Mass Effect 2

[PZ]

My wife and I watched a blue ray disc last night and the only player we have is the PS3.  You use the game controller to perform the movie functions, and it felt strange in my hand because I'd not been on the console since my last bout with Medal of Honor.  It's funny how quickly you lose that familiar feel.

[Art Blade]

I call that perfectly normal behaviour myself :-()

you're nuts, too  ^+-+ :-X

[eor123]

After playing through ME 2 several times I picked up a used copy of ME 1.

Having a hard time adjusting to the game controls and it is very hard to make a good looking male or fem Shep. I've started over countless times tweaking the appearance of my character -- so many times, I'm not making much forward progress in the game,

Compared to ME2, ME1 just seems "cheesy." The have a cartoonish appearance and sound. 

I'm going to try to complete ME1 at least one time so I can import my character and see how that works.

How'd it go?

Since that post I finished my lvl 60 Adept run and played through ME2 again with that class. Now I'm heading to Ilos with my lvl 60 Vanguard. Managed to get the Quarian ally achievment on the way which was the final ally cheevo I needed.

I'll finish this run shortly then make another run through ME2 with this Vanguard....the Vanguard 'charge' in ME2 is quite fun.

Finally, since all my plays have been paragon so far, I'll be making one renegade female soldier for my last 3 plays....then I'll just wait on DLC and ME3...

Call me nuts, but I'm really enjoying these games  :-()

I've played through ME1 twice now...once as a male paragon soldier and once as a  female renegade infiltrator. I only got to Level 38 with the paragon Shep since I did an abbreviated play though. I made it to level 44 with the femShep...not sure what else there was left to do for the six last levels though.

The Paragon Shep let Ashley kill Wrex then decided to leave her behind on Virmire. He allowed the Rachni Queen to live and saved the Council. No romancing.

The Renegade killed Wrex, left Kaiden on Virmire, killed the Rachni Queen, and let the Council die. She pretty much killed everyone who got in her way. Romanced Liara.

I imported those characters to ME2 and have enjoyed the slightly different cut scenes,  dialogue options, etc. that have resulted form my choices in ME1.

One surprise was seeing Liara in the opening cut scene as the Normandy is under attack. It has always been Ashley or Kaiden, depending on whether Shep is a male or female. I assumed since Kaiden was dead in the femShep storyline Ashley would be there.

Although I am much more fond of ME2, ME1 has some really endearing aspects.

As others have mentioned, the storyline in ME1 is superior. The Renegade conversation options are often amusing. I took great pleasure in repeatedly hanging up on the Council when they started giving me a hard time. In one exchange, I warned the Council I'd hang up on them again if they gave me any crap. The Turian was carrying on about how important he was and how I couldn't talk to him the way I was. I said "Ooops" and cut them off. Joker says, "That never gets old does it?"  ;D

I'll admit to laughing out loud on several occasions  when femShep was being a total bitch. Much more fun than when a male does it. Loved it when Kaiden says, "That's a little extreme, Commander."

I really prefer the weapons and ammo upgrading in ME2. It just seemed like I kept acquiring all this junk I didn't really need in ME1. Even making an attempt to distribute out the goodies to the entire team, I still ended up maxed out on stuff, forcing a "liquidation" on two occasions.

The decrypting...ugh. My least favorite part of the game. It took me a complete playthrough to be able to decrypt things with enough confidence I didn't feel a need to save the game before each attempt. Most of the time, I never knew what I was doing wrong. The controller input is VERY finicky...hit the buttons too fast, hold them down too long or not long enough and you fail.  The sequencing wasn't the issue for me. it was the physical interface with the controller. When I first started playing, I thought the game was glitched and almost returned it. I was hitting the buttons in the correct order and was still failing.

The facial animations for the femSheps in ME1 are awful. They do this thing with their noses that is really screwed up -- exaggerated creases on the bridge of the nose and they "duck face" their lips.
It is virtually impossible to create an attractive femShep in ME1. If you think you have, you find out later that she looks awful with a giraffe like neck you cant change. And you don't have the option of changing her casual wear to hide that stupid looking neck.

