Mass Effect 2 [Xbox 360/PC/PS3]

[Orgun]

God! Didn't get to play this last night and I'm chomping at the bit now.

Currently doing loyalty missions for Mordin and Grunt having previously done Zaeed's first (purely because he was the first to ask) and then Jack's. They should have just called her Tetsuo.

Does levelling up only occur after completing a mission? I can't remember once levelling up whilst in the middle of a gunfight.

Pretty much, you only get exp when completing missions now and not while killing enemies.

[Canton Province]

Hopefully someone can answer a question I have regarding importing save files. Bear in mind I did not complete ME1 and do not own ME2 yet.

Why is importing your ME1 game choices a huge selling point? Why would it not be better to start with a clean slate?

[Red Hogg]

Pretty much, you only get exp when completing missions now and not while killing enemies.

Ta.

Why is importing your ME1 game choices a huge selling point? Why would it not be better to start with a clean slate?

Well it's a sequel. So it's nice to have some personal continuity from the first game.

[fuse]

Thoughts

Top post. Often agree with your thoughts and it's nice to read a non-fanboy approach to the game. I'm not usually a fan of western RPGs but must admit the hype machine has got me interested; as such it's good to hear something even slightly contrary to the "BEST xxxx EVER" to give me a bit of a clear-headed steer towards how I should be prioritising this.

[smouty]

It took me a long time to get into ME1, a year between starting and re-starting in fact but I really got into it and TBH I would be happy with a less radical re-working at the moment but that may change as I progress.

[yesteryeargames]

about 13 hours in and loving it . just wondered are there any vehicle sections in this game I used to like driving around the worlds in the 1st game even if the controls were a little iffy,

[Daragon]

about 13 hours in and loving it . just wondered are there any vehicle sections in this game I used to like driving around the worlds in the 1st game even if the controls were a little iffy,

I think you're in the minority there

Apparently there aren't any this time round though

[Eight Rooks]

Some further clarification of different things I was referring to, minor to major spoilers covered up: Tali's loyalty mission is tremendous, with some great voice acting all round (even from Marc Meer as man-Shepard) and further confirms she ought to have had a much bigger role in the first. On the other hand, the downsides are there is virtually no development of

->Open Spoiler<-

any interaction between her and Legion

which seems about as big a missed opportunity as you can get. I even thought

->Open Spoiler<-

the implication was Tali's father had created Legion

, which would have been utterly amazing and pushed my respect for Bioware through the roof, but no.

Mordin's loyalty mission has some staggering dialogue and voice-acting, but it's hurt tremendously by your only being given the choice to respond as a Jedi or an asshole. You have no option but to beat him over the head with his actions, and the writing and tremendous performance didn't remotely convince me he deserved it. I don't like being forced to act like a dick, thank you.

Grunt's loyalty mission is fun, with some surprisingly thoughtful background dialogue and exposition, but it suffers a lot from God of War syndrome.

->Open Spoiler<-

'You have killed the thresher maw! None have done that in generations!'

Uh, really? Didn't seem particularly tough to me. Are you people actually that useless? The game falls into this trap on a number of occasions, like Samara's mid-loyalty cutscene (uh, say what? Dragonball Z much?) and Jack/SZ - yes, she's powerful, yes, she's angry, but she's nothing like the walking timebomb the cinematics make her out to be and it gets a little annoying.

And thank God the Mako was taken out. Jesus Christ I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone got anything out of that broken, lazy, glitchy, tedious, vacant piece of - well, okay, it looked like a Big Truck, which is worth a slow round of applause, but other than that, bleh. Anyone who found that fun is either very easily pleased or insane.

Oh, and while on the one hand I really wish they'd stick in still more, more, more dialogue to explore - easy to say, hard to do, I know - I'm vaguely disturbed by the implication you can just shag your way through the available crew members on a single playthrough. Beat the game and Tali's now back to giving me the 'Sex Y/N?' conversation (though admittedly her pre- and post- dialogue was just the sweetest thing ), so if that means what I think it does then I'm not best pleased. Screw player choice, lame double entendre not intended; I would like to see a developer give you a post-game where all of your choices continue to mean something, thanks.

[Richie_uk]

I've never felt this good about a sci-fi game since Blade Runner on the PC over 10 years ago....this is gorgeous.

[Jebus]

If there's one thing that EVERY developer should take from this game it's the way they treat the player.

Go through a long missions, complete it...normally you'd have to backtrack all the way back through the endless corridors etc, not this game, it just puts you back there and lets you carry on advancing your game.

Nearly completed my crew, some of them loyal and my romance is well underway.

God I love this game, I cannot stop playing it.

[elaniel]

Just one (minorly disturbing) question, I couldn't even IMAGINE romancing Tali. I mean, I'm not into gas masks and all that. How exactly does it work with her? o.O

[SuperBeatBoy]

I like Tali lol. I wanted to romance her in the first game, she has that cute voice.

[Spatial]

I think it's as you'd expect.

I haven't done the dirty deed but from the description she gave me, it sounded like an auto-erotic asphyxiation minefield.

Man alive, that bit was so much like real life it wasn't funny.

It was awkward. Really awkward. She just stood there after she told me she liked me, unfairly hiding her expression behind that mask while mine was on show for all to see. So rather than embarrass the poor girl, I felt obliged to be polite and go "I'm interested too" (but really cringing on the inside).

Cue me feeling even more embarrassed for her as she got all excited and gave the whole "I never thought you'd be into me..." speech. Then when there was a break in the conversation I legged it and haven't been back into engineering since.

[elaniel]

I like her voice too. It reminds me of Freiya from Final Fantasy XII. Just... what she's wearing. Is it a suit or actually how she looks? o.O When they kiss in the first game, does she take the mask off or what?

[Eight Rooks]

Just one (minorly disturbing) question, I couldn't even IMAGINE romancing Tali. I mean, I'm not into gas masks and all that. How exactly does it work with her? o.O

Spoilers, I guess:

->Open Spoiler<-

Quarians consider the highest possible gesture of trust in someone being able to share the same space as them while out of their suits, so she insists she likes you enough to want to do this (if you turn her down, the 'good' option is to say you don't want to risk her health). She has to research the medicine/medical treatments that'll boost her immune system to let her sleep with you without dying in the process in the worst case scenario, though it's not really pitched as any great moment of tension, more just 'wow, I never thought I'd get to do this'. The actual scene is very short and not remotely explicit - she takes her helmet off before she undresses, but you don't see her face.

Bioware are obviously having a laugh at their geekiest fans... witness the background conversation in Ilium between a quarian girl and a turian for more of that.

->Open Spoiler<-

The after-conversation is also very awww... she says something along the lines of 'Just so you know, I'm running a mild fever, I've got several different bacterial infections and I have no idea what my suit is clogged up with. And it was totally worth it.'

She was the only character in the first game who was remotely interesting, I bought the sequel in large part because of the option to romance her (yes, I'm quite serious) and I was overjoyed with how well written her romance, her loyalty quest and her conflict with

->Open Spoiler<-

Legion

were. I was on the edge of my seat getting to that last - majorly, majorly thankful I had enough Paragon points to get them both to calm down and bitterly disappointed there wasn't any more to it.

(And I swear, to my dying day I will never understand why people can't see Liara is a terrible, terrible character - one part mummy issues 101, one part 'Captain Kirk, what is this thing you humans call... love?' AND NOTHING ELSE. )