mass effect 2- with spoilers galore

[nickfil]

Anyone finish it?

I've been dying to talk about the ending/plot with a buddy of mine, but he still hasn't started his. Probably what i should've done, as it looks like now i have to work my ass off over the next 10 days because this ate 40 hours of my life over the course of last week.

Anyway.... what do you think? as good as the first? LIkes/dislikes? Gameplay vs the first?

I'll post what i thought if this gets rolling. Don't know if anyone has actually finished it yet. I feel like are a retro community after all. Most of us with real jobs and lives.

UNTIL THEN! Nate drew Tali on his blog. He is talented. Check it...

http://fetorpse.blogspot.com/

[MrPopo]

I finished it last week. I really enjoyed it. I think they did a good job of streamlining things to get to the core; the RPG shooting. I'll contrast this with Deus Ex: Invisible War where they initially streamlined (lowered number of augs which removed a lot of the ones no one used anyway) and then went too far (dummy inventory, universal ammo, no skill points). I was also surprised that the universal ammo system in ME2 was actually implemented well. Instead of the DX:IW "you get one pool so you can't ever use that nifty rocket launcher unless you want to start swording people" system they went with a "each ammo pickup fills up each weapon by X", so when I run out of assault rifle clips I can switch to my shotty and rush them to get more. Also, Garrus romance is hilarious.

[Dakinggamer87]

I finished it last week. I really enjoyed it. I think they did a good job of streamlining things to get to the core; the RPG shooting.

Yeah, same here. The graphics are also are a huge improvement over original!! They also simplified inventory system of new weapons, equipment you acquire during the game which was awesome. The story was great and cutscenes were fantastic. The only problem I had with game is mining materials but it's a very minor issue.

[Snickerd00dle]

The first Mass Effect was my favorite 360 game, and now Mass Effect 2 is, i felt the changes were improvements and that the story was awesome, the only thing i disliked was that I wanted more, the only thing i could compare it to was the second Lord of the Rings movie, amazing, but at the end I just wanted to go on with the story, and who knows how long it will be till the next game, with an ending that didn't reveal too much, especially about the Illusive Man( his eyes were weird), I just can't wait till the next game

[MrPopo]

So did anyone save the entire squad? How about losing the entire squad? I managed to play a Renegade who still had a soft side for his crew of lovable misfits, so I brought them all back alive.

[Snickerd00dle]

So did anyone save the entire squad? How about losing the entire squad? I managed to play a Renegade who still had a soft side for his crew of lovable misfits, so I brought them all back alive.

i was wondering how this works, i only lost one member, i was under the impression it had to do with how your ship was upgraded? however, Jack and I got in a fight, and she is the person I lost, so this may be why she died as well, maybe you know more than i do about this?

[MrPopo]

So did anyone save the entire squad? How about losing the entire squad? I managed to play a Renegade who still had a soft side for his crew of lovable misfits, so I brought them all back alive.

i was wondering how this works, i only lost one member, i was under the impression it had to do with how your ship was upgraded? however, Jack and I got in a fight, and she is the person I lost, so this may be why she died as well, maybe you know more than i do about this?

There are a lot of variables that go into it. You can lose up to three people during the initial flight cinematic depending on if you upgraded the ship or not. The next thing appears to be picking good party members to perform each task. Finally, the hold the line part appears to be based partially on the overall composition of the people you don't take with you; it's theorized that if you don't have enough hard combat classes you're going to lose people (so you probably don't want to take both Garrus and Grunt with you for the final boss). On top of all this is party loyalty. If someone isn't loyal to you then it seems they are going to die.

This means that you can lose every party member if you end up not doing all the loyalty quests and use the wrong people for each task. This has an interesting consequence; during the end where you jump to the Normandy Joker tries to pull you up instead of a party member. However, Joker is a weak girly man and you plummet to your doom. Thus you get the promised "Shepard can die and this time won't be coming back" ending.

[nickfil]

Thus you get the promised "Shepard can die and this time won't be coming back" ending.

huh. Didn't know you could actually kill off Shepard. I might try to do that in a third play through. I had one die- thane. I had him in the vents crawling around, and he took a shot to the head. I guess you want legion in the vents? I also.... didn't upgrade the fuel. So that might have been why he died.

Also- i totally missed the romance achievement. As a female shep- i was shooting for jack. She shut me down, but I figured she would like... come around at the end. Didn't know you couldn't go lesbo in this game, like you could in the last. Kind of unfortunate because i wanted to continue my shepard's sexual preference from the first game, but couldn't.

I'm starting in on a new game now. Brand new male Shepard file for ME2. Engineer. Trying to max out renegade this time. Also- play it through on insanity. I played through on normal the first time and found that i was just breezing through the game. The end seemed just as hard as the middle. Didn't know there were 3 more steps up in difficulty until i started this game. I figured there was 'hard' and then 'impossible.' not one in between. Probably should've kicked it up sooner.

As for the ending- it got a little too similar in structure to the first game to me. Not the actual running around part with the biotic bubble... but like the... wait on the ship, romance, bad guy. I kinda wish that bioware changes it up in the next game. Throws the romance in after or just... whenever you happen to unlock it. The "end boss" was kinda lame. Just my opinion. I think if they designed him to have like.. human faces in the metal to make him more creepy it would've had a bigger impact on me. But killing him was just like mowing down all the other geth i have before. No big. That said- they built some fantastic new characters and i was really wrapped up and emotionally engaged at some of their stories. The only guys i didn't really care for were Grunt and jacob. Grunt was ok, i just found him a little boring. Full combat without biotics or tech is kinda boring to play IMHO. Jacob was just so lame. It just seemed his whole character was him saluting all the time. Lame. I really liked that they made garrus more volatile. He was such a boring cardboard cut out of a police officer in the first game, it is great that they had the events of the first game really scar him. Mordin was fantastic. All his dialogue was so well written and funny. Tali was great as always. Legion was such a great twist and i didn't see it coming at all. The conflict between him and tali was beautifully played out so that you weren't just like "oh, fuck the geth" and actually sympathized with him a bit. Or at least understood the motivations of the geth you were killing.

What kinda team did you guys use? Were there any powers you guys used heavily?

I was a biotic/combat, but I was doubling down on biotics once i got Samara. I was using her and Tali at the end, but before the second round I was going with garrus and mordin

The only thing i was using ALL the time at the end was shockwave. I upgraded it to area shockwave and it would pitch a row of guys and either outright kill them by hucking them off a bridge or ledge, or at least knock em down so i can deal with only half the room. And it took out the husks in one shot.

That and when i got in a bind, i was using combat drone a bit.

[MrPopo]

Also- i totally missed the romance achievement. As a female shep- i was shooting for jack. She shut me down, but I figured she would like... come around at the end. Didn't know you couldn't go lesbo in this game, like you could in the last. Kind of unfortunate because i wanted to continue my shepard's sexual preference from the first game, but couldn't.

Bioware's stance is that Liara isn't a girl, as the Asari only have one gender. So it wasn't technically lesbo.

I really liked that they made garrus more volatile. He was such a boring cardboard cut out of a police officer in the first game, it is great that they had the events of the first game really scar him.

If you do Garrus's side mission in ME1 as a renegade you really start to see him going down the vigilante path. So when Archangel turned out to be Garrus I was like "Cool!" but it totally fit him as a character in my playthrough.

[nickfil]

Also- i totally missed the romance achievement. As a female shep- i was shooting for jack. She shut me down, but I figured she would like... come around at the end. Didn't know you couldn't go lesbo in this game, like you could in the last. Kind of unfortunate because i wanted to continue my shepard's sexual preference from the first game, but couldn't.

Bioware's stance is that Liara isn't a girl, as the Asari only have one gender. So it wasn't technically lesbo.

I really liked that they made garrus more volatile. He was such a boring cardboard cut out of a police officer in the first game, it is great that they had the events of the first game really scar him.

If you do Garrus's side mission in ME1 as a renegade you really start to see him going down the vigilante path. So when Archangel turned out to be Garrus I was like "Cool!" but it totally fit him as a character in my playthrough.

ah- that makes sense about liara i guess. A bit of a loophole- but sure. At least then give me another asari! That one i got is all up in arms about the code and can't get down and party. Jokes. Guys. Jokes? I just hope that this isn't bioware kind of backtracking from the "sexbox" bullshit that happened when the first game was out. Especially after dragon age took some risks with the romance plots. It was good to see that in a game. Makes you think games are growing up.

I did garrus's side mission, but only in the good path. Started a renegade playthrough, but never finished. Good to see that it connects. It makes sense reguardless though. Someone who believes in right and wrong the way that garrus does, and then seeing the things that garrus saw... he can't go back to a bureaucratic way of life. The thing about the first game is that every time i start in on a new playthrough i always stop because the inventory is so fucking horrible. It kicks me out of the game and totally breaks up my flow. I'm glad they addressed it in the sequel.

Remind me again- real quick... what was garrus' side quest in the first game? It has been too long.