Mass Effect 2

[Stofsk]

Who has got it? Who is playing it?

I've just finished it and good god, this is by far the best game I have ever played. The endgame in particular blew me away, just like ME1 did.

I can't be assed giving it a full and proper review with spoilers, but damn did it deliver everything I could ever hope for in a sequel. It's the Empire Strikes Back to ME1's Star Wars. I just hope that ME3 won't be a disappointment, but Bioware have set the bar to crazy heights after this.

[Mayabird]

DP has it. Unfortunately the 360 red-ringed so he had to send it for repairs. I watched him play a little of it at a friend's house and the bit I saw cracked me up. "Ramen is a delicacy back on Earth." Ads for Elcor Hamlet. "Insincere endorsement. You have not seen Hamlet until you have seen our performance." I love those little details.

[White Haven]

The bad: Scanning minigame is apparently awful on consoles. Ammo system makes no sense and is hilariously poorly implemented. Shared power cooldowns render some powers useless and/or redundant. Classes with a higher number of necessary skills (Soldier especially comes to mind) significantly more difficult to balance skill point spending on than more focused classes. Second playthrough fails to give Paragon/Renegade starting bonuses. Writing overall fairly good, but spotty in places, in need of an editor with the power to say 'no, try again' firmly (human 'essence?' really?).

The good: The rest of the writing, overall high quality. The voice acting (holy shit, so many voices I recognize!). The graphics, as if it needed mentioning. Combat...eh, if I want to play Gears, I'll go fucking play Gears. I don't need Gears in my Mass Effect. Fun, but it's incredibly transparent that they wanted to make Gear Effect 2. Also, can I have defenses on the same scale as my enemies for once, pleeaaase? Your shields crumple if an enemy breathes on them. Still, I place it in the 'good' side because it's fun in spite of it.

The 'I wish': If you're going to allow ship upgrades, then have ship combat be something more than a noninteractive cutscene. At least allow some sort of branching battle-direction or something.

[Stofsk]

The bad: Scanning minigame is apparently awful on consoles.

I've detected the problem right there.

Ammo system makes no sense and is hilariously poorly implemented.

No it isn't.

Shared power cooldowns render some powers useless and/or redundant.

That's a valid complaint but it does have a benefit in that you can't spam biotic powers like you could in ME1, which made combat broken in ME1 but makes it more tense and difficult in ME2.

Classes with a higher number of necessary skills (Soldier especially comes to mind) significantly more difficult to balance skill point spending on than more focused classes.

Soldier just needs disruptor ammo and incendiary ammo. That's it. The other powers aren't necessary, but you can still max two of them out. I had Commando as my passive skill. I chose Zaeed's inferno grenades as a bonus skill, but I regret that now and I should have maxed out concussive blast or adrenaline rush, one of the two (though I never really used the latter).

The good: The rest of the writing, overall high quality. The voice acting (holy shit, so many voices I recognize!). The graphics, as if it needed mentioning. Combat...eh, if I want to play Gears, I'll go fucking play Gears. I don't need Gears in my Mass Effect. Fun, but it's incredibly transparent that they wanted to make Gear Effect 2.

I couldn't give two shits about Gears of War comparison. The combat in ME1 is utterly broken. Anything that's different is better.

Also, can I have defenses on the same scale as my enemies for once, pleeaaase? Your shields crumple if an enemy breathes on them.

Same scale as what? The heavy mechs? The bosses? Your shields recharge and so does your health quicker than 90% of the enemies you face. Most of the enemies you face go down to focused fire. It's the heavy boss fights that make fights tense.

If you find you get damaged really quickly... find cover. This isn't ME1 where you can run around the base holding the LMB indefinitely and never have to find cover because all the enemies can't touch you and you have a the best guns in the galaxy. Fights are actually tougher this time around.

The 'I wish': If you're going to allow ship upgrades, then have ship combat be something more than a noninteractive cutscene. At least allow some sort of branching battle-direction or something.

I would absolutely hate a ship combat segment. Joker is my pilot and he can handle the ship to ship warfare aspect of the game; otherwise he's just unnecessary ballast to the cast.

[White Haven]

Let's see, 'heat sinks' that can never cool down again despite visibly cooling on the floor after being ejected, and 'universal heat sinks' that have different ammo counts per weapon. Oh, and sinks that are the size of a single shell casing and yet some weapons carry only a couple reloads because...quantum?

I'm not saying that the ammo system is hard to manage in-game, but it makes no sense

Equally, I didn't find combat hard, but I did find the tissue shields and hide behind crates the whole game' model irritating. It's also a dead giveaway when you're about to be attacked...all of a sudden the random hallway you're in is strewn with shipping crates/rock outcroppings.

