Mass Effect 2

[Weak With The Dawn]

I believe the change is explained in one of the novels. But I think going through the first game and THEN having Shepherd killed and spending two years in a state of confusing would change her outlook a bit.

I'm not altogether certain we are meant to take her threats at face value, either.

Note that all the characters seem to have "hardened" a bit. (Ash is just pissed! Although I loved her "You are in the presence of a God!" comment)

Yeah, it was a pretty awesome Ego boost, especially coming from a Christian women :-).

One of my favorite quotes so far is from Joker when asking him about his feelings on the crew

"It's great to see that Garrus finally got that stick out of his butt, but now it seems like he's trying to beat people with it."

[Relic]

Do you guys know where to get Element Zero in this game? I've yet to find any while scanning. It's pretty key in adding skills for Shepard, and upgrading your party with unique abilities.

edit - nevermind, found this...

Eagle Nebula - Relic Cluster - Planet Preying Mouth

Eagle Nebula - Amun Cluster - Planet Anhur

Eagle Nebula - Amun Cluster - Planet Sekhmet

Crescent Nebula - Lusarn Cluster - Planet Tarith

Crescent Nebula - Zelene Cluster - Planet Helyme

Hourglass Nebula - Faryar Cluster - Planet Daratar

Hourglass Nebula - Osun Cluster - Planet Erinie

Hourglass Nebula - Ploitari Cluster - Planet Thegan

Rosetta Nebula - Alpha Draconis Cluster - Planet 2175 Aeia

Rosetta Nebula - Enoch Cluster - Planet Joab

Rosetta Nebula - Enoch Cluster - Planet Laban

Rosetta Nebula - Enoch Cluster - Planet Mizraim

Titan Nebula - Haskins Cluster - Planet Capek

Valhallan Threshhold - Micah Cluster - Planet Farlas

Valhallan Threshhold - Micah Cluster - Planet Israfil

Valhallan Threshhold - Micah Cluster - Planet Kakabel

The Shrike Abyssal - Urla Rast Cluster - Planet Talis Fia

The Shrike Abyssal - Xe Cha Cluster - Planet Tosal Nym

The Shrike Abyssal - Xe Cha Cluster - Planet Zada Ban

Sigurd's Cradle - Decoris Cluster - Planet Sanctum

Sigurd's Cradle - Skepsis Cluster - Planet Watson

Omega Nebula - Batalla Cluster - Planet Nearog

The Phoenix Massing - Salahiel Cluster - Planet Ekuna

Krogan DMZ - Nith Cluster - Planet Mantun

Minos Wasteland - Caestus Cluster - Planet Invictus

Nubian Expanse - Kalabsha CVluster - Planet Yamm

Far Rim - Dholen Cluster - Planet Gotha

Hades Nexus - Sheol Cluster - Planet Gei Hinnom

Hawking Eta - Schwarzschild Cluster - Planet Etamis

Caleston Rift - Aysur Cluster - Planet Arvuna

Caleston Rift - Balor Cluster - Planet Caleston

[Weak With The Dawn]

Wow, that's awfully convenient, I'd been wondering the same thing. Where did you find this? Does it have the other minerals. I know they're easier to find but knowing exactly where to go is much easier then scanning and hoping, even with the upgraded scanner.

[Relic]

Wow, that's awfully convenient, I'd been wondering the same thing. Where did you find this? Does it have the other minerals. I know they're easier to find but knowing exactly where to go is much easier then scanning and hoping, even with the upgraded scanner.

i found it in a thread on the gamefaqs.com Mass Effect 2 board.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=944907&topic=53273121

[Minaku]

I'm on Horizon now. You know Bioware has done its job when I see Kaidan with Lilith and I feel an intense surge of jealousy. It's weird, I've never been a jealous person IRL, but in fiction? :lmao: Guess I can't go after Garrus after all, though it's always fun to hear him yelling behind me. I'll be sad when I switch him out with Tali.

[Weak With The Dawn]

I'm on Horizon now. You know Bioware has done its job when I see Kaidan with Lilith and I feel an intense surge of jealousy. It's weird, I've never been a jealous person IRL, but in fiction? :lmao: Guess I can't go after Garrus after all, though it's always fun to hear him yelling behind me. I'll be sad when I switch him out with Tali.

Ashley was there for me and I groaned. In comparison t the females in ME1 she looked pretty decent, compared to the females in ME2 she looks like a creep. Thankfully Tali or Jack can mend my broken heart :-p.

