WrathOfDeadguy
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Posts posted by WrathOfDeadguy
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Almost everything plays out in third person; only the scope on the sniper rifle will take you into first- all the rest of the weapons have an aiming mode as well, but the camera only draws in closer to your shoulder while using it. When exploring, the camera will be centered behind your character; when in combat it will shift to a right-hand over-the-shoulder perspective.
From my experience, the combat difficulty curve is much steeper in ME2 than it was in ME1. I was able to play ME1 on its second-highest setting without any trouble, but I have so far found ME2 combat frustrating when I turn it up above Normal. As long as you fight from cover, you shouldn't have too many headaches, but if you're not big into shooters it might be best to leave the game on Casual. There aren't any experience penalties that I am aware of for doing so; if there are they do not have much effect.
None of the romances really change the way the game plays out. You will not live or die based on who you decide to get kissy with; you can choose not to bother with any of them if you so desire- nothing else you do will be affected. However, if you romance a character, they will often tell you things about their past which you wouldn't find out any other way. It's a way to add depth to the characters (yours and theirs), not just a way to shoehorn in some alien sex. Sex scenes on network TV are raunchier than anything you'll see here. The emphasis IMHO is more on character development; the devs have hinted that there will be some kind of follow-up on the romance options (from both games) in ME3, including some kind of consequences if you went and fooled around on whoever you were with in ME1 (if anyone at all). It isn't like there are stat bonuses that can only be had through the power of love. ;)
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I alternate between the duty and dress uniforms, but I wish there were Alliance uniform alternate textures for them. I'd love to have Shepard running around her Cerberus ship kitted out in an Alliance officer's dress blues (like Anderson's outfit in the first game) just to thumb my nose at the powers that be.
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I have a few things to say about ME2, most of them good but some of them not. I'll start with the "not." This is going to be a very huge post.
1. I intensely dislike the new cover system. Aside from being obviously lifted from Gears of War, it is less fluid than the system used in ME1. In the first game, all you had to do to 'take cover' was run up against a corner, or crouch behind a low wall. That was all. Now you have to push a button to take cover, and if you press it for too long or at the wrong time (which is disturbingly easy in certain situations, since the sprint and cover functions are mapped to the same button), you might vault over your cover instead of ducking behind it. On my first playthrough, I died about a dozen times... and all but two of those deaths were because I had to sprint to cover and my character jumped right the hell over it into the line of fire. I like that there is a "jump over object" action, because that was something sorely missed in ME1, but this was not the right way to implement it.
2. Thermal clips. I do not have a problem with the way they affect gameplay; I actually rather like it. However, they are inconsistent with the universe lore, and since Mass Effect is a story-centric game universe I see that as a problem. If Bioware wanted to alter the feel of gunplay, there were other ways it could have been accomplished without breaking canon (limited-use coolant packs ala Mechwarrior would have suited the overheating mechanics from ME1 just fine, and would have added another layer of resource management).
3. Skill trees and weapon/armor mods. I do like the branching choice at the top of each skill, but I much prefer the older and more RPG-ish skill system for the depth of character customization it offered. Characters in ME2 have fewer skills, reducing their overall utility despite some of the handy new abilities that are there. Some of the new abilities are also deceptive- the ammo types, in particular, since they were not originally part of the skill tree. ME1 allowed for a huge variety of skills and abilities when the skill tree combined with the weapon and armor mods. The inventory system in ME1 was awkward, but it should have been refined- not done away with. I would classify ME1 and ME2 as games in the same series, but different genres- ME1 was an RPG with TPS combat; ME2 is a TPS with RPG dialogue and nonlinear mission selection.
4. A very minor gripe compared to the above, but the character import utility could do with a more comprehensive listing of player decisions. For example, it tells you which of your teammates lived and died but not which one you chose to romance. Also, given who you're working for in ME2, it might have been helpful to note whether or not the player had completed a *certain* set of sidequests in ME1... they didn't have much of an effect on gameplay, but from a role-playing perspective it would be nice to have a reminder of whether or not I should be holding a grudge.
5. Scanning needs to be faster, or the scanning reticule needs to be bigger. The minigame is a nice concept IMHO, but in its present form is tedious and seems an awful lot like a four-letter word starting with "w" that should never ever appear in a game. No further commend needed here.
6. The ship undocks and takes off every time you board it. I miss the more fluid mechanic of simply walking in and out the airlock.
7. The HUD is less informative than it used to be. Three health bars with shield indicators worked just fine; in ME2 I can't tell how much my teammates are hurting until they fall over and need to be revived.
Okay, those are my complaints. Now the Bioware-worship.
