If you ever wander down through the lowest deck, the two engineers down there are often having funny conversations. Last night, I heard the female engineer remark about 'The forward flotation devices are buoyant and ready.' And the other guy says, 'Wait, are we talking about the Normandy or Miranda?'Originally Posted by Wallapuctus
The bar on Ilium.
I'm so shipping those two.
I like the mission re-cap screen.
But you see, I hated mages in BG2, I hated mage dueling and all the BS spells one had to dig through, and then the rest after every fight if you wanted them back. Tedious. My solution to it ended up having my main character just be immune to everything, a greater werewolf w/ a bunch of items that pumped up spell resistance and granted the immunities not covered by being the werewolf. Sometimes I'd have to wait for the bad guys defensive spells to wear off, but I'd get them eventually.
That character was also a great solution for traps too, I hated having to go along at a snails pace checking for traps, so the above build just ignored them.
The other classes in the D&D system had very little to do, the skills now are better spread out in DA.
Am I the only one that finds the first sniper rifle to be far superior to the 2nd? In fact I think I feel the same way for heavy pistols but for opposite reasons. Maybe with enough damage mods my mind will change on the sniper rifles.
Yeah, the increased ammo is nothing compared to the annoyance of the slow plasma ball shot and also to often requiring multiple shots per kill. But the "anti-materiel" rifle is of course better than either of the first two, despite the fact that I apparently break my arm on every shot, according to the weapon description.
Well even though you can't one shot guys with it, you can hammer through barriers and shields faster, or double tap a guy and move on to another and another with out a reload, making for faster kills.
True, and it occurs to me you could use it to sort of wander around stripping defenses for your squad to use powers on. But even so, I think I'd rather just kill foes with a single headshot.
the PC port is kinda poor in that they made no attempts to get mouse scroll or the gamepad-oriented interface more streamlined for pc keyboard controls, ie doubleclicking, scrolling on the research/party-select-screens etc.
Guys with shields/armor won't go down to a single headshot. The second sniper rifle fires about as fast as you can pull the trigger; you can take a shielded guy down much faster than you can with the starter rifle.
Yeah, I was referring to the 3rd rifle there. I did in fact use the 2nd one until the third one was available, but it was annoying. I really hate these ME plasma ball things, as it makes it hard to hit moving targets.
Speaking of weapons, I'm still using the default assault rifle. Obviously I've upgraded it quite a bit, but I'm still using that first one because of the ammo capacity. The other model I found is severely hampered by a small amount of reserve ammo. I have the Collector Rifle too, but that thing is just too gross and dumb looking to use.
Also, the second sniper rifle is significantly weaker, requiring multiple shots to take down a target. I feel like such a badass when I pull out my sniper rifle and pick off a moving target from 100m with a single shot. The second one didn't do it for me.
Maybe it's just me but Tali likes to run around amidst the enemy too and she end up on her ass within seconds. She doesn't even have the grace to look apologetic when she gets up after her little nap every single fight.
Grunt is great for taking punishment and when it all goes bad he ususally just charges his way out. He's constantly shouting too, which is uplifting to hear when the hundreth wave of droids descends upon you.
The more I play ME2 the more I get annoyed at the seeming lack of imagination for all the missions. It has made me stop and ponder whether the criticisms are justified, and I think that is ultimately down to whether or not you consider it a shooter, or a RPG. I believe that argument has been engaged in, but for my mind, 22 hours or so in, there are too many shooter sections (ie. pretty much the whole game) for it to be considered a proper RPG, but I don't think the combat stands up sufficiently to classify it as a great shooter/third-person action game.
When I started playing it I was enjoying the shooting, but as the game goes on I just find myself thinking 'great, more running and gunning. Sprint to cover, take out enemies, rinse and repeat'. Which is an absolute crying shame as I really enjoy the worlds created, some of the characters are good fun and the fact it is a sci-fi RPG gets several thumbs up. Maybe I'm looking at ME1 with rose-tinted sunglasses, but I'm sure there wasn't this frequency of action sections compared to the more exploratory parts? And some of the action sections were kind of rolled in with the exploration - you weren't just dropped into the parts where you'd be shooting things up. I'd much appreciate it if someone who has played it more recently than I (18 months ago) could clarify this for me!
After 7 or 8 hours play I would probably have considered ME2 a 9/10 game, after 22 hours it's edging down towards a 7/10.
The more I play this game, the more I wish Bioware would just sack up and use the engine to make a detective game ALA Westwood's Blade Runner.
Your memory isn't faulty on the exploration ratio. There were a lot of missions (some story, some sidequests) that involved tooling around in the Mako to find the correct path to the objective area.
Keep in mind, though, that most people hated using the Mako and soundly criticized the game for it. BioWare conciously did away with the Mako in response.
Once you got to the objective, the shooty bits were all crammed into tiny cookie-cutter areas, however. If you think the action areas are linear now, go back and replay some of the areas from ME1 and tell me how they feel in comparison.*
It's definitely a trade-off.
*Edit: Feros was mostly a literal straight line down a busted up highway!
There was plenty of combat in ME1 but it took so bloody long to get to any combat scenario that between running and driving and running and waiting at the door to one of the two warehouse designs and then just firing rounds in through the door as enemies leap valiantly onto them.
