Mass Effect 2 [thread contains spoilers]

[Astor]

^ ( did anyone even wear the Pheonix armors in game?)

 

My Shepard certainly wouldn't be seen dead in a pink armour, but i'm curious - what's that first one? I've never seen that before.

[mimartin]

( did anyone even wear the Pheonix armors in game?)

 

Wrex, it gave him that cute and cuddly look.

[JesusIsGonnaOwnSatan]

My Shepard certainly wouldn't be seen dead in a pink armour, but i'm curious - what's that first one? I've never seen that before.

 

I think may be one of the Titan armors, but i'm not sure...

[Ztalker]

Preordered my Special Edition today

 

I LOVE that video one of you peeps posted a little while back. It said you could tweak the look of your on- and offshore armours, something I find to be totally cool.

You always wear the best possible equipment..but it sometimes made my character look like sh*t. Now that's a thing of the past!

[Pavlos]

Discussions and Debates here

 

The first of the reviews for BioWare's Mass Effect 2 are filtering through now that the review embargo is up. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they're positive about the thing; whether that actually means anything will undoubtedly be revealed when the white safety curtain goes up.

 

IGN says of both the Xbox 360 and PC editions:

Games like Mass Effect 2 don't come around often enough. Look at any aspect and you can be sure it's great. It's incredibly personal while still retaining a sense of epic sweeping scale. The combat and mission design are outstanding. The visuals, voice acting, soundtrack, and direction are miles ahead of the competition. Perhaps most impressively, Mass Effect 2 manages to fulfill [sic] its incredible ambition while only suffering from very few technical hiccups. The only real caveat I should mention is that some of the revelations and plot twists won't be quite as powerful if you haven't played Mass Effect 1, but that isn't any reason to skip this fantastic videogame.

It may be instructive to bear in mind that the fantastically named Mr. Brudvig also says of the first game's dialogue that:

Mass Effect allows the player to quickly choose an emotional response, which generally include an honorable paragon reaction and a snappy renegade remark. The result is that every little dialogue snippet is about as engaging as they come.

I must take issue with the rt. Hon. Mr. Brudvig for, for me, having essentially the same choices in every situation makes playing Mass Effect like being in a never-ending production of some awful play, where the scene doesn't change but only repeats itself with the actors in slightly different costumes. Being confronted fifteen times with the choice between shooting or saving a man doesn't become any less monotonous because the character in question happens to be wearing a hat in one scene and affecting an English accent in another.

 

NowGamer reviews the Xbox 360 version of the game:

Mass Effect 2 displays some inconsequential flaws during its third act, granted, but in all other ways what we have here is a piece of entertainment that penetrates the line between gaming and cinema like no other, while simultaneously representing the finest blend of shooting and role-playing we’ve seen this generation. A gorgeous experience and a staggering achievement.

By "penetrat[ing] the line between gaming and cinema" most reviewers seem to mean that it interrupts my playing of the game with a cutscene which changes the medium from gameplay to film, damaging the tentative unity between gameplay and story, cracking the fourth wall and increasing the extent to which story is viewed by the player as inconsequential to game. Why are games which are "cinematic" in this way deemed to be shining exemplars of what the medium can do? Cinematic sequences may well demonstrate how brilliant at making films a group of developers would be but it has no bearing on how good they are at making a game.

 

Can you even penetrate a line?

[DarthParametric]

Being confronted fifteen times with the choice between shooting or saving a man doesn't become any less monotonous because the character in question happens to be wearing a hat in one scene and affecting an English accent in another.

To be fair, it wasn't just save them or shoot them. Sometimes you could only punch them. At least it was in the face though.

[Quanon]

At least you had the choice to shoot them. In most other RPGs you just get the reward and some experience points.

[jrrtoken]

Don't forget the collar-grabbing. Mass Effect likes innovative, cinematic and mature exposition like that.

[Quanon]

Yes, we know you can't stand Bioware products anymore... Jeez... >_>

True, they hype a ton and it's never out of the box, but at least they deliver decent games. Compared to certain other devellopers I enjoy the crap of Bioware.

 

It's kind of sad, with their expertice and cash, they don't do better.

[jrrtoken]

In all fairness, I can easily say that Mass Effect was probably one of the more ambitious RPGs as of late, content-wise, that is. It's probably one of the few ARPGs that includes an actual, meaningful plot instead of some ad hoc backstory-filler. It also introduced a truly tactical party-management system within combat, instead of a direct control or "Right-click, Menu #1, Attack Nearest" exercise. The Mako was also quite interesting, and allowed for much more comprehensive exploration, rather than the tiresome myriad of tactile tortures, including click 'n hold, hold W-key, or click & grab-a-cup-of-coffee.

 

Definitely, Mass Effect was quite ambitious in-concept, and was a breath of fresh air into a genre married to gameplay formulae of archaic yore. Now that that's out of the way, I can easily say that Mass Effect left much to be desired and developed, to say the least... >_>

[Darth InSidious]

The Mako was also quite interesting, and allowed for much more comprehensive exploration, rather than the tiresome myriad of tactile tortures, including click 'n hold, hold W-key, or click & grab-a-cup-of-coffee.

 

Or it might have been, had it been possible to drive the thrice-damned thing. An amateur's tip for Bio: don't advertise your own weaknesses by making them a central gameplay point.

[Alkonium]

^ ( did anyone even wear the Pheonix armors in game?)

I didn't, but mainly because its stats were crap.

[DarthParametric]

Or it might have been, had it been possible to drive the thrice-damned thing.

