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Mass Effect 2

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Viseroid:
Really liked ME2, it left me longing for more. However, it felt like a lot was left out.

Light analysis of game play improvements:
(click to show/hide)Streamlined (also known as simplified) game play. Upgrades, equipment, and cities were a lot simpler. Leaves space for more action.

Skills:
When you compare the skills menu of ME1 and ME2 you will laugh. At first glimpse it will seem that you are missing out on 2/3s of the skills that you had on ME1. However, I think this is okay. There were a lot of fluff skill points that you had to spend in ME1, there would be points where upgrading a skill would only yield 2% or 1 meter more effectiveness. ME2 has contracted that and made it more efficient, though you end up spending points in chunks you see more immediate benefits in your spending. I still would've liked an upgraded version of the ME1 skill interface since it would give me more control.

Equipment:
What the hell?!? I was confused as all hell when I went to my first store in ME2 and wondered where all the weapons were. There were only 5 things or so to buy. Compare this to the first time you landed in the Presidium in ME1; we could barely afford any of the 20 stuff that was available to buy! However, in ME1 it didn't matter much since once I started doing missions and had electronics skills we were getting massive loots. I would find a lot of the stuff that the store was selling at outrageous prices in some guys foot locker. In the end I would only buy 5 or so things from the store anyways. I can see why they would simplify the buying experience but I still liked being able to buy different types of ammo and upgrades to fine tune my squad. However, each time I encountered a certain type of enemy I'd have to take a few seconds to change my ammo type. In ME2 I can change the effectiveness of my ammo on the fly.

Fights:
In the higher difficulties, like hardcore, of ME2 you start running into really prolonged firefights. This is especially tough in the first half of the game where you don't have many upgrades. I regularly found myself draining the ammo of two of my 5 guns before I would finish some encounters. Having biotics doesn't help since they aren't effective until I can strip enemies of their shields and armor. I liked ME1 where you only had to worry about weapon cool downs. However, in ME1 you usually couldn't handle a sustained amount of fighting very long since you would have to consistently manage your weapon heat. Biotics were a bit of a help but at the beginning of the game they had retarded minute long cool downs. In the end the fights of ME1 can't hold a light to the intensity of ME2 fights, they didn't go wrong here.

Dialogue:
ME2 voice acting is noticeably better. I found the dialogues in ME2 to be far more engaging than those in ME1. A lot of the dialogue options actually made me pause and ponder the moral dilemmas that were presented. ME2 had great writing that makes ME1 cower in a corner.

Beaten ME2 more or less 100% following paragon options. I don't have my ME1 save because my hard drive died a few months after beating it so I'm playing through on casual as a vanguard. ME2 is a great game, it isn't perfect and it could have been longer but it has me looking forward to ME3.

Osmo:
Im completing the first one the second time for the save also.

Wrex is going to die.
Kaiden is going to die.
Asari chick is gona get banged.

kenshin-dono:

--- Quote from: Sosseres on January 28, 2010, 02:30:44 PM ---
--- Quote from: kenshin-dono on January 28, 2010, 09:04:25 AM ---
wait.. what? you dont get skill point to distribute at lvl up? that would be really dumb if thats the case.

Barring that, anyone aware of a guide out there that lists what they are so when i replay 1 i can make sure i do what i want to carry over? (been too long since i played i gotta replay with most of the chars i want to transfer over, i have like 5 or 6 of them)

All in all the stuff ive been hearing is not so good. I hear theres almost no gear upgrades and this thing you guys are talking about the skill upgrade system has me worried

--- End quote ---

At the start you get 2 points per level, near the level cap (30) you get 1. You can also respec those in the game using the research feature. You get ~6-8 skills per character if you add in the extra skill you can get from your companions.

Just when you start me 2 there is a list of the major things that carry over, there are lots of minor things that are mentioned as the game progresses but that are mostly there just to make you feel like the world has progressed. I'll edit in a screenshot of the major things in a second.
(click to show/hide)Rank = level, Military Spec = class, Pschological Profile = Paragon/Renegade scale, Status of wrex = self explained, MIA = who is missing, Council history = what happened to council at end,

There are gear upgrades, 7 per weapon type and different weapons in each type. The upgrades are mostly things like +10% damage and larger ammo clips.  They carry over to all weapons of that type. The only place you really feel that using the latest weapon isn't the best choice is in the sniper rifle and heavy weapons where things like amount of shots vs dmg start making a difference.

The game is good, take it for a story heavy shooter with some rpg elements.

MAJOR ANNOYANCE, you can't skip the pre rendered movies. I resorted to replacing them with a 0 sec long black movie that somebody made for that purpose. Just removing the movies crashes the game, have to replace them. (Not fun watching those movies over and over again when starting up new games to try things out...)

--- End quote ---

wow.. that sounds VERY underwhelming. Im not really jonsing to play this game. Is there any real variety in teh armor or anything at least? The no movie skipping does suck, especially with how many times i replayed ME1

i gotta belive your list of the stuff that carries over is incomplete. Ive heard about a few other characters and events changing how things play out that aren't listed there

isn't there a complete list yet? Im surprised no ones hacked it or looked at the debug set where it shows what the carry over checklist is

forevr:
Finished it twice.
I think it's better than the first game. More difficult and a lot bigger (two discs) but those damned movies that you can't skip are annoying indeed.
I read in one of the loading tips that you could skip the movies after you finished the game once by pressing "start" or something but it doesn't work. Not even if you use the same character for a second play through. Maybe it'll get fixed in some patch.

