Mass Effect 2 [split topic]

[Slaaaaabs]

What do people spend their money on? I've been playing night on 20 hours now and have realised I haven't actually spent any.

Upgrades is about it. Weapon damage and bits for the N7 armour suitable for my class (Vanguard).

I've got a few model ships for my cabin and a space hamster. The fish die if you don't feed them even one time between missions so they can fuck off.

[jimmy jazz]

Your ginger geisha offers to do it for you if you want. So I shouldn't worry and just buy all the armor upgrades I find? My blood dragon armour looks the nuts but the helmet sort of ruins the dialogue.

[Slaaaaabs]

Your ginger geisha offers to do it for you if you want. So I shouldn't worry and just buy all the armor upgrades I find? My blood dragon armour looks the nuts but the helmet sort of ruins the dialogue.

Each section of the N7 armour can offer a percentage buff so you can quickly exceed what the Blood Dragon or Collector's Edition armours give you. Plus you can't make the other suits pink with yellow camo splotches!

[niat]

I've been playing the first one before getting 2, and I'm getting really fucked off with trying to kill Matriarch Benezia. I must have tried about 40 times now and I'm ready to give up on the game. Any tips? I'm a level 14 soldier with Ashley and Garrus in my current squad.

I've tried looking at the IGN guide etc but they seem to dismiss this bit as a relatively easy bit of combat. It isn't.

[HappyTree]

Just set the game to Easy. I do that all the time. Matriarch, I laugh at you.

[Still Not George]

I've been playing the first one before getting 2, and I'm getting really fucked off with trying to kill Matriarch Benezia. I must have tried about 40 times now and I'm ready to give up on the game. Any tips? I'm a level 14 soldier with Ashley and Garrus in my current squad.

I've tried looking at the IGN guide etc but they seem to dismiss this bit as a relatively easy bit of combat. It isn't.

There's a couple of good guides online. One of them has a guide to exactly where you can stand to stop her hitting you with her biotic powers and still shoot at her underlings. I seem to remember I completed it by running from corner to corner, covering furiously and waiting for her to get on with summoning her underlings. I'll try and find the specific info for you later.

[jutl]

I've been playing the first one before getting 2, and I'm getting really fucked off with trying to kill Matriarch Benezia. I must have tried about 40 times now and I'm ready to give up on the game. Any tips? I'm a level 14 soldier with Ashley and Garrus in my current squad.

I've tried looking at the IGN guide etc but they seem to dismiss this bit as a relatively easy bit of combat. It isn't.

Her little room is halfway along the 'west' wall, if I remember correctly. I tried many times to win that fight standing at the southwest corner, which is where you naturally end up after entering from the south. I then tried running off to the southeast corner and fighting off the waves of wankers from there, and beat her first time. I'm pretty sure I also managed this on a second playthrough, although my memory is hazy.

[Still Not George]

Having looked it up, jutl's right. Depending on your difficulty level you can either sit on the southeast corner and snipe as they come in, or if it's harder you'll need to run around between boxes cos otherwise she'll drop that gravity field thing on you. Kill off all the waves before you get close, then go in and shoot her up. Do a bunch of damage and you'll trigger the cutscene, then immediately after it finishes she'll fuck you up, and you'll throw the controller at the floor, storm off and never play the game again.

Once you've calmed down, do it again, then position yourself slightly better. Then you'll take her down, but while you're dealing with her, her adepts will sneak up behind you and fuck you up. So run immediately after murdering her ass down one direction, kill the last of them, then it's done!

You probably want to do this particular plot stream last of the 3 tbh. Level 14 ain't so good for Beneziah.

[glitch]

Yeah, it's all about positioning, anti-flesh rounds, anti-biotic powers and possibly the most useful power in the game - lift.

(This is all from memory though, I'm not looking forward to doing it again)

[niat]

Thanks for the advice, I've managed to defeat her with a cheeky switch to easy combat and lots of ducking and diving.

Very good game, I got it a few months back and was put off by my first couple of hours play, I found the prologue frustrating and the controls awful. Once I started playing again I got into the story and once I'd levelled up a bit the controls seemed more responsive. I'm really enjoying it now.

It seems from the walkthroughs I've read that Novaria is the biggest chunk of the missions, I'm about 6.5 hours in now, having done all the missions on this planet. My copy of ME2 has been posted now by Coolshop so I'm hoping it'll arrive tomorrow. What chance me finishing the first one tonght?