1. They said this game was "darker." They weren't kidding. Avoiding major spoilers, it's two years into the future... and almost nobody is having a happy life. There are exceptions from the ME1 cast; some of the old crew are doing very well for themselves, but by and large they got hard. There are a few standouts in this area; people who made some really, really hard choices and are paying the price for them. Liara in particular has undergone a major personality shift, and if you don't get a bit choked up when you find out why then you fail Emotion 101. Tali's story makes you want to reach out and hug her, Garrus took a level in badass, and I was cheering for Wrex... but I wanted to slap Kaiden. None of this felt forced- when I dug deeper to learn the hows and whys, everything clicked into place and made sense. Every recruitable character is like this, too- you will dislike a lot of them as people if you're a Paragon like me... when you first meet them. As their motivations become clear, you may have a serious change of heart. This is as it should be; Bioware has done wonderful things bringing these people to life. You can play your own character deeper, too- you can really get into it with your mysterious benefactor over a few key issues, and not just because of your potentially rocky mutual history. Folks will treat you differently based on how you behaved yourself in ME1, to the point of your love interest outright dumping your sorry behind after having the time between games to reflect. It is nice to see that people act like people in this world.
2. You change characters once, briefly, late in the game. This will probably be unpopular with some folks, but I found it to be completely awesome. No further comment; too spoileriffic.
3. The internal layout of the ship is much improved. It's not a huge thing, but your crew have actual bunks and bathrooms, and that does wonders for immersion in the game world. The little details make the experience real.
4. The different weapons actually behave differently. While I loved the customization options in ME1, every single gun of a given type behaved in exactly the same way as every other. One might have done more damage, but it did not fill a different battlefield role because of it. In ME2, each weapon of a given type behaves differently, so that it actually matters which gun you pick before a mission. My Infiltrator character wound up with three different sniper rifles, one of which was great against heavily armored targets but had an extremely low refire rate, one which fired quickly but did less damage per shot, and one which was a headshot machine against infantry but lacked effectiveness against larger nasties. I had a pistol with a large magazine but low damage and another which stored only 24 shots total but had nearly the same punch as a sniper rifle. I had a machine pistol which fired three round bursts and was effective up close only and another which fired in five round bursts and acted like a discount-rate assault rifle. Not one of the heavy weapons behaved like any other; my favorite was a precision beam weapon which did a lot of damage over time... at the other end of the spectrum there was what amounted to a BFG that did massive per-shot damage but granted only two shots even with all of the upgrades. ME1's guns were all just filler until the best weapon in the game came along; ME2's all remain valuable throughout (except the basic machine pistol, which is just shite regardless... but you get an ugrade).
5. Sidequests have more personality. Rather than bland patches of terrain that all share the same set of objects, ME2 features environments that look and feel... different. Many of the sidequests even have plot connections, if you look closely enough; I ran across one that gave me insider knowledge on the "big reveal" (one of them; there are several) before I got far enough along on the main quest to see it. Thorough exploration is definitely rewarded.
6. There are lots of shout-outs to other Bioware games and especially to ME1. None of these break the universe, mind you. So far, I've found a Miniature Giant Space Hamster (older gamers will get that one), another chance to punch a reporter, the return of Returns Guy, some hilarious targeted advertisements, a merchant who skewers gamer complaints mercilessly, and bunches of others.
7. More plot, more story, more people. There are almost twice as many recruitable squadmates, and every single one of them has a personal sidequest (beyond the one to acquire them) which will gain you their loyalty. Some of these will give plot insight, others will tug around your emotions, but all add depth to the characters and each and every one features its own set of cutscenes. These "personal sidequests" have a direct effect on the endgame; how loyal your team is to you can change the outcome of your last mission.
8. The feeling of plot invincibility is nearly completely demolished. Yes, anyone on your team can die. It is possible for everyone on your team, yourself included, to die. It is also possible to have everyone survive... but you really need to work at it, and if you put some things off for too long you might find that you've condemned someone you care about to their death without even knowing it. This all serves to create a feeling of tension in the final chapters- once you've learned all the variables, you'll be able to plan it out, but the first few times you will be anxious and uncertain about whether or not you can pull off the ending you want.
9. If there is still texture pop-in, I haven't noticed it yet. The graphics are much smoother than in ME1. There isn't much more in the way of detail; I didn't notice much difference between any given recurring character's face in ME2 and ME1, but overall I got the impression that Bioware did a lot of work behind the scenes to refine the visuals and make the game engine that much less fussy. That said, I got some *slight* stuttering during some of the more intense cutscenes, but I'm on a 360... a top-end PC will not have that problem at all.
10. The "hacking" and "bypass" minigames are greatly improved, and much more immersive. Rather than playing Simon Says with a series of button presses, you're either matching fragments of code or patching electronic nodes together in an elementary "memory" style game. Neither is particularly difficult, but they feel right and they're not tedious, so I call this a 200% improvement.
11. Holy crap. It seems that just about everyone I can talk to has something to say about everything that I do (or did). I got emails from NPCs related to sidequests back in ME1 (some weren't to happy with my current employers), responses to quests I completed in ME2... The ship's got a bubbly shrink on board who comments periodically on the mental state of your squadmates, which provides an interesting contrast with Joker's sarcastic ribbing. I noticed less banter between squadmates while exploring, but I had to break up a few fights when I got back to the ship after certain missions. Each character is not an island here; they won't just vent to you and then be cool; they will occasionally get in each others' faces to settle the score.
12. I would like to say, for the record, that my predictions about the Reapers' motivations were 100% dead on. I love being a writer; I see things like this coming a mile away and it doesn't even ruin the suspense. :whistling:
13. Research! I love research, even though it requires me to scan planets for materials. At least the fetching accomplishes something more than filling a quota in the journal tab. Research gets you new weapons and abilities, damage and recharge upgrades, and so forth. Not only can I improve my combat potential like this (while not a replacement for a real skill tree, it would have been great to combine this with one), I can also make plot-critical upgrades that will change the way the last section of the game plays out. More options are always better.
14. Sub-targeting. If you shoot a robot in the arm, you can blow the arm off. If you shoot out its spine, it might try to drag itself around with just its arms. Headshots actually do more damage this time out. There are real incentives for placing each shot with care as opposed to firing the very moment your crosshairs touch some part of the bad guy's body.
15. Useful class-specific abilities. Cloaking, Drones, etc. Some of the new biotic powers are quite impressive. It's a shame each class gets so few in total.
16. The mere fact that there are heavy weapons. ME1's grenades annoyed me; I only used them once in a blue moon because they were so awkward to deploy and damn near impossible to time properly. Replacing them with heavy weapons just made sense, and the variety of weaponry in that department is superior to the whole five grenade types you could use in ME1... all of which were used the same way, and one of which was only useful against a very specific and rarely encountered enemy type. I won't deny that I hardly touch some of the heavy weapons, especially the Cain (which I call the One-Shot Wonder), but each has a purpose and they are devastatingly effective when used properly.
17. Squad abilities. I'm specifically talking about ammo powers here- while I mourn the loss of weapon customization, I love being able to order my entire squad to switch to armor-piercing ammo with a single button press as opposed to switching out each individual weapon for each individual squadmate through the inventory screen. I do not think these should have been included in the skill tree; they should be acquirable squad-wide abilities... but the ammo powers are the first ones I maxed out, and they're also the ones I used most throughout the game.
18. Outfit customization. There are fewer armors to choose from, but you can mix and match pieces of your own armor. You can also choose which of four outfits you want your character to wear while running around the ship. Sadly, you can't do anything at all with your squadmates' armors, and each of them only gets a single alternate costume which amounts to a simple retexturing of their standard clothes/armor. I didn't notice most of the time, but there were missions where I declined to bring certain party members because they simply were not dressed for the environment. From a roleplaying perspective, to me, that lent an atmosphere of different characters having different specializations and simply not being suited for some missions... but that's just me. I would still have liked to be able to kit them all out in matching armors like in the first game, but- IMHO- being able to mix and match the pieces of your own armor make up for that. I do, however, wish that there were some options that looked like light armor, because everything I've found so far more closely resembled the first game's heavy armors... which my Infiltrator Shep couldn't even use! Still, minor concerns compared to a nice add-in.
19. Soundtrack? Even better than the original. It had a touch less "80s Spaceflick" and a touch more "Epic Adventure" and I rather like the result. I will definitely be acquiring the soundtrack when it comes out, especially for the track that plays at the start of the credits.
20. The codex carried over! I know, it's a little thing... but I was happy that I didn't have to hunt all over the back of beyond for all those entries again. I like being able to refer back to the first game's backstory and compare it to the second's. Every story-based game should have a codex. I spent a good couple of hours just paging through that (at the cost of some eye strain thanks to the tiny tiny text Bioware picked, displayed on my tiny tiny and very outdated CRT set). Good stuff.
Ooookay, I'm done for now. I think I'd give ME2 a 9.5 for story and an 8.0 for combat. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.
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Since the OP mentioned Starsiege, I feel obligated to put in a good word for "that other mechsim game." The original servers are long gone, but there is a community-hosted master server up and running. Not too many players around, but every so often a good size match gets going. The good part is that weapon/component use and map rotations are much less restricted than they were back when the game was active. The bad part is that the game isn't very active. Just enough activity to justify a few hundred megs for the installation, but not enough to play online on a regular basis (weekends see the most activity, from about 10PM EST onward).
Just in case there are any old players lurking around, copy-paste these lines into your master.cs file (C:\Dynamix\Starsiege\scripts), overwriting the original servers.
$Inet::Master1 = "IP:74.211.83.179:29000"; // eye's Master
$Inet::Master2 = "IP:64.230.86.49:29000"; //Dusters
$Inet::Master3 = "IP:192.168.0.168:29000";
IIRC, there are also community solutions for multiplayer in Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4, but sadly I don't know where to find any of them offhand. I gave up trying on MW4 when I found out it required port forwarding (which I can't do because I have a modem that won't allow it).
Just letting everyone know that, while the genre hasn't had any significant releases in a long time, there is still a following for the games we've already got. Also, this is worth checking out. I'd have linked their homepage, but it seems that they've gone over bandwidth limits again.
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I think the game also decreases the "value" of certain gifts if you give the same one more than once. I've had this happen with several jewelry gifts when given to Morrigan, and with gold/silver/whatever bars given to Zevran. Some gifts may give you a +10 on the first try, but when you happen upon a duplicate of the same gift later it will only get you +6 or something. Haven't been able to definitively confirm that.
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Yeah, after Morrigan told me to help myself to anything else I found I was expecting there to be a bit more there. It's hard to help myself to anything I find when the items that I find are only usable by Morrigan. Would a really, really nice staff have been too much to ask?
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Normal, now and always. Just difficult enough to keep me on my toes, not so hard that I partywipe if I don't min/max and plan every fight to a T. Reloading breaks immersion; immersion makes singleplayer games fun for me. Generally, if my whole party dies I'll give it one more try then just take a rest for a while. Tried hard for my second playthrough, but just didn't like it and went back to normal.
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It doesn't have to change the origin, but it is something that is noticeably missing from the game. Every other class besides mage can play more than one origin, and while that makes perfect sense in "civilized" society it is pretty obvious that Dalish mages are not subject to the Circle's whims... and they're pretty important figures within the tribes (both of the keepers in the game and their successors are mages). Why not allow players to go through the Dalish origin as a mage? It'd make all three classes available to that origin and none other, but it makes sense too. IMHO, this tops the list of things that should have been there but weren't.
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Worse than his presence is that he drops a junkmail quest in your journal if you so much as speak with him, and you can't be rid of it unless you buy and finish the DLC. Not funny. Seconded, thirded, and so on. I detest in-game advertising.
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A lot of why Morrigan starts off weak is because the Shapeshifter spec is so disturbingly underpowered. For all the hoopla about it being something rare and "powerful," actually using the talents even when upgraded turns you into a glorified Ranger pet and deprives the party of the shifted mage's more useful abilities. I gave Morrigan the full four points once, but never again unless the spec gets balanced.
If, however, you give her a proper setup, the only thing she's never good at is playing party healer because it takes too long to get the second spec... though it never hurts in the end; another group heal is another group heal. DPS buffs and debuffs IMHO are her best areas because she starts out with some of the prerequisites already. Combining the hexes with frost weapons (and fire as well, if you have another mage in the party) is a particularly good use of Morrigan's skills; lots of indirect damage without pulling any aggro at all.
I miss being able to level up new characters myself like in... oh, every other Bioware game. It's rather unfortunate that a character can be rendered useless before they see any screen time because they leveled before you met them. In that way, at least, Morrigan is a lot better off than others because she joins so early in the game. Fine if they start out with some abilities that suit their character, but supporting party members are supposed to be shaped around the PC's needs... not the other way around. Which is all the more reason to have the PC be the primary mage, because that's the only way you can ever really optimize the class for your needs (even though Wynne has a decent default setup, she winds up with an awful lot of wasted points if you get her late). There are enough warrior types to pick from that at least one always fits the situation, and both of the starting rogue specs are actually useful so there's no real loss with them.
But... yeah. Shapeshifting would be a whole lot nicer if it didn't fail quite so hard. Fine in mookfights, divide-by-zero bad against anything that can actually hurt you.
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Multiple mages with both Winter's Grasp and Stonefist make instagibbing mooks disturbingly easy... moreso with Cone of Cold, because then everyone can get in on the smashing. Hell, any type of mage who has the frost line of spells can lock down entire armies at a time while the rest of the gang goes to town for teatime.
I went for a DPS build, but later specced as a spirit healer. Result? I breezed right through fights that really gave me a run for my money when I played through as a rogue (though that was also my first playthrough and I was still learning...) and I've discovered that my maniacal laughter needs work. Here's my build so far:
Mage (elf female):
Primary role- Elemental DPS
Secondary specialization- Spirit Healer
Spells:
Arcane- Bolt, Shield, Staff Focus, Mastery
Spirit Healer- Group Heal, Revival
Primal-
Flame Blast, Flaming Weapons, Fireball, Inferno
Rock Armor, Stonefist
Winter's Grasp, Frost Weapons, Cone of Cold, Blizzard
Creation-
Heal
Spellwisp
Spirit-
Spell Shield, Dispel Magic
Mana Drain, Mana Cleanse, Spell Might, Mana Clash
Mind Blast
So, basically, I can CC the mooks, obliterate enemy mages and their spell effects, heal the party, revive fallen buddies, deal damage in a variety of interesting and painful flavors, buff party DPS with frost or fire, and generally cause as much havoc as inhumanly possible. The mage origin isn't my favorite, but mages definitely get the most options for how to go about fighting. And that's without having picked a second specialization yet. I was going to make my next character a warrior, but not after playing rogues and mages. I've found the warrior skill tree to be somewhat bland in comparison- taunt or disengage as necessary and the rest is picking the right target; most of that can be handled by the tactics queue. Mages in particular make the game easier, but they're so much more interesting to manage during battles. :)
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I've had a handful of CTDs, but I was multitasking when each one happened. I also ran into a bug that caused a few select cutscenes to play more than once, but they didn't go all infinite-loop on me or anything. I know there's a bug with bows and daggers doing less damage than they're meant to, but I beat the game once already with a dagger/bow rogue before I even learned about that so IMHO it's not a big problem at all.
The one problem that might be a pain in the you-know-what is DLC authentication; Bioware's servers won't always recognize that your downloads are valid, and might refuse to load any savegame with the "unauthorized" content (as you have to be logged into your Bioware account to use any of the official stuff). Restarting the game several times and logging in and out of your account a few times seems to make it go away, but that's a hassle and there's no hard fix yet. I've decided simply to not use any official DLC for the time being and I'd recommend that anyone else who got the preorder/bought new bonus items to do the same as it will save you headaches.
Other than that, I'm having a blast. I can honestly say this is the least buggy new release I've played in quite some time.
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For me, it was the Battle of Lord Drad's Estate. I walked into that mine expecting to find a pretty standard set of guards carrying a pretty standard set of weapons... only to find out that they were all using Ebony and Glass equipment while I was running around in Fur armor with my most powerful weapons, an Elven Shortsword and a Fine Iron Bow- and an Endurance that hadn't been increased since I left the sewer. I just about shat myself when my opening arrow didn't only not kill my first target, it alerted all of the guards to my presence and sent them thundering after me. I did the only sensible thing and beat feet out to the fields where I led them around for damn near 20 minutes using everything I had to kill them. This was with my old computer, too, so I couldn't even hit them half the time because having that much happening on screen at the same time made for some horrific lag even on minimum settings.
I ended up having used all of my arrows, all of the five or so potions I usually carry while exploring, and my sword was just about broken; all of my armor was. It took me three trips to sell all the loot because I had no feather spells and a pretty low strength since my focus was, as it always is, on speed and agility. That taught me to be a bit more careful when using lower-level equipment at higher levels to "stay in character." That's also about when I started making Alchemy a primary skill so I could poison my sneaky arrows.
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Most of my RPG characters follow the same basic template:
- Generous- doesn't seek the beggars out, but if one speaks to my character he/she will stop and give them gold.
- Moral- not always above breaking the rules (the rules are sometimes wrong), but always willing to accept the consequences if caught.
- Honorable- Never starts a fight without just cause, defends the weak, opposes the evil, etc...
- Good with ranged weaponry- bows, guns where applicable.
- Stealthy- going unnoticed is always an advantage. Avoiding a confrontation is the best way to resolve it.
- High abuse threshold- is willing to take quite a lot of crap before losing his/her temper.
- Kind- tends not to tell people what he/she really thinks of them unless they've truly crossed the line.
- Trustworthy- even if there are no consequences, he/she will tend to deliver the valuable package rather than pawn it.
My characters mostly think like I do, they just don't always act as I do. They've been known to show no mercy to bandits, marauders, highwaymen, or anyone else whose purpose is to harm the innocent, and will often go pretty far out of their way to be the living embodiment of terror for those sorts. In contrast, I'm a very exceptionally nonviolent person. "Just cause" gets interpreted rather loosely in game; even if they're not actively hurting people, having done so in the past is enough for a summary execution. As long as they're sure the deceased deserved to die, they won't lose sleep over ending the schmuck. The same goes for stealing; normal morality does not apply to dealing with corrupt bastards, callous bastards, and outright evildoers.
I use that as my excuse to stray down the "dark path" when I want to do the DB and TG questlines (and the Shivering Isles main quest, for that matter); many of the targets of those quests really deserve what they get. My PC "falls" to evil little by little until straight-up murder for hire becomes ok, finishes off the quests, then "breaks free" of the evil influence that took hold of them and typically does the pilgrimage/KotN quest as an act of redemption. Sometimes I spice things up by letting him/her contract vampirism while doing the Azura's Shrine quest and that starts it all off. I can't bring myself to just go evil out of hand though; there has to be a starting point or I can't get into the character. I can't empathize with someone who doesn't have a problem with doing evil things; if my characters "go bad" they agonize over every minute of it. ;)
I don't like playing perfect characters in any case; even if I don't let them go full-blown evil I'll have them do some morally gray things so they're more believable. They do polish up pretty shiny though- when I play games with good/evil sliders, I rarely ever finish a game without maxing out on the good side.
On the alignment grid, most of my characters fall under Chaotic Good; I usually come down more on the Lawful Good side of things.
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As an aspiring author, I don't really believe too much emphasis is placed on literature- literature is culture, culture is context, and context is necessary for understanding. I do, however, believe that not enough attention is paid to grammar. From the day I left elementary school to the day I graduated high school, I can't remember a single lesson that focused on word-craft instead of the interpretation of written works. I believe that I have a more than satisfactory grasp of how to use the English language, but most of that knowledge is self-taught. I learned grammar because I needed it to develop my craft and because I have a fascination with the power of words, not because anybody actually bothered to teach it to me.
I tend to blame our societal obsession with standardized testing for that deficiency, and many others as well. There simply isn't enough classroom time for all of the material that should be taught; teachers are required to devote too much of the year to test preparation, which contributes little to the learning experience and serves to undermine the average student's interest in learning anything at all of value.
Grammar, however, isn't the end of language instruction. Like it or not, there is no real "proper" way to use any language, let alone one as varied and dynamic as English is. What we know as Proper Grammar is merely the foundation of understanding the language- the mechanics of constructing a sentence so that it may be understood regardless of the meaning or even the spelling of a word. Each dialect has a slightly different manner of using the base language- the fundamental rules remain the same, but peripheral guidelines may or may not (i.e. double negatives, which are not considered proper grammar yet see common usage in certain dialects without compromising the ability of someone who does not use those same dialects to understand the speaker). That much, however, should be the focus of elective writing courses- the core curriculum should deal with the most basic, standard usage. An understanding of the adaptability of English grammar is really only necessary if one's focus is on creative writing, where dialogue calls for language as spoken since not everyone speaks using proper grammar.
All that said, the grammar I've seen in papers written by my peers, when asked to review each others' assignments for class, has more often than not been absolutely awful. This sort of awful, to be more specific: :wallbash:
:thumbsup:
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Actually, I just read a magazine article concerning Lincoln's involvement in selecting new weapons for the Army, and it included a few pictures of the actual gun the in-game Repeater was based off of- a Henry rifle presented to Lincoln by Winchester. The first few demo Henry rifles were, unfortunately, defective, so Lincoln pressed for the adoption of the Spencer instead after the famous shoot-off. The actual Henry rifle given to Lincoln looks almost identical to the gun in Fallout 3. It's pretty obvious that the in-game weapon was inspired by it, although the real rifle would not have been able to fire .44 Magnum as that particular cartridge didn't exist when it was made. The historical gun was chambered for a .44 caliber rimfire cartridge (whereas the later .44 Special and .44 Magnum chamberings are both centerfire). ;)
As far as functional weapons go, This one is the nearest thing I can find to a real-world analog to the Fallout 3 gun. It's got the same chambering as the in-game rifle, and was also inspired by the Lincoln rifle.
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I found MZ overall to be quite entertaining. The final battle was, for me, much better than any of the others up til now even though the enemies involved in it died pretty easily. I played through at level 30, so a bit of run-and-gun was just what the doctor ordered... and I think that MZ, even though it can be played at lower levels, was designed with higher levels in mind; characters which have a lot of different abilities and players who want to make use of them.
There's nothing wrong with that if it's done properly- and it was. The path is mostly linear, but you're not just forced into a series of fights and expected to simply duke it out. There's room for almost any type of play after you get your gear back, except for the few skills that are well and truly worthless on the alien ship (like lockpicking, for one; I think science might affect some things but there sure aren't any hackable computers). There are several opportunities to kill the aliens or distract them with other enemies, the entire ship is perfectly built for laying traps, there are more than enough alternate routes leading to the same destinations as to allow stealth play despite the cramped quarters... and so on.
The tactical depth is much greater than in any of the other expansions so far- which IMHO makes up for the lack of open-ended exploration. Yes, there's a lot more that could have been done, but I think Mothership Zeta provides a nice counterbalance to the utter lack of linear questing that came with Point Lookout (which was great for precisely that reason). Variety is the spice of life, and the more different environments and situations we get dropped into, the more replayability is added to the game as a whole. And, all things considered, the environments within the ship do vary a bit- about as much as you'd expect them to, given that it's all on the same ship. Cryo has a look and feel that is different from that of the robot factory, or the engineering section, or the labs... and that's enough for a short, linear experience like MZ. It doesn't feel thrown together, and it doesn't feel bland or uninteresting, so it succeeds where it was intended to.
That said, I was a bit let down by how few meet-and-greetable abductees there were. I was at least expecting, after finding out that several of the audio logs came from people I did meet, that I'd be finding more allies further along. Some of the people in the logs sounded really fun, too. More backstory would have been great, but how much were we really expecting from an expansion pack?
Also, MZ has more "traditional" Fallout humor in it than the rest of the expansions and the vanilla game put together. Planet-bursting death ray? Check. Anal probes? Strongly suggested. Cow (brahmin) abductions? There's a whole lab for 'em. Giant blue abduction beam? Check. Grabby claws to haul folks off for experimentation? Check. Hell, the succession of reactors that you destroy by turning off their cooling systems might just qualify as a running gag on the way pop culture is obsessed with "the reactor's going critical!" and other such cliches. Among other things. You don't even need to look very hard to see most of it.
If the entire game were like this, it'd be nothing less than an epic fail... but it's not. It's just an expansion- part of a greater whole. For the price, I'd say it's a great addition.
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One must wonder why they chose to make all of the MZ weapons dependent on a new ammo type instead of just having them use the same ammo as the Blaster and Firelance... especially since there are alien power cells for those two lying around the ship as well. Doing that for balance's sake doesn't make much sense in light of some of the other additions like alien epoxy and the AP-a-licious Atomic Pulverizer, which has to be the next most powerful thing behind the Blaster and Firelance... or the unique drone cannon, which beats the missile launcher nine ways from sunday without even trying for damage and abundance of ammo. I had well over 2k alien power modules when I beat the expansion.
Can anyone else confirm that the Disintegrator is more effective against robotic enemies than it is against organics? Playing on normal, it took two headshots to kill the armed drones, but the effect against aliens- even the weaker ones- was spectacularly underwhelming for the damage rating of the gun. The unique version, which I forgot the name of, seems to work the same way... but it's harder to tell as the damage output is so much greater. The uncertainty mainly comes from the fact that I got the last stand perk from Desmond in Point Lookout, and I'm honestly not sure how much was weapon effect and how much was my obscenely high crit rate thanks to 10 luck and a bajillion perks and buffs.
I'm also wondering what the point of the standard (non-unique) drone cannon is, aside from repairing the unique version. The projectile screws around so much in flight that it's virtually impossible to predict where it's going to land; I found it to be a complete waste of effort unless I was in a small room with a bunch of enemies, and even then it seemed more of a hazard to my own health than the enemy's. More than once I had the shot pull an almost-90-degree turn shortly after launch, smack into a nearby wall, and knock off half my HP (the drones themselves don't appear to have this problem). The unique cannon is the next best thing to Thor's freaking hammer, what with the abundance of alien power modules and raw firepower. Fat Man is great for blowing up entire city blocks' worth of enemies, but the unique drone cannon has much more potential as a general use giant-slayer without the self-immolating side effects of CQB with mini-nukes.
The Atomic Pulverizer is by far the best of the lot, though- the unique version of the new alien energy pistol. Not only does it draw from that same ridiculously large ammo pool, but it does almost 50 base damage and I had it knocking out 9 shots in VATS... which was more than enough to get at least one kill, trigger Grim Reaper's Sprint, and just keep on going until everything in the room was dead. Yeah, the Alien Blaster hurts like nothing else in the game and has a really low AP cost as well, but... damn. With all the alien power modules I picked up, I could kill the whole wasteland with the Pulverizer and still be ready to beat off an army. It's just that efficient.
Another point- I'm in love with Alien Epoxy. It's like a stimpak for my guns, and it nicely solves the problem of how to repair all of the game's unique weapons that don't have standard counterparts. However, I'd really like to see a similar item to use on armor. If a magic tube of goo can fix something as complicated as a Gauss Rifle, it ought to be able to patch up my goggles and trenchcoat too. Yeah, it could be a little bit gamebreaking, but I'm at level 30 right now and armor breaks really really quickly. Quickly enough that I have to either find a merchant to repair it or just spawncode a new one (which I really hate doing, as it breaks immersion), as there's no way I'll find a compatible armor before my current one becomes unusable- because that happens every other time I get into a major furball. Epoxy has solved the unique weapon problem, now I want something to keep my character from running around in her skivvies because her favorite outfit got shredded for the umpteenth time. I suppose it's time to hit up the mod section again...
On the other weapons and gear...
Much of the unique stuff in the expansion, at least the non-alien stuff, is tied to the prisoners you release from cryostasis. There are a few items, like General Chase's Overcoat (which was already spawnable) and the MPLX plasma pistol, but at least two weapons and three different armors are unique to the characters carrying them. Which is a shame, because one of those weapons is a scopeless .44 and the other is a katana... not to mention the samurai kit that goes with it. Spawncodes are there for a reason, I guess, because I'm just not heartless enough to whack my allies for their cool toys.
Healing items...
Alien food is vastly superior to human food because, unlike human food, it doesn't weigh anything at all. Which, in turn, makes hoarding it really easy, and makes it ideal for patching up minor battle damage in places where rest isn't possible and you wouldn't want to waste a stim.
Biogel, on the other hand, is iffy. The side-effects are somewhat random and can range from minor buffs to rather irritating debuffs. The human-adapted stuff is much more worth the tradeoff since it heals so much at once, up to twice as much as a stimpak. Since the medic guy converts the stuff for free, there's no reason not to just hoard all of your alien biogel and turn it into adapted biogel whenever you cross paths. If I really needed the ~20-30 HP you get from alien biogel, I'd just eat 4-6 of the completely harmless alien foods instead of risking a hit to one of my major stats.
Epoxy, as mentioned before, is a gift from the gods.
And other stuff...
I'm really somewhat disappointed that you can't pick up the alien clutter that's scattered around the ship. Sure, it's all useless junk (aside from the weightless crystals which are analogous to pre-war money in being effectively a secondary currency), but if you can pick up 95% of the loose crap in the wasteland why can't you take home some souvenirs from your otherworldly adventure? There are some pretty cool looking gizmos that would look nice on my shelf back in Megaton.
Damn, that's a long post. Sorry 'bout that. :D
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The patch seems to work fine, aside from the installation process crashing my computer.
Then again, it might just be something related to the last patch, because ever since applying that I can't close the game through the menu without causing a system lockup. I've been using the task manager to quit Fo3 for a month now- since I gave in to my weak-willed desires and finally got the DLC via Live.
Other than that, everything's just fine.
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Since this is a spoiler thread anyway, there's also a few in the "abandoned area" section that connects the foundry and the steelyard. Those were the last ones I found because I just didn't expect them to appear anywhere but the steelyard and the supply plant.
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When I boot Mass Effect, all it does is check for news.
That right there? That's more than it should be doing. I don't really care if it affects loading times or not, I care that it is checking every X amount of time to make sure that my legally purchased game is still legally purchased (hint: it is). I've ranted the whole rant entirely too many times to go any deeper than that. Suffice it to say that if it's a choice between the 360 version and having more DRM on my system, I'll throw in with the console crowd.
I am happy to hear that they're backing off a bit, though... perhaps the fallout from Spore really was a learning experience for EA. I'm quite excited about Dragon Age also. :)
*edit*
It seems that Shep isn't dead after all.
Other characters making appearances:
-Joker
-Pressley
- Possibly Liara (next to Shepard in a car)
- A screenshot shows Tali (or at least, a Quarian who is probably Tali).
...call 'em as you see 'em.
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Mass Effect being hands-down my favorite game on the 360, I'd have to say yes. I never got the PC version because of the insanely draconian DRM. ME made all my roommates hate me for hogging the TV two weeks straight. :)
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I've had a man run up to me and tell me he was gonna explode... both times it was in the Bethesda area. The first time, my explosives skill was low and he did exactly what one would expect. The second time it was over 90 and he still got blown into meaty little chunks- nearly taking me along with him, because I really wasn't expecting him to explode anyway.
I also managed, completely by accident, to get the Fire Ant Queen to kill Dr. Lesko for me- I followed him down to her chamber after completing the quest, but the Queen didn't appreciate my visit and Lesko got between her and me.
Finally, on my last visit to Minefield, Whatsisface the sniper blew himself up on one of his own mines and delivered his own corpse, via explodey-airmail, directly to me from halfway across the town.
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I hope the 360 sticks around for a while mostly because I own one- I'd very much like to see a few sequels before a next-gen XBox, especially for Mass Effect and Bioshock (i.e. sequels which, in their PC versions, would likely be saddled with DRM that I wouldn't want to allow within a mile radius of my computer).
If the new console had 100% backwards compatibility with the 360, including support for 360 controllers, then I'd consider it. I wouldn't buy the console if it didn't have those things. Controllers are f&%# expensive compared to those of yore, and I seriously doubt that they'll get any less expensive in the future; that alone would break the deal for me even if the new system worked with every single XBox and 360 title in existence just because of how much money I'd have to sink to buy a fresh set. Screeeew that.
Oh, and the new interface sucks DONKEY BALLS. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Clumsy, annoying to navigate, takes too long to load up, and I hate the whole "well, Nintendo did cutesy little avatars so we will too!" thing. Especially since you can't choose not to make one, and the customization options are sorely lacking. M$ got some failpoints for that "upgrade."
Anyone else really hyped for Mass Effect 2?
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