Anyone else really hyped for Mass Effect 2?

[MonsterHunterMaster]

I first play through DAO, then i probably might get it! :thumbsup:

[rebalious]

Im waiting for a friend to get it first.

Yeah I'm a cheapskate :thumbsup:

[LHammonds]

A family member bought the PC version yesterday and texted the following to me: (yes, they typed all this on a tiny phone)

 

Holy crap! mass effect 2 is awesome!!!

 

Yeah. pulled an all nighter last night. and you thought mass effect one was good? this is freakin sweet. they fixed all the flaws.

 

There is no traveling on terrain. you now harvest minerals with probes from orbit.

 

You scan the surface for mineral signatures, and launch a probe to harvest what you find.

 

You then use the ore to finance research and development.

 

You take a shuttle craft down to the site to hop into first person

 

The only thing is that they cut the inventory selections waaaay down. there is a lot fewer types of items to pick up.

 

I suppose that is to encourage you to research upgrades with the ore you mine.

My response?

rain on you!

... since he knew I didn't have my copy yet. hehehe.

 

LHammonds

[evilneko]

So you get to actually research your own upgrades instead of relying on loot huh? Interesting. No more bouncing around wildly in the Mako? Awesome. I hate that thing.

 

Drastically reduced items? Not cool.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

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.

[evilneko]

I had a pistol with a large magazine but low damage and another which stored only 24 shots total

Wait, so guns actually have limited ammo in ME2? Sure hope bullets are plentiful...

 

Miniature Giant Space Hamster

Stand and deliver! That my hamster might have a better look at you.

 

10. The "hacking" and "bypass" minigames are greatly improved, and much more immersive. Rather than playing Simon Says with a series of button presses

Hacking in ME1 on PC was a game of Frogger. ;)

Except for the ones (Citadel AI, Mining laser on Therum) that were probably SUPPOSED to be Simon, but didn't show you any pattern first. You just had to trial-and-error your way through it. Extremely tedious IMO.

[VictoriaG]

Bit more choice of casual outfits this time, still can't wear off ship though, I like this one the best:

 

http://www.kfgalleries.com/galleries/d/75808-1/MassEffect109.jpg

[WrathOfDeadguy]

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.

[WaLkAwaY]

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.

 

Wow! Awesome post!

 

Couple of things I was wondering... So it is a TPS basically I get that but you get to go into FPS how often? While scoped in are you still third person? It takes place almost entirely in space? How much romance is in the game? In a game like Oblivion where you are going for total immersion I can see it but in a TPS, FPS, even FO3 I really don't know why it needs to be included. Kind of like when I watch a action movie and there is a romance/sex scene I will skip over it and get back to the fighting.

 

Just a few questions, unfortunately for shooters I tend to not like third person and kind of shy away from it with other genre's as well but given the way you described it it might be worth it. I still have not even opened my DA: Origins yet though and the system requirements are kind of steep.

 

Just in case anyone is wondering:

PC MINIMUM System Requirements

OS = Windows XP SP3 / Windows Vista SP1 / Windows 7

Processor = 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent AMD CPU

Memory = 1 GB RAM for Windows XP / 2 GB RAM for Windows Vista and Windows 7

Hard Drive = 15 GB

DVD ROM = 1x Speed

Sound Card = DirectX 9.0c compatible

Direct X = DirectX 9.0c August 2008 (included)

Input = Keyboard / Mouse

Video Card = 256 MB (with Pixel Shader 3.0 support). Supported Chipsets: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or greater; ATI Radeon X1600 Pro or greater.

 

Please note that NVIDIA GeForce 7300, 8100, 8200, 8300, 8400, and 9300; ATI Radeon HD3200, and HD4350 are below minimum system requirements. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required. Intel and S3 video cards are not officially supported in Mass Effect 2.

 

PC RECOMMENDED System Requirements

Windows XP SP3 / Windows Vista SP1 / Windows 7

2.6+ GHz Cure 2 Duo Intel or equivalent AMD CPU

2 GB RAM

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, or better recommended

100% DirectX compatible sound card and drivers

DirectX August 2008

 

NOTES: For the best results, make sure you have the latest drivers for your video and audio cards. Laptop or mobile versions of the above supported video cards have not had extensive testing and may have driver or other performance issues. As such, they are not officially supported in Mass Effect 2. Intel and S3 video cards are not officially supported in Mass Effect 2

[WrathOfDeadguy]

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. ;)