Mass Effect 2

OakTable said:
Hilariously enough, Kasumi Goto means Mist Thief. What were her parents thinking when they named her? Were they anime fans or something?

Shit, all of ME2's DLCs suck. So I get clothes, a bounty hunter I can't take seriously because he voiced a shark in a Spongebob episode (seriously), 5 missions in a car marginally better than the Mako, and a SPACE NINJA. Thanks, Bioware.
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It's cool. BioWare gives its customers free (albeit shitty) content via the Cerberus Network, while possibly superior premium content will be released as well. Reminds me of those free-to-play MMO's.
 
Finally finished this game. I did like it but I was somewhat disappointed. It felt like a more of a shooter version of the first game. Some things were definitely improved while some changes sucked. Basically, they streamlined the game too much for my liking. ME's approach to loot, for example, needed improvement but they took it way too far in ME2.

I hated how every single mission and every single fight was almost exactly the same as well. Every level had these conveniently located blocks and it was only a question of which direction enemies would be coming from. Other than that, it's get behind cover, shoot, duck, repeat.

Whenever there was a fight, there would be perfectly positioned blocks around for cover, and if you saw a bunch of these blocks around, there would be a fight momentarily. That shit got old fast.

On the other hand, I loved how my decisions affected the last part of the game [spoiler:0907f34013](or determined who survived the last mission and who didn't)[/spoiler:0907f34013] It was a nice surprise to finally realize that your actions mattered and that some things were actually important [spoiler:0907f34013](like upgrading the ship and gaining loyalty. Also loved the different outcomes based on what roles the NPC's got assigned for the last mission)[/spoiler:0907f34013]

And for those who finished the game, [spoiler:0907f34013] the ending was somewhat odd. EDI said that each Reaper was created by a race (or out of a race). Collectors were building a Reaper out of humans because Shepard defeated Sovereign I guess. Apparently, they also needed to make it look like the species which made it look silly but made some sense. Then, they show a whole fleet of Reapers and all of them look exactly the same (like Sovereign). Wtf? Shouldn't they each look different? Like the various species that created each one?[/spoiler:0907f34013]
 
I think the story around the repears is a bit of a mess up really. I mean its always good to have some kind of "shadow" to fight if you want to give the game or story a mystery to solve. Like "oh I fight a biiiig evil right now - But wait! There is even a more BIGER evil behind it". It worked nicely with Babylon 5 (loved that TV show). But they exagerated it with Mass Effect 2. Particularly the idea about Cerberus.

But we have to wait and see what they do out of it with ME3. I really really really hope they dont do the typical Bioware-stuff this time. Flying a round. Geting the nations together. Attack Repears. Win. We had that with Dragon-Age. Already. And a couple of other RPGs.
 
Thing is, this scenario is only likely if you played a certain path, and Bioware is reluctant to punish players for their choices between games most of the time. For example, a Paragon Shepard would have access to tons of powerful allies (no spoilers, you know them if you played both games) while a full Renegade would have pretty much killed/pissed off all of them.

So maybe they will cook up something different. The second game had a lot of foreshadowing towards dark energy and an ancient weapon that can kill Reapers; methinks we'll have to assemble it somehow and treat ourselves to a Thanix Cannon on steroids scene.
 
Ilosar said:
Thing is, this scenario is only likely if you played a certain path, and Bioware is reluctant to punish players for their choices between games most of the time. For example, a Paragon Shepard would have access to tons of powerful allies (no spoilers, you know them if you played both games) while a full Renegade would have pretty much killed/pissed off all of them.

So maybe they will cook up something different. The second game had a lot of foreshadowing towards dark energy and an ancient weapon that can kill Reapers; methinks we'll have to assemble it somehow and treat ourselves to a Thanix Cannon on steroids scene.
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Oh forgot about the whole dark energy thing. I didn't pay enough attention to that aging sun situation. I'm about to start another play through with a ME1 save, all the free DLC, and 100% Renegade. Should be different enough and I guess I will pick up the small details this time.

It seems that ME3 will indeed be all about figuring out that there is actually a weapon that can solve the problem and about putting that weapon together, while the Reapers destroy everything around you. Sounds like a good setup for Halo. Hopefully, they will manage to squeeze a little RPG and decent space drama in there.

Unfortunately, it's more likely to be an action packed romp with an epic sequence after another, with no time for any development or role playing. I hope I'm wrong though, just going by the recent trend in Bioware games.

Btw, watching the ME3 trailer, the Reapers seem a bit underwhelming. They're certainly fucking shit up but there are like 7 Reapers in the center of London, alone. It would take them a REALLY long time to zap the entire galaxy free of life at that rate.
 
That's the point. I believe that Vigil on Ilos mentions that it took them a really long, long time to eat through the galaxy, so long in fact, that most of the Protheans in cryo storage died before the Reapers were finished.
 
Remember that they have... other purposes for puny humans. And for what we know, they've only been here a few hours and have already laid waste to every major city in the planet.

