I intend that this be SPOILER RIDDEN



So hey! How is your Shepard faring in ME2? I am currently in the process of new game + and trying to fix the few things I didn't like about my first playthrough. First time I finished the last mission the only person who died was Jack. I am pretty sure this is because I pissed her off and she wasn't loyal to me (when she was fighting with Miranda I ended up siding with Miranda because my paragon wasn't high enough to make them both lay off and at that point I was still hoping I could lesbian sex up Miranda, which sadly you cannot. ;_; ) It is the only thing I can think of that would have caused her to die and no one else so this time I'm trying to make sure I can resolve that without pissing anyone off and keep everyone alive.

Also this time I am going to flirt it up all the way with Kelly. I messed that up early on in the game on the first playthrough.

I was thinking I would try to get all the upgrades on this playthrough as well but holy crap it's annoying doing that. I don't like the planet scanning minigame they introduced, it's boring as hell. They should have made it less necessary for upgrades by creating more opportunities to find elements during missions and maybe introducting some kind of system where you could buy elements with excess credits or even trade elements you have too much of for ones you want at a lesser rate. Right now I have more iridium than I could ever use and I need platinum for like every upgrade, it's really annoying... I don't relish the thought of scanning 20 planets for the amount of platinum it would take to do all this shit. >_>

BUT I love this game. I hope in ME3 they find the perfect balance between the two. Some things they changed were big improvements but there are some things I don't quite like. Also, the structure of the game feels a little too forced. Too much of the story is just "here is a list of people to recruit GO GET THEM." I like that ME1 introduced new characters as part of a steadily progressing storyline--it made the game feel longer, and the plot more intricate. The majority of the storytelling in ME2 is little substories about the characters, but just giving you a list of people to recruit and then having each of them have one loyalty mission feels like kind of a copout. The sidequest structure of ME1 was much better; I miss the more RPG-like feel of running around the citadel and finding shit.

Definitely don't miss spending an hour just navigating menus and equipping and unequipping shit. The upgrade system is a big improvement over having ten billion different items to equip on everyone.

My first playthrough with a Female Shepard, ended with Jacob and Mordin being killed and... (I don't know why I did this LOL) but I did the romance option with Garrus lol.

Mass Effect 2 is a improvement on the first, but as TK said, the scanning planets for minerals etc is tiresome.

Apparently if you don't upgrade the Normandy, you lose a squadmate per upgrade in the final dungeon. If that's the case, that explains how I lost Mordin then.

The upgrade system in ME2 is definitely better than in ME1, just getting a research project underway.

I'm now doing a second playthrough with various bonuses:

Import Bonuses
4000 experience points
50,000 Credits
10,000 Element Zero
10,000 Iridiumm
10,000 Palladium
10,000 Platinum
190 Paragon Points
15 Renegade Points
100,000 Bonus Credits for importing a rich Mass Effect 1 character

New Heavy Weapon
M-100 Grenade Launcher

Long Service Bonuses
+25% bonus Experience on all missions
Retain all heavy weapos from previous playthrough
200,000 Credits
50,000 Element Zero
50,000 Iridium
50,000 Palladium
50,000 Platinum

Downloaded Bonuses
(after forgetting the first time round >.<)
Blood Dragon Armor
Terminus Weapon and Armor
Collector's Weapon and Armor
Normandy Crash Site Game Add On
Zaeed - The Price of Revenge Add On

I'm going to try the romance option with Tali... or Miranda. No way in hell I'll romance a girl named 'Jack'. Almost as bad as nailing 'Ashley Williams' in ME1. I mean, Ashley Williams is the name of Bruce Campbell's character in the Evil Dead movies, so nailing a girl with his name doesn't appeal to me.

I've had it on PC for a while but I haven't been in the mood to play through it yet.

I've had it on PC for a while but I haven't been in the mood to play through it yet.

you totally should. it's great.

chewey i got bioshock 2 special edition instead

also got MVC 360 TE stick instead

also i will get weaboo japanese RPGs too instead

and also ordered plexi for TE with p4 weaboo art instead

Everybody don't play this game, buy a PS3 and play me in Blazblue instead or drive over to my house I have 10 sticks you can use one.

What Tali'Zorah nar Rayya really looks like behind her mask.

My copy hasn't arrived yet. I didn't like the first one at all, but after reading tones of reviews it sounds like they've really got their shit together with this one.

Well, I've only just started on my game(technically, anyway...I'm about to start recruiting my second batch of guys).

Agree about the planet scanning. That's part of the reason I'm working on it now, to get it out of the way(the fact that I will have several missions to do at the same time for more credits is bonus). Thank God I got the upgrade for the mineral scanner early...I wouldn't be able to stand watching the cursor crawl over the planet for the entire frickin' game. At least now it's walking.

Since I'm a Babylon 5 geek here, I couldn't have been the only one to notice that the Collector commanders look like the Shadows? Kinda creeped me out a bit at first.

Don't mind the thermal clip/ammo management system. I was pretty wasteful in the first game, and this forces me to be conservative...shoot, I actually use the sniper rifle at some points now!

Best thing about this game: PARAGON/RENEGADE INTERRUPTS! Loved every single one I've come across so far, but my two favorites have to be:
Paragon: when you tell off the C-Sec officer and volus who are harassing the quarian girl.
Renegade: a tie between when you deck the reporter or tell that batarian tech that he's 'working too hard'. Honorable mention to the quick takedown of the krogan bodyguards because they're 'too slow'.

Hah, I didn't know you could deck the reporter. The paragon dialogue option is pretty good too though.

Sniper rifles are awesome in this game! I never used them in ME1 too but for a lot of areas I used them more than any other gun in ME2. You can get a rapid fire one and that's where they become really deadly imo. Just stay so far back nothing can touch you can pick them off lightning fast.

I've used all the weapons I've found in this game at various points, which is more than I can say for ME1 where I pretty much just ran forward and fired the pistol. So yeah I agree they improved that area of things a lot.

There are two scenes which stick out as being rather humorous:

Shepard (to sick Krogan scout): "I said a bad ass, not some scout whining like a Quarian with a tummy-ache!"

Tali: "I'm standing right here!"

And when you're doing Thane's Loyalty quest, 'talking' to the scumbag in a holding cell in C-Sec. Can do the 'Good cop, Bad cop' routine lol. When the guy's lawyer comes barging in, he acts all big to Shepard and Thane... then Shepard tells the guy that "I'm a Spectre." The lawyer stops and says "Oh shit."

i am just going to spoiler everything

i just hit the dude in the holding cell in the face until he spilled the beans... also in that quest with mouse shepard stood on his neck for the renegade option, i was like, man too renegade. i didnt think it was awfully obvious he would do that but i realoded because i felt bad.

one of my favourite parts is where my shepard headbutted the krogan ambassador dude on tuchanka. :3 he was actually mostly paragon though. that was badass.

i took jacks side on the miranda vs jack stuff. mostly because i actually thought jack was right. ;3 and yeah, no neutral option as i wasnt paragon enough. but it was shit, i wasnt able to talk miranda back into being loyal until right before the suicide mission. and i had to spend like an hour (!) looking for eezo to mine, so that i could reset my shepards experience stuff so that i could give myself the level up thing that gives you +100% paragon/renegade instead of +70%, just so i could use the relevant conversation option.

interestingly i think the amount requires goes up with time. because i talked her back once, around 2 missions before that. but i accidentally reloaded an earlier save, didnt notice, and saved over my most current one at the time. at that point i didnt have a completely maxed out paragon stat, but i had to have a full paragon bar to talk her out of it the second time, weird.

still, it was actually one of my most "wow!" moments, when i took jacks side, shepard asking miranda "are we ok?" and miranda saying "not even close." (or something like that) it just felt... i dunno, quite immersive, like your decisions have real weight and affect your squad in a more tangible way. ;3

was pretty sad when i wasnt able to say "surprise!" to morinth during samaras quest. totally going to try to do that next playthrough.

ok proper plot spoilers


aside from plot structure (which i actually thought was a neat idea i like team building, "we need the blah blah specialist!" magnificent seven sorta junk, it just felt too forced in the game) was anybody a bit let down by the overall plot in me2? its mostly about characterisation and the fun of being shepard i guess, but i did find the plot of ME a bit more diverting. there were really only a handful of missions which even talked about the overall reaper plot in this game. all of the fleshing out the universe stuff was great. but they practically telegraphed the fact that reapers = mashed up people imo. i did do an ME playthrough the week before ME2 came out though, and had heard of the human kidnapping hijinks of the collectors from.. well everywhere, pre-ME2's release. but the "we are each a nation" stuff, the fact that they clean out the galaxy for no apparent reason, i had guessed that natural life was turned into reapers during that playthrough, and when they reiterated sovereigns nation line... well it just wasnt all that surprising. but that isnt too big a deal.

more than anything a bit more focus on the fate of the protheans (which did surprise me!) and on harbinger might have been nice. and some background, reaper mythos stuff. could have been 3/4 missions longer to do that, and it would have been much appreciated. but oh well, i expect the last installment will be pretty epic anyways, and they didnt give me very much to complain about except that i want more, so...

