Mass Effect 2 Catch All

I'm sure it's been said already, but the one thing I really hope they fix is the utter lack of variety on most of the planets. I'm a completion whore, but Mass Effect even subverted me. I got through about half of them (not all at once, just working on it gradually throughout the game) and gave up.

I really am curious to see how they resolve some of the canonical conflicts in this one. Really looking forward to it, though, I loved the first game!

Hypatian wrote:

A properly configured soldier + I forget the advanced class could keep Immunity up pretty much 100% of the time, if I recall right. Which was... kind of abusive.

If you want to play your single player game by abusing game mechanics, who's to say you shouldn't be allowed to??

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
JohnnyBarnstorm wrote:

(And that Ashley... she so stayed behind.)

I played my female Shepard as a hard-nosed Renegade, except with the other female crew with whom she could let down her guard.

So she left Kaidan behind. And boned Liara. :)

I got sick of Ashley insulting everyone else. Besides, she was pretty religious so she had something to do while waiting for death. Kaidan would just sit there and cry and feel betrayed. :(

Kaiden would just sit around and cry about his tortured past anyway, the big sissy.

But then blue would just apologize about the universe being unfair. Stop apologizing and love me, dammit!

Well, sure you *can* do it. But it's one of those things where once you've invested 20 hours in the character, and built it with no idea that the abusive thing was coming, because that's the kind of character you wanted to build... See? I wanted a tough soldier type. I made a tough soldier type. I ended up with an absolutely unkillable soldier type. I'd rather it was a bit more balanced, so I could play the character concept I want without wtfpwning everything.

That said, I still enjoyed the game.

I don't understand why companies have had such a hard time mixing RPG elements and shooter elements such that aiming can be affected by your character's stat sheet. Shooters like the Call of Duty series have already established an accepted convention for emulating poor aim with targeting reticles that change in size situationally; players seem to have embraced the idea that a reticle can represent a range of locations in which your shots might land. Why couldn't an RPG have the size of the reticle be determined by the stat sheet? The problem seems to come from poor visual feedback about where the shots might land rather than from any insurmountable incompatibilities between RPGs and shooters.

Is there something I'm not taking into account here?

adam.greenbrier wrote:

I don't understand why companies have had such a hard time mixing RPG elements and shooter elements such that aiming can be affected by your character's stat sheet. Shooters like the Call of Duty series have already established an accepted convention for emulating poor aim with targeting reticles that change in size situationally; players seem to have embraced the idea that a reticle can represent a range of locations in which your shots might land. Why couldn't an RPG have the size of the reticle be determined by the stat sheet? The problem seems to come from poor visual feedback about where the shots might land rather than from any insurmountable incompatibilities between RPGs and shooters.

Is there something I'm not taking into account here?

Isn't that pretty much what Mass Effect did? The better your gun, the smaller your reticule (i.e. smaller spread), and the less the reticule would expand with each shot (less kickback or increasing inaccuracy). It worked pretty well for me. I'd hate to see a lot of player skill added in, as it seems to me to defeat the purpose of role-playing.

Minarchist wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

I don't understand why companies have had such a hard time mixing RPG elements and shooter elements such that aiming can be affected by your character's stat sheet. Shooters like the Call of Duty series have already established an accepted convention for emulating poor aim with targeting reticles that change in size situationally; players seem to have embraced the idea that a reticle can represent a range of locations in which your shots might land. Why couldn't an RPG have the size of the reticle be determined by the stat sheet? The problem seems to come from poor visual feedback about where the shots might land rather than from any insurmountable incompatibilities between RPGs and shooters.

Is there something I'm not taking into account here?

Isn't that pretty much what Mass Effect did? The better your gun, the smaller your reticule (i.e. smaller spread), and the less the reticule would expand with each shot (less kickback or increasing inaccuracy). It worked pretty well for me. I'd hate to see a lot of player skill added in, as it seems to me to defeat the purpose of role-playing.

Yeah. I really don't get that criticism to be honest, it does that. Furthermore, as you improve your stats your aim gets steadier. I have trouble imagining a better implementation that remains RPG.

Teaser for E3...teaser. Spoilery imagery, well, when a dev's head isn't blocking your view.

well, I am totally freaking stoked... guess Ashley is going to be riding the pine (box?) for me through ME2 as well!

When is this supposed to be out again? I think this will officially be my second "day one, full price" 360 game buy.

Just hearing the music got me going. Can't wait.

The new lighting system looks freakin' incredible. Have a look at the part where they show a developer running through some facial animation for a Krogan. The Krogan in Mass Effect were already extremely well done, but this makes them look like a joke!

So looking forward to this!

SommerMatt wrote:

When is this supposed to be out again?

Nothing definite yet, but they are promising a first quarter 2010 release.

Lord_Xan wrote:

The new lighting system looks freakin' incredible. Have a look at the part where they show a developer running through some facial animation for a Krogan. The Krogan in Mass Effect were already extremely well done, but this makes them look like a joke!

I wonder if a Krogan talking will make my house shake like the last time.

This game will exceed the first one on many levels. Looks simply awesome.

Looks fantastic!

I can't wait to see the new lighting system in the elevators I'm sure a lot of the game will take place in.

kuddles wrote:

I can't wait to see the new lighting system in the elevators I'm sure a lot of the game will take place in.

ZING!

Yeah, I loved ME1, so I'm going to be all over the sequel. I'll even buy the super duper edition again. I quite liked the documentary they put on the first special edition disc.

