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Mass Effect 2 |OT2| The Den Of Xenophiles

Jhoan

Member
CarbonatedFalcon said:
I'm a whore and just bought Shadow Broker, Overlord, and Kasumi, never having played them (and missing out on that one sale, drat). Damn unjustified anticipation for this DLC!

The sad thing is I was 10 points short to buy both Overlord and Kasumi at the same time, so I had to get even more points to get both of those. Oh well, at least I have excess points for Arrival now, though I'll still have a weird spare amount of points afterwards.

Kasumi's a great party member so you won't regret it because of her Stealth Strike ability and her spy themed loyalty mission is one of the best loyalty missions in the game. Shadow Broker is awesome as everyone here has said, and Overlord has a pretty sad yet interesting plot so it's worth it. And I would recommend you check you the Firepower Pack if you're bored of using the same guns, as they're better than most of the guns in the game. I'm using Kasumi on my Insanity run as a Sentinel. Tech Armor is great in that in that it's provides extra protection on top of the shield and the stun blast is a nice bonus although it's not the most funnest class because like the Infiltrator, I always have to be behind cover, although both abilities allow me to move safely without fear of dying for the most part. I second Vanguard as the most funnest class to play as because of Charge and Shockwave and the Shotgun blast to the face.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Sentinel (with Jacobs' Warp Ammo) combined with Kasumi and Miranda is a complete beast. Pretty much beat Insanity with next to zero problems.
 

lucius

Member
cornontheCoD said:
One thing that I hope that Bioware does for ME3 is make some fun hacking minigames. Unfortunately, the only developer that makes interesting hacking minigames is Insomniac Games (every hacking minigame in the ratchet and clank games is great). I would really like to see a compelling hacking minigame in ME3.

I kind of like the hacking minigames, it is a good break from all the action, the planet scanning on the other hand is fun for the 1st playthrough but on multiple playthroughs I don't look forward to it at all.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Mister Wilhelm said:
Agreed, but LOTSB is the only DLC that actually does anything for the plot.

Overlord was fun but Kasumi is pretty passable, even though I like her as a character.

Who cares? Overlord had a better self contained story than Shadow Broker.
 
I finished my Insanity playthrough and got the platinum. Never want to do that again. Bioware's idea of adding difficulty in this game "Hey lets give every enemy an absurd amount of protection and let them do more damage". So it's just a run through of tedium trying to get rid or barriers/shields, then armor, then health. But I suppose it got a lot easier when accumulating all the weapon upgrades.

Still need to finish LotSB and Overlord but I'm kind Mass Effect'd out now.
 

Bebpo

Banned
I have a question for ME2 gaf. Can anyone who played it on PC give me their save file if it meets these following requirements? I 100%'d the game and did all the DLCs but then I lost my 40 hour save and I don't have time to replay it. There are saves on masseffectsaves.com that have my exact character but with none of the DLCs done and I don't want to replay the DLCs.

I'm looking for a PC ME2 player who bought and played all the DLCs through Shadow Broker and was basically:

ME1 - Paragon, don't care who romanced; saved wrex, saved council, didn't kill rachni queen.
ME2 - Paragon, helped everyone, romanced miranda, did all the loyalty missions, picked Samara killed her daughter, and then gave the data to Cerebus in the end. Also no one died in the final run. Saved Kaiden, told the Quaren to re-conciliate with the geth, and reprogrammed the geth. And had Liara be the new shadow broker (don't remember if this was a choice).

Basically someone who did the nice guy thing in every major choice for both games BUT gave the data to cerebus instead of destroying it in the end.

If anyone has a save like this it'll help me a lot since I can use it for the new DLC and to import into ME3 with everything done.
 

Wallach

Member
Bebpo said:
I have a question for ME2 gaf. Can anyone who played it on PC give me their save file if it meets these following requirements? I 100%'d the game and did all the DLCs but then I lost my 40 hour save and I don't have time to replay it. There are saves on masseffectsaves.com that have my exact character but with none of the DLCs done and I don't want to replay the DLCs.

I'm looking for a PC ME2 player who bought and played all the DLCs through Shadow Broker and was basically:

ME1 - Paragon, don't care who romanced; saved wrex, saved council, didn't kill rachni queen.
ME2 - Paragon, helped everyone, romanced miranda, did all the loyalty missions, picked Samara killed her daughter, and then gave the data to Cerebus in the end. Also no one died in the final run. Saved Kaiden, told the Quaren to re-conciliate with the geth, and reprogrammed the geth. And had Liara be the new shadow broker (don't remember if this was a choice).