sad i didnt get to see more vorcha. they creeped me the fuck out.

suicide mission:

i used thane the first time for the biotic shield. totally retarded. it was actually an accident but i just shrugged and went with it. big mistake! jack got nabbed by the bugs. reloaded and used samara. you need to use dedicated people for all that stuff. samara gathers all her biotic strength and forced them back at the entrance to the door.

i used legion for the tech stuff, and garrus as the head of all fire teams. seemed to work well. but irritatingly mordin always dies on me when i am fighting the last boss. nobody tells me this in game, but if i select a certain dialgoue option shepard says "people died for us to get here!" despite the fact that he has no apparent way of knowing this. then i see mordin face down, dead in a certain cutscene part.

so apparently upgrades matter, and you should use the member who escorts the crew as an excuse to get rid of weaker members (mordin). also use your own team as a way of making sure weaker members are not in the team holding the collectors back (last boss is pretty easy anyways). and that everyone fighting is loyal and fairly well upgraded, and fairly strong in their own right. i never actually got to finish it with my whole team alive since i gave me2 to my friend for a bit but i cant wait to get it back. may replay ME as a renegade while im waiting, just so i can import and dick around... ;x

oh yeah. and i did tali. lead jack on for ages. but i changed my mind, now all she says to me is "fuck off". =[

I wasn't a big fan of this game, to be honest.

Don't get me wrong, it does have many, many improvements on the original. There is far more variety in maps, the game is much smoother to play with hardly any graphical glitches etc this time.

And yet, even though it plays better and the game world feels more truly real, it does this by grunging everything up and making it a lot less... majestic I suppose you would say.

It's an extremely trashy game basically. Not trashy as poorly made, trashy as in 'Testesterone fuelled action porn' etc. It's all explosions and macho swaggering now.

Which is fine, but it does make it seem a whole lot less significant in the long run. Just another action blockbuster.

No matter how much you try to play Shepard as a Paragon, the game still sees him/her cracking their knuckles to scare people, grinning at acts of violence etc with Paragon responses often only allowing you act a bit less aggressive than outright hostility.

The game is written for Renegade characters. The default character made all the Renegade choices in ME1, the explanations of why you don't just tell Cerberus to sod off are very weak and the game flat out retcons most of what Cerberus did in ME1 to make them work in their new 'Maquis' style incarnation.

This is confirmed by the Conrad Verner incident in the game, where he greets you as if you were a Renegade and threatened him in the first game, even if you didn't.

Or by the fact that you can instantly fly back to the Citadel, get reinstated as a spectre, yet when people say you USED to be in the Spectres, there is no option to correct them (it in fact never comes up again).

As an action game, it works well enough I guess. Don't do what I did though - do not play an Adept. It's utterly pointless, because the two powers you get at the start (Singularity and Warp) are so outrageously incredible, you'll never need anything else!

Seriously, I finished the game and only used my actual weapon on the Reaper Core and final boss! For everyone else, absolutely everyone else in the game, Singularity and Warp were more than adequate.

Ammo therefore, was a complete non issue for me. I never fired a shot!

It's an enjoyable enough slice of rough and tumble popcorn muching action. But the story is lightweight and forgettable, with only the loyalty missions having any real emotional punch to them.

There still isn't anything like decent interaction between squad members, also. It's just their attitude to you and yours to them. There are no set piece sequences where the other squad members can interact with each other (and very few snatches of dialogue in the field either).

I mean Garrus and Tali don't say anything to each other for the whole game! They have one in-field conversation in the Citadel about the lack of lifts, but that's it.

The doomy elegance of ME1's world and the coming Apocalypse that Saren and Sovereign were planning is utterly gone. It's just Gears of War 'kick ass and chew bubble gum' time in ME2.

Again, nothing wrong with that, if you like that sort of thing. I'm not against it either, but it's not what I was looking for here. Ultimately ME2 is about as good a sequel as Halo 2 was to Halo.

That is, it has a more expanded and believeable world, but that is ultimately less classy and more dumbed down for mass consumption.

Of course, ME2 had significant glitches and poor decisions with maps etc to correct, so it seems like more of a progression game-wise than Halo 2 was to Halo 1.

But essentially, they are the same thing. Actionised and machoed up sequels, good for popcorn consumption, but low on lasting significance.

aside from plot structure (which i actually thought was a neat idea i like team building, "we need the blah blah specialist!" magnificent seven sorta junk, it just felt too forced in the game) was anybody a bit let down by the overall plot in me2? its mostly about characterisation and the fun of being shepard i guess, but i did find the plot of ME a bit more diverting. there were really only a handful of missions which even talked about the overall reaper plot in this game. all of the fleshing out the universe stuff was great. but they practically telegraphed the fact that reapers = mashed up people imo. i did do an ME playthrough the week before ME2 came out though, and had heard of the human kidnapping hijinks of the collectors from.. well everywhere, pre-ME2's release. but the "we are each a nation" stuff, the fact that they clean out the galaxy for no apparent reason, i had guessed that natural life was turned into reapers during that playthrough, and when they reiterated sovereigns nation line... well it just wasnt all that surprising. but that isnt too big a deal.

more than anything a bit more focus on the fate of the protheans (which did surprise me!) and on harbinger might have been nice. and some background, reaper mythos stuff. could have been 3/4 missions longer to do that, and it would have been much appreciated. but oh well, i expect the last installment will be pretty epic anyways, and they didnt give me very much to complain about except that i want more, so...

I agree completely with this. I like squad building, but it was too much of the game. I think the problem for me was that it was predictable. So much time was taken up by "go here and recruit this person" that after doing it a couple times you quickly realized that there was going to be a cookie cutter formula for everyone where you do some mission to recruit them, and then at some point you talk to them on the ship and they tell you they need a favor of some kind. The first game had a much more fluid, lifelike storyline where there could be side quests relating to a specific member but it wasn't so ho-hum. For ME3 I'm really hoping they bring back the plot feel of the first game, where it's not so neatly cut up. And I also very much would have appreciated some more meat to the major plot elements.

Still I think it's pretty telling that we can write so much about what we thought was wrong and still have enjoyed the game a lot!


Vrykolas, I think you are exaggerating somewhat. I do think the game was dumbed down a bit too much (changes to item management and leveling, good; changes to mission structure, not so much) but honestly, the plot itself of ME1 was really not particularly compelling either if you ask me. It is very generic "action sci fi" stuff. The whole point of Mass Effect is the way you make the story your own, which I thought was executed on the same level as the first game. I completely disagree that you can't play a paragon character or that the game is predisposed to renegade. My character was very paragon and I don't recall any situations where I felt the game didn't work out that way. The knuckle cracking you're talking about, I do remember that but it was only in one place and you need to keep in mind that you're playing a soldier who guns people down in battle constantly. He/she can be super paragon but no matter how much you're not playing someone who believes violence is never a solution. This is actually the greatest strength of the role playing aspect of the Mass Effect series in my mind: the fact that you're given just the right amount of control, but Shepard is still Shepard before you got there. You're pointing him or her in a direction and then seeing what happens, not making every little choice. Since it would be impossible to make an RPG where you really do make every little choice, the games that try to give you so much freedom you'll feel like you are ultimately fall short every time. ME doesn't have that problem which is why I have so much fun making decisions in these games.

For the same reason, it never bothered me that I was going along with Cerberus. According to the game, that's what Shepard would do, and that's fine. My Shepard went to the Citadel first thing, thinking "I'll talk to Anderson and get the alliance on board, I don't need this illusive creep guy." She was seriously dismayed at how badly she'd been written off and that dismay made her willing to consider Cerberus's resources for the job that needed to be done. That was all the justification I needed.

The game doesn't shy away from the fact that Cerberus isn't really a good guy organization, and I was pleased at being able to tell the illusive man to shove it at the end. The choices in Mass Effect are all about ambiguity and choosing the lesser evil, which is what makes it such an intense series. The game gives you ample opportunity to declare that you do or do not trust them, but either way it's clear enough that you're doing it because there's a greater cause at stake.

(Vrykolas is preparing to cast Ultima...)

Hello there!

The story for this game simply does not work. This is going to be a very lengthy post, as I work out my aggression.

(5...4...3...2...1...)

Firstly, don't fall into Bioware's retcon trap. The fact that you're using their language of 'I don't know if I can trust Cerberus' says it all. It isn't a question of trust - it's the fact that Cerberus are an organisation that have sanctioned human testing and murder! It's a question of whether a character who considers themselves to be of sound morality would work for them, whatever the circumstances.

The game changes what Cerberus is to accomodate this new view of them. Bioware deliberately manipulate your conversations and interactions with Cerberus to make them seem less facist/evil, and with the Council to make you dislike and distrust them, undoing any headway you made with them and putting you right back on square one - because their story doesn't work otherwise.

