Mass Effect 2 gameplay thread

[Kekvit Irae]

The new mini games can get deleted now, please, All rubbish, all a pain to play, and all completely needless. I was sick to death of planet scanning before I'd finished my first one, and the other two aren't any better.

They are annoying, but are certainly more logical than playing Simon (360) or Frogger (PC).

No in-party banter while travelling.

It depends on where you're at and who you're with. Garrus and Tali have a really amusing conversation at the Citadel when walking up/down the stairs.

Garrus: Don't you miss our conversations in the elevators?
Tali: No.
Garrus: I could ask about your immunity, or what's under your mask.
Tali: I have a shotgun.
Garrus: Maybe some other time.

Oh goodie, I have some levels to spend at the beginning because I ported my game over. Let's see what we've got. Four abilities?! FOUR!? Each with four levels!? That's IT!? And some of those levels cost more points than I gain per level up so it appears that I'm going to spend a lot of time with the interface flashing and nagging at me to spend points when I can't because I need to save up.

Another thing I hated. I liked having a lot of skills, even if they were mostly weapons. It gave me a choice. You CAN, however, research a fifth skill of your choice once you get the research data, and you're not stuck with that skill if you don't like it.

Paragon and renegade points shower down on Shepard like confetti. My paragon bar is nearly 1/3 full already! Aligned dialogue options are everywhere and are always guaranteed and easy to get. Blergh. I got a discount in every single shop in that first major area simply by walking around and using the paragon option, and then waltzed around successfully charming people in situations where it made no sense whatsoever. Those options used to be a bit special, and had requirements before you could use them.

To be fair, the new Paragon/Renegade QTEs are pretty nice. But... you don't need any points to do them, and they will always work regardless of your Paragon/Renegade status.

What was the point of that dramatic beginning? Everything which is lost is handed right back 5 minutes later.

Convenient plot point to get rid of all the characters we loved and bring in others we don't. At least Tali is back.

Where are the side quests? I've been to and scoured the citadel, my ship and the first real planet/asteroid base thingy and I've turned up a bare handful.

There are actually quite a few sidequests in the game. Just not a lot in the first area. You can also find them by visiting uncharted worlds. You'll need to scan them to find them, but if EDI doesn't say anything about "Anomoly Detected", there's no sidequest there.

No mako? But some of the coolest moments from the first game involved the mako. :(

I enjoy the lack of the M35 "Drunken Monkey" Mako. I don't like how it was replaced by the new galaxy travel system.


EDIT: Oh, and another thing I'll add to the list of things I don't like about the game. The damn fish! You have to go up to your cabin to feed them every five minutes or they die. At least Kelly will feed them for you if you get her in the sack, but that's midway through the game. Fortunately, my hamster doesn't require feeding. I'm going to make a new ME2 character based off of Minsc and do nothing but look at my new space hamster.

[Mailman653]

Convenient plot point to get rid of all the characters we loved and bring in others we don't. At least Tali is back.

Yeah, this is really significant with who ever you rommanced in the old game. I think it would be awesome if in ME3, you can pick anyone from the first two games to join the team.

I just started a new game on Insane.....it really is insane. I died more times on the second level then I died in the 30+ hrs of the normal difficulty. I think I picked the wrong upgrade when I started a new game.

[frogbeastegg]

Blergh. Got another 2 party members. The biotic I already dislike after her generic angry tattoo girl intro, and the other is a more boo-hoo version of a character I previously liked. From the things he’s saying I now expect him to be a romance candidate for a female Shepard; Bioware do think angst is the main attractive trait a man can have.

I am guessing you didn't talk to about 90% of the Crew.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Most of them were thrown away by the "Alliance and Council" because they supported Shepard's opinion about the "Reapers returning". As you play though the game you will see that "Cerberus" is the only one willing to do anything about them.(As far as I could see)

I talked to them as far as the game will let me, which right now is 2-3 conversations each. I stand by my comment: Shepard must be brain damaged. As for the crew, most of them are complaining about how they don't like the organisation, its politics or its methods. It's like joining the Space Nazis(TM) because Space Winston Churchill didn't offer you a cigar and ooh look shiny toys!

About the KIA thing...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I am guessing they didn't see your corpse or something. I recall Joker or someone mentioned that the "Alliance" tried to sweep the "Reaper threat" under the rug(By saying Shepard was KIA right away)."Much easier to blame pirates and slavers" -The Illusive man

You’d still expect your dear old friends and allies to say something like, “It’s good to see you again!” or “It’s been a while and by the way, I heard you were dead?” They act like you have been gone for 2 days on an out of town shopping trip.

It depends on where you're at and who you're with. Garrus and Tali have a really amusing conversation at the Citadel when walking up/down the stairs.

So far I've mainly been using Miranda and what's-his-name the generic soldier you get at the beginning. Not a whisper passed between them. I used the DLC mercenary for a bit, found his powers to be a bit crap and his personality grating, so I sidelined him. Not a word from him other than those scripted into the mission.

No Tali yet, and to be honest her earlier intro has completely cheesed me off. It's like they used the relationship from my xenophobic renegade Shepard playthrough instead of my original sweetness-and-light character.

There are actually quite a few sidequests in the game. Just not a lot in the first area. You can also find them by visiting uncharted worlds. You'll need to scan them to find them, but if EDI doesn't say anything about "Anomoly Detected", there's no sidequest there.

Oh good. Nice to know I might get something other than repetitive strain injury out of the planet scans.

I enjoy the lack of the M35 "Drunken Monkey" Mako.

I liked the mako when it tied into full missions, such as storming by way along the beach to the cloning facility. Made for a change of pace. In fact I wasn't that impressed with the original game until the section where you rescued Liara; then I started to fall for the game.

[White_eyes:D]

You’d still expect your dear old friends and allies to say something like, “It’s good to see you again!” or “It’s been a while and by the way, I heard you were dead?” They act like you have been gone for 2 days on an out of town shopping trip.

Most people might already know about it....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If you didn't kill Wrex in the last game, he is the only guy who acted like that and the only one; who I was really glad to see(in a non-party member way).

I talked to them as far as the game will let me, which right now is 2-3 conversations each. I stand by my comment: Shepard must be brain damaged. As for the crew, most of them are complaining about how they don't like the organisation, its politics or its methods. It's like joining the Space Nazis(TM) because Space Winston Churchill didn't offer you a cigar and ooh look shiny toys!

It's more like going from "Military forces" to "CIA or some other black ops agency".

And why not? If there was a threat that BIG(Everyone dies from a genocidal race) and politics were getting in the way because its more of a "Bogeyman issue" I would jump sides too.

[Beskar]

I am still wondering how they vacuum sealed Miranda's outfit while she was wearing it. If there is a romanace option, I think Shepard will have to brush up on his surgey skills to remove it.

[Mailman653]

It's because she is perfect so even her suit hugs everything perfectly? ha ha ha.

[Kekvit Irae]

Most people might already know about it....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If you didn't kill Wrex in the last game, he is the only guy who acted like that and the only one; who I was really glad to see(in a non-party member way).

What pissed me off SO BADLY about the game wasn't the Gears of War ripoff, wasn't the Call of Duty health system, wasn't the stupidification of the inventory... no. What really got me was

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Liara going from a sweet and innocent girl to a cold-blooded and ruthless killer with only a professional interest in Shepard (even though the game DOES acknowledge the previous game's romance).

WHAT THE HELL, BIOWARE?

I liked the mako when it tied into full missions, such as storming by way along the beach to the cloning facility. Made for a change of pace. In fact I wasn't that impressed with the original game until the section where you rescued Liara; then I started to fall for the game.

The Mako isn't THAT bad on the 360, but god help you if you ever play the PC version like I do. The simple task of staying on the road during Ilos is a test of skill itself.

[Greyblades]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Liara going from a sweet and innocent girl to a cold-blooded and ruthless killer with only a professional interest in Shepard (even though the game DOES acknowledge the previous game's romance).

Have you tried confronting her on it?

[Krusader]

I've been playing the game for almost 12 hours straight and I'm enjoying it. Is it perfect? Far from it...the planetary scan minigame is utterly boring and tedious and even on official forums it is difficult to find people who enjoy it. The other two minigames are okay. Personally I prefer them than the frogger minigame in ME1.

I will echo frog's statement that the reunion scenes...could have been better.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Although Kaidan Alenko's seemed good enough. Him being wary of showing up as he expected a Cerberus attack. Wrex's greeting though was good and I enjoyed that.

I couldn't help but be reminded of what Yahtzee said about Tabula Rasa when he reviewed it over two years ago. Watch from 02:20. While it is about online games, ignore the MMO and online prefixes. This is Bioware going after the shooter-audience and thus simplyfing/dumbing down (whatever you prefer) so they won't be put off.