[Stofsk]

Let's see, 'heat sinks' that can never cool down again despite visibly cooling on the floor after being ejected, and 'universal heat sinks' that have different ammo counts per weapon. Oh, and sinks that are the size of a single shell casing and yet some weapons carry only a couple reloads because...quantum?

I'm not saying that the ammo system is hard to manage in-game, but it makes no sense

The 'overheating weapon' thing never made sense - that goes back to the first game. In ME1 I can literally load up two frictionless materials X in my Master Spectre assault rifle or pistol, put in shredder VII or tungsten VII and sticky tape my LMB down and run around FOREVER never a) running out of ammo (even though there is no infinite ammunition, eventually that block inside the gun has to be replaced) and b) never overheating my weapon, even though overheating is supposed to be the primary practical problem for the new gun tech, according to the codex.

As implemented in ME1, the gun mechanic simply put was broken. But I reject the notion the heat sinks weren't properly implemented in the game. Sure it's a retcon, but I couldn't give a flying fuck. It makes better sense to eject a spent heat sink from an overheating weapon than wait for it to cool down, which realistically wouldn't occur in the kind of time frame that ME1 depicted. Is it perfect? No, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be better.

Equally, I didn't find combat hard, but I did find the tissue shields and hide behind crates the whole game' model irritating. It's also a dead giveaway when you're about to be attacked...all of a sudden the random hallway you're in is strewn with shipping crates/rock outcroppings.

Agreed about how fights are telegraphed. Shit there are crates, fight's about to start. :)

But again, I liked how fights weren't the 'stand and gun enemy till he dies' variety. I see it as an improvement. The combat is a lot more tactical, sometimes I found the fights easy, then I'd get sloppy and next thing I knew I was seeing red veins and boom, had to reload because I couldn't get to cover quick enough.

[Stofsk]

DP has it. Unfortunately the 360 red-ringed so he had to send it for repairs. I watched him play a little of it at a friend's house and the bit I saw cracked me up. "Ramen is a delicacy back on Earth." Ads for Elcor Hamlet. "Insincere endorsement. You have not seen Hamlet until you have seen our performance." I love those little details.

There's an ad on the asari world about Blasto, the first hanhar Spectre. ENKINDLE THIS! I rofled.

The salarian games merchant is hilarious. 'Subtle' poking at computer gamers and fans. "I wish RPGS were like they were in the old days. Today, they're all about hard choices and intense combat. I remember when your character took 4 hrs to get anywhere and could die if he forgot to drink water."

And just as well done, were the other little details you get when you walk through and hear a news report referencing you or actions you took in the first game. Getting emails from people was a nice touch too. Really helped the immersion as I play mostly paragon and it was nice that all the people I helped out in the first game heard I might be alive and tried to track me down to give me good wishes. Helped remind me what I was fighting for.

[General Havoc]

Frankly, I find the combat vastly improved over the original game. I play Vanguard, and while I can still sit back and snipe with my pistol (Headshots count now!), they actually gave me reasons to mix it up by getting in close with a shotgun, SMG, or close-range biotics. The battles are also much more interesting, I think, with larger set-pieces instead of the same randomly-generated crap over and over. The partner AI is improved (I think), and I believe that you as the player are considerably more durable than the enemy tends to be, even the bosses.

Overall, I'm still early on in the game, but I'm loving it so far.

[Cpl Kendall]

Console scanning isn't that bad, I have the 360 and it takes me maybe 5 minutes to suck a planet dry (after the upgrade, it is truly terrible without it).

I've played through a few times now, the only things I consider to be problems are the squad AI (break cover constantly, stand in the open, stand on top of cover) and Harbingers constant recycling of the same phrases.

It's a vast improvement over the previous game in pretty much every way. I particularly love Blasto.

[Stofsk]

The reaction to ME2 by the ME1 diehards is unbelievable. I loved ME1 but I thought it was flawed, and those flaws were entirely fixed by ME2. Seriously. ME1 comes out, and EVERYONE complains about the long elevator rides. Bioware fixes this problem for ME2. So what happens? People complain there aren't any long elevator rides. What the fuck.

Or another one. The Mako. Now, when I first played ME1 I loved the Mako, I loved the idea behind it. However, with every subsequent replay and especially the ones where I made sure to visit every planet, this love slowly but surely gave way to an uncompromising hate that has the fire of a thousand suns. But people miss the Mako. Ok, the idea was great - get into an armoured space buggy and shoot things and explore planets. But when explore planets means you scale mountains that are jagged beyond belief, or fall off a cliff and simply 'bounce' to the bottom of a valley with no damage, I call bullshit.

The inventory system - aka spend half an hour going through all the crap you pick up. The inventory system isn't well designed at all, and all the items are trash because once you can afford Spectre weapons none of the other guns matter at all. Same goes with armour, if you can find a set of Collossus or Predator L/M/H you're set. But people truly miss picking up all that crap and selling it, even though the money you have is capped at 9,999,999 credits.