Also, IIRC, Vigil said (and that bit is actually quite realistic; space is friggin big) it took the Reapers close to a century to completely wipe out the Proteans, but since they had control of the Relay network and Citadel records there was absolutely nothing the Proteans could do but wait and die.

Finally, yes, I do hope that ME3 will focus a little more on story development, because the main story was 2's biggest flaw. Nothing has changed, really. And hell, the trailer suggests even what we did at the end of 1 was also kinda useless, but the invasion of Earth may be very late in the game for what we know.

Oh, and Renegade playthrough? Have fun being a massive jerk and don't miss the interrupt icons :twisted:.
 
The whole concept of the purges break down once you realise ships can travel use FTL drives to go over a thousand times the speed of light. Unless that system travel minigame in ME2 was just stupid shit and Ashley 12 lightyears, a days cruise comment is a ME form of a Kessel run.

maximaz said:
And for those who finished the game, [spoiler:1d3e2d166f] the ending was somewhat odd. EDI said that each Reaper was created by a race (or out of a race). Collectors were building a Reaper out of humans because Shepard defeated Sovereign I guess. Apparently, they also needed to make it look like the species which made it look silly but made some sense. Then, they show a whole fleet of Reapers and all of them look exactly the same (like Sovereign). Wtf? Shouldn't they each look different? Like the various species that created each one?[/spoiler:1d3e2d166f]
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[spoiler:1d3e2d166f]Take a close look:
Reaper_fleet2.png
[/spoiler:1d3e2d166f]
 
Tagaziel said:
That's the point. I believe that Vigil on Ilos mentions that it took them a really long, long time to eat through the galaxy, so long in fact, that most of the Protheans in cryo storage died before the Reapers were finished.
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I played ME1 a long time ago so I guess I forgot that mention :oops:. Still, I didn't expect the purge to be a War of the Worlds type zap fest. I'd think the Protheans would down more than one Reaper that way. Come to think of it, maybe they have, since Sovereign got so fucked that they couldn't recover anything.

the main story was 2's biggest flaw. Nothing has changed, really. And hell, the trailer suggests even what we did at the end of 1 was also kinda useless, but the invasion of Earth may be very late in the game for what we know.
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Indeed. Although the first game raised a bunch of questions, in terms of the flow of the main story and the finale, I liked it a lot more.
[spoiler:409bbb9b91]I guess, the whole point of ME2 ended up being to stop the construction of a human reaper, which really doesn't progress anything in the trilogy. I mean, we had no idea there even was a human reaper being built and I still don't know why the hell they would do that now. I'm not saying that stopping the collectors wasn't important, it's just that in the grand scheme of things (reapers moving toward the galaxy), as far as the trilogy is concerned, the main quest of ME2 had absolutely no purpose.[/spoiler:409bbb9b91]

The whole concept of the purges break down once you realise ships can travel use FTL drives to go over a thousand times the speed of light. Unless that system travel minigame in ME2 was just stupid shit and Ashley 12 lightyears, a days cruise comment is a ME form of a Kessel run.
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Come again?

And yeah, I guess they are in fact different. Still, they all seem to resemble the squid. And holy shit, I didn't notice how many of them there were.
 
maximaz said:
Indeed. Although the first game raised a bunch of questions, in terms of the flow of the main story and the finale, I liked it a lot more.
[spoiler:a28ea5a699]I guess, the whole point of ME2 ended up being to stop the construction of a human reaper, which really doesn't progress anything in the trilogy. I mean, we had no idea there even was a human reaper being built and I still don't know why the hell they would do that now. I'm not saying that stopping the collectors wasn't important, it's just that in the grand scheme of things (reapers moving toward the galaxy), as far as the trilogy is concerned, the main quest of ME2 had absolutely no purpose.[/spoiler:a28ea5a699]
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Think of it this way.
[spoiler:a28ea5a699]A Reaper is needed to unlock the Mass Effect Array at the Citadel and open the conduit to Dark Space.
Once the human Reaper was finished it could have gone to the Citadel which defenses are still weakened from Sovereign's attack, quickly overwhelm the station and open the conduit, allowing the Reapers outside the galaxy to quickly arrive.[/spoiler:a28ea5a699]
 
But that's the point Kilus. Ships only travel that fast when they use Mass Relays, or else they go much slower http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_relays . Travel inside systems can be done with in-ship FTL, but going from system to system takes much longer and burns so much fuel (ships still use conventional thrusters to fuel themselves, in addition to Mass Effect fields to propel themselves) that they can only travel a set distance. So Proteans simply cannot go anywhere while the Reapers slowly visit the hundreds of systems they probably colonized and methodically killed them off.

And the system travel stuff was pointless anyway. What was wrong with just clicking on the planet i wanted to visit?

