Mass Effect 2

[Jon AS]

Edit : one thing I've been wondering, because I was considering making a new character : what effects, if any, do the two choices you make about where you grew up (spacer, colonial, or earthling) and what reputation/background you have (ruthless, sole survivor or war hero) have on the game? I haven't really noticed anything, but if they don't do anything then why are they there?

I've only seen the Spacer/War Hero stuff, since I imported the same ME1 character twice, but that's just some background things. You get an email from your mom, a news report that mentions how she turned down a promotion and another one mentioning a "Shepard Memorial Plaza" on Elysium.

[a wooden chair]

I've only seen the Spacer/War Hero stuff, since I imported the same ME1 character twice, but that's just some background things. You get an email from your mom, a news report that mentions how she turned down a promotion and another one mentioning a "Shepard Memorial Plaza" on Elysium.

My guy was a Colonist / Ruthless and there are riots attempting to extinguish a memorial flame on Torfan where your Ruthless Shepard participated in slaughtering a bunch of Baatarians + His own men. From the colonist background they talk about the colony you are originally from winning the rights to put your likeness on their monetary system.

[Poobah]

So I downloaded a ME1 save to import so I could see the difference, and the one I downloaded was a paragon who saved the council and generally was nice... anyways after about an hour I'm stunned at how much of a difference it makes to the feel of the universe... why is the default start in ME2 "Shepard was a racist human-supremacist asshole"? Lol.

Edit : the council were even pretty nice about me joining a terrorist organisation on account of how this version of me saved them rather than letting them die in a fire to secure human dominance.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Mordins mortality rate addressed on Bioware boards:

Mordin's death is not a glitch or bug. I believe that when people are surprised with Mordin's death, it's during the "Hold the Line" time where you leave crew behind as you and two squad mates move onward. Tech had their moment in the sun with the tunnel infiltration. A biotic is key for the protective bubble. The Hold the Line sequence is time for your soldier types to do their best.

Basically you want your best DEFENDERS to hold the line. Don't think about offensive solo strikers. Think about the guys that can dig down and hold a position with moxie. You want them to hold the line.

Under the hood, each character has a "hole the line" score, which gets a bonus if the character is loyal. Characters like Mordin, Jack and Tali are squishy and not exoeruenced with bunkering down and holding out for an extended period of time. Characters like Grunt and Zaeed are tanks who thrive on this type of work. The score is tallied for all the team members that are holding the line, and the number of survivors are calculated. If people are to die, the non-loyals squishies go first through the list to the loyal tanks. Alas, I think Mordin is at the head of the death list. Some characters can't survive without help even if they are loyal. Others can survive even if not loyal.

Here are some examples for the group holding the line:

Loyal Mordin by himself: He can't hold the line by himself. He dies.

Non-loyal Grunt by himself: Grunt lives. He hunkers down and gets the job done, and doesn't have to worry about helping any one else.

Loyal Mordin and non-Loyal Grunt: Grunt dies, but Mordin lives. Grunt is able to hold the line but goofs up helping Mordin... he was just too aggressive without his right of passage.

Loyal Mordin and Loyal Grunt: They both live.

Note it is possible to get non-loyal henchmen to survive through the end game with the proper group holding the line.

So what is a good strategy? Send back a loyal squishy with the crew, like Mordin or Tali. Leave your defensive bad asses to hold the line (hmmm, Garrus defended a base all by himself to an extended period of time....) and take your loyal offensive favorites with you to the end.

As for saving Kelly and the crew, you just need to make sure you go through the Omega-4 relay right after the crew is taken, and make sure you send a loyal squad mate back as an escort."

Makes sense when you think about, but it still doesn't explain why my loyal Mordin failed his escort.

[Jon AS]

Edit : the council were even pretty nice about me joining a terrorist organisation on account of how this version of me saved them rather than letting them die in a fire to secure human dominance.

They are still idiots, of course.;)

[WhiteHaven]

They are still idiots, of course.;)

I should have given Sovereign the opportunity to blow them off. But yeah, I needed the "Paragon" Achievement :mellow:

[Poobah]

I just really wish that there had been a bloody choice at the start of ME2 when you made a new non-imported character about how, broadly, you wanted the past to be (eg. living or dead council). Now I feel obliged to give up on my ME2 created save with the asshole dead council past and load in an ME1 save and play through (twice, once on easy/normal to level up and then once again on hardcore/insanity for fun/further levelling/getting extra stuff) with that, for the sake of ME3 and having a universe that actually fits the Shepard I'm playing; it just feels like a real kick in the balls now I'm half way through insanity with my ME2 created Paragon-Shepard.

Also:

(Possible slight paraphrase because I heard this a few minutes ago and it's coming from my memory)

Sheppard : Got a minute to talk?

Moridin : Not right now. Updating records. Cerberus personnel equipped with cyanide capsules in molars. Primitive. Ocular Nerve flash-bang harder to disarm.

:rolleyes:

[Galactus]

(Possible slight paraphrase because I heard this a few minutes ago and it's coming from my memory)

Sheppard : Got a minute to talk?

Moridin : Not right now. Updating records. Cerberus personnel equipped with cyanide capsules in molars. Primitive. Ocular Nerve flash-bang harder to disarm.

That's not the worst. (paraphrasing)

Shepherd: "Got a minute to talk?"

Mordin: "Notright now. Been an outbreak of (disease name) sexually transmitted. Only native to varren. Implications: Disturbing."

[Weak With The Dawn]

That's not the worst. (paraphrasing)

Shepherd: "Got a minute to talk?"

