pretty good grey moral brush, with the Reapers as the one demoniacally evil entity.
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The Geth stuff was foreshadowed in the first game, with the terminal at the end of the Geth Incursion side mission.
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Yeah, that was the simplified version of every bad guy we fought in ME1. You have to admit, there's a pattern. I remember that the Rachni that were bred on Noveria went psycho by being isolated from the queen, but I forgot what the whole deal with the Rachni wars was. I don't know anything about Ender's Game, though.
I think Cerberus' infamy is a result of them being a victim of their own success. They're a very idealistic organization with the best intentions for humanity and they refuse to acknowledge other authorities. This is prone to attract zealots with similar ideals but slightly more blurry moral boundaries. So they join an organization where they are told they're fighting the good fight and they make a difference, other than those bureaucrats who are blind to how things really are. Next thing that happens, your agents are feeding soldiers to Thresher Maws, still believing that this is the right thing to do, honest!
From what we know about the Geth, they seem to be quite indifferent about other races as long as they stay out of each other's business. Before Legion came along, I never really thought about the Geth as just another galactic race, trying to make it as they go along. That doesn't make them the good guys, only self-preserving. Like Cerberus, you might say. When on Tali's mission, I faced the choice of handing over the evidence and get her father erased from history, or withholding it from them when they might need it. But I never realised what implications it might have for the Geth. They won't like it if the Quarians just come waltzing in one day being all "Hi thar we'd like our planet and our robot workforce back now." Thinking back to how it all started, it really is conflicting for both sides. If you had a robot army as a workforce and a military force, and they became intelligent, would it be immoral to continue to use them for hard labor, that which they've been made to do and have been doing all their existence?
You're right about the grey morals between the races. I think they've executed it a lot better than Bioware did in Dragon Age, which was advertised to be morally ambiguous. The backstory seems much less forced and artificial in Mass Effect than it does in Dragon Age.
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The Rachni Wars were strongly implied to be, in both ME1 and ME2, the fault of the Reapers. Their "song was soured" by a "tone from space" that turned them bloody and violent against the races of the Citadel. The Reapers just didn't count on the Krogan in their utilization of the Rachni to reconquer the galaxy.
But yeah, the story of the Rachni is basically fully lifted from Ender's Game, like much of the Mass Effect universe is heavily taken from other sci-fi works (most notably Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5).
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After using it quite a bit, I love the special ability Charge
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The story up to the start of ME3 will be told via a continued stream of DLC. (http://www.videogamer.com/news/story_between_me2_and_me3_to_be_told_via_dlc.html) Hmm. The words 'episodic content' spring to mind. I don't know how long the bridge story is going to be, but I'm getting the impression of something like
HL2ME2: Episodes one to six, all of which require ME2 to play. That's gonna be a big cash-in. Unless it all comes with Cerberus Network, in which case I have nothing to complain about.
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Charge is pretty alright. My problem with a lot of the weaker powers in the game comes down to managing what is effectively a global cool down. Between that and the leveling process the system tends to favor using one well developed power all the time provided you have valid targets. Not too big of an issue at Veteran or above with Adepts, Engineers and Sentinels-- the system's pretty nice about rewarding you for using more than a single ability there. It just falls apart with Soldiers since Adrenaline Rush is really powerful and as a self-buff it's always available. Thus Concussive Shot isn't all that bad on paper, but in practice I never use it. I mean, hey, it's nice that Concussive Shot apparently mauls barriers, but so does an Adrenaline Rush fueled Revenant on full auto.
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Yeah, most classes have pretty much one super-power and everything else is just flavor.
Except for the Engineer. Since Combat Drone has only a three (!) second cooldown you have more than enough time and room for all of your other abilities. All of them very useful - I was very surprised with how much I was using Cryo Blast effectively and frequently on Insanity.
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I barely ever use Concussive Shot on the offensive anyway. As an Infiltrator, it's useful for forcing a break in enemy fire so I can line up a shot with my sniper rifle. And because I'm frequently sneaking behind enemy lines with the cloak, I can use it to floor an enemy and then melee or gun them down at close range.
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I thought I'd point out for posterity that my complaints are mostly immaterial because I love the shit out of this game.
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The story up to the start of ME3 will be told via a continued stream of DLC. (http://www.videogamer.com/news/story_between_me2_and_me3_to_be_told_via_dlc.html) Hmm. The words 'episodic content' spring to mind. I don't know how long the bridge story is going to be, but I'm getting the impression of something like HL2ME2: Episodes one to six, all of which require ME2 to play. That's gonna be a big cash-in. Unless it all comes with Cerberus Network, in which case I have nothing to complain about.
fuck it, i'll live
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if these episodes are as good as the rest of the game then you can basically sign me up right now
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A Mass Effect movie is now in the works (http://au.movies.ign.com/articles/109/1092495p1.html). Heavy Rain was also announced last week. We'll see if they hold up - aside from the long list of shitty game-to-film adaptations, there's an equally long list of game-to-film adaptations that were aborted before they took off (Deus Ex, Bioshock and Splinter Cell were all canceled in pre-production).