Finally, well, if anything ME2 made us gather a group of competent people utterly dedicated to Shepard (and, in some cases, really essential to his mission; looking at Mordin and EDI). If we ditch them in ME3 I will be pissed, that's like 75% of the game just thrown away.

undefined Also, it is very much possible they managed to scrounge up useful info in the Collector Base even if it goes kablooie, case in point being the datapad Shepard (or Joker if you suck) is holding right before the final scene.undefined
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Think of it this way.
[spoiler:b6789ab1c3]A Reaper is needed to unlock the Mass Effect Array at the Citadel and open the conduit to Dark Space.
Once the human Reaper was finished it could have gone to the Citadel which defenses are still weakened from Sovereign's attack, quickly overwhelm the station and open the conduit, allowing the Reapers outside the galaxy to quickly arrive.[/spoiler:b6789ab1c3]
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[spoiler:b6789ab1c3] They seemed to have arrived pretty fast without the whole conduit thing though. Assuming that ME3 won't take place more than a few years after ME2, they didn't really need it. It would probably have taken the Collectors that long to finish that Human Reaper anyway. I hope there is more to Sovereign's actions than just enabling the Reapers to arrive a few months/years quicker. Considering the 50,000 years they wait for the party, that's nothing. I also hope there is more to the human reaper than just doing the same.[/spoiler:b6789ab1c3]

[/spoiler]
 
Ilosar said:
But that's the point Kilus. Ships only travel that fast when they use Mass Relays, or else they go much slower http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_relays . Travel inside systems can be done with in-ship FTL, but going from system to system takes much longer and burns so much fuel (ships still use conventional thrusters to fuel themselves, in addition to Mass Effect fields to propel themselves) that they can only travel a set distance.
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The point is if a ship can travel at 4000x the speed of light information can travel that fast. Which means ways to fight the Reapers and even mere knowledge about the Reapers travel that fast.
 
If the Reapers can instantly disable Mass Relays by taking over the Citadel, I have no doubt they can also disable the comm arrays that span the galaxy since they are from the same origin. That was the whole point of ME1's plot anyway; immediately taking the citadel means they can end any resistance right away; leaderdhip is dead, transport and communication are down, each planet/system only has local fleet and is a sitting duck.

Whereas if they arrive from the edge of the galaxy (like they presumably do in ME3) this crucial advantage does not exist, at least for a time, and would allow the 'lesser' races to mobilize an effective counterattack while the space squids sluggishly move forward (which we probably do; I really do not see the series ending by a defeat unless you massively screw up like in ME2).

About the 'waiting a few years' point, ME2 suggest Reapers need a somewhat special kind of... er... fuel. The fact the cycle seems to be fixed in time suggests that the timeframe is important. Maybe a few years are kind of a big deal.

Of course most of that is speculation at this point. I am eager to see what Bioware has in store for us.
 
informations could work diferently then space travel. For example it is today already possible to send informations with a "beaming" (yes like in Star Treak). Ok only an atom or something. But thats all just some oppinion of mine. Nothing I really know about Mass Errect.
 
Ilosar said:
If the Reapers can instantly disable Mass Relays by taking over the Citadel, I have no doubt they can also disable the comm arrays that span the galaxy since they are from the same origin. That was the whole point of ME1's plot anyway; immediately taking the citadel means they can end any resistance right away; leaderdhip is dead, transport and communication are down, each planet/system only has local fleet and is a sitting duck.
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Yes but Spaceships can travel at 4000c(c is the speed of light) without relays. Therefore systems aren't completely isolated.
 
@ Crni Vuk: ME uses comm buoys that function exactly like Mass Relays, transmitting data instead of ships. They are all controlled from the Citadel http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Technology scroll down to Communications for info if you wish.

@ Kilus: where did you find that information about speed? And as I said fuel is the problem here; ME fields can render an object very light but the object still needs a propulsion method or it ain't going anywhere. Eventually a ship runs out of fuel, and given the insanely vast distances between civilized star systems (we are talking thousands of light years at the very least, since only clusters connected to a Relay are colonized) there's a good chance you run out of fuel right in the middle of space.

Not only that, ships have to find a suitable planet (not all of them are) to discharge their drive cores or it fries the ship's crew. Simply put, interstellar travel outside of Mass Relays is simply impossible in the ME universe, outside of Reaper technology at any rate. To add the final nail, there is probably no know vector from system to system, since the mass Relays do everything. These things don't calculate themselves with a slide ruler.
 
Came across these concepts for the last thing you fight in the game.

[spoiler:36fb1ad719]
Wcb6ug.png

reaper2.jpg

reaper1.jpg
[/spoiler:36fb1ad719]

Love the brownish painting. I'd rather they used one of them instead of T-101.

Also, WTF is up with the whole DLC process?? What a pain in the ass!
 
Hmm, I think this is an oversight. That speed means they would not need Mass Relays at all. Since this is also a simple tie-in novel, I do not know if they fully checked too.

Because, well, the supplementary material's continuity is... controversial to say the least.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/103/index/6103704 Relevant. Apparently the Illusive Man, whose mystery is the very core of his character, is a copy-paste of Renegade Shepard 30 years prior. Yuck. So I would take any information not in the games with a grain of salt or a few billion ones.

About the Human-Reaper; yeah, a more original form and a better designed boss fight would have made the whole thing bearable. Right now it's an annoying slog against a scaled-up Terminator reject. I had far more fun fighting Harbinger and the Preatorians.
 
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