Driving it was easy enough. The problem was that there was too much pointless driving around in empty landscapes with nothing to do. The uncharted worlds thing was a nice concept, but really that's a whole other game in itself. I've said a number of times in the past they would have been better off scraping all that in favour of another one or two story planets, advice they have apparently heeded for ME2.

[Totenkopf]

The problem was that there was too much pointless driving around in empty landscapes with nothing to do......they would have been better off scraping all that in favour of another one or two story planets.......

 

One of my main complaints about the first game also.

[Quanon]

I can easily say that Mass Effect left much to be desired and developed, to say the least... >_>

 

Yes, like most games, not every part is great and can be improved.

Still I must admit I had over 40 hours of fun, playing ME. Not many a game offer me that.

 

I didn't mind the exploring with the Mako thing, the most annoying was the camera and the aiming with the thing. It was rather boring to go into the same underground facility and bunker over and over again...

 

Oh, well, games are still "growing" into their medium potential. TV didn't start out with reality genres, cinema had growing pains, leaps and bounds. You know >_>

 

Its of course still waiting for the perfected mix of: graphics, story and action, innovative gameplay to hit the shelfs. Perhaps AP?

[Pavlos]

TV didn't start out with reality genres

I should hope that they're not the medium's potential, any more than Mass Effect is the video game's. The truly wonderful thing about television is its ability to act as a great leveller of social class. You don't have to dress up and pay hundreds of pounds/euro to watch the little box in the corner of the room, yet there may well be an opera on BBC 2 after Newsnight if you want to watch it. I tend to think of things like Civilisation as being the medium's potential. Taking things that are traditionally the reserve of an educated elite and opening them up to the masses in a manner which respects their intelligence. Civilisation went out in BBC 2's prime time slot on Sunday nights in 1969, it cost £500 000 to make; in terms of spending power that's over £5 millions today. Guaranteed audience numbers allowed both the BBC and the ITV to produce such programmes. Alas, the Tories' decision to deregulate television and the much touted "choice" in channels that resulted has made guaranteed audiences things of the past. The free market that we now have in television threatens to undo all the good that television has done to level the cultural playing-field. Where channels have to fight vigorously for audiences, those programmes which are cheap to make and have a large pull will get made, those like The Ascent of Man or

which are expensive do not. This is not a matter of people preferring one to the other (how many people went to see the latest film version of Pride and Prejudice?) but more that one has a much larger return, even if it's unsuccessful. And the risks of things being unsuccessful is much higher in a world of small viewing figures. /Rant

[Totenkopf]

Well, when tv has less competition, the default audience is likely to be much larger than when people actually have more choices. Too bad more choices don't always lead to better quality, not necessarily worse, just not always better either.

 

 

^ ( did anyone even wear the Pheonix armors in game?)

 

Usually left that for Ashley myself, till I got her better armor.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

One of my main complaints about the first game also.

And everyone else's. Honestly, I don't give a damn about any uncharted planet and such, as long as they bring back the KotOR-esque exploration premise: half a dozen of planets brimming with life instead of several dozens with less life than my garden.

[Alkonium]

I wonder how different the classes in 2 will be from 1. (will you be able to go straight from 1 to 2 with no adjusting? Or will you have to relearn how to fight?)

I don't think our stats or items will carry over. I'm guessing only appearance, name, and choices are what transfer.

 

Also, did anyone else playing a male Shepard sacrifice Ashley, or am I the only one?

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Also, did anyone else playing a male Shepard sacrifice Ashley, or am I the only one?

I have a save like that, yes. Not my main one, though. Nevertheless, I still plan to play ME2 with ALL of my ME1 save files, so....

[Totenkopf]

I don't think our stats or items will carry over. I'm guessing only appearance, name, and choices are what transfer.

 

Also, did anyone else playing a male Shepard sacrifice Ashley, or am I the only one?

 

I sacrificed Ash and Kaiden, both for a male and female Shephard.

[JesusIsGonnaOwnSatan]

I don't think our stats or items will carry over. I'm guessing only appearance, name, and choices are what transfer.

I was meaning combat feel and game mechanics.

Also, did anyone else playing a male Shepard sacrifice Ashley, or am I the only one?

*raises hand*

 

i liked kaiden better. and ashley wasnt my type. i figured i'd stay single and see who's available in 2

 

 

AAHHH! its Jan 26 here in NZ!!

 

...which means nothing because we have to wait for the 29th. :¬:

[Alkonium]

I think mostly, but now weapons use ammo, there's a greater variety, it matters more where you hit enemies, and Tech and Biotic classes have been improved.

 

Yeah, I didn't find Ashley all that likeable either. Too religious and too xenophobic for my tastes. On top of that, statwise, she was basically a weaker me. Fortunately I was quite fond of Liara, both in terms of personality and usefulness. Once I got her, I did everything with her and Garrus. I do hope he's also a potential love interest for the guys, but if not, I've still got Tali.

[Mav]

I don't think our stats or items will carry over. I'm guessing only appearance, name, and choices are what transfer.

IIRC, you lose all stats and items, your game choices and gender are transferred, however you can alter your appearance, also it takes things like your Paragon/Renegade stats, level, and other achievement type things to grant you various, most likely trivial bonuses.

 

Also, did anyone else playing a male Shepard sacrifice Ashley, or am I the only one?

I killed her every time I played, because she's a *****.

 

Once I got her, I did everything with her and Garrus. I do hope he's also a potential love interest for the guys, but if not, I've still got Tali.

I don't get everyone's fascination with having some hot alien unf unf with Garrus...

Garrus isn't a romance option for Male Shepard though, his options are Miranda, Subject Zero, and Tali

 

[Miltiades]

The only reason I kept Ashley was because I finally got the chance to ditch Carth. And man, did that feel good!