Mass Effect

[Guynemer]

Overall, ME2 is the better game, expect for the ending (which was incredibly lame IMO),

EDIT: If you are speaking specifically of the very final fight, then I could see your point (although I'd still strongly disagree); if you are talking about the story itself, then I am honestly completely baffled.

[Nostromo]

The final fight

[DaShi]

*bitestongue*

[Al B. Sure!]

Well I got it. It is as much Gears of War-style combat as I kind of expected, unfortunately. Except for when facing the Collector Praetorians, the combat is very easy though even though the controls aren't as seamless as GoW. I also don't see much use in most of the team-members. Garrus and/or Grunt and/or whoever's mission I am doing works pretty well. Now and then, I throw in Miranda or Jacob but everybody else doesn't seem worth it. Is it just me or are they all about the same in terms of fighting just Garrus and Grunt have more HP and better weapons? I also have a crapload of unspent credits and metals but I'm not sure what to spend it on.

I'm up to the part where we have to get the IFF from a derelict reaper ship. Judging from how the dialogue went, I'm assuming I'm almost finished the game? I'm a little disappointed that even though I went renegade as much as possible, I only have half of the renegade filled up though. My Jane Shepard does have the red eyes and extreme scars though.

[Al B. Sure!]

Also Jacob is a little *****.

I see what you mean now. I guess they were trying to make him the goody two-shoes of the crew but damn, he is a little *****.

[Al B. Sure!]

Oh and it's annoying having Jane Shepard and Jacob because, since he's the only human male character besides the Illusive Man, they make it obvious that he's supposed to be the love interest. When I try to talk to anyone else about themselves, Jane just says "You have time to talk?" but when it comes to Jacob... she leans back against the counter and says something like "I just thought we could get to know each other a little better" with a knowing smile and all the flirtatious emphasis. Like NO! Stop it. And the first things that come up are questions like "Are you single?" and basically "Let's ****"


No, my sexy bad ass Jane Shepard... No, Jacob Jacob also needs some sort of lotion... his face looks mad bumpy from shaving It's funny how detailed the artists went.

[DrSpike]

Is it just me or are they all about the same in terms of fighting just Garrus and Grunt have more HP and better weapons?

I think it's just you. Garrus and Grunt are two of the best straight fighters for sure, which is why they have good weapons. But if you've levelled sensibly though the biotic powers of other crew members can be devastating. Jack's biotic wave can wipe out an entire group of baddies with one move, whilst Garrus would still be taking aim.

[Al B. Sure!]

I think it's just you. Garrus and Grunt are two of the best straight fighters for sure, which is why they have good weapons. But if you've levelled sensibly though the biotic powers of other crew members can be devastating. Jack's biotic wave can wipe out an entire group of baddies with one move, whilst Garrus would still be taking aim.

Well I auto-leveled everybody. I was wondering about Jack. In the cinematics, they made her look so unstoppable but when I had her on her mission to go back to where she was raised she was blah... To be honest, I just don't like her as a character though. She disgusts me to look at her and she's psycho.

If I want to use biotics, I usually bring Jacob or Miranda along. Those two seem more useful overall than Jack but I guess Jack has more powerful powers.

Then again, I am playing on Normal difficulty so that might be why it's easy and why I can get away with straight fighting people all the time even though my character is an engineer.

[DrSpike]

Auto level.

In other news, I saw earlier that in IGN's most recent list of best 360 games ME2 came top.

[Al B. Sure!]

Yeah well I wasn't sure what would be useful or not. Honestly, some things seem useful against Geth only and useless against Krogan and vice versa so I figured it would be better to auto level since it seemed to hedge my bets. There is a lot of rock, paper, scissors stuff going on... although, at least on normal difficulty, that doesn't matter much with Garrus and Grunt who can muscle their way out of any situation.

However, as for the Praetorians... is there some trick to these guys? I can't imagine fighting them on a higher difficulty. They are tough and require a lot of restarts and me lucky enough to always have a Collector weapon with ammo.

Also, is there any way to buy ammo and medi-gel? I really wish I could have it stocked before going on some missions instead of relying on having to look for it in the level.

[Al B. Sure!]

I wish the next Mass Effect has less fighting. Honestly, I would love a game that was dominated completely by the Mass Effect conversation and renegade/paragon system with missions like the Drell guy's (forgot his name) mission. It would be cool if the missions were more 'adventure game' like than Gears of War-like. I have no issue with Gears of War or Ghost Recon or games like that; it's just Mass Effect's control scheme is screwy and it doesn't have a good feel for shooting mechanics compared to those games.

I never really watched much Star Trek but I think in Star Trek, they would land on random planets, get into a quick little firefight where some side character would die, then they would resolve their situation not by a firefight but more by talking, problem solving, and maybe controlled and quick violence. Again, I could be wrong because I never watched the shows much but I seem to remember that's how things would go down for the most part. It would be great to have a Mass Effect game similar to this with a lot of planets to explore and a fully imagined galaxy.

I suppose a Mass Effect game like that wouldn't do well? Or maybe it's very difficult to make because you would get too many missions that are like old adventure game missions (go here, talk to this guy, he wants this thing that you have to go over there to find but another guy has it, you have to give this guy something to get the thing you need for the original guy, etc.)?

[flash9286]

Am I the only person who didn't hate the Mako? Yes driving over the mountains was a ***** but I found the Mako missions fun...it would have been much better if combat hadn't consisted entirely of jumping over rockets though.

No, I kinda liked the Mako also; much better than the mining missions in ME2. But I also think that overall ME1 is a better game than ME2.

[Al B. Sure!]

Nevermind. figured it out.

[DarkCloud]

Overall, ME2 is the better game, expect for the ending (which was incredibly lame IMO), the uber small levels (the Citadel never felt so small) and the mining mini-game.

I found mining sort of zen.

[Al B. Sure!]

Well I finished it. There's still some unexplored planets that may or may not have missions though. I'll probably replay the last mission just because I sacrificed all the crew. Looking forward to see how my decisions affect Mass Effect 3.

Any thoughts on going back to ME1? Will I play it and feel like ME2 was just so much better? How does the length of ME1 compare with ME2? It would be very time consuming but it would be interesting to play a complete run-through of all three games.