I'm at about 5-6 hours into ME2 right now, and I will agree that its pretty awesome. My only gripe though (a pretty little one at that) is that I think that they watered down some of the RPG elements a little too much. Also, a question for those of you who are playing it (slight beginning spoilers)... Spoiler I always tend to go around the Normandy and talk to all my main characters, just to get their loyalty up and to flesh out their story and whatever else. But for some reason I can't find Miranda anywhere on the ship...am I missing something? If there is a reason for this that is explained later, don't spoil it for me.
I agree. I hate the new system for choosing weapons because there is nothing to tell you the damage/accuracy/rate of fire ratings that is easily comparable (like in ME1). In the first game, I knew without a doubt that Pistol A did more damage than Pistol B. In ME1 I figured out quickly that certain types of weapons (pistols) fit my style more than others. From that, I was able to simply pick the best pistol and focus on that. Now I'm forced to experiment with shotguns, SMGs, and pistols to find out which does the most damage, not which one works best. Maybe I'm just bitter that the only accurate gun for an Adept is the pistol that holds six goddamn rounds. Who knows... And to answer your question about Miranda: Spoiler She is on Deck 3, through the door behind the kitchen.
I pre-ordered it the day before and got to play the beta today. It's pretty good, a few bugs, but that's why it is in beta. I absolutely love the audio though. Some guy shot a rocket and it blew up a few feet in front of me, and all I could hear was ringing and the distant sound of gunshots in the background. Felt like I was watching Saving Private Ryan. Fucking sick.
I'm about 12 hours into ME2 and I will voice the probably unpopular opinion here and say that they downplayed the parts of the game that I thought were great. The decision to put all of the abilities on the same timer irks me because it leads to only using one or two at max during the actual battle. Maybe I'm just pissed off because my vanguard special ability is atrocious and, as someone mentioned, useless on the higher difficulty levels. High risk, high reward my ass. If my reward is a shotgun blast to the face after the charge. I'm one of those people who take a lot of care to develop my characters in certain ways that produce interesting gameplay. For instance, in Mass Effect1 I followed solely on pistols and melee so I could attack with wild abandon and feel like a wild west gunslinger. Some of you will think this is stupid, and argue that the Gears of Wars-esque gameplay in ME2 is more tactical and rewarding, but I just find it boring. The AI even on the higher difficulties is not what I would have expected from a title of this caliber, and my team AI is just horrible. Half the time my characters are glitched out on a corner of a corridor or a box or some shit. The planet exploration is a ton better. So is the interaction between squad members. The loading screens are sick and a huge improvement, and the new normandy is incredible. Really well-executed ideas in Shepard's personal cabin as well. They did a ton of things well in this game, they just didn't improve or even sustain the level of character customization in 1 which I expected. In short, I like this game, the shooting part of it is polished and it will be a classic on the 360, for sure. I just think six or seven skills are too few to serve as a baseboard for the rest of the game. The story is the game's saving grace, and I will finish ME2 and buy the third for this reason. Also: Spoiler Punching that reporter in the face for the SECOND TIME on Citadel was incredibly satisfying
That's why I maxed out shockwave first. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a bunch of enemies running out of the same narrow door. I'll throw a shockwave their way and watch them go flying. It's especially effective on the combat drones; sometimes they hit the ceiling and their legs break. I love watching them crawling toward me all crippled and sad looking. I think I'm about 15 hours in and I don't even have all the characters. What I do have is over 200K Iridium. Needless to say, I don't think twice about buying anything and everything. Some random spoiler observations so far: Spoiler A lot of people will give the quicktime events crap but I like them. It gives me more of a reason to really pay attention to the cutscenes instead of going to the bathroom or something (wireless headphones rule). I love how all of the Quarians sound like grimy pawn shop owners from the Balkans. I decided I'm going to work on seducing Yeoman Chambers. Partly because I'm a fan of Mad Men and I love the idea of screwing your secretary and partly because I think she's the most attractive character out of the new batch. Miranda is boring, Jack looks like she doesn't shave, and Samara is several times older than the peak human lifespan. Apparently you get Renegade points for even perusing a romance because you're supposed to be committed to the NPC you chose in the last game. I'm playing Paragon but I'm want to see how being a space pimp will play out in the third installment.
I agree. Spoiler I was very disappointed with the final conversation with The Illusive Man. I was expecting Shepard to sign off and the shot to zoom out showing The Illusive Man was on the command deck of a Reaper or something, but no. Nothing cool like that. I hope that we are able to keep the same squad in ME3. I really liked Thane, Grunt and Legion. The other characters were good, but not nearly as badass as those three. Keeping Grunt as a constant party member lead to some of the most entertaining cutscenes in the game. He better be back for ME3.
Sweet tits. The MoH games were always some of my absolute favorites at the time, and that looks pretty badass.
SSSNAP. Another delicious game to look forward to in 2010. Speaking of which (being that EA makes both MoH and Battlefield games)... anybody play the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo yet? Me likey, without a shadow of a doubt. [EDIT]: On another note, for those who enjoy(ed) Counter-Strike, CSPromod Beta 1.04 comes out TODAY. It's been long awaited. A few top rated online sources call it a major improvement from the last release. The videos look very appealing. As far as what all they've changed/added with detail, HUD's & overall feel also looks impressive. Can't wait.
Just finished my first ME2 playthrough. A few thoughts: Are we supposed to think EDI looks like a talking vag? That is all I could think of every time. Was worth a laugh though. I was an Adept, and while I still liked it overall, I really hated using warp (and others) only to have it hit the cover I was behind, and then have to wait for the whole cooldown period. I know, you're supposed to aim slightly to their side to get it to go around the enemy's cover, but sometimes the sweet spot is so far out it stops targeting them. Even powers that didn't use a blast, you still need line of sight for. Blah. This is especially annoying because as others have mentioned, there's only one cooldown for all powers, so it paralyzed me for way too long when this happened. I have to say though, getting Slam is awesome, if only because (on Normal I guess) it killed husks in one slam, and it has a short cooldown. Made certain parts a lot easier when hordes of husks came at me. Fuck Singularity as my "class power." I really wanted to reassign my Y button for a power that was, you know, useful. But no, has to stay class power. Pull and Singularity seem to do the exact same thing, but as far as I'm concerned Pull does it much better. Not to mention, so many times I'd run into an enemy and all my powers would be redded out to indicate they would be ineffective, except for Singularity. So, I use Singularity and what happens? Nothing! It does jack shit. Warp however, despite being redded out, does actually do something pretty much every time. Stupid. Also upsetting, as people have mentioned, is the lack of stats and whatnot on the weapons. I mean, it wasn't too much of a problem for me, because as an Adept I didn't care as much about weapons anyway, but still annoying. I only ever found a few varieties for each weapon anyway though... I had something like 7 Heavy Weapons to choose, but besides that I only had 2 of everything else, if that. The whole leveling up got on my nerves more than a few times when I'd have points left over and nothing to spend them on, because everything required more points than I had. So I'm stuck either waiting till the next level, or spending them on something I don't really want because it's the only thing I can use 2 points on. I guess this is maybe supposed to make you think ahead and try to conserve points until you could use them for what you wanted, but all it did was piss me off. Fuck mechs and other enemies who charge right at me and get me while I'm behind the cover. I know, they're big huge mechs and so it makes sense they have no fear and just go right ahead, but it really irks me when I end up playing Ring Around the Rosie around the cover because this thing won't stop coming. As for my ending: Spoiler I was kinda pissed that I lost a few guys, but overall I didn't mind it. I'm more pissed that I lost two people despite having had everyone loyal to me and all the Normandy upgrades. I had Legion go through the tunnels, but no, he has to take a shot to the head while closing the door. I've been reading this can be if you choose the wrong person to lead the other squad, because the right person will provide covering fire; but my guy ordered covering fire and Legion still died so I dunno. And then I find out that somehow Mordin died while I was in the final battle and everyone was out guarding the door. I have no idea why that happened, but apparently that's happened to others as well, and the only way to assure it doesn't happen is to take him with you to the final battle or have him escort the crew back (maybe). The other thing I didn't like about the ending is how apparently blowing up the base is the paragon move? I mean, in reality if I could kill all the Collectors on the ship and keep all the tech to study, of course that's the smart move. But no, apparently keeping it from Cerberus is paramount. I feel like this happens with other decisions too, it's just this one is fresh in my mind. Edit: I'd like to try choosing Morinth instead of Samara on my next playthrough as well. Apparently she has different powers than her mother. I'm sure there are more annoyances I'm forgetting, but despite all that, overall a fantastic game in my opinion. Fixed a lot of things I didn't like about the last game, and I plan on doing another playthrough, or maybe more. Kind of want to do renegade just to see all the hilarious responses from Shepard, but I always feel bad when I'm such a huge asshole, and have to kill people that I'd rather have live. There's a video of some of them on youtube. I think my favorite is the "If you've heard of it, it's already too mainstream for me." when talking about music.
Not sure if this has been discussed yet, but does anyone play Demon`s SoulsÉ One of the toughest games i`ve played so far. I`m talking Contra without the life code hard.
Anyone have issues with the 360's headset that came with the console? Mine's all kinds of jacked up. When it's not plugged in, the 360 thinks it is. When it is plugged in, the console thinks its not, and I can't talk and it doesn't play voices through the tv or the headset. I don't want to buy a new one...dammit!
I'm about an hour into my second playthrough as an evil asshole and the one liners make me laugh. Did anyone else think the game was too short? It took me about 30 hours and thats with all teammates and their side quests. As far as I can tell I only missed 3 optional quests. I managed to finish without losing anyone and had my romance with Tali. Spoiler I'm so fucking pissed that I never got to see her face. What a fucking tease. They'd better show it in ME3
30 hours too short? I can beat most games this generation in 8-12. 30 hours is a fucking godsend. Edit: Not to mention you can beat the first one in about 6-8 if you play just the story missions. This game at least gives you some incentive* to do the sidequests. * Spoiler By loyalty helping to determine who lives and dies at the end.
I agree that 30 hours is a long game, but I still was left wanting more at the end, which I guess is just a sign that it's a good game. Spoiler And really, when you think about it, all the main story consists of is: go recruit these guys, do something, go recruit these next few guys, do all their loyalty quests, final mission. I think it would have felt longer if they had varied it a bit more. Well, that and once they're loyal you can select their loyalty power and use it for yourself. Some of their powers are pretty sweet, although a bunch of them are just various kinds of ammo, which I don't really care about.
Don't discount Warp Ammo. On higher difficulties it's pretty dang useful. As far as wanting more, I've beaten it twice and am playing it a third time as we speak. Renegade Vanguard on Normal, Paragon Sentinel on Veteran, and now a Renegade Female Soldier on Hardcore. Typing this out I am realizing I have spent approximately 53 hours playing this game since Tuesday night. Pathetic, but worth it. This game is easily in my top 5 of all time, possibly top 2.
Has anyone played MAG yet? I hadn't even heard of it until today but 256 players in one game in a COD-style playing field sounds intriguing, if done correctly.
Not sure if this is the right thread; sorry if it should be somewhere else. World of Warcraft rap video. I don't play WoW, but it's entertaining anyway. I assume if you're into WoW it's even better.