It's funny - even though I thought I was ambivalent towards ME1 after finishing it, I find myself pretty excited for ME2. Maybe I liked it better than I thought. Wierd.

Well I really enjoyed ME1, all this media is dragging me to load it up....

kuddles wrote:

I can't wait to see the new lighting system in the elevators I'm sure a lot of the game will take place in.

I wouldn't have minded the elevators so much if you had been able to freely move around in them as you could in Dead Space. I understand that hiding the loading screens behind the elevators was meant as a way of breaking immersion, but the lack of control over my character did the trick just as well as any loading screen would have.

Dysplastic wrote:

It's funny - even though I thought I was ambivalent towards ME1 after finishing it, I find myself pretty excited for ME2. Maybe I liked it better than I thought. Wierd.

For me, the final portion of Mass Effect—more or less from the Prothean planet onward—was very interesting. I was more engaged in the story when the emphasis was taken off of Saren and placed on Sovereign and the Reavers instead. I'm moderately excited about Mass Effect 2 because it ostensibly continues the most interesting part of the first game rather than repeating the meh-inducing majority of its predecessor.

I'm going to have to buy the original, again, for the PC so I can enjoy it and finish it. My temperamental sensibilities can't take RPGs on the console. I've learned my lesson this time, even if I have to wait an extra year for the PC version of ME2 while everyone in the forums goes crazy over it in the meantime.

I don't know about anyone else, but watching STAR TREK, I totally saw Nero's ship as looking just like Sovereign. Made me sort of want to see a ME movie. The ending of the game was just as dramatic as anything I've ever seen in a film like this.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

Reavers

I'm not the only one who makes that Freudian slip, I see.

beeporama wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

Reavers

I'm not the only one who makes that Freudian slip, I see.

That's embarrassing. I've never seen Firefly or Serenity, so I can't even call it a Freudian slip.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
beeporama wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

Reavers

I'm not the only one who makes that Freudian slip, I see.

That's embarrassing. I've never seen Firefly or Serenity, so I can't even call it a Freudian slip.

But you know about it!

Rat Boy wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:
beeporama wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

Reavers

I'm not the only one who makes that Freudian slip, I see.

That's embarrassing. I've never seen Firefly or Serenity, so I can't even call it a Freudian slip.

But you know about it!

I had to look it up through Google, actually.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:
beeporama wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

Reavers

I'm not the only one who makes that Freudian slip, I see.

That's embarrassing. I've never seen Firefly or Serenity, so I can't even call it a Freudian slip.

But you know about it!

I had to look it up through Google, actually.

You should check them out... well at least Firefly.

I'm going to wait until I know what they plan to do with my Shepard. They way the story interacts and builds itself from decisions I made are what the original did well.

When someone says "Commander Shepard", everyone either thinks of the default guy or of someone who is fairly unique from what is conjured in the minds of others. Removing that would turn it into "generic squad-based shooter in space".

Captain_Arrrg wrote:

I'm going to wait until I know what they plan to do with my Shepard. They way the story interacts and builds itself from decisions I made are what the original did well.

When someone says "Commander Shepard", everyone either thinks of the default guy or of someone who is fairly unique from what is conjured in the minds of others. Removing that would turn it into "generic squad-based shooter in space".

Funny coincidence, as IGN posted an interview feature today addressing some of those questions:

If you have a save for Mass Effect 1, it will affect many aspects when you play the sequel. "The beginning of Mass Effect 2 starts with things that are different for your playthrough if you ended Mass Effect 1 in one way versus another," Hudson explained. "The endings, the bigger choices you made about characters who lived or died, you're going to see those differences in your story. And that's the real fun of playing from your saved game from Mass Effect 1 into Mass Effect 2 is that those choices you made are there. It's the world the way you left it."

Hudson wouldn't cite any specific examples of decisions, but spoke vaguely about how your past choices will affect the events of Mass Effect 2. "[Let's say] in Mass Effect 1, you decided that a really important character is going to die. In Mass Effect 2, you may or may not see that character alive, depending on what that choice was. If you want to see how that would be different, you would have to go back to Mass Effect 1, make a different choice and then bring that save into Mass Effect 2 to see how it affects the world." More important than a single character, at one point in the first Mass Effect, you chose whether or not to save an entire race from extinction. That is sure to have a profound affect in the sequel. "The fun for players is that it's not just a branching story, it's a multi-dimensional story and then there is branching within that. If you have not played Mass Effect 1, you can jump into Mass Effect 2 and it's an excellent entry point."

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/984/...

I just played the game a few weeks ago with a 100% paragon rating, but for the life of me I can't think of a time I had to make a choice to "save an entire race." Are they talking about the Thorian thingy on Feros? I can't remember any other situation like that...

Regardless, this game just CANNOT get here soon enough to satisfy me.

SommerMatt wrote:

I just played the game a few weeks ago with a 100% paragon rating, but for the life of me I can't think of a time I had to make a choice to "save an entire race." Are they talking about the Thorian thingy on Feros? I can't remember any other situation like that...

More than likely it's the Rachni on Noveria.

Rat Boy wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:

I just played the game a few weeks ago with a 100% paragon rating, but for the life of me I can't think of a time I had to make a choice to "save an entire race." Are they talking about the Thorian thingy on Feros? I can't remember any other situation like that...

More than likely it's the Rachni on Noveria.

Aaaaahhhhhhhhh yes. OK.

They better not come back to f*ck with me after I saved them