People continuously lecture you on the dangers of Cerberus and how could you possibly be working with them etc. Characters give what Bioware think are clever little allegories to what is going on, that you could become accustomed to their methods etc. Legion is particularly rife with these, quoting SOverign to say:

'Use their (Cerberus') technologies and events will progress along the paths they desire.'

Yes, I'd already gathered that they were going for the 'Shepard may suffer a kind of Stockholm Syndrome etc during his time with Cerberus. Except that that only works if you have no say in the story - and the dialogue never allows to fully articulate that you despise Cerberus, that when Ashley says there were other ways, I was jumping up and down at the screen saying 'Yes! I know! I've been saying it for days, but the damn game won't let me say it!'

If you were really just working with Cerberus because you HAD to, you should be given the option to funnel info back to the Alliance as well. Cerberus need you, so they can't say anything and they know it. You should be able to keep Anderson etc fully apprised of what you're doing, if you choose that path.

And no matter what you say to individuals, the main storyline always sees Shepard revert to 'Fine with working with Cerberus' mode. There is no option when discussing what to do with Legion to say 'Whatever I decide to do, Cerberus isn't getting it!' You are given side missions by Cerberus command to go and find supplies and do public image good deeds for them... which I point blank refused to do, but which cost me buckets of EXP.

But why should I do their dirty work? Why would I strenghen their organisation like that, when I don't support them? And yet the game is seriously hobbling you for taking that principled stand, by making most of the N7 missions a no-go. Because they are either 'Do this for Cerberus and get X technology for us - even Prothean in one case, or neutral missions which net you e-mails thanking Cerberus for being so great and kind.

There is only one mission, one fiddling mission, where you are allowed to screw over Cerberus (Lost Operative). One out of 19 missions! And the rest of the time, I'm securing them new tech and funds? I think not...

Cerberus' Normandy is like one huge recruiting video. It's full of likeable geeks and 'good honest, salt of the earth, working class folk'. They talk of missing their families and how they'd be dead if Cerberus hadn't come along etc.

It has Kelly and EDI and those Engineers, all put there by Bioware specifically to make Cerberus seem friendly, energetic and enticing. Is Shepard supposed to be so stupid, that he can't see that Kelly's only role on that ship is to be sweet, loveable and totally not what you'd expect Cerberus to be like?

Does she SEEM like the kind of person who is suitable for this sort of high stress, high probability of danger and death, kind of mission? She's a plot device, used first to pacifiy the player into liking Cerberus and then to try and turn them against Cerberus at the end (because on the first playthrough, she'll likely die and her death will be frssh in your mind when TIM says you should keep the facility).

I'd lay you good odds that the default character in ME3 will have blown up the Collector base, and that Kelly Chambers will have died in the facility.

It is also completely against the view of Ceberus that Dr Chakwas says exists on the ship (that they lack spirit and character). -

This kind of disparity exists on the Citadel if you play as a Paragon. The news read outs and blurb at the start say that humanity are liked and respected. The reality at the Citadel is that they seem facist and feared.

And the Council... How Bioware do hate authority figures...

Even when you try your hardest to be polite, they just insult you and dismiss everything you say. This is despite ME1's Paragon ending having them state time after time that you saved them from the Reapers, not the Geth.

And they continue to say that after Shepard has left. Udina stands in front of them (and Anderson who is a witness to this!) and says 'The council stands ready to do its part, to track down the Reapers and drive them back into dark space'.

Now it makes sense for them to not acknowledge this in public. No arguement there. But for them to also dismiss it in private now. At the very least, Shepard should have been able to say 'You don't believe in the Reapers now - since when?!'

But the conversation is just right back to where we were at the start of ME1. The way both parties speak says that the Council does not and never has believed in the Reapers, and that Shepard knew this - which is just a complete rewrite of the Paragon ending.

And you can't hide behind the 'dead for two years, things have changed' defence, because it makes it clear that they were sending Shepard out to hunt Geth etc before the incident even happened.

So they chose to ignore the Paragon ending.

But the thing that is really galling is that you never get to make real choices. Why do you HAve to work for Cerberus - because Bioware says so.

You aren't allowed to contact the Alliance (as Ashley points out that you could have done), you aren't allowed to have a real conversation with the Council, to talk civily to them, instead of just saying 'Oh well if you're going to be like that...'

When they arrive at the Citadel, it should be as easy as saying 'These people are with Cerberus - impound this ship and arrest everyone on board'. Cerberus are on file as being responsible in Kahoku's death, the incident at the Colony of the Dead (you downloaded files to this effect!), as well as being implicated in a string of other crimes in ME1.

They have access to a classified ship design as well - easily enough to hold them. If nothing else, they have an illegal AI aboard!

And that's if I even bother to give a reason. Spectres can go anywhere and do anything, remember? All I've got to do is head down to the docking bay, get Bailey and say 'I'm a Spectre, I think that ship is a threat to Citadel space - impound it now.'

Once that's done, contact TIM and tell him the only way this mission is moving forward is to do it my way. Either he agrees and I take charge of a joint venture (basically just Spectre business as usual, keeping the Council's involvement out of the cuttings).

As EDI and TIM point out, he's sunk most of his resources into getting this far. If he wants to start from scratch, it'll take time. If wants to have any imput, then it's on my terms or the deal is off. That keeps deniability for the Council (which I appreciate they must have in the Terminus Systems), but leaves me free to make my own decisions on how to handle the situation (which is how the Spectres are supposed to operate anyway).

I.e if each Spectre really had to take direct orders from the Council before doing anything, it would always leave a trail straight to their door! It's prepostrous to say it would work that way. And don't imagine that because TIM gives you control of the ship etc, that you are doing things on anything but his terms, as it stands.

You are flying the Cerberus flag, you are cut off from the Alliance and forced to rely on his intel etc. That is something that Shepard could have avoided by just standing up to him. He needs you as much you need him (according to him, anyway). Being a Paragon doesn't mean you just let people walk all over you.

And if he refused to do things my way, then I certainly would have avenues of intelligence open to me, besides TIM.

Because do you honestly think there is no way for the Alliance to operate in the Terminus systems? It's utterly niave and extremely imporbable that they don't. If you have hostile/anarchic systems/states on your borders or in a theatre of interest to you, any sane government will deploy intelligence units to keep a constant watch.

How are Spectres supposed to guard against external threats to Citadel Space, if the Council never lets them go into foreign territory to conduct recon?! It's like saying to the CIA that they are only allowed to operate on American soil and expect them to keep you apprised of what is happening in the middle east!

Of course they would allow and would constantly be maintaining covert op teams and Spectres in the Terminus Systems. The whole idea that they don't allow their agents to go there for diplomatic reasons is utterly ridiculous - they are called covert for a reason! It's when you don't want the enemy to know they're there...

The simple fact is that they would have eyes and ears in the Terminus and you cannot say it's as easy as 'Only TIM can get the info we need'. If you don't even try other avenues, you're never going to know any different are you? Hell, I'd go to the damn Shadow Broker before I let Cerberus run the show.

And so what if TIM tries to say anything about us working together (if I did need his information at some various points)? So long as I'm not flying around in a Cerberus ship wearing Cerberus armour, who are people going to believe are acting in their best interests here? Will they believe me, the saviour of the Galaxy, or Cerberus, an organisation with a worse reputation than the Taleban?

People aren't stupid - they know the Spectres have to get their hands dirty to do the job. But it's quite another thing to show up wearing the uniform of such a feared and suspected organisation.

Not very Paragon? Not at all. My Shepard understands that people respect him and look up to and copy what he does. If he starts working for Cerberus, it'll be disastrous. He'll be the public face of Cerberus, giving them free publicity for every action he takes. And if it gets out into the general public that Humanity's hero is now with Cerberus...

There's no way I'd let that happen. I'd have the Normandy crew questioned and approach them to aid me in a more independant Spectre way. Jacob at least wouldn't care, so long as the job gets done, ditto with Joker, Kelly and the engineers. The Alliance is already sending out covert operatives into the Terminus (Ashely on Horizon for example), so we've got intelligence options.

The human ambassador (either Udina or particularly Anderson) is not going to stick up for Cerberus' rights if I do this. And my status as a Spectre and general goodwill towards me, would ensure I'd get ample time to win over a few hearts and minds on my crew (who are largely ignorant of what Cerberus is really like - but that would soon change).

And some have suggested that this would take too much time. What - more time than criss-crossing the Terminus systems, building your team? That takes months even at a conservative estimate and would be completely avoided if you got the Council and Alliance on side.

Which would be possible if your Shepard wasn't forced to be so stupid and just howl at the Council and ignore her old Alliance contacts. And if Bioware hadn't retconned everything in sight to make it work.

The Citadel looks and feels much more fascist now. Which fits in with the Renegade playthrough, as humans crack down on aliens. But it doesn't fit the Paragon ending Citadel.

The Council and Anderson refuse to help you because they a) don't believe in the Reapers, b) won't go into the Terminus systems and c) don't trust you because you're working with Cerberus.

Well, c) is a self fulfilling prophecy. You weren't allowed to contact the Citadel or Alliance before joining Cerberus, and aren't allowed to make any kind of case that you would rather not have to.

It should be as easy as saying 'Right, you want to play it that way, do you? Anderson, let's go see Miss Al-Jilani and give her an exclusive from the recently returned Shepard. Let's tell everyone how the Council is covering up the Reaper threat and hell, let's throw an endorsement to Cerberus whilst we're at it.'

They'd soon stop messing you around. You carry HUGE influence with the public, because you saved the Citadel. Anderson is a highly credible figure to back up your claims and the fact you are appearing on Miss Al--JIlani's show, when you have such a stormy history with her, would lend further credibility.

And it isn't like you aren't giving free publicity to Cerberus by doing what you're doing anyway. Shepard is flying around in the same ship that saved the galaxy, righting wrongs in Cerberus colours.

The Council would be utter fools to allow that to go on when they have a means to stop it (by working with Shepard and not just dismissing the Reapers, when they have said themselves that they believe in them).

And to make the argument that they just ARE fools, is itself a ridiculous statement. If they'd listened to Shepard in ME1, they'd have sent part of their fleet to Ilos - and been absolutely creamed when Soverign and his fleet showed up at the Citadel.

They're not as stupid as people make out - SHepard wasn't the one who recommended putting a fleet around the Citadel. But the Council's reasoning was sound. Whatever Saren's plan was, it did involve destablising the Galactic Community - which meant he was going to have to attack the Citadel, which he did.

Shepard has no compelling reason to go along with TIM. He claims the Collectors are working with the Reapers, yet he provides no evidence at all that this is the case. And whilst the loss of colonies is terrible, various people make the point that this sort of thing does happen, due to slavers etc.

I'm not saying that Shepard would believe it WAS slavers etc - the Collectors connection is made right away.

My point is that there is no evidence that it is anything to do with the Reapers, nor is the simple fact that lives are at stake enough to make him/her disregard all the other options and say 'You're right - I MUST help Cerberus right now, no time to waste!'

And what about the Reaper ship? TIM tells you about a Reaper sitting inert in Hawking Eta - which isn't in the Terminus systems (you go there in ME1 - it's in the Traverse).

The council has no problem sending agents to places like this. They wouldn't help you before, because they didn't believe in the Reapers...

Is Shepard's thinking supposed to be 'Hmm, I don't know - perhaps we should wait for the next inert Reaper we find in neutral space?'

Of course not! There is simply no reason why a Paragon Shepard who is feeling compelled to work with Cerberus, wouldn't seize on this opportunity. Contact Anderson, the Council, go there and drag them onto your ship if need be!

Proof sitting right there, an intact Reaper filled with data and evidence just sitting there in neutral space, waiting for them. And you do nothing! You can't contact them, can't tell them, can't tell Ashley, the Alliance, the Council, nobody!

Lack of time to call them is no defence either. The game offers you the chance to either go straight there or continue building up your team. You have ample time to zip back to the Citadel (or at least call them). So why don't you, if you're a Paragon and/or still consider yourself to not be Cerberus?

And I had made it clear to them that I still wanted to be a Spectre (and had been reinstated) and Anderson had said he supported me. So why couldn't I tell them and tell this chance to shake off Cerberus for good?

Because TIM claims not to give you orders. But he does! You say 'Let's contact the Allaince' when you reach Horizeon and he says 'No, I want my team in there first'.

Well that's nice isn't it? But I don't take orders from you, so sod off whilst I send my message...

An example of something I wasn't allowed to say. Instead, Shepard simply clicks his heels and says 'Aye aye Sir, three bags full, do you want milk with that?'

Or perhaps we could talk about the attack at the start, where the Collectors' genius plan is to show up, destroy the ship and then NOT check if there were any survivors, or even if they managed to kill their primary target!

Because they somehow manage to miss the escape pods, don't think it's worth rounding up or destroying them (despite the fact they are busily gathering up every human they can find). They don't even bother to nab Shepard's body (they convert every other dead body either to husks or into Collector style minions).

Their trap later on, is foiled by EDI hacking their systems. What a smart AI she is. Particularly since the Geth who a race of AIs can't do this, and neither can Soverign, who is a 50,000 year old AI, with millions of distinct programs!

If even a tenth of Soverign's programs could do what EDI did, the battle of the Citadel would have been over in about 10 seconds! Especially since it showed up with a fleet of Geth ships, who also apparently can't do that!

And great plan by TIM. Shepard and the Normandy were taken by surprise by the Collectors before - and died. This time, Shepard will likely be in the ship when the trap is sprung, so the Normandy will have even less chance for an escape.

And he considers this a safe bet, does he?

Or how about when they attack the Normandy later on? They only failed before because of EDI. So do they send someone to the AI core to destroy her or even just to the cockpit to disable her landline?

No, they apparently think that it must have been a fluke and ignore EDI completely. And then she beats them - again.

Enemies this stupid deserve to be beaten.

The whole story was a complete mess of retcon and both Good guys and Bad guys being stupid at convenient times. It relied on Cerberus having the most incredible 'Wand of Knowing Everything and Having Better Equipment than Everyone Else'.

'We got trashed the first time by that Collector Ship, but this time, we'll just rephase the induction coils around the Tacyon stream and we'll be the win...'

How about the fact that TIM's master plan is to use the Normandy in the first place? A ship whose only benefit (besides EDI, who could be put on any ship), was the Stealth Systems - which they know for a fact, the Collectors can see through.

So not use a heavier ship then?! It's not like you need a Stealth System to go about in the Terminus Systems - you just need to not mark your ship with Alliance designations! Any ship would do.

So instead of messing around with a ship that has proven itself not to be up to the task, why not spend the money on some kind of Dreadnought instead? Or go the other way and make it a cheaper ship, that is equipped with the latest weapons to compensate?

And Ashley survives on Horizon, despite being paralysed in the middle of the swarm! And then because she survives, the Alliance now KNOW that something very serious IS going on, not just raiders or slavers etc. And unless Ashley is being particularly dense, she'll make the connection to the Reapers, like everyone else present has when they see the Husks.

And yet you STILL can't get them on side, because the game again does not allow to put up any kind of defence or mount any kind of concerted attempt to persuade her. Shepard can convince everyone he meets to do things his way, in any sitauation from prenatal child care to performing defence counsel duties in an alien courtroom!

But when it comes to main plot characters, the Council and TIM, he becomes utterly ineffective. He shouts and bellows at the Council, makes the most ridiculously half hearted objections to TIM and is utterly trapped in the web of railroaded 'decisions' he's had to make when defending himself against Ashley, Tali, Garrus, Anderson etc over Cerberus.

The game makes no sense at all. And that's when it isn't retconning and prettying up the past.

Cerberus murdered Kohaku and his men in cold blood. They turned whole colonies of HUMANS into husks to see the effects (the researcher even admits this, as she tries to bribe you to let her go!), they kidnapped biotic children and made them fight each other, as well as torturing them, they injected acid blood into prisoners to see what would happen...

Shepard KNOWS this. And yet he can't call them on the swines that they are. The language are forced to use is 'I can't trust you - you're terrorists...'

I'm sorry, but that's a completely different argument. Miranda's defence of the tests skims over the worst cases and she just flat out lies about the Colony of the Dead incident.

There is absolutely no chance on this earth that if you're playing Shepard as a Good man, a man of principles with the strength to stand up for those principles, that you would ever throw in with people like this.

There are so many ways in which you could find alternative means to pursue this mission, but you aren't allowed to.

And I'm not stupid, okay? I know that Shepard having to work for Cerberus is a decent angle to take in this game. But this is an INTERACTIVE experience. If you going to convince me that this is the only way to do this, you have to do it properly.

Not just take the 24 approach and hope that by having people tell you it's the only way and not discussing the alternatives, that you won't think of them and wonder why you couldn't do this or that.

In a film, you frequently think 'Why are the heroes being so stupid - why don't they do this?'

And in a film, you have no say. But in a game like this, you are supposed to. And they failed spectacularly in this regard.

I freely admit that my views on morality in games in not shared by everyone. That's only right.

But wanting to play my Shepard as someone who actually does care about the galactic community as a whole, who takes his role as Spectre seriously and absolutely despises the practices of slavers, torturers and experimenters etc, is not a big ask, is it?

It's not something that Bioware couldn't have foreseen I'd want to play as, surely?

I don't care what the reasons were - Cerberus are a vile organisation, and not at least being able to tell people this, was just frustrating to the point of sheer insanity.

People like Kelly Chambers don't seem to have any idea what Cerberus are really like. And yet you can't tell her, can't get Garrus and Tali up to confirm it. You can't show her pictures of Kohaoku with his wife and kids and tell her what they did.

Do you think she'd be quite so fine with Cerberus after you told her what they did? You can't say this to Miranda either, when she's defending Cerberus.

Hell, you can't even say anything, ANYTHING AT ALL about what they did to Jack! You get back to the ship and the most you can say to Miranda is 'You're acting unprofessionally - concentrate on the mission?!!!'

THAT'S IT?!!! That's all my full Paragon bar Shepard has to say on the subject? But wait, it gets better. You can then go to Miranda and use a Paragon persuade to say that you were pretending to side with Jack and are fine with Miranda and Cerberus after all.

Bah, I say. Double and thrice Bah!

Give us real choices in how we play our characters and how they think, or stop pretending that this game does anything of the kind.

About the only consolation is that ME3 is unlikely to feature TIM very much. Looking around on the net, he is not highly regarded. Primarily because:

1) Paragons disliked having to take orders from someone as evil as him.

and

2) Renegades disliked having to take any orders, full stop.

I should have thought it immensely unlikely that he will play as large a role in 3. In fact, he'll probably be killed at the start...

Wow dude. I read less than half of that and I thought "this has to be almost done..." You're really upset about this game.

I've played neither Mass Effect games, but what you've described sounds analogous to what was done in an earlier Bioware game: Baldur's Gate II.

Early in that game, you are forced to choose the lesser of two evils when seeking information regarding the whereabouts of the villain, Jon Irenicus. The two evils are an opportunistic, violent thieves' guild and a vicious vampire clan. I don't recall any opportunity to forge a 'good' path by somehow killing/disbanding both organizations; you are forced into choosing one or the other. The game had you lean towards the thieves if you were good, but both choices were arguably bad.

Also in the game, you are forced to ally yourself with homicidal insane people to fight Irenicus (the game autokills you if you confront him with none of them). Sometimes, Bioware creating irrational scenarios.

Now I haven't played the mass effect games, but what you mentioned regarding the Council and Cerberus sounds like a somewhat similar scenario. Perhaps it helps the discussion to bring forth this reminder that Bioware has been known to force the main character down paths that aren't necessarily the most rational or without considering other sensible options.

The main difference between the BG2 scenario you're describing and ME2 is that in ME2 you have to work with Cerberus, there are no other options. You are right though that they're deliberately backing you into a corner.

@Vrykolas

I've read your post, and while I may agree/disagree with some of your points, I have only this to say:

It's obvious from your post you didn't like Mass Effect 2. That's fine as not every game will appeal to everyone. If you don't like it, then don't play it. Simple.

Also, remember that in trilogies, the second part is tended to be looked upon disdainfully (The only two exceptions to that, imo, are Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Aliens, but they are two other different forms of media) by some, while others may love it.

Case in point, Halo 2. Personally I enjoyed it more than the first and definitely more than Halo 3. That's just down to personal opinion though.

Personally, I rather enjoyed Mass Effect 2 quite a bit, and it has made me play Mass Effect again, to play both right after the other.

If you don't like it that's fine, but there are others who do like it.

I'm pretty sure Shephard sticks with Cerberus because he realizes the Reapers as a threat, and the new council has decided they don't exist... I mean I doubt he could just get a new ship and wrangle up his old buddies and send those Reapers packing.

You have to take the story with a bit of salt, the brought him back from the dead that's gonna come with a tad bit of loyalty. I think they force you to work with Cerberus because for something they are planning with ME3. The Illusive Man remains elusive even at the end of the game.

You really aren't told much about anything throughout the game. All you learn is that the Collectors are evolved Protheans then you are told GET EM! This game's story was watered down, I'd say that this game was more like a segway.

As far as he game I liked it a lot, they dealt with my biggest gripe with ME1 the combat system my god the aiming was absurd. The sniper rifle was useless unless until you upgraded your effectiveness. I don't understand how you can be commander when you're a shitty soldier. but the new sniper rifle and crosshair aiming was what the game needed.

The customization... fuckin sucks, simply put. They made that boring mining planets shit too mandatory. The research lab was a great idea, but they depersonalized the entire weapon and armor system. You used to be able to build your guns the way you want, recoil dampers, extended rails, larger bullets, hollow points, exploding rounds, radiation rounds etc.. I agree doing this in the heat of battle is cheap but my god you stripped the personality from the combat.

I didn't care for the thermal clips either, i really prefer the heat based weapons, made the weapons seem more futuristic imo.

The skills omg, they took away sooo many skills and then halved the max level wtf! The game is supposed to get bigger and or better, they watered it down. I don't see how they put the game on 2 disks and managed to shrink the gameplay. If they thought I bought ME2 for the fuckin ginormous empty universe so I could continuously scan planet after planet EA and Bioware are fuggin nuts.

The planet scanning is so boring I can't even bother to do it anymore.

The armor system is a joke, I didn't change my armor once.

Don't get me wrong the game is great and I'm really lookin forward to ME3 but Bioware needs to gear more back towards ME1, personalized weapons and armor, and a bunch of skills that's why I liked Mass Effect.

Hey there, guys.

My point is that TK's assertion that there are no other options is simply wrong.

And I'm not attacking you TK, because you're simply following the trend that Bioware want you to believe by carefully retconning and manipulating the language you are allowed to use.

TV and film do this all the time. They present you with a premise and by not even mentioning alternatives and having characters we trust continiously tell us that there is no other way, they try to get us to believe it.

There were plenty of other ways to play this (as NPCs continuously tell you!), but the game doesn't allow you to explore those options. It just pulls the 24 Jack Bauer 'We are out of time here! Tell me where the microchip/files/magic terrorist box is!'

Again, I'm not saying you actually should be able to pursue the alternatives (the game can only stretch to accomodate so many different approaches after all). I do think having to work with Cerberus in some capacity should be the end product, as I said earlier.

I just wish they wouldn't insult our intelligence by pulling this kind of railroaded nonsense on us. The way they just have the Council revert right back to how they were in ME1 before the attack is just the laziest, most ridiculous writing.

All made possible by Shepard's earlier foolishness in ME1 of course. The Council tell him how many times that he needs to COLLECT EVIDENCE. And does he?

No, he just assumes that next time, they'll accept his word for sure. Despite the fact that his whole case against Saren is that you can't trust his word just because he's a Spectre... hmm.

So does dear old Shep take to recording important conversations like that with Benezia, that green Asari in the Thorian, with Sovereign on Virmire and particularly with Vigil on Ilos?

No he doesn't, despite the fact that it would take 2 taps on the Omni Tool to do so! And you would have thought that Liara at least would want to record what Vigil says - it's the proof she's been searching for all her life!!!

The first time I saw the Paragon ending in ME1, I was thinking 'Record this, you moron! They're admitting the Reapers exist!!!'

Even the squad captain on Eden Prime managed to work out that taking pictures of important threats is a good idea. He gives you a nice clear picture of the Geth attack and Soverign bearing down on them.

And yet Shepard never cottons on to try something like this himself...

As for the 'But they resurrected you - you'd be loyal to them', that's not how I see it at all. My Shepard HATES people like Cerberus who prey on the vulnerable and torture, exploit people. He wouldn't let them use him as a figurehead to say their experiments were justified, because he simply does not think they ever are.

There's also the thorny point that my Shepard told Ashley (truthfully) in ME1 that he believes in God. The apparent lack of an afterlife... Got over that one quick, didn't I? And Mordin muses about wanting to believe in an afterlife in his Loyalty mission and doesn't think to ask Shepard about it?

The whole 'Dead for 2 years' thing was just silly. It's never mentioned except in jokes, outside of the very start and the very end. Nobody is interested in it or thinks it strange (even Ashley, who also believes in God!) And Cerberus can not only resurrect people, they can repair brain damage, restore memories, specific biotic talents and the Prothean Ciper?!

They really have that kind of knowledge about genetics?! I mean, that's not running before you can walk, that's building colonies in outer space and different dimensions before you can walk!

And in answer to Death's Head:
Hello there!

I didn't actually hate this game. I just wanted to have my say on certain aspects. It isn't like the game is wanting for good publicity, is it? The critics are all in orgasmic ectasy over it, but there are severe issues that I personally have with it.

And this is a public forum, for the airing of ideas etc. This thread isn't entitled 'Let's have a thread where we all agree how amazingly perfect Mass Effect 2 is'.

But I did say that the game has many huge improvement and it does. As an actual game, it plays a hell of a lot smoother. The loss of the RPG elements is unfortunate, but it fits the new actioned up feel of the game, so I wasn't actually too bothered with that.

The mining also... is a pain, yes. But then again, I don't really mind about these things either. My approach is that boring or not, it has to be done if you want the good upgrades. So I chose to adopt Miranda's approach:

'We have an assignment. We can talk about it or we can do it.'

Because the mining is outside of the main quests, I didn't find it so obtrusive. I just made time, made my peace with doing it and got on with it. I was actualy more irritated with the Hacking and Bypassing, because they did break up the quests, in a very tiresome way.

And sequels don't always have to be bad. Empire strikes Back and Aliens are excellent examples as you say. Godfather part 2 is another.

I too also enjoyed Halo 2 much, much more than Halo 3.

And I'm not going to keep banging on about this, because as I say, I don't hate the game. I'm just saying I don't think it's anywhere close to being as perfect as some seem to think it is.

Oh, and how much do you want to bet that it'll turn out that it wasn't Cerberus who resurrected Shepard? I'm telling you now, it'll turn out that the project should have failed (Wilson sabotaged it or something) and that... somehow... Shepard was still revived.

By God... wooo...

I'm telling you, they are going to pull the God card in ME3. These kinds of stories always do.

I request that Shepard be called she from now on since if you play as male-shep, you're playing the game wrong.

I do play as Female Shepard actually. I just can't be bothered putting he/she every time! For no better reason than I agree it just seems to work much better with a female main character.

The female shepard seems to have much better chemistry with lots of the NPCs. Even if you're not going down the lesbian route (no innuendos or puns intended), there is sexual tension to play off between her and Nihulus (and even Saren) in the main story, Anderson seems like much more of a father figure etc.

It's also a big bonus that her voice actor is awesome.

Not a fan of male shep's voice actor. Not a fan.

I do play as Female Shepard actually. I just can't be bothered putting he/she every time! For no better reason than I agree it just seems to work much better with a female main character.

The female shepard seems to have much better chemistry with lots of the NPCs. Even if you're not going down the lesbian route (no innuendos or puns intended), there is sexual tension to play off between her and Nihulus (and even Saren) in the main story, Anderson seems like much more of a father figure etc.

Wait, there is sexual tension between female Shepard and Seren? What are you smoking, dude? I think perhaps you are suffering from a tendency to read into things too much and see entities which do not exist.

Overall I agree with the idea that female Shepard is the best. And also, why wouldn't you go down the lesbian route. The male love interests all suck. Alenko was always a bitch.

ME2 didn't have any good love interests except Miranda and Kelly either, and Kelly barely counts. They totally should have made that a real option. =(



YOU CAN'T EVEN

Yes, I think Jennifer Hale certainly does get into the spirit of things. There is great affection in her voice for Tali when she says 'Come on Tali Zora Vas Normandy!' for example.

I also wanted to just clear up that I'm not saying that anyone who didn't have a problem with the railroading is stupid or ignorant or anything like that.

It's just a question of whether something really matters to you or not. If you aren't someone who was a great fan of the Council anyway, didn't play their Spectre to be particularly interested in the wider Galactic Community or simply weren't playing someone whose morals were so outraged by Cerberus etc etc, then it won't have seemed like a big deal.

My point was that just that surely it can't be that rare to play a (generally) Good and principled character.

I mean, the definition of Paragon in the rulebook is 'Generally are Good people and when faced with the choice of the quick solution or the morally right solution, will choose the latter, even if it means the task becomes much harder.'

I just wanted a chance to play like that, not just accept that I have to go along with Cerberus on their terms, fly their colours, take their blood money, do their bidding etc (which again, you are doing, despite what TIM may try and reassure you).

Anyway, enough of that...

Outside of the main Collectors and Cerberus sections, there is still plenty for a Paragon player to enjoy. The loyalty missions particularly give you much greater range to actually act like a proper Paragon (or Renegade in that's your bag).

Mordin has an excellent loyalty mission for example. Probably my favourite of the lot. The section where he prays over the dead Krogan is devastating.

Jacob and Samara's both have their moments, but are a bit wobbly in general.

(Jacob's mission is pretty far fetched, but the ending with his father is good, whereas Samara's starts excellently with the incredibly moving video diary of the dead girl, but falls apart utterly when Morinth appears with her ultra-cheesy 'I just love the exquisite ectasy of being dark and EEEEVIL' dialogue).

Garrus' is pretty good, except that his plan at the end is very silly. Sniper rifle him down in the middle of the street... that's your plan?! And why does he need Shepard to talk to him, if not to draw him away from said crowd? All that does is implicate Shepard!

Legion and Grunt have pretty dull missions, but you can't win them all.

Miranda and Thane's missions are okayish, but they're such standard sob story to make you like them, despite all the villainy they've been up to or supported, that it kind of had the opposite effect on me.

Jack's is great, until you get back to the ship and Shepard apparently doesn't care that Cerberus did this (the e-mail from TIM claiming ignorance is good for a laugh though).

And Tali's is... good at times. She does seem to get over her father's death very quickly though. Still, it was fairly good, if a little unlikely. I would have liked the court to have lots more people (it felt a bit small time), but that's just a cosmetic issue.

Reservations aside, the loyalty missions were what really made the game for me. Without them, my opinion of the game would have been very low indeed.

As it stands, ME2 was an alright game, but unlike its predecessor, not one I care to play again. The main story was just too lightweight and easily forgotten once you'd finished your popcorn.

But hey, if you liked it, then you liked it and that's all that counts. Everyone has their own opinion - this was just mine.

Just wait until FF13 comes out - there's bound to be plenty of strong opinions flying about then!

Addendum:
And I didn't say that I support a romance between FemShep and Saren! But they do share a unique bond (they are the only two who have the Prothean Cipher) and big enemies of opposite sexes are always given to producing these sparks.

Saren starts to see the error of his ways, due to Shepard. As he takes off when the bomb is about to go off, the alarms are going off literally around him, but also in his head. Because even though the situation is apparently hopeless with the Reapers, Shepard is still fighting strong enough to beat him back.

And he comes to believe in her so much that he's able to fight Sovereign off and end things on his terms. Paragon Shepard appeals to him to fight it and that they can fight the Reapers together.

I know it's not a full blooded romance thing (nor would I want it to be - Kelly's my gal and I care not what people think :D), but these events are tapping into the relevant feelings and emotions. And that's all it needs to be - many romances beloved by fans of all kinds of series and games have started with far, far less, as I'm sure you're aware!

I mean Anderson and Udina, what's going on there... lol!

I'm sorry but if you're not playing ME with a virtual version of your face you're doing it quite wrong.

New Downloadable Content is on the way.

Taken from Wikipedia:


A fourth piece of DLC is also planned, featuring new missions, weapons, and a hovering tank known as the Hammerhead. On January 24, an upcoming DLC character, a human thief named Kasumi, was revealed by OneLastContinue, who had gained access to a debug menu during a playtest of the title at the GamesCom conference in August of 2009. It has since been confirmed by BioWare that details of the character, Kasumi, will be forthcoming at a later date.

Only available via Cerberus Network.

Just finished the game. I'm really not sure which game I preferred.

Probing for minerals was really dull. Recruiting was really formulaic, so were the loyalty missions. I didn't really like any of the new characters except for Mordin. I was glad Garrus returned because he was my favourite character in ME, and he wound up being my favourite character (and lover, uguu~) in ME2 too. He was my go to guy whenever I was bored with the other characters (especially Grunt, who is a very poor replacement for Wrex :( ). I was never much of a Tali fan in ME and she was pretty much just as bland in ME2. Joker was good, I guess. I liked the development of his and EDI's relationship.

Um, what else. Side-quests weren't as good as those in the original. The actual story was pretty thin, except for the super awesome COLLECTORS = PROTHEANS plot twist.

I don't know, I just didn't feel as ~inside~ the world as I did with the original. When I heard reports of my exploits on the galactic news things, I didn't really care. I also disagree with what Bor said about the argument between Jack and Miranda making the world seem real. That also felt way too forced, in my opinion. Like, "Hey, look! An obstacle. Overcome this." I mean, I just saved Miranda's sister and we'd done some mad chick bondin', and then all of a sudden she gets pissy over a tiny disagreement?

I can't think of what else I wanted to complain about, but there's probably more. Still, the game was fun. I played for nearly 30 hours so it must have done something right. However, I don't know if I could play through it again.

EDIT: I just remembered. Miranda's voice actor was awful. Ugh man, I cringed every time she spoke. I was tempted to not reconcile with her because the voice (as well as the actual character, I suppose) was JUST THAT BAD. We made up, though. I wanted the achievement.

The side missions were very poor indeed, this time round. They were all 'go to this merc base and kill these mercs'.

Both the side and main quests (outside of the loyalty missions) were severely lacking in actual events, moments to lift them beyond simple 'run and gun' escapades.

(The trap on the Collector ship and retreving the IFF on the Reaper are pretty ordinary point to point blast em up levels, with no character interest. Horizon and Freedom's Progress are only marginally better, with the meeting of an old squad member at the end).

The game does adopt the approach of 'Show people, don't tell them', which is much better than having the box of text that described the resolution of side quests in ME1.

But the problem is that there's often nothing to see in this game! The side missions have no extra edge to them. Outside of the rogue AI (which is a very standard story and one that had already been used more than once), the side quests were a pretty event free collection.

The first game threw occasional curves at you, such as when you finished the 'Geth Incursions' side quest. You just got through 5 systems worth of Geth, they finally fall...

And you find they were gathered together, listening to a Quarian song of heartbreak and loss. It was a great little moment, that told you that part of the Geth missed their creators and still wanted to be close to them, wanted to feel like they have souls etc.

Or that quest on the Citadel where you have to talk down the suicidal victim of a lifetime of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of slavers.

The Loyalty missions are pretty much your only stop for stuff like this in ME2.

The new squad were a bit poor, but then so was the one in ME1. I think that Garrus, Tali, Legion and Mordin are all great, but the rest... I don't mind Samara I guess, but I have a lot of problems with how they protrayed and developed her.

The game world just feels too trashy and actionised now. The gleaming 'Menace and Magic' of the first game is gone. Everyone talks like they are either from the Bronx or they think they're in some noir detective film (women in the game usually fit the Noir template of Angels or Whores etc)

It doesn't make ME2 a terrible game by any means, but it does make it much less interesting to me personally. If all I wanted was big action and explosions, I could just play Gears of War again; I don't want it intruding on Mass Effect.

They've grunged the whole world up and given it a thorough going over with the 'Life is hard, bad things happen to good people' rag. And I'm just so tired of that kind of thing.

Mass Effect 1 balanced the need to show a more real kind of future than Star Trek's 'In the future, we'll all be really, really nice' view, with the fact that Trek's view does have a lot going for it. It appeals to a lot of people, because it shows a view of life that isn't as depressingly murky as our crime ridden times, where people aren't such swines to each other all the time.

The sense of awe and adventure in exploring the galaxy (such as the team's jaws on the floor moment when they first look out over the Citadel in ME1's Wards), the clasical Strauss music that plays as spaceships and stations revolve in 2001: ASO...

Explosions and big swirling fights etc are great and should be included too. But to dwell so much on it, makes the experience seem less fulfilling. The... 'higher' view of the future, of the need to feed the higher parts of the soul, is important too. And that's something that ME1 delivered far more than ME2.

Even just those moments, when you'd stop in the MAKO on a red plain under an alien red sun etc. It made those awful driving sections worth it, because it felt so... ah, I don't know... majestic is the only word really.

Probing for minerals was really dull. Recruiting was really formulaic, so were the loyalty missions. I didn't really like any of the new characters except for Mordin. I was glad Garrus returned because he was my favourite character in ME, and he wound up being my favourite character (and lover, uguu~) in ME2 too. He was my go to guy whenever I was bored with the other characters (especially Grunt, who is a very poor replacement for Wrex :( ). I was never much of a Tali fan in ME and she was pretty much just as bland in ME2. Joker was good, I guess. I liked the development of his and EDI's relationship.

I agree with you about some of the characters. I couldn't really form attachments to this squad like I could in the first. I'm glad Garrus Vakarian and Tali'Zorah nar Rayya returned though. In the final dungeon I had Garrus as the 2nd team's leader as he fit that role perfectly imo. I always liked Tali, and being able to romance her (Which I did in my second playthrough) was pretty good. Grunt was a poor replacement for Urdnot Wrex, but having the Geth Legion was also pretty good as well, specially if you go and recruit Tali and do her loyalty mission after recruiting Legion (When you meet Tali she draws her weapon to shoot him, and on the flotilla during her loyalty mission lol). Joker and EDI's relationship reminded me of the Odd Couple lol.


I can't think of what else I wanted to complain about, but there's probably more. Still, the game was fun. I played for nearly 30 hours so it must have done something right. However, I don't know if I could play through it again.

Really? Guess I must be tapped in the head, as I thoroughly enjoyed ME2, even more than the first and I'm onto my third playthrough now lol (Going to go the full RENEGADE path this time.).


EDIT: I just remembered. Miranda's voice actor was awful. Ugh man, I cringed every time she spoke. I was tempted to not reconcile with her because the voice (as well as the actual character, I suppose) was JUST THAT BAD. We made up, though. I wanted the achievement.

Miranda is both voiced by, and modeled upon, the actress Yvonne Strahovski.

Miranda is both voiced by, and modeled upon, the actress Yvonne Strahovski.
I know. I don't see what difference it makes. She's not any good.

I would be interested to hear what you guys liked about Garrus. That's interesting to me because I actually felt he was one of the least interesting characters in both games.

I also really liked Grunt, and Miranda's voice didn't bother me (I just thought it was mediocre, not awful), although she was not a particularly interesting character. Mordin and Thane were also pretty cool characters I thought, and I liked the idea of having Legion around. Everybody else I felt relatively meh about in terms of party characters. I liked pretty much all the ship crew characters. Kelly is great. I liked EDI too and the fact that they never did the predictable "oh no the AI got loose and is taking over the ship we have to find a way to convince her to stop" thing I was expecting.

Unless things have changed dramatically since I last looked, Garrus and Tali are by far the most popular characters in both games. The polls and threads on Bioware's forums show that they are galaxies ahead of the others in terms of popularity.

Garrus has that 'Maverick Cop' thing going on. It's only really Thane (who I don't like), who gets anywhere near the level of action packed scenes that Garrus gets.

In ME1, he gets that bit where he swings around and caps that thug right between the eyes. And in ME2, he's the uber sniper, who holds off hordes of mercs and even a gunship!

And then he survives being laced with its main gun. His fierce 'I am not going to die!' look at the end of his recruitment mission is an excellent section.

He's liked because he combines two things that are quite unusual. He's really hard and he's a good guy at heart. Good usually means boring in games like this (and he has a dark, vengeful streak of course).

But still, he's one of the better examples of how you can have Good Guys who aren't just saps.

Miranda just annoys me on basically every level. The way you often have to wait during her conversations, so the director can pose her in a new suggestive position gets on my nerves.

She has an Australian accent, which doesn't really fit with the traditional idea of an Ice Queen character. (The Aussies are very nice people, but they aren't considered the most reserved of people).

She comes across as a bit of a cocky cow, to be very blunt about it (and I have absolutely nothing against strong female characters - she was just incredibly arrogant and unlikeable). And although they give her a sob story about her father, I just couldn't be doing with her at all.

Unless things have changed dramatically since I last looked, Garrus and Tali are by far the most popular characters in both games. The polls and threads on Bioware's forums show that they are galaxies ahead of the others in terms of popularity.

Garrus has that 'Maverick Cop' thing going on. It's only really Thane (who I don't like), who gets anywhere near the level of action packed scenes that Garrus gets.

In ME1, he gets that bit where he swings around and caps that thug right between the eyes. And in ME2, he's the uber sniper, who holds off hordes of mercs and even a gunship!

And then he survives being laced with its main gun. His fierce 'I am not going to die!' look at the end of his recruitment mission is an excellent section.

He's liked because he combines two things that are quite unusual. He's really hard and he's a good guy at heart. Good usually means boring in games like this (and he has a dark, vengeful streak of course).

But still, he's one of the better examples of how you can have Good Guys who aren't just saps.

Miranda just annoys me on basically every level. The way you often have to wait during her conversations, so the director can pose her in a new suggestive position gets on my nerves.

She has an Australian accent, which doesn't really fit with the traditional idea of an Ice Queen character. (The Aussies are very nice people, but they aren't considered the most reserved of people).

She comes across as a bit of a cocky cow, to be very blunt about it (and I have absolutely nothing against strong female characters - she was just incredibly arrogant and unlikeable). And although they give her a sob story about her father, I just couldn't be doing with her at all.
Spot on. Garrus is honestly my favorite character, I took him everywhere. He's good in combat; and he always has something, brooding, witty, or interesting to say on a mission.

I love Tali, the mystery behind what she looks like is a nice twist. She has a cute confined personality. Some might say its bland, but I think ME2 really shows how strong and opinionated she is. BioWare actually makes you wanna know about her, which is why I picked her for the Paramour. Thought I could see under her mask/suit ~_~.
I'm very upset they didn't bring back Liara, I liked her a shit ton more than Samara. Samara was too look at me I'm powerful, and inert like a samurai. Liara actually possessed a good personality, and she was was interesting to talk to!

Everything Chewey's said was true, If I played female Shepard Garrrus would so get it after I saw lesbian secks w/ Jack. Miranda's voice actor wasn't terrible... just not good. Her accent felt too forced.

Well, from what I can see on the internet, people love Tali just as much as I do. She's another rare character type - a bubbly, young girl character that actually works.

Developers always try to put this kind of character in, but too often, they end up being annoying little brats or they try too hard to make them hyper and loveable (Selphie Tilmitt for example).

And Garrus is indeed the man. When you enter the Blood Pack base on Tuchanka, he says:

GARRUS: 'A hospital... not a great place to fight in.'

SHEPARD: 'What is a great place to fight in?'

GARRUS: 'Shopping malls, antique shops... only the really classy ones though, of course...'

My team was always some composite of Garrus, Mordin, Tali and Legion. Towards the end, I was exclusively using Garrus and Tali, in fact.

Garrus is always useful, because he's a Sniper Rifle person. Use Singularity or Pull etc to get enemies out of cover and he drops them cold.

Tali is harder to use at first, because she's fond of leaping forward with her shotgun. But get her using drones and she becomes excellent.

(Big baddies like Preatorians and even the Occulus, tend to fixate on drones, giving your party free reign to just unload on them).

Generally speaking though, I found it made little difference who I took with me, because you're never in that much danger as an Adept. Get in cover and Singularity/Warp IS good enough to defeat whatever opposition you face, no matter if your group die or not.

Because enemies have no way to root you out of cover, short of actually coming over and getting you - which they never do. Only their version of Vanguards will try this (and cloaked Geth etc etc) and they come in such small numbers that it's a cinch to deal with them.

You never need to break cover to find ammo (because as an Adept, you don't use any!), and there is ALWAYS cover around. My Adept breezed through this game and outside of the tutotial, I never used the menu wheel to access my allies' skills - I simply never needed to.

By the end, I had about 12-14 unspent squad points. I didn't want to buy Pull or Throw or anything, because Singularity and Warp were working fine and I had no use for extra powers.

I bought an extra training upgrade to have Barrier and mastered that, but then never used it. The only thing that mattered was having Max Warp, Max Singularity and Max Biotic Mastery. Everything else was pointless.

Bioware really need to sort out the 'magic powers' in their games. Singularity was outrageous in both ME games, and magic was so powerful in DA, that my mage single handedly beat the Archdemon's army (I never summoned any of my armies until the final battle, because my mage was so ludicrously powerful!)

Still, you have to keep in mind that this is supposed to be an RPG. The action is good for an RPG I guess, and you can't really ask for more than that.

I'm just anxious to stress that despite my many objections to this game, I am not pouring a big bucket of hatred over it either. It's a decent enough game, it just wasn't to my tastes.

Actually Mass Effect 2 is piss easy for any class. The really made the game incredibly simple when compared to ME1. ME1 took a lot more strategy cause your health was limited and you team mates were little to no help. You constantly needed medi-gel because you were bound to be low on health sometime. Sure there was health regeneration. And by the end of the game your shields were so strong you took very little damage. But you knew not to stay out of cover for too long because you would end up getting seriously hurt. I never got stuck at any part of ME2, in ME1 I had to rethink strategies a lot for certain bosses. Matriarch Benezia for example was a challenging boss sequence because you were swarmed by Asari Commandos. I'm sad that there were no Asari Commandos in ME2 they were a good challenge especially when they used singularity.

Seems to me ME1 was more RPG than shooter, andME@ is more shooter than RPG. They haven't found their balance yet.

I really hope they decide to make ME3 with a co-op mode. The battle system was greatly improved and it would be fun to play with customized character models

Although ME1 was a harder game, it really wasn't all that hard. You quickly learned that although there were all sorts of upgrades for armour, health regen was the only serious consideration (until later on, when you got another slot in your armour, anyway).

And Adepts (along with anyone who chose light armour over medium and heavy) had little problem with enemy biotics. Light Armour gave excellent protection against Tech/Biotic attacks.

It didn't hurt that enemy biotics only seemed to be able to cast Throw...

Oh, and Light armour still gave you ample shielding (especially when augmented with Barrier), and always did well by me.

At least in ME1, I could actually distinguish between enemies. I knew from experience playing as Soldiers etc that biotics could be dangerous. Snipers were always quite dangerous and you had to watch out for enemy rushs (the enemies in ME1 seemed much more aggressive than the cover hugging foes you find in ME2.)

In ME2, I barely even registered what different foes were. I only really paid attention to their health bar. Red Health bar = Singularity. Yellow or purple health bar meant either Warp or Singularity followed by Warp.

It never seemed that enemy weapons were all that potent. My adept would sometimes be hit full on by an enemy rocket (as oftentimes I couldn't be bothered going into cover and just jinked about instead).

And I'd be basically fine, apart from losing most of my shields. I'd always have time to get to cover. But if you got hit by rockets in ME1, you damn well knew about it!

I think they basically went overboard on simplifying it. I'm not sure that they will have had time to change things, in relation to Dragon Age, but there was quite a lot of criticism that that game's battles were run from paused menus.

But this one requires basically no thought at all. None of the enemies ever pose much of a threat, but apparently it's still a little too dangerous to try and be ultra gung-ho if you play as a Vanguard (which again is sad, because surely that's the whole point of playing that class).

There are three items available for download, via codes from promotional Dr Pepper products. I've found a website with info of how to get these items:

First, the Umbra Visor

A next-generation night-vision device that assists targeting. By detecting the focal point of the wearer's eyes and enhancing the image at that location, the visor helps direct a biotic power or a shot from an omni-tool exactly where the wearer is looking.

Effect: Increases power damage by 5%

Second, the Recon Hood

A hood issued to covert action teams, this model's optic display interfaces with most small arms' auto-targeting software, linking hand and eye for improved accuracy and increased weapon damage. Ballistic-mesh fabric and composite ceramic plating provide necessary armor, and the integral air filter helps in hostile environments.

Effect: Increases weapon damage by 5%

and Thirdly, the Sentry Interface

This visor works with the Sentry system, a software application that optimizes an armor suit's microframe computer. When the Sentry system is running, more power can be devoted to shield management.

Effect: Increases shield strength by 5%

I found the info on how to get them for people who aren't in the United States here (http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Mass-Effect-2-Free-Dr-Pepper-Promo-DLC-Codes), so credit is due to Sol Invictus of Hellforge (http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge).

Here's the article anywayz for easier reference:


EA/Bioware and Dr. Pepper recently teamed up for a Mass Effect 2 promotion that provides drinkers of the soda the chance to win three DLC items for use in the new game. Those living outside the United States are sadly ineligible for the promotion, and players who just don�t drink the stuff may simply be out of luck.

As it turns out, I have good news. The keys provided in the promotion are completely static and reusable.

The codes are as follows:

CBEEAAA41NWH
CBEEAAAE4L9N
CBEEAAAFQG9J
CBEEAAAE98ZV

To apply these codes to your EA account and redeem the Mass Effect 2 DLC items, simply create an account on Dr Pepper�s Promotion website, fill in whatever fake details you please and simply use an @mailinator.com address for the e-mail field. The site will never ask you to confirm your e-mail address. Once you�ve logged in, simply enter the promotional code and pick �No Purchase� for each of the three fields.

When you�re done, just hit the button to redeem the DLC and log in with your real EA account details, select Mass Effect 2 from the list of games, and finalize your selection.

To redeem the remaining two items, simply repeat the process with a different code and e-mail address for your new DrPepper account, always logging back into your real EA account at the end to claim your item.

Simple and easy to get and once downloaded, yours forever ^^

Enjoy.

Sorry for the double post...

In Mass Effect 2, when you purchase it you are given download codes for new armor and weapons. So far I have the Blood Dragon Armor (From Dragon Age: Origins), Collector Armor & Particle Beam Weapon and the Terminus Armor & Blackstorm Projector Weapon when I got my Collector's Edition. Later, I got the Ceberus Armor and Eviscerator Shotgun via the Cerberus Network.

What I'd like to know, is there any way to get the Inferno Armor without going and buying another copy, or spending 30$AUSD on ebay for it. Any help would be appreciated.

Nice find. I could only get the Umbra and Recon ones, though.

That is a nice find indeed. I don't think the process of signing up 3 times is worth a few items to me but it's pretty funny that they made it so easy to get.

Did anybody get the new downloadable character? I don't think he's very interesting and his mission was not particularly exciting. It was also kind of frustrating because there was no way I was going to agree to "fuck those people we're going after the bad guy" so now he's mad at me because the dude escaped and now I probably won't get the achievement for having everyone alive AGAIN. Once again there was a paragon option to convince him to not be pissed but it was blacked out for me. I don't like the way that works... in the first game you could put points into your convincing skills which was much better. With ME2 if you want all the possible outcomes open, you must be so extremely paragon or renegade that you basically only pick one every time, and that is not cool. Definitely something I have come to seriously dislike about this game.

That is a nice find indeed. I don't think the process of signing up 3 times is worth a few items to me but it's pretty funny that they made it so easy to get.

Did anybody get the new downloadable character? I don't think he's very interesting and his mission was not particularly exciting. It was also kind of frustrating because there was no way I was going to agree to "fuck those people we're going after the bad guy" so now he's mad at me because the dude escaped and now I probably won't get the achievement for having everyone alive AGAIN. Once again there was a paragon option to convince him to not be pissed but it was blacked out for me. I don't like the way that works... in the first game you could put points into your convincing skills which was much better. With ME2 if you want all the possible outcomes open, you must be so extremely paragon or renegade that you basically only pick one every time, and that is not cool. Definitely something I have come to seriously dislike about this game.

Zaeed Massani is a good character to have, if solely to increase the defense of the team you leave behind to buy Shepard and the other two you take with you against the final boss. Apart from that though, I have to agree with Joker's assessment of him:

"He's like you Commander, only he takes checks. Glad I don't have to pay him."

Considering that the only other 'Soldier' class is Grunt, having another helps balance things out considering the rest of the team has access to Biotics etc.

I just downloaded all the DLC last night but don't have access to much of it since I'm on a new game plus.

The 'REAL' Ashley J. Williams:



Even has the 'code' at the bottom to recreate the exact custom face in a game of Mass Effect 2 :D