Mordin: "Notright now. Been an outbreak of (disease name) sexually transmitted. Only native to varren. Implications: Disturbing."

Haha, that was "Scale itch"

My favorite so far has been:

Mordin: Not right now, testing partially intelligent virus. Possibly fully intelligent; toying with me. Must. Run. Tests.

[Galactus]

Mordin is clearly the best "New" character. Although I liked Legion as well. Grunt was unimpressive. Jacob felt like a nonentity (might get better if you romance him?) Miranda, Jack and Thane are all interesting enough.

The returners are of course awesome, all of them.

[Poobah]

Does warp ammo do the X% bonus damage only against biotic barriers or is it a blanket bonus damage to all and even more to barriers? The wording seems kinda... fuzzy.

[Jacen]

Enchantment?!

[Relic]

Enchantment?!

:lol:

[Poobah]

"What that means is Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space... if you pull the trigger on this thing you are ruining someone's day somewhere, sometime"

[Sariel]

Does warp ammo do the X% bonus damage only against biotic barriers or is it a blanket bonus damage to all and even more to barriers? The wording seems kinda... fuzzy.

barriers, armour and health as far as I understood it. I used it for my soldier and it was awesome.

[Jon AS]

Managed to keep everyone alive the second time through. Man Hardcore is a big step down from Insanity in terms of challenge. I might actually go back to Insanity for my third run. Am I really going to play through this game a third time in a row? Maybe I should go back to Dragon Age for a while?

Mordin is clearly the best "New" character. Although I liked Legion as well. Grunt was unimpressive. Jacob felt like a nonentity (might get better if you romance him?) Miranda, Jack and Thane are all interesting enough.

The returners are of course awesome, all of them.

Mordin is up their with the greatest video game characters. The writing alone is very good, coupled with the great voice acting and excellent animation and direction in his scenes it becomes fantastic.

Mordin: Having trouble working between your interruptions and EDI's insistence that "insane" experiments are endangering the crew.

Legion was interesting, but mostly for the insight into the Geth it provided. I kind of liked Grunt, he is clearly too inexperienced to have much depth, but there is something heartwarming about him learning to hate Turians. I agree on Jacob. Jack's story is completely devoid of surprises as far as I can tell, which puts her behind Miranda and Thane in my book. Zaeed is just kind of there.

Samara is about on the same level as Miranda and Thane. I love how the Asari authorities try to keep Justicars away from aliens because of cultural incompatibility.

[Galactus]

Jack's story is completely devoid of surprises as far as I can tell

I like the fact that they actually gave a reason for Jack being so violent: IE: She had been literally conditioned (with drugs, etc.) to feel pleasure when fighting. That's very creepy.

[Relic]

Is it better than Dragon Age?

In some ways, and not in others. Over all i think Dragon Age is a bit...deeper?

[Galactus]

I'm thinking about buying a 360 again for this game, since I thought the original was one of the best titles on the system. Is it better than Dragon Age?

Is it better than Dragon Age on the 360?

Probably.

Is it better than Dragon Age on the PC? No.

[Durckad]

Just finished ME2. Just like in ME1, the story and the cinematic ending really, really made up for all the small, annoying little things. The final portion of the game on the Collector ship was just badass, I got everyone alive through to the end, had Garrus lead the fire team both times, had Legion hack the door, Samara put up the biotic field, and Grunt led the survivors back. I brought Miranda and Tali with me to the end.

I ended up destroying the Collector base since giving the IM anything that powerful... felt wrong. I imagine on any other playthroughs I do, I'll do the same. I only managed to get to level 26 and I don't think that there's anything left for me to do in the game so I imagine that I'd have to play a plus game to get up to 30.

My overall thoughts:

- Almost all of the characters were great. Tali, Garrus, Mordin, Miranda, Samara, and Thane all felt especially strong. Legion was also pretty cool. Jacob was just sort of there. Zaeed, Grunt, and Jack were my least favorite.

- Ending was pretty easy (played on Normal) but super epic. I don't mind if a game is easy but as long as it has a suitably awesome ending, I'm okay. It wasn't quite as good as ME1's ending (convincing Saren to kill himself, sacrificing the Council, cutting between the battle in space with the battle on the Citadel), but oh well.

- Story was good, but it seemed to be too much setup. I was also less than impressed with the giant Terminator at the end. Still, after seeing that last shot of the Reapers fleet... zomg I want ME3 now!!!

- Even though scanning planets was uber annoying, you don't have to scan that many to get enough minerals to research almost everything. Stick with just the Rich planets and it's not too bad, definitely a step up from the mako.

- OTOH, hacking and bypassing got to be incredibly annoying near the end of the game. It wasn't difficult at all, it was boring, and there was so much of it that it just started to feel like a chore. I really didn't mind the button minigame from ME1. It was repetitive, but at least it wasn't mindnumbingly boring and easy. Even at the end there was a bit of challenge to it.

- I was really hoping for a couple of instances in the game where you'd have to choose between performing a paragon action or renegade action in a cut scene (like maybe petting a puppy or kicking a puppy ;) ). It was a great idea to introduce it, but I hope they utilize it a bit more in ME3.

- The streamlined inventory and powers ended up working out rather well. I was pretty dubious about its implementation at first, but I was proven wrong.

- As much as I liked the game, too many battles ended up feeling the same: Enter room full of crates, enemies show up, shoot them, move forward to next crate-filled room, repeat. They mix it up a little, but not enough.

Overall, great game with a few niggling issues. Can't wait for ME3.

EDIT: and here's a funny Tali moment:

:rofl: