Mass Effect 2 teaser

[TinCow]

True, but at least you don't have to hunt around the map for items left on the ground (except of course containers.

I agree, that's an improvement. I remember not looting lots of low-level bodies in the IE games because the effort of clicking wasn't worth the 2 gold you'd get as a reward. While infinite inventories are probably not suited to all games, it certainly works well in ME and I give two thumbs up to the auto-corpse-loot system.

Only if you consider them so diametrically opposed. As Froggy said in an earlier post, it's not about being an "Alien lover" or "crypto fascist" but about whether your character will bend over backwards/go out of their way to accomodate people or is so focused on the goal as to disregard the interests of all else around. I admit there are a few side quests that pull that distinction towards what you describe (notably the Human politician and reporter citadel side quests), but the impression i got from my various play throughs was more as I described -if not a simpler selfish/selfless choice.

I'll keep my eye on the dialogs as I continue my playthrough to give this more scrutiny. So far it often seems to me that the dialog options tend to be one of the following:

1) I like aliens / I trust no one but humans
2) I like the rule of law / I do whatever it takes to get the job done
3) There's no need to reward me / Give me more loot!

In every case, the answers seem mutually exclusive. For example, with #2 responses, the game regularly rewards paragon points for liking law and order, and rewards renegade points for being an 'ends justify the means' type of guy. Since they're diametrically opposed answers and the give points into opposite areas, why aren't the conflicting with one another? Sure, there are some paragon answers that would mesh with other renegade answers, but in those scenarios it seems more like a 2-axis scale would be better. As it is now, ME has the same good/bad evaluation as the KOTOR games and Jade Empire, but it allows you to go both directions at the same time. I'm not inclined to think that makes a lot of sense. If they wanted to try and rate someone's alignment in that manner, they should have used a slightly more elaborate ranking system. A single axis with two poles just isn't cutting it as far as I can tell.

Ideally, they just should've scrapped the paragon/renegade stuff to begin with. If they wanted to let us be as morally ambiguous as we want, they shouldn't be rating us on our performance and rewarding/penalizing us for our answers.

[Husar]

I agree, that's an improvement. I remember not looting lots of low-level bodies in the IE games because the effort of clicking wasn't worth the 2 gold you'd get as a reward. While infinite inventories are probably not suited to all games, it certainly works well in ME and I give two thumbs up to the auto-corpse-loot system.

It's not unlimited, I got a warning when I was close to the limit but it only happened later in the game.

[al Roumi]

1) I like aliens / I trust no one but humans
2) I like the rule of law / I do whatever it takes to get the job done
3) There's no need to reward me / Give me more loot!

hmm. On reflection I think you're right -clearly you've been playing this more recently!

If they wanted to try and rate someone's alignment in that manner, they should have used a slightly more elaborate ranking system. A single axis with two poles just isn't cutting it as far as I can tell.

Ideally, they just should've scrapped the paragon/renegade stuff to begin with. If they wanted to let us be as morally ambiguous as we want, they shouldn't be rating us on our performance and rewarding/penalizing us for our answers

You're right, is this a trap that programmers fall into? binary decisions?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Ideally, they just should've scrapped the paragon/renegade stuff to begin with. If they wanted to let us be as morally ambiguous as we want, they shouldn't be rating us on our performance and rewarding/penalizing us for our answers.

I think that is the direction they are going in at this point. You kind of need a transition from 0 or 1 by making the value pointless to begin with. I never understood the point of it in a game like Mass Effect anyway where you are the hero no matter what. And I think that having no rating lets players react more towards how they would actually handle a situation rather then choosing something because they know that's the "good" path.

[Scienter]

I think that is the direction they are going in at this point. You kind of need a transition from 0 or 1 by making the value pointless to begin with. I never understood the point of it in a game like Mass Effect anyway where you are the hero no matter what. And I think that having no rating lets players react more towards how they would actually handle a situation rather then choosing something because they know that's the "good" path.

I was happy with the system in Dragon Age where you don't have good/evil alignment, but are rated by what your companions think of you. It had its flaws (it was easy to get everyone to love you and IMO that shouldn't be possible), but it was better than the renegade/paragon system in ME.

I'm playing thru a second time. My original character was a Vanguard, but it seems like a lot of the NPCs are biotic, so I made an Infiltrator. I was hoping to have lots of snipey fun, but so far I haven't used my sniper rifle that much, and have been relying on the pistol. Hopefully it will get more useful as I put more stat points into it.

[Mailman653]

I got the new issue of GameInformer (US) and it has a small feature on ME2.

Something things of note:

Normandy SR1 either is stolen or destroyed, it's status is unknown.

Shep commands the new Normandy SR2 which is much larger than the old ship, it has four decks and has a limited fuel supply which is assumed can be upgraded for larger capacity for deep space exploration.

Shep has a fish tank in his quarters which can be populated with creatures you can find or purchase on various planets. Shep also has a closet which can be used to customize equipment. For example you have red armor and found an awesome helmet but its pink, well now you can go and change the color in the closet. Though this feature only works for Shep. They also menttion being able to customize Sheps "casual" look. Also in his quarters are two computers, one which tracks character progress, the other to compare gear with squadmates and currently equiped weapons/armor.

Scanning for minerals and gases now have purpose, they can help upgrade the SR2.

SR2 has a new engine completely different from the SR1, new alien tech? Or maybe even Reaper tech?

Shorter Elevator rides.

You can manually discover planets and moons, plus you can scan planets (mini game) and even send out a probe in some cases or land a "heavily upgraded Mako."

Seems like Shep might forge an alliance with Cerberus in order to fight this "new threat" which in turn may allienate him from most of his old crew members which forces Shep to go out into space to recruit a new crew for the mission.

Joker and Dr. Chakwas serve aboard the SR2, plus the SR2 comes equiped with a VI.

The locker system is in place due to the amount of new weapons and ammos, since you can't carry it all, the lockers serve as storage so you can swap out weapons. With that in mind, it's possible the old style of having four weapons on your back is still in place and that lockers just help out with holding all the things you can't strap on to your back.

[al Roumi]

The locker system is in place due to the amount of new weapons and ammos, since you can't carry it all, the lockers serve as storage so you can swap out weapons. With that in mind, it's possible the old style of having four weapons on your back is still in place and that lockers just help out with holding all the things you can't strap on to your back.

Thanks for the info, I started a new game of ME as an Eng last night (got as far as liberating Liara, just before the boss fight with that damn krogan). Tech skills are def not as useful as biotics for subduing enemies, but they do make tackling individual "bosses" easier.

Back on the ME2 lockers, there do seem to be a lot more weapon types now, eg: heavy pistol, submachinegun -both of which might have been by covered the pistol class in ME. I just wonder how it will be that Shep stumbles accross a locker holding all his stuff in the middle of a Geth outpost... weapon drop?

Hopefully you'll be able to carry at least a couple of weapons around with you.

[Scienter]

Also in his quarters are two computers, one which tracks character progress, the other to compare gear with squadmates and currently equiped weapons/armor.

I hope this works well. One of my biggest gripes with the game is not being able to compare my companions' weapons to my inventory. My buy/sell runs take way longer than they ought to because of this. I really liked the buy/sell system in Dragon Age, where you can compare each item to all of your companions' right in the buy/sell screen.

Shorter Elevator rides.

YAY!

[Mailman653]

Confirmed: ME3 last in series

ME2 Hands on, spoilers ahead!
To spare myself the spoilers I haven't even read that article, I saw just enough to copy and paste the HTML.

[a completely inoffensive name]

FULL LENGTH TRAILER!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TPfJ1qY4Z4