I enjoy the game, but I miss the RPG-feel. Putting points into abilities and building my own and teammates' characters was fun and I also enjoyed switching and swapping weapons, weapon mods, armor etc. And while I have no problems keeping my ammo supply up, I'd prefer the old system with overheating.

Regarding planetary scans...seeing some threads on official forums there are quite a few who have stated they'd gladly pay 5-10 $ for a DLC that revamps the planetary scan minigame so it goes faster and is more fun. I myself would gladly pay 5 $ actually to do so, because scanning planets is incredibly dull.

[frogbeastegg]

Finally! 15 hours on and it's picking up. I have enough upgrades that the combat is a little less bad, Ilium is loaded with absolutely brilliant interactions and dialogue (I want that bartender in my party, now!) and the 'gone for shopping effect' may have finally ended. Miranda's personal quest made her more bearable.

I have decided that I also dislike the global power cooldown which replaces the individual power cooldown of the first game. It seems like I am always waiting for my squad to let 12 seconds pass so I can get them to try again (they keep hitting walls instead of targets) or that the opportunity created by using one power goes unexploited because I can't follow it up with a different power for a long time. Or the AI uses a power and I have to wait for 12 seconds to pass before I can ask for the one I need them to use. It also makes power combos next to impossible. I miss hitting big nasties with overload -> warp. No way to influence cooldown times either.

spoilers for a meeting on Horizon

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Kaiden was delighted to see Shepard instead of the usual "Meh" reaction. Then he realised who she was working for and there was a nicely done argument about it, with him saying all the things I have been. Cue massive falling out and him leaving. He sent an email later, apologising and asking for time to get used to the idea of Shepard being alive. AND this when he already knew I might be alive!

spoilers for a person you meet on Ilium

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Liara was also very happy to see me, and didn't act as though I'd been off shopping for a weekend.

It's more like going from "Military forces" to "CIA or some other black ops agency".

Cerberus are a completely independent, self funded political and paramilitary organisation which likes to perform terrorist attacks, illegal experiments, torture people, assassinate, murder, blackmail, intimidate, and has a political ideology which says "This one tiny group which is the same as us is fine, everyone else is so much rubbish lying in our way and needs to be removed."

It's like going from the army to the IRA, Nazis, Al Quaeda or similar extreme group.

It's also a group which spent a lot of the last game trying to kill my Shepard and crew, and which killed people she knew and liked. And she joins up because the man in charge of the organisation claims they are doing good against an unsubstantiated threat. She doesn't question much, she doesn't demand proof, she doesn't try to join any alternate group, and she doesn't even question their improbable story about the Lazerus project. No, she just nods her little head and goes "Ok." Brain damaged.



What is this frogger mini game people keep mentioning? The only mini game I remember in ME1 is Simon says to hack or open locks. Is it something they added for the PC port?

[Kekvit Irae]

What is this frogger mini game people keep mentioning? The only mini game I remember in ME1 is Simon says to hack or open locks. Is it something they added for the PC port?

The yellow blocks are stationary and simply block your path with no further disadvantage. The red blocks circle around and will take you to the outer ring if hit. The objective is to get the curser to the inner ring. Harder difficulty locks have more blocks of both colors.


And there's already a mod out for the ammo. It turns the ammo into the pre-release version, which regenerates on its own.

http://www.annakie.com/me/mods.htm

SUMMARY:
This mod restores Mass Effect 2 to the hybrid ammo system seen in some of the earlier preview videos: you can fire until you run out of ammo and eject your clip like in this game, but you can also sit and have it recover with time.

Note that in this version there is no longer a way to manually reload your weapon, but there is still tactical benefit in that you can choose to either reload a clip or wait a bit for it to reload. Even with no clips in your weapon, the slow reload will still work - but will still be less effective than simply finding a new clip.

INSTALLATION:
- Drop this in your Mass Effect 2 install folder and it should work from there

UNINSTALLATION:
- Head to Mass Effect 2\BioGame\Config\Pc\Cooked and delete Coalesced.ini, then rename the included backup to Coalesced.ini, and you're golden.

FUTURE PLANS/CONTACT:
- This mod makes many weapons reaaaally unbalanced, especially those with high ammo capacities like the SMG - it simply replenishes ammo too fast, and that can't be slowed down without crippling other guns. Possible workarounds would be to lower SMG ammo capacity or to increase it for other guns. Tell me what you think.