Sorry...pet peave of mine. I enjoy watching an attractive femShep kicking a$$. My ME2 femSheps are hotties, IMO.  ;D

The sniper rifle in ME1 is seriously fubared. I love sniping, but until you are deep into the game with many upgrades, the sniper rifle is essentially unusable. Someone described aiming it as " a drunk in an earthquake." And starting out as an Infiltrator being "untrained" in either assault rifle or shotgun and not having access to a good sniper rifle wasn't much fun for me.

The sprint and conversation control sharing the "A" button on the controller caused me some grief. I was stopped in mid sprint for a conversation I didn't want to have many times.I was never able to master covering in ME1. It seemed very inconsistent. I never knew if it was going to w@&k or not.

I had issues with the audio. Many times I could not hear what my squadmates were saying, even with the music turned off and the conversation maxed out.  A shame, because quite a bit of the banter between squadmates is funny.

There is an issue with the autosave which caused me some grief. For the most part, autosave points are generous and in logical places but on a couple of occasions they are non-existent and if you aren't paying attention and don't manually save, you are in for a shock. In particular on Noveria [sp?]  where you must track down Benezia. I made it to the end of that mission but was killed by Benezia. When the game restarted I was all the way back at the main building preparing to get into the Mako for the long drive to Peak 15 -- almost two hours earlier! :D 

A similar thing happened on Ilos. I failed to reach the conduit before the time expired and the game restarted with my arrival on Ilos almost an hour earlier. I had not noticed that no autosaves were occurring. I learned my lesson that time. My fault ultimately, but I wonder why the Autosave schedule is so radically different in those two missions?

The planets, ships, and stations you visit on ME1 side quests all look the same. It gets pretty monotonous -- much like the scanning for minerals in ME2.

And with ME1, I found a vehicle I dislike more than ME2's hammerhead. I really disliked the Mako. Targeting on that thing was atrocious. Got really tired of climbing up mountains in order to get to debris I couldn't unlock because of my decryption or electronics skills being too low.

Honestly, I was pretty happy to finish up with ME1. I did it just so I would have a history to import to ME2. I believe some choices made in ME1 are going to have consequences that carry through to ME3. I think the choice whether to kill or spare the Rachni Queen is going to end up being a very important one, just as the one whether to hack the Geth or fry them in Legion's loyalty mission in ME2. Of course the potential ramifications of the bigger choices are obvious.

I now have begun new playthroughs on ME2 with the characters I imported from ME1. I'm a little burned out on ME2 for a while but I'm going to keep at it. I want to import these two characters into ME3 and see what happens. I'm glad I started with ME2 though. Had I started with ME1, I might have quit and never even tried ME2.

If the overall improvements from ME2 to ME3 are as substantial as those from ME1 to ME2, it's going to be one Hell of a game.

[eor123]

[admin]removed this post because it was nothing but a quote of the entire previous post[/admin]

[Art Blade]

Reading through that massive post makes me think.. I did what you said you would have.. I started with ME1 and never got to the end (I don't know how far I got, perhaps 75%) and indeed I shied away from ME2.

Maybe I'll pick it up again one day :)

[KingRat]

"I've played through ME1 twice now...once as a male paragon soldier and once as a  female renegade infiltrator. I only got to Level 38 with the paragon Shep since I did an abbreviated play though. I made it to level 44 with the femShep...not sure what else there was left to do for the six last levels though.

The Paragon Shep let Ashley kill Wrex then decided to leave her behind on Virmire. He allowed the Rachni Queen to live and saved the Council. No romancing.".....didn't want to quote the whole post, so I'll just make a couple comments using this leader...

1] After making level 46 on my first play as a soldier I've made 52-54 with all the other classes. Since you gain XP for everything you do I spend hours on the Citadel just taking care of all the assignments and talking to everyone. Give Kaiden points in decryption or electronics, and Garrus or Tali the other. This is key especially if you're a soldier...then start exploring the planets for debris/resources; I stay away from firefights till I get past lvl 20...

2] Meeting up with Wrex on Tuchanka is a much more rewarding experience than dealing with his brother, and I can see it impacting ME3 along the same path as the Rachni Queen....

3] I'm just the opposite with respect to the Mako vs Hammerhead. Targeting wasn't a problem once I figured out the 2 level scope. Weaken an enemy then get out and finish them off for extra XP.....

4] If you're interested in a checklist to see what you might have missed, this is a good one {both games} http://masseffect.shockfront.net/

I'm just about to finish my final ME2 paragon run. After that I'll embark on my renegade femshep play; looking forward to the different conversations... :)

[KingRat]

Just wanted to add a good Mako tip.....enemies target the nose, so get the nose behind cover and fire at will  :-D

[Art Blade]

 ^+-+

[eor123]

The problem I have with the Mako targeting is that there are too many times in which I have a target in the "crosshairs" with an unobstructed shot but the round is incorrectly deflected off the Mako or whatever I am using for cover. Yet the enemy is able to hit me. I am often forced into an exposed position in order to get a hit on a target. There seems to be a discrepancy between the game's visible and virtual barriers -- most noticeable when in the Mako.

I experienced a very strange glitch when battling Benezia. I was taking cover with Liara behind a crate and Benezia used her biotics to lift the crates.  The crate landed on my body and Liara was standing on my head. I wasn't dead but couldn't move. I kept trying to move but no combination of controls worked. I panned the view around and could see why -- My neck was stretched out almost the length of my body and was still stretching. My head was attached but my neck looked like a piece of stringy, melted cheese. When Liara fell dead a couple of minutes later and was no longer standing on my head, my neck quit stretching but never returned to normal.

My HUD indicated that I was a full health. I laid there long enough Benezia quit shooting at me but the only control that had any effect was the weapon selector...I couldn't change weapons but it made the noise associated with a weapon change and I could see one of my arms twitching.  I could aim in a limited arc but couldn't shoot. And I didn't appear to be holding  a weapon.

I finally had to reboot the Xbox and restart from a save point.

The question is...why didn't I take a photo of this freakish glitch?  :D :D :D

I do seem to have a knack for flushing out the strangest glitches in my video games.  ;D

[KingRat]

I've had that glitch before; iirc it's a well known one. I make it a habit to save in the corridor just before entering the lab. Also, as soon as I can I head to the platform behind Benezia and fight her clowns from there  :)

Started my renegade run last night at 10PM, finally got off the Citidel at 4AM. Managed to reach lvl 11...

[eor123]

I'm glad I started using the Wiki morality guides for ME1 and ME2. It is not always obvious which response nets paragon or renegade points. Helps when you are trying to max out either ASAP.

I find it quite amazing that someone took the time to keep track of all the possible responses and their morality implications.

[Art Blade]

interesting read :)

When I used the Mako in ME1, I remember I tried to find a suitable angle for an attack form above (some rocky ledge) so I could drive forwards, aim and shoot, and retreat in a straight line to get out of sight. Rinse and repeat.. until the enemy was down. :)

I always saved like a maniac, especially after everything important and before anything which had the potential of having an impact on the game.

Since I'm on a PC and fond of cheating, I maxed out both the renegade and the paragon bit. Which gave me a lot of funny opportunities during conversations.. using a savegame, I often tested various approaches for giggles :)

The funniest bit ever was a situation when I was in some kind of a club and someone was blackmailing me (or something like that, he tried to play me) and I had some kind of guard next to me (of a species known for their ruthless ways). One of the dialog options made me pull my gun.. and I shot that ba$t@rd in the head. That alone made me laugh already because it was ridiculous, but what finally cracked me up was the comment of that guard, something along the line of "Nice.. maybe you humans are worthy, after all"  ^+-+

[eor123]

I just took the most renegade of actions... helped Morinth kill Samara. Good for 45[!] Renegade points.

In gameplay, Morinth assumes the appearance and voice of Samara but the conversations in private with her are different.  She also has a "dominate " power which turns organics against their squadmates. I've used it but really can't see that it helps much.

Otherwise, I have read that choosing her does not effect the outcome of ME2. ME3...well...that is a different matter. I think my Renegade is going to have a pretty tough time of it in ME3.  I think I'll keep the Collector base at the end of the game as well. Go big or go home, right?  >:D

Morinth is romance-able but I've seen a clip of what happens if you let her convince you that you can survive sex with her.  :o

Hate to cheat on Liara. I hinted that we might have some little blue kids together after all this is over.

Then again... I probably lied to her as well.

It's fun being an evil bitch, although it is hard w@&k.

[KingRat]

I got the 'dominate' but kept Samara in one of my paragon runs. Make a save when you first enter the apt.; side with Morinth in the fight so you get dominate then replay from the save and dominate stays in your powers.......I'll keep Morinth when doing the renegade run.  >:D

To tell the truth, I'm not a very good renegade. Checking the wiki I can see I've left a lot of points on the table. I didn't shoot Finch, but I did use the 'intimidate' answer "so what!" and did get the same points as if I'd shot him. The Turian guard would have been more impressed ( like Art said) if I'd just shot him.

At level 30 right now, but the red bar is only half full with just a bit of blue.  (:)0

[Art Blade]

 :)

[eor123]

Just finished my play through as Lilith, the ultimate Renegade. I maxed out on the red scale long before making it to the final missions.

Even though everyone was loyal, I Lost Mordin in the final battle. I usually have him escort the surviving crew members back to the ship but I stuck with the renegade plan and let them fend for themselves. And of course they died as a result.

An empty ship doesn't bother me since I've done about everything that could be done in this playthrough. Time to start over and be the ultimate paragon. 

Interesting cut scene just before the suicide mission. Shepard went to her cabin and stared at a photo of Liara. Looks like the evil bitch is truly in love. I went to the Shadow Broker base after it was all over hoping to hook up with Liara for a third time but she just stands there repeating" Thanks for coming by."

Made the rounds debriefing the crew after completing the final mission. They are all in agreement that giving the Illusive Man the Collector base was a mistake. Even Miranda has doubts.

Interesting exchange with Legion regarding why he is wearing a piece of N7 armor.

Oh and I tried hooking up with Morinth. Didn't go too well. 

Let's just say, "Critical Mission Failure"  ;D

[KingRat]

I guess you'd have to consider me a 'compassionate renegade'  ^+-+ I let the rachni queen live and I didn't turn in Giania to Anoleis. Still managed to get the renegade achievement and the Lord Darius mission which scored more red points when I whacked him  >:D

Finished the day at lvl 45 with still plenty to do; so my target of 50 this play looks to be in the bag. I remember my first play as soldier took 3x to reach 60, and that last play from 59 to 60 was a slog. Just for reference, there's a total of 862,100xp and lvl 59 is hit at about 662,000xp...I had omnigel maxed at 999 and credits maxed at 9999999  ???

I am enjoying the different conversations, and laughed at Conrad when I made him cry  >:D

[eor123]

I missed the Conrad assignment. I signed his autograph and never heard from nor saw him again. Never got instructions as what I was supposed to do.

Blew him off the second time...still never saw him again.

I think I read on another forum about there possibly being a glitch with his mission.

I had fun messing with Giana. I gave Lorek Quinn the evidence, went back to Anilos' office and taunted her.

Ran into Giana in Ilium in ME2. She wanted me to help her sting a smuggler. I warned the target of her investigation rather than set her up for Giana. Giana was pissed. "You've screwed me twice!"  ;D

Having fun taunting Fist in ME2. Paragon Shep let him live in ME1. I can't walk by him at Afterlife and not harass the guy.  ;D

[eor123]

An interesting encounter when attempting to recruit Okeer.

The Asari I let go from Saren's lab on Virmire in ME1 made an appearance. Once again, I let her go to max my Paragon points.

Zaeed said, "Someday that is going to bite you in the a$$."

Intriguing.  8)

I've never been able to gain and keep everyone's loyalty while playing as a Paragon. Perhaps I imported enough points from ME1 this time...and I think I can retrain powers to max out points before the critical exchanges take place. I would really like to see everyone survive the suicide mission. I did it in an early play through but don't remember how.

[KingRat]

The only time I've had any unloyal team was my first play, and I only lost Miranda on that one.

If you want to save everyone, including the crew, go right to O4 relay after Legions loyalty mission. On the collector ship use Legion, Tali or Kasumi in the vent; Jacob, Garrus or Miranda to lead fire teams 1&2 and leave all the heavyweights (Grunt, Garrus, Zaeed) to 'hold the line'  8)

I finished up my renagade run at level 55 and immediatly started another play. 55 is my new high, previous was 54. I've seen all three endings now and thought this one was pretty good. I didn't select either Udina or Anderson, but Udina still gave a great 'fist in your face' speech  :)

I finished with well over 100% renegade and about 30% paragon. Saving the Rachni queen cost me, but I was able to save Wrex and still get 9 renagade pts by intimidation, unfortunatly Shiala and Rana weren't so lucky... >:D

[eor123]

Nearing the end of my ME1/ME2 Paragon playthrough. Haven't picked up Legion yet but everyone else on the team is loyal.

Fun to speculate about the future and potential plot twists...and to ponder how choices made now will effect the future. ME offers players a unique experience beyond the mere gaming aspect, IMO. Been paying more attention to hints as to possible future developments.

I think I'll do one more ME1/ME2 playthrough...and just play as myself, responding to choices and conversation options as I would -- no morality guide, just my instincts. I played that way the first times through and that really is how one should play it, IMO.

I'll still be on the paragon path but will avail myself of renegade options when the mood strikes me.

That should set me up pretty nicely for ME3 -- paragon, renegade, and a paragon with a occasional bad attitude  and temper.  ;D

[Art Blade]

 ;D As in, "oh, he's a true angel, so sweet and lovely.. when he's not splitting heads, that is."

[KingRat]

"I'll still be on the paragon path but will avail myself of renegade options when the mood strikes me."

Like smacking around Elias Kellum maybe?  ;)

[KingRat]

Well, made it to lvl 60 early on the Noveria mission; still have plenty left to do. I think making lvl 55 on the first run made this rather easy...have a full red bar and about 10% blue.

One renegade move I almost didn't make was Shiala; I found that cut scene rather disturbing...sigh, I'm going to miss Shiala making a pass at me on Illium   :(

I'll finish this up today so I can get started on ME2 renegade run  >:D When that's done I can get around to the backlog of games I've got here...

IMO, game of the year should be between ME2 and Red Dead  :-X

[eor123]

Yes, killing Shiala is a unsettling scene.

Just completed my male paragon run through ME1 and ME2. Managed to keep everyone alive and got down with Miranda in the engine room. Kasumi made a hilarious comment when I stopped in to see her after the mission was completed. She said " People are talking. And I hear it all. You and Miranda...in the engine room? Really?  So just how genetically modified is she?...I mean...Wow. "

I sure hope Kasumi returns in ME3. She has turned out to be one of my favorite characters. 

I thought the max number of levels the first time through in ME1 was 50. Congrats on the 55. I managed to get to 48 in what was probably my last play through as a new character.

I did manage to accumulate enough paragon points this time to keep Wrex alive. Curious to see how that will play out in ME2. I ended up saving Kaiden again. The game sat in limbo for 30 minutes while I made up my mind. It was purely a rational choice this time. I play as a soldier and never took Ashley along with me on the missions anyway. I don't think I'll need her skill set in the future. If I was playing as an Adept or Engineer, the choice would likely be different. Also, human biotics are more rare than than someone good with guns. 

And I now know how to complete the Conrad Verner mission. I didn't know you have to return to see him a couple of additional times.

And I didn't know that you get a bonus of 100,000 creds if your imported ME1 character had more than 1,000,000 creds when ME1 ends.