Who's looking forward to Mass Effect 2 ?

[unozero]

lol check the Cerebus Network update guys...


Bejing Dragons vs the Giants

lol

 

[Dynasty]

Its just a problem with the cable (had the exact same problem on a Halo 3 edition 360, something inside the console went bad though as it showed nothing but a black screen) so if need be and your sound doesn't come back, you can get one for like 5 bucks off ebay (it doesn't need to be a special Xbox one though, any HDMI will work.)

Also, laughed hard at Badhat's pic.

Ohh that takes the piss.

The day I got my PS3 I went home to set it up in my room with my 19 inch Samsung HD TV, and realised I needed an HDMI cable as I forgot to ask+read the box to see if it came with one...thanks by the way Sony.

So I went to a Sony store (fail) and bought a recommended 1m cable..for like £60. I asked why the cables were so expensive, and he said that you get a better quality if you buy a more expensive cable. Walked into GAME after buying the cable like, well, an idiot, and saw they had HDMI cables for the PS3 for about £15.

The lying hound. Im sure theres a court case in there somewhere!

 

[Bad^Hat]

i have the 360 version and my audio cut out for about a min when i was finishing Samara's loyalty quest

Actually, my sound cut out at the exact same part. Also, later on the mission where you invade a ship under attack by blue suns mercs, there's a PDA or something that's meant to play a message, but whenever I'd use it my sound would go dead for the duration of the message.

I think they just forgot to put certain assets on disc 2.

 

[kupocake]

Also, later on the mission where you invade a ship under attack by blue suns mercs, there's a PDA or something that's meant to play a message, but whenever I'd use it my sound would go dead for the duration of the message.

I had this I think, though I have the PC version.

Also, Conrad Verner is supposedly bugged. The game always acts as if you pulled a gun on him in ME1, whereas I let him down lightly (Paragon) and others let him toddle off to die.... only for him to come back talking about how badass you were.

 

[the cow says moo]

Conrad Verner is supposedly bugged. The game always acts as if you pulled a gun on him in ME1, whereas I let him down lightly (Paragon) and others let him toddle off to die.... only for him to come back talking about how badass you were.

I noticed that to. I thought he must have completely disregarded what I had told him in the first game.

 

[FrostedxB]

Got that Widow sniper, and I regret not taking the Assualt Training. Honestly, the Vipers Rof made up for its lower damage rate. Missing with the widow is pretty costly, takes forever to work the action and the ammo count is too low, even with some SR ammo upgrades.

 

[B_MAN]

question
if you choose to play through the game again with the same character, which choices will affect ME3, the ones from the 1st or 2nd playthrough?

 

[Krynn72]

So I went to a Sony store (fail) and bought a recommended 1m cable..for like £60. I asked why the cables were so expensive, and he said that you get a better quality if you buy a more expensive cable. Walked into GAME after buying the cable like, well, an idiot, and saw they had HDMI cables for the PS3 for about £15.

The lying hound. Im sure theres a court case in there somewhere!

Nah, you're just an ignorant customer who made a dumb purchase. It was a Monster Cable wasn't it?

 

[Acepilotf14]

question
if you choose to play through the game again with the same character, which choices will affect ME3, the ones from the 1st or 2nd playthrough?

each savefile is seperate, so you can choose which one you want, just like in ME2.

 

[Warbie]

Things like that piss me off. The sales rep clearly has no clue! The only time it's worth spending decent money on an HDMI cable is if its a long 10-20m run, otherwise a £5 jobbie is fine.

 

[Dynasty]

Nah, you're just an ignorant customer who made a dumb purchase. It was a Monster Cable wasn't it?

Ignorant? Dunno. I think I was just in a rush to get a cable and get back to my PS3 and finally play MGS4 like some giddy kid.

Dont think it was a Monster Cable.

Its an official sony though. From what I can search, cant find the exact cable, but the connectors are gold-plated.

How can that warrant such a high price? This was over a year ago, so prices were obviously higher back then, but there are still cables around that are £40, even on Amazon. Well, the RRP is, naturally Amazon halve the price.

Maybe the cable, being only 1m, was worth about £10-20, and they slapped a 100% store charge to pay for the 4 guys standing around with Sony shirts on in a noticeably small Sony store in Cheltenham.

 

[jimbo118]

What's the deal with the Asari bar(wo)man on Illeum? Her story sounds kinda familiar.