What ME did have is more missions that could be resolved with a good hard chat. Or so it feels to me. The non-plot missions in ME2 are not very long and don't require much in the way of exploration. Even the hubs are pretty compact. Really I think what you are noticing here is how much has been stripped away from ME2 to focus on streamlining it.
I think a constructive request for ME3 would not be to ask for less combat, but for more inventive non-combat missions.
Just FYI, there are a couple of missions in ME2 that require ZERO combat to resolve. It's all just a little thinking and a little role-playing.
I LOVED those missions.
So glad to hear the voice actor for Gorim in DA, Steve Blum, gets another part. One of my favorite characters in that game.
In the main story missions of ME1 I'm not sure what you are talking about. In most areas outside of Citadel Station, you went to a hub, the moved out and shot things:
New Eden - fight off Geth to free the colony
Planet where you find Liara - one battle after another fighting through Geth to get to her
Feros colony - small colony hub, but fighting to get to the Thorian and kill it
Noveria - slightly bigger hub with some non-fighting quests, some fighting, the pure fighting to reach the research station, where there is a small hub but mostly more fighting
Planet with Krogan research/production facility - pretty much pure combat as you are on a search and destroy mission
Ilos - fight through Saren's geth to reach the conduit with a little break in the middle to talk to Virgil
I might have missed a planet or two but they all were pretty much "shootery". Maybe you are just rememebering Citadel Station which had a lot of non-combat quests - both Ilium and Omega have mixes of both but aren't as big as Citadel.
Bullshiiiiiit, you use the skill that's right for the job. Think about what you just said for a second. It doesn't make any sense. "Dur hur hur, I'll use Warp. Well, the cooldown timer's done, guess I'll just use Warp again." No, you use what's tactically appropriate for the moment. No more dropping your wad and taking out an enemy with concentrated death, only to plink away with your gun until you're able to drop an alpha strike again. This was the worst part of Mass Effect, and I played an Adept.
It's also easier to design powers with a global cooldown.
So turn it off Insanity, you moron. This is also completely dumb.-i enjoyed combat more in me1. Combat in me2 on hardcore or insanity basically means even a lowly geth kills you in seconds no matter what defenses you have. not really my idea of fun.
You can die even on easy...well I can anyway.
None of the role playing missions I did required any thinking. Mind posting in the spoiler thread what they were in case I missed them?
No, because you're a fucking 'sperging jerk-off who I don't respect and don't want to talk to.
Edit:
Nothing wrong with that, and you really don't have any choices. Complaining about difficulty when you've cranked it super-high is just silly.
Last edited by DDB; 02-03-2010 at 04:16 PM.
Yes, it is easier to just slap a global cooldown on everything, but that doesn't then imply it is the best thing to do.
As for your warp example, you can more or less do that if you supplement it with weapon fire., which is pretty much a given since me2 is much more shooter than me1 was. You probably have one skill with more points than the others at least in early to mid game so obviously often it makes more sense to just keep using it unless you need to wait for a bit while your gun wears down their shield/armor/barrier.
I dislike contra style balancing. Your opinion may vary (obviously it does since you seem to take even minor criticism of the game personally), but that is mine. Obviously everything having immunity in me1 insanity wasn't the best choice in balancing history, but neither is what me1 does.
I expect it's a lot like posting on the internet. Thinking first is optional, but the key difference is in how invested you are in the experience. It's like in my case with Dragon Age...there may well have been thinking quests in the game, but I didn't give a damn after I realized I hated the core of the game, so the most thinking I did was a basic cost/benefit analysis for the more obvious get-material-rewards-or-good-guy-rewards choices.
For instance, two of the ally quests have given me a decision that I had enough of a problem making that I had to get up and come back to it (I decided in this game that there would be no FAQing around or save n' reloads with story decisions). It wasn't problem solving in a traditional sense so much as a Rachni-queen level decision, on a personal scale. I suspect that's the kind of thing he means, where you don't necessarily have a brain-buster on your hands but rather enough immersion in the character to want to be picky about the outcomes.
I would compare that favorably to life or death decisions in other highly regarded games, such as the ludicrous ones in GTA4 or something along the lines of one of the positive memories I have Dragon Age, such as the possessed kid.
So you don't like the global cooldown, that's cool. Never said it was flawless. Explain to me how the "alpha strike" mechanic of Mass Effect 1 is any better. Personally I found being always able to do something interesting in ME2 better than constantly comboing powers and then plinking away a la ME1, but I can see what you're saying.
Also, don't think that I'm taking anything personally when I call people dumb. It's pretty dumb to say that a universal cooldown is why the player is encouraged to use the same power over and over. Maybe it's your playstyle, or maybe it's the increased shooter elements. On it's face, "universal cooldown = less power variety" is a pretty ridiculous equation.
it's kind of true in ME2, once I got Reave there isn't any point using anything else. spamming Reave every time it's up and shoot while waiting for it to refresh.On it's face, "universal cooldown = less power variety" is a pretty ridiculous equation.
Reave > Warp in pretty much every way with the same cool down, so there really isn't any reason to use Warp over Reave.
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