They are warming us up for the third and last game. I can certainly see where it's heading with unexpected allied species or a supreme human race depending on your choices.

blubart:
the major flaws of mass effect 2 imo:
choice - or the lack thereof
(click to show/hide)there are two weapons for every weapon type in the game + one advanced weapon
+ a collection of heavy weapons (only your character can wield one of those) with very limited ammo
in addition to the fact that the second weapon you get is in most cases the superior weapon most classes can only wield 2 weapon types
-> absolutely no choice in the weapon department

the situation with the armor is similar. there are roughly 3 pieces for every "slot" (not counting collector or preorder items) of which are roughly 66% useless. you can only equip your own character.

the so called "updates" are bought or "researched" and are all similar to the concept "all <weapon type>s do 10% more damage" there is only the "choice" if can afford them or not. they are global for your whole party.

your control over your party is limited to telling them what weapon to use and if you want them to control their powers or if you want to manage them all yourself.

i fail to see a reason why skillpoints have to be dropped in chunks - where you have to wait 3 levels in the worst case (even in lower levels) to increase a power of your choice further.

choosing the paragon or renegade path hardly seems to reflect in the story or even that much different in the dialog.
no leeway to react to situations
(click to show/hide)you can only change your characters equipment while on the ship. this makes a choice between for example a helmet with 10% more head-shot damage and 10% negotiate bonus useless as you will (or at least should) always choose the helm with more damage as the situations where a negotiation bonus would be useful are basically non-existent and you can't change for the damage in situations that are actually difficult.

you can only choose your weapons (not that there is any real choice to begin with) at the start of the mission. a ton of lowhp creeps at the end of the mission? sucks that picked the slow firing weapon with less shots!

the choices for party members is pretty limited in the sense that you can not develop them into a specific directions which results in standard groups not chosen by the upcoming task but the weaponry they carry by chance (and for which you have found the upgrades for). it is absurd that it takes longer to clear a geth station with 2 tech specialists than with two random characters equipped with assault riffles.

powers vs. weapons - the demise of the power based classes
(click to show/hide)the biggest flaw in the game. active powers have MAJOR issues.
- they all share a cooldown. this results in having one very good power is better than having a good number of decent powers.
- they are weak. i can't do with a power (that has a 6 second cooldown) what i can do with a single(!) pistol shot in the head of the enemy.
- a lot of powers don't work on either enemies with shields/barriers or only work on enemies with shields/barriers.
- they are hardly any synergies between different powers.
- for playing a character with a lot of active powers (adept, engineer, sentinel especially) the numbers of weapons is limited - to two (or three for the soldier-hybrids) this results in you having less shots per picked up ammo charge than other classes and the weaker weapons.

if you compare the skill set of the adept and the soldier it becomes obvious:

the soldier has two active abilities (adrenalin rush - slows down time by 70%, most likely the best power in the game - and concussive shot) plus 3 ammo powers you can activate at the start of the mission for every of your 5 weapons separately (among them the two best weapons of the game - assault (which only the soldier can carry initially) and sniper rifle).
with adrenalin rush you can easily manage head-shooting and killing 4 targets over its duration with the assault rifle, which in it's upgrade is damn accurate. it only has a 3 second cooldown!
with the sniper rifle and an ammo power on it you can instant kill a harbinger controlled collector while he is still morphing (or any target for that matter - except for named characters - those take 2 or sometimes even 3 shots)
adrenalin rush can be used for anything (a fast get-away, dodging bullets to storm in, sniping the bad boys in the back without catching a single bullet... etc.) and has a logical synergy with every weapon (better aim with the sniper, more shots with the assault rifle,...and it seems to increase the damage per bullet too - most likely because they are "faster").

the adept on the other hand has five active abilities and can use only two weapons (the two weakest in the game, a slow firing pistol and a inaccurate machine pistol only useful against shields)
the first ability warp does single target damage with a possible synergy (if you wasted another power on the same target before) with other powers - unfortunately not usable against enemies where you would like to use this powerful damage effect the most - those bosses/heavy hitter with shields. 6 seconds cd.
throw hurls the enemy in the air and damages it if it hit another object. the problem with it: the enemy just might not hit another object or is to heavy to be hurled away - in which case you just wasted your cooldown (luckily only 3sec.)
singularity holds a number of enemies in place without damaging them. the problem is that most of the time those 4 enemies it can hold for 7 seconds are not in it's maximal radius (already specced for it - it would be 1.75 otherwise) of 3 meters! wasted 4.5sec cooldown.
pull hoovers a target (more in a 3 meter radius if specced for) to your position, doing zero damage. those same enemies you want to get of your back as far away as possible.
shockwave the amazing pinnacle power of the adept you have to dump 6 points in the previous two powers only to be able to skill it. if only the enemies would line up neatly so you could blast them all away at once. they don't unfortunately, quite the contrary - they spread out so that most of the time you will hit a maximum of 3. cooldown 6 seconds.
the adept still has to rely on his weapons or otherwise sit around and act only every 3 to 6 seconds.

if you have the choice of a full weapon arsenal wielding the most deadly weapons killing the worst enemies without taking a single bullet constantly keeping two powers in use - why would you go running around with a freaking pistol, ammo starved and only selective usable powers that are all weaker in comparison to what one other power can yield?

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