 

[bam23]

I feel sorry for people walking into a Best Buy sometimes. They think they're getting the "best buy" cause that shit says so but that is mostly not ever true.

I like to shop at unassuming retailers. Like NewEgg. They have an egg theme but their electronics and prices are delicious.

 

[Bad^Hat]

each savefile is seperate, so you can choose which one you want, just like in ME2.

Yeah except starting a new game with an existing ME2 character wipes all your old saves, so yeah, I'm guessing it takes your new game into account.

Just re-started my infiltrator on insanity mode. Jesus christ... they didn't call it that for nothing. I'm pretty much stuck on the Archangel mission because I took too long on the first few parts and he keeps running out of health. I'd restart but I don't know how I could speed it up any... wish you could just tell him to hunker down and not get hit (until the gunship, of course). The widow sniper is really coming in handy though, since you really don't have enough health to pop out with the auto-sniper. I can tell Miranda to warp some guy's armor/biotic barrier down to half, and a stealthed headshot with that badboy will usually take care of the rest. Just wish it were that effective on krogan, those mother****ers are tough...

Oh also, where do you run into Verner? Maybe I just missed him somehow in ME1, but I didn't see him on my imported character...

 

[Kyorisu]

I'm playing an Engineer on Insanity. It's pretty hilarious. Drone distracts the odd enemy and I've got powers to handle shields and armour. Not having any dramas so far

I like to shop at unassuming retailers. Like NewEgg. They have an egg theme but their electronics and prices are delicious.

I laugh at people like you who don't buy their PC goods from a Chinese run soup natzi setup. Just look how awesome their website is http://msy.com.au/. You know you're getting a bargain just by how dodgy that site is. I buy all my personal PC goods from them.

 

[smwScott]

Ignorant? Dunno. I think I was just in a rush to get a cable and get back to my PS3 and finally play MGS4 like some giddy kid.

Dont think it was a Monster Cable.

Its an official sony though. From what I can search, cant find the exact cable, but the connectors are gold-plated.

How can that warrant such a high price? This was over a year ago, so prices were obviously higher back then, but there are still cables around that are £40, even on Amazon. Well, the RRP is, naturally Amazon halve the price.

Maybe the cable, being only 1m, was worth about £10-20, and they slapped a 100% store charge to pay for the 4 guys standing around with Sony shirts on in a noticeably small Sony store in Cheltenham.

FYI, I got HDMI cables for my PS3 online for $5 USD. Works perfect.

They're not like analog cables where signal quality matters. It's a digital signal and the data either gets there or it doesn't, therefore brand is irrelevant. It would be like buying high end DVI cables to attach your monitor to your video card for instance, no one does that.

At least, that's my understanding from when I researched this stuff when I bought the PS3.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Oh also, where do you run into Verner? Maybe I just missed him somehow in ME1, but I didn't see him on my imported character...

Causing trouble in a bar on Illium.

 

[B_MAN]

What's the deal with the Asari bar(wo)man on Illeum? Her story sounds kinda familiar.

the "matriarch"? I was wondering the same

also, I don't think I'll be playing through the game again with my main character because my first game was flawless

if/when I play again it'll be with a femshep renegade.... fiery red hair and penetrating green eyes

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

penetrating

BOOM

Spoiler

bam

 

[jimbo118]

the "matriarch"? I was wondering the same

also, I don't think I'll be playing through the game again with my main character because my first game was flawless

if/when I play again it'll be with a femshep renegade.... fiery red hair and penetrating green eyes

Yeah, her. Seems like she is related to someone from the first game? Maybe that Asari you meet when you encounter the Rachni Queen in ME1

Also, Verner on Illeum? Guess I missed him too. Prolly my ME1 character never interacted with him. Oh well.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Yeah Conrad Verner is bugged in my game too, acting all badass when I was nice to him. I like to think he just didnt listen to me, its kinda funny to see him like this anyways.

 

[Hazard.Squared]

I'm going to go ahead and guess that Shiala from Feros becomes a party member in ME3.

...and you can do her.

@ Willie

Fu**ing LOL.

 

[Warped]

Just got 2 more loyaty missions, the IFF and then I'm onto the Omega 4 Relay. How much of the game is after that?? I'm 31 hrs in

 

[Krynn72]

What you do in the Omega 4 Relay is the last thing in the game.

 

[bam23]

I laugh at people like you who don't buy their PC goods from a Chinese run soup natzi setup. Just look how awesome their website is http://msy.com.au/. You know you're getting a bargain just by how dodgy that site is. I buy all my personal PC goods from them.

But can you rate things out of 5 eggs?

 

[Warped]

What you do in the Omega 4 Relay is the last thing in the game.

then I'm like 95% of the way there.

Spoiler

that suicide mission is it tough??

 

[Acepilotf14]

Alright, time to summarize the storyline. This is making a few assumptions based on what I did.

Spoiler

After the events of Mass Effect 1, Shepard is sent on a mission to finish off pockets of Geth resistance in Citadel space. In these two years, Harbinger, a Reaper, makes his way out of darkspace and takes direct control of the Collectors who are the last remaining enslaved Protheans. Shepard, the Reapers' greatest threat, is then killed by the Collectors a few months after the events of ME1 under Harbinger's control. Really, smart move by the Reapers. Of course, they didn't expect The Illusive Man to be watching and pick up Shepard's body, and after two years they INSPECTOR GADGET him the **** up with cybernetic implants, bringing him back to life.

He decides to work with Tim(The Illusive Man, how I shall refer to him), because Tim persuades him that Cerberus is now working to fight the Reapers, not to try and make humans dominant in the galaxy. He sets up a list of dossiers for Shepard to work with, and snuck in a couple of his old crewmates, including Tali and Garrus. He stresses that he must work to gain their true loyalty, or the mission will fail. After finding a few of the teammates, he is alerted by Tim that a colony is likely about to be attacked by the Collectors. Shepard quickly makes his way there with his newly assembled team, finding the place already attacked, but not quite dead. The Collectors are still there. EDI suggests they try to attack the Collector ship itself, which is docked on the planets surface as they collect humans, with the anti-ship batteries in the colony. Shepard fights his way there, activating them, and damaging the ship, although it unfortunately escapes.

Despite this, Tim receives relevant data from the incursion, and sends more dossiers his way. Eventually, Tim discovers what they finally need to make it through the Omega 4 relay to the Collector's home base; an IFF from a reaper. This foreshadows that the Collectors have dealings with reapers, since they can move freely through the Omega 4 relay. Although we already know that Harbinger has control of the reapers as I said earlier. To find this IFF, they are sent to a dead Reaper. A dead reaper? Yes. Apparently there is a dead reaper. Not really dead, of course, because now you get to fight a bunch of ****ing husks that stun you when they hit you and then surround and kill you.
This entire segment is ****ING BULLSHIT on Insanity. Yeah. Okay.

Anyway, Shepard recovers the IFF as well as a wounded Geth who exhibits strange characteristics such as being able to speak. He talks to it, learns that it wants to help them fight the Reapers, and that the Geth who follow the Reapers are 'heretics' in his and some other Geth's eyes. Through his loyalty mission, you also learn quite a bit of good fluff on Geth, such as no Geth is an individual, all are shells and programs, and all Geth are stored in a central bank until activated inside of a body. The only limit to Geth is how many shells they have. Anyway, this is besides the point.

They activate the IFF. This is bad. It was a trap all along, and the Collectors show up within minutes and **** up the whole crew. Oh shit. Everyone's gone except Joker. That's bad. LUCKILY, SHEPARD AND FRIENDS WERE GONE! YAY! So, they come back and Shep is like 'what is this shit' and shit. Tim goes 'YOU CAN GO THROUGH THE OMEGA 4 RELAY NOW' so they do that.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the part with the Collector ship. You go on there and think everyone is dead and shit and get the Widow sniper if you're not a ****** and learn that the Collectors are an advanced form of the Protheans, changed to the Reaper's own design. Note: The statues on Ilos in the first game ARE NOT PROTHEANS. That's about it. They get some data or something, I think it points to the IFF or some shit. That was a trap too, and you shoot your way out of it. Non-spear husks imply they are working with the reapers too. Pew pew. I am assuming direct intervention and all that. Fun stuff.

Anyway, Shep and friends, with their now 12 or so man crew, go through the Omega 4 relay and promptly hyperspace into an asteroid field. Well, not really an asteroid field, a dead ship field. If you didn't ****ing upgrade the ship Tali and someone else dies. Good job, you ****. I did.

Anyway, then you get shot at and if you upgraded your ship Joker goes 'GOOD THING WE UPGRADED THE SHIP' and there's some ****ing awesome CGI. **** avatar, this is so much cooler. You go into the big rocky space station, and do some shit I guess and make it to the central chamber.

Holy shit. They are making a HUMAN Reaper! Reapers are made by the design of the species used, so you get to see this big mother****ing Reaper that looks like the Terminator. Arnold is my governor, you know.

This is where the book comes in. They say it in the game as well. The Collectors buy slaves every so often, in large quantities. They were likely trying to find the perfect race to use to make a new Reaper with. After trying various different ones, I guess they found Humans were the best, and so started mass kidnappings instead of simple slave trading. This is strictly speculation, of course.

Anyway, you blow up the Reaper in a piss-easy boss fight(if you had the Cain and the Widow sniper), it really doesn't make any sense how you can actually kill a reaper, even a half-finished one, so fast when it took the entire Human and Citadel fleet to take out Sovereign. Whatever. It was cool I guess. Then you make the choice of destroying the Collector's station or handing it over to Tim, I handed it over to him because it COULD be used to help defeat the reapers. And if he does anything bad with it, I'll shoot the ****er myself. Shep goes 'THE FIGHT ISN'T OVER YET. HARBINGER IS STILL OUT THERE. AND WE'LL BE READY.' Even though there was nothing that Shepard directly heard that said Harbinger was a reaper at all. It's a big cliffhanger but not quite as big as ME1's was. I can't wait for ME3.

That's about it. Any questions?

 

[staticprimer]

One small error:

Spoiler

After the events of Mass Effect 1, Shepard is sent on a mission to finish off pockets of Geth resistance in Citadel space. In these two years, Harbinger, a Reaper, makes his way out of darkspace and takes direct control of the Collectors who are the last remaining enslaved Protheans. Shepard, the Reapers' greatest threat, is then killed by the Collectors under Harbinger's control. Really, smart move by the Reapers. Of course, they didn't expect The Illusive Man to be watching and pick up Shepard's body, and after quite a bit of time they INSPECTOR GADGET him the **** up with cybernetic implants, bringing him back to life.

Spoiler

The attack on the Normandy 1 occurs shortly after ME1, likely no more than a couple of months. The two year gap is the time that Shepard is dead.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Yeah, I'll fix that. I wasn't exactly sure what the timespan was.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Think its about a month.

 

[Bad^Hat]

What you do in the Omega 4 Relay is the last thing in the game.

This said, you can continue your game after you've done the Relay, and if you choose to do a new game+ you can just select your save from where you left off, so go nuts.

 

[Warped]

This said, you can continue your game after you've done the Relay, and if you choose to do a new game+ you can just select your save from where you left off, so go nuts.

does that mean i can easily get to the lvl 30 achievement and all my other unfinished achievements will be easy to get??

 

[MRG]

I am about 2 hours into ME2, though 90% of that time was reloading saved games to just marvel at the awesomeness of the game. I loved the first ME & as of last week I finally managed to beat it. Very fun & ran smooth on my older hardware.

ME2's visuals & audio are fantastic & far superior than ME1's were. On top of that, it seems to run smooth as silk on my older PC. In fact, it seems to run even smoother than ME1 did. How is that even possible? I also have the settings set higher now in ME2 than I did in ME1 & it is still running smoother.

I just now got access to the galaxy map & thus far, the game has a truly epic feel about it. Great voice acting with smoother & more realistic character animations. At the very start of the game when I was on the SR1 Normandy... Wow...

-MRG

 

[Tagaziel]

ME2's visuals & audio are fantastic & far superior than ME1's were. On top of that, it seems to run smooth as silk on my older PC. In fact, it seems to run even smoother than ME1 did. How is that even possible? I also have the settings set higher now in ME2 than I did in ME1 & it is still running smoother.

Easy - the game has a ****ton of loading screens.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Woo! Finished it last night- what a ride!

A pretty big step up from ME1, which I thought was pretty gosh-darned good to begin with. Some of the controls are ****ed up (Give me a frickin' button to crouch with, and what is the problem with being able to access your journal by pressing 'J'?) but the combat in general feels a lot better, more real and smoother. Inventory system is gone- huge improvement, much less micromanaging. Having said that, it's a bitch to be stuck with some gun cause there isn't an armory nearby. The visuals are stunning and the voice cast is even stronger than before, which is quite an achievement.