In ME2 I only ever took 3 people with me, Wrex, Garrus, or Tali, I'm finding myself switching much more often in ME2, it's a welcome change. Every squad member is a viable member to your team and doesn't die after two shots like Kaiden always did for me in the last game.

[Relic]

doesn't die after two shots like Kaiden always did for me in the last game.

Kaiden was a scrub. I let his punk ass die on Virmire.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Kaiden was a scrub. I let his punk ass die on Virmire.

Word. The way I saw it, if one of them lived they were likely to take their cloths off for me. That's the one I saved.

[Relic]

Started mining Element Zero tonight. I picked the Crescent Nebula as a starting point. Interestingly, aside from mining around 11k E-0 both planets also had anomaly beacons that led to side missions. Not sure if that's a coincidence or not.

[Jacen]

This game is great but seriously who the fuck came up with this mineral scanning shit? It's fun for like...ONE planet...and FUCKING completest that I am...I'm not satisfied till I deplete every godamn dirtball planet in the game.

I can just see the meeting at Bioware HQ, deep in the frozen heart of Edmonton.

Peon: Sir, we have received many complaints about the Mako driving sections in Mass Effect 1!

Exec: What the hell? What don't they like about it?

Peon: Well...they say its boring...not much to see or do on the planets...and they don't like searching around for minerals on the surface...

Exec: WTF! Okay...well for ME2...how about we scrap the Mako shit, and we give them a scanner?

Peon: huh?

Exec: Yeah, give them a planetary scanner...they gotta move this target thinger around and watch a white line vibrate, ya know like they have on them lie detector tests!? They will LOVE IT. That has got to be like 9-thousand times fuckin better than driving a stupid car around!

Peon: But sir, maybe we should just improve the mako secti-

Exec: Shut your trap! Get coding!

Peon: Great idea sir, YES sir! *Salutes and walks out*

[Spectralist]

Yeah the scanning got really old really fast. It's doubly annoying since there's a section for vehicle control bindings in the options which kinda suggests that you'd get back into the Mako or something like it at some point in the game. I actually really enjoyed riding the Mako around in the first one... for the first few times anyway. It would have been nice to bring it back just for a mission or two. Or maybe they did, I didn't do all the side quests.

Well for all that the game mechanics sucked at least they ended the game on a high note. Though the big choice at the end seems like a bad idea. They're either going to have to write two completely different stories for ME3 or go with some kind of cop out that more or less invalidates one of the the ending choices.

The stretch that leads up to the last battle could have used more ammo. The end boss would have been a cakewalk if I weren't down to one sniper rifle shot left at the start of the fight.

The game's rather short. I only hit 30hours and I left the game running while I did other stuff a couple of times. And got lost frequently.

[Jon AS]

Looks like amazon beats play.com by about 9-13 days when it comes to delivery times. Or maybe that should be DHL beats Royal Mail. In any case: I got the game! Yay!

[a wooden chair]

This game is great but seriously who the fuck came up with this mineral scanning shit? It's fun for like...ONE planet...and FUCKING completest that I am...I'm not satisfied till I deplete every godamn dirtball planet in the game.

I can just see the meeting at Bioware HQ, deep in the frozen heart of Edmonton.

Peon: Sir, we have received many complaints about the Mako driving sections in Mass Effect 1!

Exec: What the hell? What don't they like about it?

Peon: Well...they say its boring...not much to see or do on the planets...and they don't like searching around for minerals on the surface...

Exec: WTF! Okay...well for ME2...how about we scrap the Mako shit, and we give them a scanner?

Peon: huh?

Exec: Yeah, give them a planetary scanner...they gotta move this target thinger around and watch a white line vibrate, ya know like they have on them lie detector tests!? They will LOVE IT. That has got to be like 9-thousand times fuckin better than driving a stupid car around!

Peon: But sir, maybe we should just improve the mako secti-

Exec: Shut your trap! Get coding!

Peon: Great idea sir, YES sir! *Salutes and walks out*

It gets easier once you get your ship upgraded to hold more probes, faster scanner movement, more fuel, etc. I spent about 6 hours one night depleting as many planets as possible (till I got all resources but element zero to around 300,000) and now I'm just riding my stockpile and creating every upgrade possible as soon as I get it.

[denstorebog]

I spent about 6 hours one night depleting as many planets as possible

:worried:

This is not how gaming used to be in the olden days, man. Back then, gameplay hours were *real* gameplay hours.