I honestly, truly, can't believe why anyone would prefer ME1 to ME2. And I say this as someone who loved playing ME1. ME2 just fucks ME1 up the ass. Having said that, I'm still forcing myself to play ME1 just so I can have a couple more level 60 characters to import. I have four in mind: soldier (who has clocked the game already), infiltrator, vanguard, and sentinel. I have no desire to play the engineer though (never liked the engineer from ME1 and that's continued on to ME2), and the adept was easily the most broken class in ME1 and left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Cpl Kendall]

What do you get if you import a lvl 60?

[Stofsk]

You start at level 5 and you get a 150K cash injection, both are difficult to say no to. If you import a level 50-59 character the cash bonus is less and you start at level 3.

[Dark Silver]

almost makes me want to get ME1 for the computer, place it through, and import a Infiltrator....

never did play Mass Effect 1....

[rhoenix]

Got it a while ago.

Finished Mass Effect this morning, and transferred my game to ME2.

Holy shit. I was impressed as hell by ME1, and ME2 is already looking to be better.

[Cynical Cat]

It's a pretty damn good game with a few missteps. Far superior to ME1.

[Stofsk]

I wish it was less shooty and more RPGy. Alpha Protocol got the balance right IMO. I also missed ME1's mod system for gear, though not ME1's horrid, unbelieveably shocking inventory system.

[rhoenix]

Just finished ME for the second time, this time as an Adept (with the AR bonus talent, of course) instead of a Soldier.

Much different game - the character is nowhere near as resilient as the Soldier, and you really feel the difference. On the other hand, in raw offence (once you've enough points in Lift, Singularity, Throw, and Warp), you can power right through even faster than the Soldier could. For the Adept, though in the beginning of the game I wished repeatedly I'd picked the sniper rifle talent instead of AR, the AR quickly became Truth incarnate once Lift and Singularity could be used more often.

The times when the Adept's lack of resilience really came to the fore was in the Survival missions on Pinnacle Station. The Timed Trials were the bane of my existence when playing as a Soldier; for an Adept, these are amusingly easy. The Survival modes on the other hand are almost an amusing joke for the Soldier, but a desperate fight against time for the Adept. The Survival missions, and the 13th mission at Pinnacle were by far the hardest.

As contrast, I don't think I used the Mako's guns at all during the game.

So - I'm preparing to make another run through ME2, starting over (just to not be so horribly spiteful to Liara this time - and maybe not mess around with Crazy this time around). Dunno what class yet, but I'm deciding now.

[Charon]

So - I'm preparing to make another run through ME2, starting over (just to not be so horribly spiteful to Liara this time - and maybe not mess around with Crazy this time around). Dunno what class yet, but I'm deciding now.

You're going to have to be more specific here. Are you talking about the Cerberus fangirl who believes they can do no wrong and is always talking about how she is genetically superior to everyone? Or are you talking about the fucked up near Templar Asari who is even colder than the Cerberus cheerleader? Or are you talking about her daughter who will kill you by having sex with you and gets a thrill from it? Or are you talking about the psychopathic murdering crazy who is so self-obsessed to more of a degree than anyone I have ever met?

I mean really, the only two remotely sane women you can hit on are Tali, who can't have sex with you without getting sick, and Kelly, who is kind of your shrink.

[rhoenix]

You're going to have to be more specific here. Are you talking about the Cerberus fangirl who believes they can do no wrong and is always talking about how she is genetically superior to everyone? Or are you talking about the fucked up near Templar Asari who is even colder than the Cerberus cheerleader? Or are you talking about her daughter who will kill you by having sex with you and gets a thrill from it?

Nah. Cerberus fangirl annoyed me, and though Samara was usually on my active team once I got her (I mean, come on - she gets mad biotics AND an AR - what's not to love?), but no, none of those.

Or are you talking about the psychopathic murdering crazy who is so self-obsessed to more of a degree than anyone I have ever met?

Yes, Jack would be the one. She even cries during the "special scene," by the way.

I mean really, the only two remotely sane women you can hit on are Tali, who can't have sex with you without getting sick, and Kelly, who is kind of your shrink.

I'm going for Tali when I restart. At least she's mostly sane.

[Norseman]

Wait there are actually people who find biotics useful in ME2?! :-O Seriously I thought they were underpowered in ME1.

[Stofsk]

Biotics broke ME1 combat. It becomes unbelievably cheesy to play on insanity with biotic powers that just lift people all the time and you shoot them with a pistol.

I much prefer the biotics from ME2. ME2 got a huge number of problems from ME1 solved. I just wish they didn't change it so completely. (eg fixing the inventory was downright mandatory after ME1's crime against humanity version; but ME2 went the other extreme and threw out the inventory completely)