Some strengths and weakness storywise:

Pros:

Spoiler

*Garrus came back!
*Garrus has cool facial scars!
*Garrus is dateable!
*Joker came back!
*Joker got a new friend!
*Martin Sheen!
*Mordin Solus- Brilliant character, probably my favourite new squad member.
*A few, genuinely difficult ethical choices. Genophage, Kill/Re-write Geth, destroy/keep Collector base.
*Nice build-up, felt like you were genuinely preparing for an assault. Lessened somewhat by the Normandy's crew disappearing and you were still fine, but whatever.

Cons:

Spoiler

*Jacob second most boring character ever.
*Miranda most boring and annoying character ever.
*Inability to murder Miranda.
*Hard to get Miranda to die during suicide mission.
*Miranda and Jacob for some reason acting like I give a shit about what they think of my latest squadmember.
*The conversation cutscenes felt less influenced by who you choose to bring on a mission than before. Might have been my imagination though.
*Giant Terminator. Seriously, what the ****?

 

[CptStern]

I rented it over the weekend which I kinda regret because now that I'm about 10 hours in there's no use purchasing it meaning I'll have to keep renting it till I finish. anways some of the changes from the original are good, some are bad. where the **** is my mako? not liking the limited weapons in the game as I've been using the same weapons for most of the game so far. I kinda liked being a packrat in the first one so didnt like that they simplified the inventory in the sequel

the flying your ship through the various star maps is ok I guess but would rather have it something closer to say Star trek online's Sector space. also when the hell are we gonna be able to actually have a space battle with the normandy? that ship is too bad ass to be sidelined as a glorified taxi service

 

[TheOneFreeMan]

Mass Effect 2 is totally different to what I was expecting.

The first couple of hours of the game, from the destruction of the Normandy, Shepard's resurrection and through the first mission with Jacob and Miranda, I was completely bowled away. In terms of storytelling, Bioware are masters. I was hooked in so much I couldn't think about much else for the week or so I was playing it. All those trailers where we were saying "they revealed too much" ... we jumped the gun completely there. They showed some big plot events, but those events were just the beginning of the narrative.

But the combat system, despite being completely overhauled, is still completely crummy. It's way too easy; if you're in cover, you're basically invulnerable to anybody shooting you (since the idea of flanking is not something the AI does remotely well), and you could always tell when enemies were coming because you'd suddenly walk into an area with conspicuous boxes and such which were obviously meant to be used to hide behind. And the planet scanning was simply tedious; it's an idea which harkens back to the days of Star Control 2, going down to planets and evading dangerous weather conditions to gather resources ... except they didn't bother to add the challenge aspect here. It's just scanning and launching probes. Snoozefest.

Spoiler

I was so psyched for the story all the way through, but I'm one of those players who likes to go through everything on the first playthrough. So I did all the character quests, got everyone loyal, upgraded the ship and such before I went through the Omega-4 relay. The suicide mission? We all came back alive the first time out, and it wasn't even a challenge to get that to happen. I didn't feel like we were in peril more than any other mission, because whether or not characters survived was almost completely dependent simply on whether or not you'd bothered to complete sidequests along the way.

I was expecting a huge decision which would tear me down the middle; all that emotional connectivity that had built up between me and the crew as we went towards that suicide mission, I was all ready for the game to give me a choice between saving them or saving Shepard. That would have been the greatest possible ending to any game ever, IMO. But they didn't do it. It was just another mission. And I know I built up this false expectation of the ending in my mind, so it's not Bioware's fault, but I feel let down that they didn't give the suicide mission that emotional choice that it deserved. Not to mention that unless you've played pretty crappily, it's almost impossible for Shepard to die in the last mission.

They punished the player narratively for being thorough with the sidequests. The ending was crap as a result. I feel let down, and I shouldn't because it's still an awesome game ... but it fell short at that last hurdle.

Spoiler

Incidentally, why did the romance options feel so tacked on? We did the whole "sleep with your love interest before you embark on the last dangerous mission" storyline in ME1 ... why was it exactly the same this time round?

 

[Tagaziel]

Anyone notice?

 

[Rizzo]

Yeah I also finished it.

Stuff I agree with

All that. Still an awesome game. Im sure there will be some hard choices in Mass effect 3 though. Can't wait.

 

[Warped]

it would be cool if they added an urgency to the questions/interview. like if a place is getting bombarded and you needed answers then it has a certain amount of time to ask it. also i can compare Shepard with Jack Bauer...he saves the planet/galaxy but assholes still get in his way and question his intentions.