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What the fuck, Heavy Rain already IS a movie
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No, it's a high-res Dragon's Lair. Big difference.
As for the Mass Effect movie, I'm apprehensive but really they couldn't hope for anyone better to option the rights than Legendary. They do big budget productions and they do good adaptations, so I think they provide the best chance at this being an actually good movie. Obviously, it won't have the big-ticket creatove chops of someone like Christopher Nolan, but here's to hoping.
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(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2119/1275108582memulti.jpg)
OMG ME No RPG
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:|
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Honestly, it depends on how the implement it. If they're really going to try to put deathmatch-style multiplayer in ME3, then that will probably be terrible. If they are just putting in co-op and letting human players control your squad members, that could be pretty rad, although I think players 2 and 3 miss out on the best elements of the ME experience. Then again, maybe the 'far-reaching' project for the ME universe EA was talking about was a multiplayer focused game that isn't part of the trilogy at all. The real challenge that I can see with making Mass Effect multiplayer is the powers. Biotics and tech powers will be a nightmare from a multiplayer balance perspective, and if the response is to take them out, then why bother making Mass Effect multiplayer in the first place?
I'm not fully willing to write it off just yet, but it seems like they're going to have their work cut out for them.
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Presumably they could go off the reservation and make an entirely different sort of game than ME was / is.
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WTB ME RTS
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Mass Effect multiplayer? Well, the first thing I can tell you is that it won't involve Shepard. But remember the multiplayer feature in Bioshock 2? Instead of incorporating the single player experience into a multiplayer game, they added a new backstory and slightly different gameplay to the multiplayer part of the game. In a story-heavy game, this has the advantage of making the individual multiplayer character insignificant to the story, but the whole of the players do matter. So instead of a one-man quest through the perils of Rapture, you play a citizen in the civil war. They could easily do the same with Mass Effect. There is a ton of backstory that gives plenty of opportunities for multiplayer skirmishes. There's the First Contact War, Geth Uprising, Rachni Wars, Krogan Rebellions, and tons of other historical events they can cook up at a moment's notice. Will be interesting.
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The ME universe is really, right now, poised to be one of the most creatively exploitable franchises in the entire industry. It's such a magnificently woven hodge-podge of sci-fi that you can go any direction and make it interesting.
I'm excited for anything they choose to do.
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The obvious route would be First Contact War stuff. In a multiplayer context there's really no reason to incorporate very many Bioware-style RPG elements at all.
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Or hell of Gears of War Krogan vs. Rachni kill the bugs co-op style yesssssssssssss
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WTB ME RTS
Just in case you didn't realize, this is Homeworld 3 + Dawn of War right here motherfuckers, let's make this happen. Get my cash, EA/Bioware.
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Relic is wholly owned by THQ, though. I guess it's not unprecedented for EA to partner with THQ for that, but I'd be pretty surprised.
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exploitable franchise
these words make me wanna vomit on the regular
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Which is why I qualified it with "creatively"
Yeah, it's financially exploitable but the point here is there's a rich deposit of fantastic games and stories here and I want them to send an m'fin' probe down y'hear?
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"exploit" is such an awful word though, and the english language is huge, let's collectively agree to let "exploit" denote something negative so it can throw up a red flag when know-nothing hypercapitalists toss it around like it's a bouquet of roses
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With Halo: Reach getting all the attention I didn't notice that the Lair of the Shadow Broker is now out
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It's funny because Halo: Reach represents exactly what I want BW to do with Mass Effect. Anyone even casually interested in Halo knows the story of Reach and Bungie didn't decide to go the route of "BUT HERE'S WHAT REALLY HAPPENED". Instead, they decided to make it a personal story in the midst of the conflict and put all their effort into making it fun and polished and even unique amongst the Halo storyline. They don't need to have epic twists and turns, they just needed to make it an experience for the player to be there and participate in the biggest moment in the franchise's universe.
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Halo Reach? more like Halo (something lame that rhymes with reach)
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Leech?
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I really like Lair of the Shadow Broker, but then you fight shit on a ship floating in a goddamn gas giant. That is pretty much all I ask from a video game
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Replaying the game as a Renegade Sentinel. It's pretty OK, I guess. I took Reave from the beginning since I have beaten the game already. It makes playing pretty fun. Reave + Warp = Rad.
Plus, I made my characters cheekbones so high that it looks like his face has wings.
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I'm doing a renegade playthrough as a sentinel too. My chief strategy consists of activating tech armor, waiting for the cooldown, and then running out and punching bitches til they all fall down. Far away bitches get the hand cannon + warp ammo