[Still Not George]

It seems from the walkthroughs I've read that Novaria is the biggest chunk of the missions, I'm about 6.5 hours in now, having done all the missions on this planet. My copy of ME2 has been posted now by Coolshop so I'm hoping it'll arrive tomorrow. What chance me finishing the first one tonght?

Depends whether you're just trying to finish the game, in which case you might, or trying to drain every last possible drop of gameplay out of it, in which case no fucking chance.

[MojoJojo]

Hmmm, so this is good then?

I think I'm reaching the end game with Dragon Age. I'm a bit sick o fit now though - if I'd have known the first Mass Effect was any cop I'd have saved some money and got that instead. I just find fantasy settings so tedious, even when they're relatively well presented. The actual game is pretty clunky in parts in a fairly rubbish way - like the way your character slides backwards to get at the correct "hitting" distance, and the shitty controls. But my main problem is the endless dialogue - are you really expected to read all the codex entries crap?

So to get to the point: is Mass Effect 2 more or less dialogue heavy than Dragon Age? Is the dialogue any good?
Does the combat work better - KOTOR hid the turn based nature of the combat fairly well from what I remember - the fights looked pretty good. Is the same true of Mass Effect 2.
And how much of an improvement over the original is the second one? If I play the first one now is it going to feel a bit dated? I don't really care about the difference in price. I've just found that going back to old games that were good on release, they often feel a bit rubbish afterwards - Halo would be a good example. I want to avoid that.

[falafel]

Coming from a non-RPG-fan perspective, I've just started the first one and am enjoying it so far; though from my experience the endless codex stuff isn't much different. If I want to read an encyclopaedia I'd rather it was about real things that actually exist. But as long as you don't actually have to pay attention to all that shit I'm happy.

Graphics are very good and impressive, dialogue and voice acting are polished, shooting stuff is infinitely better than in Fallout 3, characters are shaping up nicely so far, and come on, it's only a couple of years old; it's a bit daft to suggest that a game that was only released at the end of 2006 would be "dated" by now...

[HappyTree]

I began Mass Effect 1 eagerly, wanting to see and read everything it had to offer. After a while I got bored reading every detail in the book and realised it didn't matter, so it's there if you want it but is of no real consequence.

I wouldn't say it's dated, it still looks pretty fresh to me with its cool (optional) grainy effect and nice combat that for me anyway totally hides the D20 system it's based on. Not at all turn-based, you just shoot, shoot and shoot some more (until your gun overheats, but there are cooling upgrades to take care of that).

[MojoJojo]

Hmmm, I think the issue is I'm so sick of Dragon Age that I'm not sure I can be bothered to play the remaining 10 hours or so. Mass Effect (2) does still appeal, since it's a sci-fi setting, but I'm just worried when I try it I'll end up finding it as... slightly tedious as Dragon Age.

Looking at reviews, it looks like Mass Effect 2 is a not very RPG like RPG,so I might jump straight to that.

Or maybe I shouldn't get an RPG - that might be

[falafel]

a better idea.

[MojoJojo]

Thank you.

[turnstyle]

I loved the first game, and really want to play this.

Sadly one of my new years resolutions was to not purchase games at full price.

Therefore I have decided to steal it. To the people who own it on the 360, please PM your address, and the times of the day you're most likely to be out.

Posters in the home counties would be preferred.

Kind Regards,

Turnstyle.

[Marv Orange]

Hmmm, I think the issue is I'm so sick of Dragon Age that I'm not sure I can be bothered to play the remaining 10 hours or so. Mass Effect (2) does still appeal, since it's a sci-fi setting, but I'm just worried when I try it I'll end up finding it as... slightly tedious as Dragon Age.

Looking at reviews, it looks like Mass Effect 2 is a not very RPG like RPG,so I might jump straight to that.

Or maybe I shouldn't get an RPG - that might be

I lost interest in Dragon age too , but I completed Mass effect 2. Its a piece of piss on normal difficulty. Its the equivalent of driving down an immaculately tarmacked road with slightly dirty glasses on.

[Second Burner]

This game is the bollocks, it really is.

I hear that once the individual squad quests start being given out, you're around halfway through the game?  Looks like I'll be starting a second playthrough sooner than I thought...

