will show up on the PS3 someday.
I suspect they will.
The big question is whether the mass effect games
will show up on the PS3 someday.
I suspect they will.
streme Wheelie
Recognized Member
Hired it out and didn't sleep. Yeah I have no words to describe the awesome. I think I'll take my latest paycheck and go buy it.
Right. Finally managed to get through the game and finish the last mission "successfully". So here goes my thoughts. This'll be long people.
First off the gameplay itself is pretty much lifted verbatim from the first game, which is generally a good thing. It's a relatively solid drop-n-pop shooter which feels kinetic, action-orientated and exciting. Combat is hectic but not so much that is becomes confusing, and the inclusion of different powers to use mix things up sufficiently that you'll rarely be doing nothing but shooting at the enemy. My primary gripes with it are that for the most part being out of cover is suicidal, at least for my playthrough. The enemies stick to Shepard 90% of the time even if your allies are attacking them, so you can take advantage of the AI and just stay hidden until your teammates take out the targets. This does mean you have to learn to use cover effectively however, and I suppose it would be boring if only one enemy were shooting at you in each firefight. Speaking of cover, there were a number of times where I found myself cursing due to Shepherd not obeying my commands. It can be a deadly mistake if you run forward to get to cover and immediately end up hoping over the barrier you wanted to be behind, thus putting yourself in fire and probably getting yourself killed. The whole "cover then hop over" mechanic is also a bit sluggish, though it can create some unintentionally funny runs when Shepherd is unnecessarily running up to cover and jumping over something you could probably step over (think Jason Nesmith rolling around in Galaxy Quest).
Equipment has been gimped to buggery in this game. What I mean by that is you no longer find weapons on the battle field. Instead you either buy them from vendors or have your team research different guns you scan. This does mean you don't have to micromanage your entire squad's inventory since they'll always have the best weapons you've managed to find, though the options are sparse. There's probably only two to three of every weapon type in the whole game barring heavy weapons, and most of the time you have no idea what effect if any they have when you select them in the weapons loadout screen. It's seemingly arbitrary to allow obviously better weapons and their inferior counterparts to both be selectable, unless you feel the need to gimp your team for the sake of making the game harder. Still there's no reason to activate the weapons loadout menu unless you want to change Shepherd's heavy weapon. The upshot of this is that individual squad members are no longer "favouritised" due to needing particular bits of equipment, meaning you can switch members in and out without impunity, though it does ruin the sense of gradually building up stronger team mates and makes who you do decide to run with more arbitrary.
Improvements to your existing gear come from upgrades, and this is where things get annoying. You get upgrades from two sources; either you buy them from shops or you research them on your ship. In the case of the first for some reason the game starves you of Credits for the majority of the game. If you're like me and obsessed with getting everything in the game you may as well forget it. Even if you complete every single mission and search every nook and cranny and nook's cranny and cranny's nook, there's no way you'll have enough credits to have everything bought by the end of the game. Since you can't sell equipment now there's not even an efficient way to farm for credits now. Conversely when you research items, you need to use "resources". These are basically the seams of metals you used to find in the first game on planets, except now you store them on your ship and you need x amount of a certain element to research something. But there is an excess of resources in the galaxy. How much you ask? I'd estimate I probably used about 1/20th of the resources I gathered on research. The rest just sort of sat uselessly on my ship. There's literally nothing you can do with the resources; you can't sell them or anything. My advice to anyone playing would be to only buy probes and search for resources as and when you need them, otherwise you'll end up with a pointless huge surplus.
That's the other gripe I have regarding this; the bloody mineral scanning. Now I know that the Mako from the first game was widely unpopular, but really I never held much venom for it. It was an interesting distraction from the standard gameplay and though it was a tart to control, you always felt a sense of achievement when you finally managed to get over a crevasse. Now instead you have this excrusiantingly boring mini-game where you slowly run the cursor over a planet and try to find resources. In all honesty I think someone at Bioware spent months making the Mako sections and was pleased as punch. Then the game came out and everyone hated them, so he was told to make something else. Out of revenge he made the most boring, tedious and pointless minigame as punishment against the community. This is what it feels like; Bioware are saying "You didn't like our Mako? Well up yours! Go scanning for minerals you jerk!". Coupled with the highly reduced need for resources throughout the game and you have to wonder if all these changes to "streamline" the inventory were really worth it.
Now then the story. This'll all go into spoiler tags since I don't want to ruin it for anyone. (SPOILER)Insofar as the story goes it kind of feels a bit weak. The Collectors are the main badguys but it becomes obvious pretty early on that they're just puppets. For the sake of the story they may as well be wind-up toys or something similar. They're not particularly menacing, they just feel like a group doing their job. They're not malicious they're just there. There's certainly no charismatic central leader like Saren from the first one that you feel compelled to take out. Really you're just on a clean-up operation. There's Harbinger I suppose, but you "kill" him so many times he ends up feeling more like a generic enemy. It would have been much more effective if Harbinger had appear a lot less frequently, and if his appearances were more significant. Apart from that it's your standard "Get peoples, do things, save galaxy" spiel, nothing special.
Party members are a mixed bunch. Miranda is your standard human female love interest. She's apparently "genetically superior" but damned if I see it. Jacob looks like Kayne West and sounds like Samuel Jackson. They're both pretty boring in terms of personality. Mordin cracks me up because he's off his nut, but also has some genuinely interest ethics and actually is convincing when he explains the necessity to sterilise an entire species of Krogans. Jack scares the living crap out of me. She's basically made up to be as ridiculously bad-ass as possible; Kills anyone, tattoos all over her body, swears every other words. Personally I found her to be grating and her backstory doesn't fully account for how much of a bitch she is now. Garrus and Tali return, which is frustrating because they were the least used members when I last played the game. Other character's include Grunt a Klingon, er sorry Krogan, grown in a tank who has to go through a initiation ritual to become a "man" but is stopped by Worf. No really, Michael Dorn plays a Krogan, go figure. Legion is easily the most compelling character, being a sapient, individual Geth which if you know your lore should be impossible. Thane is broody and has artistically pretentious flashbacks. Samara is mystical and slightly bonkers. Really the characters are nothing particularly special, and like I say with the hamogeonisation of the gameplay mechanics you won't notice any difference who you take along with you. Except for one bit...
I'll say this now, the end mission is bullcrap. It's supposed to be a "suicide mission" with your actions during the game deciding if everyone survives. In actuality it's really just a "Select squad member x to do y to make sure they don't die". It doesn't matter if a member is loyal or if you've upgrade your equipment, all that really matters is who you choose to go where. There's literally zero indication what will happen if you send someone to a given task, and sometimes one person may die to your selection of another person and so on. Your own personal performance doesn't matter either, since the story will play out the same whether you get through an area quickly or not. There's even a few kicks in the teeth, primarily that one of your team members will randomly die outside of being saved if you don't have them in your team for the final battle, even without you assigning them to anything. I'd recommend doing the last battle until you've got everyone alive since there's no significant changes to the ending if anyone dies; you just go down to the cargo deck, look mournfully at your dead team member's coffins and then go about your business. Plus with ME3 promising to import your saves it'll be a good starting point having everyone alive for the sequel.
So, for all my wittering on, is ME2 a good game? Sure. If you're a fan of action-orientated adventure games (I'd classify this as an RPG with minimal customisation, especially compared to the first one) and liked the first one and can deal with the possibility of simplified gameplay then jump to it. I'd not go raving about this game but then again very few games ever get that honour with me. It's pretty much your bog-standard Bioware game, and considering how insanely high Bioware's standards usually are that's definitely a recommendation.
And as a little aside, here's my alternate title for the game;(SPOILER)Seth Green stars in Cripple Simulator...IN SPAAAAAAACE!
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Oh absolutely.Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF
Not sure what the Captain is on about, but I thought the game was smurfing fantastic in just about every way. Only thing I can agree with there is that the mineral scanning was mind-numbing and credits were obnoxiously sparse. Maybe I'll write a fuller response later, but I thought the final mission was all kinds of awesome. I got out with the "No One Left Behind" achievement the first time as well, so I must have done something right (SPOILER)Legion as my tech specialist for the ducts, Samara as my biotic specialist for the barriers, and Garrus both times leading the alternate squad. Then again, I did have loyalty of all my squad members as well as having researched all their suggested upgrades for the ship. I also did every assignment available to me and explored all clusters to 100%. Don't know if those latter bits affect the outcome at all.
After we'll all done with it of course.will show up on the PS3 someday.
I suspect they will.
Did I give the impression that I hated the game? It's criticism; pointing out parts of a product which are notably flawed in some manner in order to fully appreciate the entirety of the package. Honestly, I really liked the game. Loved it. Just wouldn't consider it "TEH BESTO GAME EVAR!!!!111one".
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Seems you had a lot less that was nice to say about it and a lot of gripes. Normally if you want to give the impression that you liked something, you do have to mention something about it which you liked. If you devote a significant amount of time to its flaws and comparatively little to what you actually liked about it, it does tend to give the impression that you weren't fond of the title.
If I didn't say something sucked, I probably liked it. No need to project unwarranted hatred of the game on me as opinion when I never expressed such a thing.
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I didn't read your comment as it was way too long, but if it was all criticism like it sounds from others' posts, it would be doubtful for anyone who read it to assume you liked the game.If I didn't say something sucked, I probably liked it. No need to project unwarranted hatred of the game on me as opinion when I never expressed such a thing.
Honestly, weird as it is for me to ever come to CMP's defense, his post seemed both reasonable and to pretty clearly convey that he liked the game a lot.
I don't think people who have a problem with a game note that the dev has "insanely high standards"It's pretty much your bog-standard Bioware game, and considering how insanely high Bioware's standards usually are that's definitely a recommendation.
Who said anything about hatred? All I said was that your post seemed to pay a great deal more attention to the game's faults than anything else. All I'm saying is that when a majority of the post is picking out problems with a few good comments thrown it, it doesn't tend to give the impression of enjoyment. That doesn't mean I think you hate it. "If I didn't say something sucked, I probably liked it," is a poor way of expressing your enjoyment of, well, anything.If I didn't say something sucked, I probably liked it. No need to project unwarranted hatred of the game on me as opinion when I never expressed such a thing.
I'm excited to play this - I just started ME1, so I'll start this soon. Seeing how hot Hux's Shephard is (really dreamy Chinese/half Mongolian dude, as Hux describes him), I'm a little dissapointed when I made my character in ME1 since the facial characteristics are more bland, and the hair all looks like bad Sims 1 hair.
The female hair does make my heart hurt.
So, finished my first run through. As I am using Gamefly, I am torn to send this back for Bioshock 2 or keep it. I feel I'm not finished, but...
I thought it was absolutely awesome in nearly every way. I personally liked the severe reduction in equipment management because I am an impatient ho. I played as an Adept and finally felt like I had true biotic control of battles. There were entire fights where I barely even shot a bullet (shields and such first here and there). No Mako is love, yay. I'm now playing as a Paragon Infiltrator and it's great how different of an approach I take compared to my last character. The cover system is just so much better, too. To be frank, I would recommend IGN's 6 minute condensed synopsis of the first, skip it, and move along to the second.
Complaints: Why is there an ammo system all the sudden; scanning planets is ridiculous; AI still needs some fixing, especially Jacob, who seems to die every other second; teammates all over the ship became annoying when I needed to speak with multiple members; and why won't Illusive share his cigars and alcohol with me.
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