Basically someone who did the nice guy thing in every major choice for both games BUT gave the data to cerebus instead of destroying it in the end.

If anyone has a save like this it'll help me a lot since I can use it for the new DLC and to import into ME3 with everything done.

I could probably give you a file like this except for the romance decision from ME2. It wouldn't take long to change the file to retcon the last decision for a new file.
 

TheUsual

Gold Member
Crewnh said:
I finished my Insanity playthrough and got the platinum. Never want to do that again. Bioware's idea of adding difficulty in this game "Hey lets give every enemy an absurd amount of protection and let them do more damage". So it's just a run through of tedium trying to get rid or barriers/shields, then armor, then health. But I suppose it got a lot easier when accumulating all the weapon upgrades.

Still need to finish LotSB and Overlord but I'm kind Mass Effect'd out now.
I felt Insanity wasn't too bad once you got use to it. The only area I had trouble was
Finishing Miranda's loyalty mission, the area where you are fighting Eclipse Mercs...I think. That was brutally difficult because of the location of the enemies and the cover in that area sucked.

Played Insanity as an Adept as well.
 
TheUsual said:
I felt Insanity wasn't too bad once you got use to it. The only area I had trouble was
Finishing Miranda's loyalty mission, the area where you are fighting Eclipse Mercs...I think. That was brutally difficult because of the location of the enemies and the cover in that area sucked.

Played Insanity as an Adept as well.

I completely skipped the loyalty missions on Insanity and went straight for the endgame. Worked out well enough.
 

Bebpo

Banned
Wallach said:
I could probably give you a file like this except for the romance decision from ME2. It wouldn't take long to change the file to retcon the last decision for a new file.

Awesome. Yeah if you could upload it to any of the free file distro websites I'd really appreciate it. The romance option is sort of the least important choice because I doubt it'll have much affect in ME3 if ME2 was anything to go by. It should be in the documents/bioware/me2/saves directory in its own folder.
 

Wallach

Member
Bebpo said:
Awesome. Yeah if you could upload it to any of the free file distro websites I'd really appreciate it. The romance option is sort of the least important choice because I doubt it'll have much affect in ME3 if ME2 was anything to go by. It should be in the documents/bioware/me2/saves directory in its own folder.

Actually looking at the save folder it would take a while to retcon the last decision, because in that file LotSB happened after the main story.

If you want I could upload the entire folder somewhere, including all the saves. It's maxed out save file wise, so you could delete some of them and just do the last part of the main mission and LotSB, as I think everything else was done before the main plot.
 

Bebpo

Banned
When you say last decision, which decision are you talking about? The one at the end of Shadow Broker? Or ME2's final mission?
 

Wallach

Member
Bebpo said:
When you say last decision, which decision are you talking about? The one at the end of Shadow Broker? Or ME2's final mission?

ME2's main plot. I didn't make the decision you did and didn't play through LotSB until after, so that mission would have to be re-done, plus LotSB.

Edit - Actually also I think in that file
Kaiden was dead from ME1.
 

Bebpo

Banned
Ah, yeah thanks for checking, but I'll wait and see if maybe someone else made the other decision. That part of the game is looong and I don't really want to replay it before ME3 and hopefully it's kind of a major decision for ME3 and not just
"Here, we made this gun out of the data. Take it; Here we didn't have the data so we made this OTHER gun. Take it.
 

THRILLH0

Banned
I just started playing this continuing my ME1 paragon/soldier Shepard and so far i'm not digging it nearly as much as I did the first. I'm not far in at all - just found Mordin - and perhaps it's due to starting a game right after finishing the first but there are so many little things that I dislike

1. The floaty heads HUD and veins are ridiculous. The bars and status indicators tucked away in the corner in ME1 were so much more elegant.

2. As a soldier, I really don't like the way the assault rifle feels. I don't know if it's the sound or the level of rumble but it just feels pissweak like i'm shooting a water pistol.

3. I'm not a fan of the new power wheel (360 version). This is probably just resistance to change but it seems overly cluttered to me.

4. I don't like the way the notifications stay up for half a second so I can't really read them before they disappear. I guess this will get better over time as I begin to recognise them on sight.

5. The game seems sloppy/glitchy. Whenever I exit a dialogue sequence, Shepard does a quick turn and step to the right as if I just flicked the stick that way. There also seem to be overly long pauses between certain lines of dialogue like it's loading the next line. A couple of times i've selected 'Resume' from the menu and it's loaded a much earlier save.

6. The tone and inflections attached to many of Shepard's lines don't seem conducive to a flowing conversation alot of the time. Dialogue options also stay in the wheel after I select them whereas they disappeared for the most part in ME1.