[bill hicks]

My finish time was 57 hrs 18 mins.

But then I really got stuck into mining shit early on. So much so that I never did it past the first few systems and ended up with 300,000 of everything left over at the end.

[jimmy jazz]

I didn't spend any money until

Spoiler alert

after the Collectors came and raped your ship

[close]

, meaning that the side quests were all a piece of piss once I bought/ upgraded weapons and armour. It's easy enough to complete the whole thing using the heavy pistol with no upgrades.

[niat]

I've only finished Mass Effect on Wednesday, fantastic game, up there with the best I've played. I thought it got better as it went on, as I levelled up, and the story was very well told. I managed to complete it in about 15 hours, and if I didn't have ME2 sitting there waiting for me I'd probably start another play-through doing more side missions and exploration.

I'm very glad I gave it a second chance, after being underwhelmed by the prologue mission and giving up cos I had too many other games to play.

If 2 is as good as everyone seems to be saying, I think I'm in for a real gaming treat.

[Ignatius_S]

Bit of a tricky one, but anyone have an opinion on whether ME2 would be more enjoyable with a saved character from the first one?

After completing ME, I started a new character with the idea to do two playthroughs... but I got a bit sidetracked, thought I had plenty of time till the ME2 came out etc.etc. and at the moment, I'm quite a way through the first playthrough.

[turnstyle]

I'd be interested to know if the game is easier when you carry over a character from ME1? I've not played it for a while, but I think my chap is level 40ish in ME1. Does ME2 adjust and level up accordingly from the off?

[Ignatius_S]

Here's some info from Bioware about it:

Up until now we have only discussed the plot impacts of this feature, however, there are also certain gameplay perks as well. If you finished ME1 as a high level character you will receive greater bonuses than those who finished at lower levels. Ex, if you finished ME1 as a level 35 character, you will receive a bonus, but if you finished ME1 as a level 50 character, your bonus will be larger. That being said these bonuses will not put new playthrough characters at a severe disadvantage. For example, some of these bonuses include a monetary boost at the start of the game, or additional research resources for use at the Normandy's Tech Lab. Another perk is if you finished the game as a Paragon or Renegade, part of your alignment will carry over making it easier to access certain dialogue options.

The paragon/renegade points being carried over was something that was confirmed quite a while ago, I think – and was one of the reasons why I wanted to do a couple of playthroughs with the same character.

Another thing I read recently was that if you imported a level 60 character, they would start ME2 at level five – just checked and I got that from Wikipedia (so it must be right, yeah?) and what it said was:

Players receive bonuses for importing save games; for example, importing a level 60 Shepard provides the player with fifty thousand credits, ten thousand units of each resource, bonus Paragon and Renegade points, and allows he/she to start Mass Effect 2 at level 5. Additionally, although the achievement, Long Service Medal, requires the player to beat the game twice, the player may get the achievement for completing the game once with an imported Shepard.

I think I read something similar elsewhere (maybe on a Bioware forum) that also gave also gave an example if the character was level 30 and contrasted it with a level 60 one.

*edit* here's some more info about what's carried over - http://wikicheats.gametrailers.com/index.php/Mass_Effect_2_-_PC_XB360/Quick_Strategies

It says "some abilities will be carried over" – anyone know what these ones are? Unlocked ones?

Also, here's info on what carries over and what doesn't on a second playthrough with the same character on ME2 - http://meforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=714910&forum=144&sp=105

[HappyTree]

If you have done 2 plays of ME1 how do you choose which character gets imported into ME2? My second playthrough is as a renegade but I'd want to use my paragon character to begin ME2. Not only was she an angel but slightly more attractive :-p

[niat]

I think you will get the option to choose between the two. I only started ME2 last night and I had to select my character from Mass Effect, I reckon it will allow you to select either of your characters.

I only played for an hour, but I'm already regretting the decision to alter my character's appearance. It didn't seem to give the option to tweak your existing Shepard, just to start from scratch or stick with your existing character. Is it possible to just take your character from the first one and make a few adjustments?

[Ignatius_S]

If you have done 2 plays of ME1 how do you choose which character gets imported into ME2?...

The clips shows how:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZicFY8DsIo

[HappyTree]

Cool. I just hope I kept my original playthru's save.