[Beskar]

Frogbeastegg was the frogger champion in High School and won a few national awards for her abilities.

[Ironside]

It's also a group which spent a lot of the last game trying to kill my Shepard and crew, and which killed people she knew and liked. And she joins up because the man in charge of the organisation claims they are doing good against an unsubstantiated threat. She doesn't question much, she doesn't demand proof, she doesn't try to join any alternate group, and she doesn't even question their improbable story about the Lazerus project. No, she just nods her little head and goes "Ok." Brain damaged.

I think that you end up with plenty (I suspect more than two) of your old crew members, makes the transition a bit more easy. If plenty of your old crew joins a faction that tried to kill them earlier, they probably had a good reason. And they can comfirm that the Lazerous project is what they say it is.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If you remeber passing out due to suffication and add that no mysterious vessel picked you up moments after (which you can confirm by the people in the life pods), you can conclude that you were dead, really dead.

And you get the idea that the council wouldn't help you with any more resources than what you already got (spectre status+ ship with crew+ better intel).
You can be quite clear that it's an alliance of convenience (well rather desperation) during several conversations if you want to as well.
So stretching, but not brain damaged.

[rajpoot]

When I tried the planetary scanning mini game, the first thought I had was that the chaps over at Bioware had done it out of spite, to make all the critics of ME1's Mako relent their comments. Then I remembered that it was Bioware and they're a decent lot who make nice games, so they must have had other reasons....
Anyway,
Likes -
The story.
The larger number of companions.
The way ME1's small decisions actually matter (I wish I had my own save games....)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was a great fuzzy feeling to get a message from the Rachni queen and see Shiala on Illium....

Dislikes -
New combat system.
Ammo system.
The new mini games.....give me the old one any day.
Lack of inventory.

Mass Effect wasn't about the combat, it was about the nice story and the characters......they shouldn't have changed that....I mean the characters are still pretty engaging, but the combat has become rather complicated for my tastes....

[frogbeastegg]

The best tip for the planetry scan mini game is to tap the scan button instead of holding it while moving the cursor about. Makes it all go much faster. Also check the research console after recruiting the assassin ...



To be clear, I dislike the Cerberus thing at the start because Shepard does not have good motivation at the time when she signs up, not because I don't want to play along. It's an idea that has a lot of potential, and I hate the fact it starts out with a great big "DUR!" and then has to spend hours recovering from that.

I think that you end up with plenty (I suspect more than two) of your old crew members, makes the transition a bit more easy. If plenty of your old crew joins a faction that tried to kill them earlier, they probably had a good reason.

If anything I find that makes it worse. None of my crew have given me a truly sound reason for joining. I hear a lot of "I'm here because you're here." and "Didn't get to run off and hunt reapers, and this untrustworthy organisation said that they would so I swapped sides because everyone knows liars can be believed." or "Cerberus has cool toys, wee!" She doesn't get to meet them until after she's signed the dotted line, either.

From Shepard's POV at the start of the game, she's got nothing to work on other than the word of a guy she should not trust, and the fact she's being kept - or held - in a medical facility by an organisation that does nasty experiments on living people. If anything it would be natural for her to assume she was a prisoner and had been tortured or experimented on. Especially with that first wake up scene, which she remembers when she wakes up the second time. And the logical, immediate source of a pick up ship is the only other ship she knew to be in the area at the time. That would be her attacker. Shepard is eager and happy to take Cerberus' word for everything. She isn't given proof of anything at this point; the Illusive Man could be doing the old "[lie]Yes, we fight to save the galaxy!" dialogue option for all she knows.

She has absolutely no reason to trust the Illusive Man, and no reason to roll over and play ball so quickly. But the dialogue choices are "Ok!" and "Ok, cool!" No option for even a token refusal.

And you get the idea that the council wouldn't help you with any more resources than what you already got (spectre status+ ship with crew+ better intel).

For a paragon Shepard that's all the more reason to baulk at joining. Besides, it's the Illusive Man who tells her that. Would he say otherwise at that time?

ou can be quite clear that it's an alliance of convenience (well rather desperation) during several conversations if you want to as well.

Only after I'd joined up and done some missions. At the start, when it would have made the most sense, I couldn't question at all. I got to be more sceptical about joining the Spectres in the first game than I did about signing up with Cerberus.