7. Why change around the save/load/map menu slots on the pause screen? This is just annoying change for change's sake.

8. I hate how they streamlined my stats and removed the inventory.

9. Global cooldown sucks.

10. Miranda's a bitch.

I'm sure that these problems will fade away over time and that this is just a result of me loving ME1 so much and jumping straight into 2. Still, i'm not optimistic that the experience is going to match the original.
 

Patryn

Member
AShep said:
I just started playing this continuing my ME1 paragon/soldier Shepard and so far i'm not digging it nearly as much as I did the first. I'm not far in at all - just found Mordin - and perhaps it's due to starting a game right after finishing the first but there are so many little things that I dislike

1. The floaty heads HUD and veins are ridiculous. The bars and status indicators tucked away in the corner in ME1 were so much more elegant.

2. As a soldier, I really don't like the way the assault rifle feels. I don't know if it's the sound or the level of rumble but it just feels pissweak like i'm shooting a water pistol.

3. I'm not a fan of the new power wheel (360 version). This is probably just resistance to change but it seems overly cluttered to me.

4. I don't like the way the notifications stay up for half a second so I can't really read them before they disappear. I guess this will get better over time as I begin to recognise them on sight.

5. The game seems sloppy/glitchy. Whenever I exit a dialogue sequence, Shepard does a quick turn and step to the right as if I just flicked the stick that way. There also seem to be overly long pauses between certain lines of dialogue like it's loading the next line. A couple of times i've selected 'Resume' from the menu and it's loaded a much earlier save.

6. The tone and inflections attached to many of Shepard's lines don't seem conducive to a flowing conversation alot of the time. Dialogue options also stay in the wheel after I select them whereas they disappeared for the most part in ME1.

7. Why change around the save/load/map menu slots on the pause screen? This is just annoying change for change's sake.

8. I hate how they streamlined my stats and removed the inventory.

9. Global cooldown sucks.

10. Miranda's a bitch.

I'm sure that these problems will fade away over time and that this is just a result of me loving ME1 so much and jumping straight into 2. Still, i'm not optimistic that the experience is going to match the original.

Separate the two games in your mind. For people who really like what ME1 tried to do, ME2 just can't live up to it. But if you stop judging it against ME1, you'll find that it's a great game.
 

Arjen

Member
I'm in my 5th playtrough right now, and brought
Legion to Tali's loyalty mission
Suprised how much extra dialogue you get while doing that, pretty cool.
 
So I was wondering...is that N7 bundle worth the price? I kind of make it a principle to not buy these kind of things but I am sort of getting bored with the current weapons.
 

Patryn

Member
Crewnh said:
So I was wondering...is that N7 bundle worth the price? I kind of make it a principle to not buy these kind of things but I am sort of getting bored with the current weapons.

Firepower pack is worth it. Whichever is the one that gives you the laser-sight pistol. It's really strong and fun to use. The rifle is also really nice as well (they've both become my mains, meaning that between them and the SMG you get from Kasumi's mission, I roll pure DLC in terms of weaponry).
 

Cornbread78

Member
So I've been playing the PS3 version and pased this planet that recruited a Krogan, I did the mission and the target died and he had me take his prototype "perfect krogan"

A) what/who is this thing?
B) should I crack him open?
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Cornbread78 said:
So I've been playing the PS3 version and pased this planet that recruited a Krogan, I did the mission and the target died and he had me take his prototype "perfect krogan"

A) what/who is this thing?
B) should I crack him open?
He's an amazing piece of work :)

Yes, free him. He's an excellent team mate.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
Patryn said:
Firepower pack is worth it. Whichever is the one that gives you the laser-sight pistol. It's really strong and fun to use. The rifle is also really nice as well (they've both become my mains, meaning that between them and the SMG you get from Kasumi's mission, I roll pure DLC in terms of weaponry).
Oh my god this this this. I hadn't really used it much in Shadow Broker, but I used it for the entirety of Arrival and goddamn it is satisfying.
 

Patryn

Member
Cornbread78 said:
So I've been playing the PS3 version and pased this planet that recruited a Krogan, I did the mission and the target died and he had me take his prototype "perfect krogan"

A) what/who is this thing?
B) should I crack him open?

He's a piece of crap, and a blight on the series.

Still, you should open him up for the mission, which also sucks.
 

Kyoufu

Member
So I just took control of the hammerhead now on the OVerlord DLC. It makes me hate the mission and actually appreciate the Mako.

Seriously, why the fuck can't you save your game on the hammerhead.......
 

Grisby

Member
Cornbread78 said:
So I've been playing the PS3 version and pased this planet that recruited a Krogan, I did the mission and the target died and he had me take his prototype "perfect krogan"

A) what/who is this thing?
B) should I crack him open?

Really cool cat voiced by none other than Steve Blum. He's a different take on the whole Krogan culture too.

And hes a good squad mate since he's a huge tank.
 

Amon37

Member
Been playing this having never played 1. WTF is up with the loading! Holy shit I don't even want to change my armor or talk to teamate as ill spend a fucking hour loading just in the ship itself it's really ridiculous the load times in this game.
 

X-Frame

Member
Amon37 said:
Been playing this having never played 1. WTF is up with the loading! Holy shit I don't even want to change my armor or talk to teamate as ill spend a fucking hour loading just in the ship itself it's really ridiculous the load times in this game.
Agreed it does make it very difficult for that.

Let's hope they optimize the loading for ME3. Or just make transitioning through the ship seamless like the Citadel is.
 
Amon37 said:
Been playing this having never played 1. WTF is up with the loading! Holy shit I don't even want to change my armor or talk to teamate as ill spend a fucking hour loading just in the ship itself it's really ridiculous the load times in this game.
PS3 version? Of the three that is the slowest for loading, even slower is the PSN version. :(
 

Atilac

Member
Super disappointed with the arrival. Keep track of who mentions "Invading Earth" 1st. It's shoehorned in out of blue without a proper segway. The leaps of logic and poor writing are the worst in any mission in any mass effect game.

There are some real "lost world jurassic park" story developments.
Spoilers:
why would Kenson tell you about the asteroid if she didn't want you to use it to destroy the relay? Why didn't she put a bullet in your head as soon as you were safe with her? Why sedate you for 2 days in an easily escapable situation (nice how the normady didn't seem to give a fuck) who is she Dr. Evil? Why are the guards doing her dirty work and actively trying to help the Reapers? Why are the robot controls located inside med bay? Why is the giant mech still operating after you deactivate the security lockdown? Compare the conversation you had with sovereign with the conversation you have with the magical reaper that appears out of thin air at the end of the mission, it perfectly illustrates the decline in story and the hard-on for humanity the game seems to now have.

written on my iPod.
 
Atilac said:
Super disappointed with the arrival. Keep track of who mentions "Invading Earth" 1st. It's shoehorned in out of blue without a proper segway. The leaps of logic and poor writing are the worst in any mission in any mass effect game.

There are some real "lost world jurassic park" story developments.
Spoilers:
why would Kenson tell you about the asteroid if she didn't want you to use it to destroy the relay? Why didn't she put a bullet in your head as soon as you were safe with her? Why sedate you for 2 days in an easily escapable situation (nice how the normady didn't seem to give a fuck) who is she Dr. Evil? Why are the guards doing her dirty work and actively trying to help the Reapers? Why are the robot controls located inside med bay? Why is the giant mech still operating after you deactivate the security lockdown? Compare the conversation you had with sovereign with the conversation you have with the magical reaper that appears out of thin air at the end of the mission, it perfectly illustrates the decline in story and the hard-on for humanity the game seems to now have.

written on my iPod.
Reapers want Shepard. The artifact is influencing everyone, ala sovereign. Shepard is on a covert mission and cannot be contacted by the Normandy or else lose his element of surprise and get the doctor killed by the batarians

Seriously, some of you are just nitpicking for the sake of it.
 
Arrival sucked, way too combat heavy.

Speaking of combat: Insanity sucks. Most boring, tedious, monotonous shit ever.

Dev A:
"Hey, lets make a super-high difficulty setting."

Dev B:
"Should we make intelligent AI that actually uses tactics and challenges the skills of the player?"

Dev A:
"Nah. Just give everything Barriers/Shields/Armor and incredible resistance to damage; then make them do enormous amounts of damage to the player and squad. It'll be awesome!"

One thing Insanity is great at though is highlighting the flaws of the game's combat mechanics.

Oh yeah, new game+ sucks as well. The + is supposed to mean we don't have to do certain shit over again and that things should carry over.
 

Atilac

Member
Freedom = $1.05 said:
Reapers want Shepard. The artifact is influencing everyone, ala sovereign. Shepard is on a covert mission and cannot be contacted by the Normandy or else lose his element of surprise and get the doctor killed by the batarians

Seriously, some of you are just nitpicking for the sake of it.