[Deluge]

Yeah the scanning got really old really fast. It's doubly annoying since there's a section for vehicle control bindings in the options which kinda suggests that you'd get back into the Mako or something like it at some point in the game. I actually really enjoyed riding the Mako around in the first one... for the first few times anyway. It would have been nice to bring it back just for a mission or two. Or maybe they did, I didn't do all the side quests.

Greedy brigands that they are, they're planning on releasing a vehicle as DLC.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Greedy brigands that they are, they're planning on releasing a vehicle as DLC.

As long as you buy the game New and use the code in the package, you get the DLC free, so they are not that greedy.

[Jon AS]

Figured I'd bore everyone with my first impressions.

Let's start with importing a character from ME1, which was a needlessly clunky deal (really, Bioware can't tell where their own game has put the save files on my system?) and when you get to pick your character it only gives you his name and level in the first step. Not too bad by itself, but since there is no "back" button, once I learned that I had inadvertently picked the wrong savegame (I never bothered to give my characters individualized first names and the saves are not presented in chronological order) I had to alt-tab out of the game and kill it with the taskmanager before trying the next character. After the one I wanted proved (predictably enough) the last one I could possibly try, I got less than five minutes into the game before I ran into a game-breaking bug (a cutscene did not trigger), forcing me to restart. Good job, Bioware.:thumbsup:

After that first annoyance I have been enjoying the game quite a bit. Importing a level 60 char made me start out at level 5, gave me 150,000 credits and a bunch of resources (from the mineral collection in the first game) so that felt rather rewarding.

The dialogue and cutscenes flow better and the overall visuals are much improved.

I generally like the new talent trees. They are shorter, but basically just focus on the three major upgrade steps that were already present in the first game and the "evolve" options on the fourth tier add some nice variety.

Combat is much more fun and Insanity proved a nicely challenging setting after the prologue. I don't mind the ammo mechanic, though I wonder why they bothered with it since ammo is universal. You empty your guns in a fight, then pick up what your enemies dropped and are back to maximum ammo capacity again. Seems pointless.

I really like that they got rid of the inventory system. Replaying the first game a few weeks ago made me realise again how stupid it was. 99% of the stuff you found was junk, and after a while there wasn't even a point in selling it because your money was permanently at maximum and there was nothing worth buying. Simply upgrading your arms and armour seems like a good idea so far, only the fact that it is tied to the resource gathering is annoying.

Which brings us to the worst aspect of the game. How on earth did they manage to make looking for mineral deposits worse than in the first game? In ME1 it was annoying, but nowhere near this terrible. Instead of simply heading straight for generic merc hideout no. 113 you took the scenic route and picked up what you found on the way. Added about 5 minutes (maybe a bit more, depending on hillyness of the planet) to any given sidequest and scanning the rest of the planets and asteroids in a system took about 30 seconds. Now you spend several minutes per planet and you need to find a lot more resources to get all the upgrades. And that's with the import bonus. One thing is for sure, I'm never starting this game with a brand new character.

The last gripe are the bonus armours they provided. They look nice enough, but only Shepard can use them, they have pretty weak stats and they are one piece suits without an option to take off the helmet. So even in cutscenes Shepard is wearing his concealing helmet, obscuring his facial features. He even drinks through the visor, apparently, and people immediately recognise him despite the fact that he is wearing a helmet. Considering that Bioware spend a lot of effort animating their characters' faces, completely cutting this feature out of the game with a suit of bonus armour seems stupid.

But as I said, overall I'm suitably impressed and had a lot of fun with this. Recruited the first three team members from Omega (well, getting Zaeed isn't exactly challenging), headed to the Citadel (which seems to be an area added just to deliver tons of in-jokes) and will probably explore all the starsystems in Omega's cluster next.

This is not how gaming used to be in the olden days, man. Back then, gameplay hours were *real* gameplay hours.

I really can't tell if you're joking or not. In case you are not: plenty of older games offered various optional (and sometimes not so optional) tedious tasks you could spend a lot of time on.

[Inigima]

As long as you buy the game New and use the code in the package, you get the DLC free, so they are not that greedy.

That doesn't strike you as even greedier?

[Jon AS]

That doesn't strike you as even greedier?

Err, no? All the money from buying a used game goes to the retailer, not the developer. You can still buy the game used, the guys who created it just want to encourage you to give them some money, too.

[Galactus]

Killing the Tresher Maw has produced several breeding requests for Grunt. And one for Shepherd.

Funniest line thus far: