Mass Effect 2 [Xbox 360/PC/PS3]

[Uli]

You find loads just lieing around. Any crate marked Power Cells is ammo for the heavy weapons. I never ran out of heavy weapon ammo for the entire game.

yep, i eventually found some heavy weapon ammo, actually more than i could carry. but entirely in the wrong place as i would have made better use of it some way before this point.

Plus doesn't visiting the weapons locker on the Normandy refill your ammo anyway? Or was I imagining that?

i thought so too but it seems it's not the case, at least not for heavy weapons. fact remains, ammo is constantly low or not available for my most used weapons (i play as Infiltrator, so no Assault Rifle!), as my load-out packs only 20 sniper rifle rounds and 24 heavy pistol rounds. but at the same time i can carry around 5 weapons, not to mention the armor?


mission design and plot also occasionally raises my eyebrow. as much as i love the main plot line and the conversations, some side missions to assemble your team and especially their outcome just don't make much sense. however, nothing that keeps me from enjoying the game. it's just a shame that i keep feeling this game has so much untouched potential.

[rmoxon]

i thought so too but it seems it's not the case, at least not for heavy weapons. fact remains, ammo is constantly low or not available for my most used weapons (i play as Infiltrator, so no Assault Rifle!), as my load-out packs only 20 sniper rifle rounds and 24 heavy pistol rounds. but at the same time i can carry around 5 weapons, not to mention the armor?

.

Youre wrong, there are loads of weapon lockers throughout the game and they all refil every weapon you have on you.

Alot of weapons start out holding only a small ammount of ammo till you upgrade them though, so maybe thats your problem.

[Brats]

I'm pretty sure the weapons lockers don't refill the heavy weapons ammo.

I never had an issue with ammo during the whole game, and I played as a soldier who should be mincing through the ammo as he has fewer biotic or tech powers to rely on. Occasionally I would run out of ammo for one weapon, but never two, and after every battle there are usually loads of ammo rounds to hoover up before proceeding.

20 sniper ammo rounds should be fine considering one sniper shot will down most enemies (especially early on) and you rarely get more than ten enemies in a battle.

Also, the heavy weapons ammo is in really obvious places and always before or during a boss fight.

I didn't find any missions that didn't make sense. All of them fit well into the storyline.

[Charlie]

I'm not enjoying this yet either. I'm seven or eight hours in but am finding it quite dull and disappointing. The graphics and voice acting are half-decent but after that I struggle to compliment it.

The movement and combat still feels clunky and fiddly, I know it's an improvement over the original ME but it's still not very good. The new scanning process is a joke, why oh why Bioware thought players would want to spend two or three ****ing hours of their precious time (which is a conservative estimate of how long I imagine it takes) scanning every planet to fully research/ugrade all their gear is a mystery to me. I don't exagerate when I say scanning the planets is easily the most boring gameplay I've experienced in a long, long time.

I also dislike the way most enemies, like mindless robots, enter battle from the same location then proceed to move and attack you from the same location; it means you can keep your weapon trained pretty much one one spot and just wait for the enemis to walk into your sights. It's silly. Then there's the level design which, for the most part, I find dark, dull and dreary with way, way too many generic corridors. I loved the original, I really did, but this, thus far, by comparison, seems completely lacking in imagination.

[Brats]

Try upping the difficulty. The shooty bits get a lot more interesting (and the Ai a lot better) on the higher difficulties. You can change it at any time from the options screen.

[Eight Rooks]

Yeah, I simply cannot understand how anyone can prefer the gunplay on the original game. Rose-tinted spectacles of the highest order as far as I'm concerned; the AI's hardly Halo/Killzone 2 but it's far, far better now; the controls are better; the level design actually allows for minor tactics and strategy (and less of the terrible glitches and exploits in the first, like enemies you could not damage until they'd detected you). Whether you need those tactics and strategy is another matter entirely - it's certainly not a staggeringly hard game or anything. But the potential is certainly there, whereas in the first game it was merely 'Brainless enemies all rush you at once - frantic running around and firing at everything in sight - if dead, reload - if alive, goto next battle' etc., etc. There's more to managing your teammates now regardless of recharging lifebars and universal ammo than there ever was before.

And you don't need to spend hours upon hours planet scanning -

->Open Spoiler<-

you only need two frigging updates for the ship for the final mission, surely, for God's sake

- I admit it could have been tweaked, but the idea people get bothered by this and yet miss the Mako bouncing idiotically over endless, featureless landscapes that all look exactly the same (all right, practically, practically, it's not like there's anything there to stick in the memory beyond 'green', 'lava', 'orange', 'more green', etc., etc.). Like they were knocked up with some generic fractal landscape generation software off some pathetic magazine coverdisk from fifteen years ago... and you'd swap the side missions for that. You're insane, that's all there is to it.

Still not a 10, or possibly even a 9, but it's a work of genius compared to the original.

[Charlie]

Funny you mention the Mako, I miss running around in it. It did look a bit ****ty, I agree, but it created a certain atmosphere that, though very different to the guts of the game, complimented it very well. I certainly preferred roaming around and collecting ore in the Mako than the new tedious scanning which, put simply, is an overly time consuming chore. I'm sorry but staring at a screen and waiting for a cursor to very, very s l o w l y make it's way around a planet and then immediately doing it again 6 or 7 times is not fun.

My impressions of the game so far is that ME has gone the way of the Final Fantasy series: lots of high quality cut scenes, strong and appealing characters, a rich universe full of gorgeous design and fine detail, but then when you get to the game proper, when the time comes to cease watching and actually begin playing, it's not that much fun.

[Uli]

what do i have to do, to get laid Miranda? i made her loyal and kept talking to her frequently, but she seems not interested. and Jack wont even talk to me any more.

[smouty]

My impressions of the game so far is that ME has gone the way of the Final Fantasy series: lots of high quality cut scenes, strong and appealing characters, a rich universe full of gorgeous design and fine detail, but then when you get to the game proper, when the time comes to cease watching and actually begin playing, it's not that much fun.

I'm still so disappointed in ME2 that it is affecting my judgment but you have pretty much summed it up for me. This may in hindsight change but at the moment I wouldn't score it more than 7 or 8.

[Concrete donkey]

I'm the other way round. I loved the game myself and even though it's over I can't stop thinking about it, resisting temptations to play it again. I still turn it on each day to read the cerberus news article of the day. Having replayed the first game just before the sequel I have to say most of the changes are for the better.

The ammo clips and lack of inventory screens did seem odd at first but it really worked and got rid of some of the more tedious elements of the first game. It also means your characters can't suddenly switch clothing midway through a battle. There were plenty of ammo clips left over each fight with heavy weapon ammo being the only one you had to hunt around for. The existence of ammo makes sure you have to aim and not fire aimlessly hoping to hit something and encourages you to pick the right gun for the job and being overly dependant on the sniper riffle.

There were a few things I didn't like but these complaints are small and overall it was an improvement on the original game and I eagerly await the third game and any DLC they release for this one.

[Wools]

Funny you mention the Mako, I miss running around in it. It did look a bit ****ty, I agree, but it created a certain atmosphere that, though very different to the guts of the game, complimented it very well. I certainly preferred roaming around and collecting ore in the Mako than the new tedious scanning which, put simply, is an overly time consuming chore. I'm sorry but staring at a screen and waiting for a cursor to very, very s l o w l y make it's way around a planet and then immediately doing it again 6 or 7 times is not fun.

My impressions of the game so far is that ME has gone the way of the Final Fantasy series: lots of high quality cut scenes, strong and appealing characters, a rich universe full of gorgeous design and fine detail, but then when you get to the game proper, when the time comes to cease watching and actually begin playing, it's not that much fun.

I have a lot of love for the Mako!

I loved the control and atmosphere of using the Mako however the inability of the gun turret to aim down, some dull level design on non important planets and a few control niggles hampered the vehicle in the original. Rather than taking the solid groundwork and polishing the Mako however, Bioware replaced it with a novel but completely dull mini game that looking back, really bored me. Mass Effect 2 was so good it completely made up for it, but on a few nights when I wanted to play a bit of the game before turning in, I put my iTouch in with some Podcasts loaded and began scanning because I did not want to waste my weekend spending a few hours mining.

If Bioware decided to strip the Mako back to an exploration and action section and polished it could have really benefited the sequel even more. Maybe they'll once again hear the communities impressions and put it in with the same panache for the final game.

I completely disagree with your opinion of the game though. Although I've got a real soft spot for Final Fantasy VII, I've been less and less interested in each subsequent sequel in the series. The games have looked more beautiful, set in more exotic locations, added complex battle systems and simplified the way the player has to negotiate menus but I still get infuriated by the same issues Squaresoft design into their games.

Now, if you chart where Bioware started from with Baulders Gate to where they are now with Mass Effect 2, the improvements, changes in play styles and design aesthetic are completely different and built upon refinement.

Although I know it's arguable on this forum, I don't think one can criticise Mass Effect 2 for not being fun to play.

[Charlie]

I still regard the original Baldur's Gate and it's sequel as Bioware's finest games. Mass Effect, though flawed, continued in a similarly rich vein of form but the recent Dragon Age: Origins and, now, from what I've played so far, Mass Effect 2 leave me suspecting the company increasingly focuses it's resources on beautiful cut scenes to the detriment of gameplay.

[Uli]

seems no one cares about romance here... however, i did a research by myself and learned that there will be no romance for my female Shephard in this game.

so, thanks Bioware, for introducing homosexuality in Mass Effect and then cut it from the sequel for no apparent reason, except losing the guts to stand by it.

[Concrete donkey]

seems no one cares about romance here... however, i did a research by myself and learned that there will be no romance for my female Shephard in this game.

so, thanks Bioware, for introducing homosexuality in Mass Effect and then cut it from the sequel for no apparent reason, except losing the guts to stand by it.

I here this a lot but where was the homosexuality in the first Mass Effect? My Shepard had no romantic conversational options with Ashley or Tali and Liara T'soni is an alien who's species don't have a specific gender and can mate with both genders of other species. Unless I missed something?

[Welrain]

seems no one cares about romance here... however, i did a research by myself and learned that there will be no romance for my female Shephard in this game.

so, thanks Bioware, for introducing homosexuality in Mass Effect and then cut it from the sequel for no apparent reason, except losing the guts to stand by it.

How about simply that Miranda and Jack are straight and therefore don't fancy female Shephard?