If the artifact is influencing everyone why didn't anyone else try to cap Shepard as soon as they were safe? Why show him the artifact at all and place him in an easily escapable situation if the Reapers want him that badly? Why didn't Shepard contact the Normandy after retrieving the doctor? So its a covert op, doesn't mean they wouldn't start looking for him after the 1st day, especially when his shuttle left the planet a good 40 minutes after arriving (also nice that his shuttle was in a hanger bay across the prison, or do all shuttles look like that?) Why did Kenson blow herself up? she achieved nothing and Shepard was barely hurt. How did the Batarians capture Kenson? she has a personal army of Reaper fanatics!!

This is easily the worst money I've spent on this game, which includes all the alternative outfits and weapon packs. A turd sandwich of a mission
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
RyanardoDaVinci said:
Arrival sucked, way too combat heavy.

Speaking of combat: Insanity sucks. Most boring, tedious, monotonous shit ever.

Dev A:
"Hey, lets make a super-high difficulty setting."

Dev B:
"Should we make intelligent AI that actually uses tactics and challenges the skills of the player?"

Dev A:
"Nah. Just give everything Barriers/Shields/Armor and incredible resistance to damage; then make them do enormous amounts of damage to the player and squad. It'll be awesome!"

One thing Insanity is great at though is highlighting the flaws of the game's combat mechanics.

Oh yeah, new game+ sucks as well. The + is supposed to mean we don't have to do certain shit over again and that things should carry over.

Weapons and levels carry over.
 
^^^
Did I do something wrong because other than the Firepower Pack weapons, I have to find and upgrade every weapon again.

NG+ should carry over everything I had at the endgame e.g. credits, the Widow, and all upgrades to weapons/tech/biotics... but it doesn't. As far as I can tell, it only carries over your level and squad points.

Which brings me to another dislike: I can't fully max out anyone, even me! You also can't buy every purchasable item in the game which pisses me off -- hey Bioware, how about you make planet scanning useful: let me sell the 200k+ of my found resources so I can earn some credits.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
RyanardoDaVinci said:
^^^
Did I do something wrong because other than the Firepower Pack weapons, I have to find and upgrade every weapon again.

NG+ should carry over everything I had at the endgame e.g. credits, the Widow, and all upgrades to weapons/tech/biotics... but it doesn't. As far as I can tell, it only carries over your level and squad points.

Which brings me to another dislike: I can't fully max out anyone, even me! You also can't buy every purchasable item in the game which pisses me off -- hey Bioware, how about you make planet scanning useful: let me sell the 200k+ of my found resources so I can earn some credits.

You have to chose what abilities you want. Thats how its always is in RPGs. You'll be able to get every upgrade on NG+ if you make sure to get the discounts first. And yeah you should be able to sell minerals but its not a huge deal.
 

AkuMifune

Banned
I'm also kinda disappointed with The Arrival, but maybe I expected too much. It's fine as another DLC mission for ME2, but it was billed as more of a bridge between ME2 and ME3, and I expected to get something that would showcase some new gameplay or leave it at some huge mega-cliffhanger, but it was just another combat-heavy piece of Bioware DLC. It would have been really compelling if they let you choose how it ended and then you have to deal with the implications of that in ME3, but no, Shepard even makes that choice for you.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
RyanardoDaVinci said:
I have to find and upgrade every weapon again.
It's a very, very common bug. There's like a 30% chance that your weapon won't carry over to NG+, it happened to me.
 

lucius

Member
I am doing my Sentinel playthrough, tech armor is great. After that I only have Adept and Engineer left or are those classes so bad it is not worth playing with them in ME2?
 
samdavis said:
Mass Effect 2 wasn't that cinematic. And it certainly wasn't worthy of any tears. No game has done that yet.

Ocarina of Time circa 1998's cinematic splendor made me cry. Riding over the goddam field with the sunset:'(
 

Micius

Member
Kyoufu said:
And hopefully they design ME3 with New Game+ in mind this time. They added NG+ at the very last minute in ME2 and the level of quality of the feature between ME1 and ME2 shows.

This. Nowadays good New Game+ design should be a no-brainer. The deterioration in the New Game+ features between ME1 and 2 is simply yet another example of this "one step forward, two steps back" pattern Bioware has been exhibiting where they make significant improvements in their sequels and then mar the overall experience by leaving some very glaring flaw that really shouldn't be there at all. The whole reusing environments thing in DA2 being the most obvious example of this. Time constraint excuses notwithstanding, a company that is operating on the kind of budget that Bioware has really shouldn't be making these kind of concessions in game design.

It's mainly due to these recurring issues popping up that I'm trying to not have too high expectations of Mass Effect 3. I find myself in the "let's wait and see what they screw up this time" camp and is hoping that there's at least a consistent and decent game experience without too much annoyance to be derived from ME3.
 
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