[Garak]

Yeah too bad you can't recruit the bartender on Ilium, she's awesome, much more interesting than Samara and Thane.

[Aptorian]

Ooh I completely forgot to make a post when I finished this a while ago.

Spoilers inside.

Spoiler

I was so torn when I finished the game. On the one hand this is maybe the best game I've ever played in which story and gameplay merges so well, certainly one of the best games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. On the other hand I was very disappointed and confused with a lot of their gameplay choices and how the story ended.

I wouldn't even call Mass Effect 2 a roleplaying game. It was a Story based team focused FPS with some customization points thrown into the mix.

The story was superb right up until the end where they completely fumble the ball and do a last ditch attempt at reaching the goal line. I really don't understand why they made the storyline end the way it did. The game was 80% side stories. You spent a ridiculous amount of time recruiting your task force and getting cosy with them to get their loyalty and then the whole thing culminates in an absurd assault on the big bad that was such an anti climax that I was completely confused when I realised the game was over. Was that all? Did I go through all of that preparation just for this? An unbelievably silly attack on what must be a million strong base of operations and then a pathetic boss fight against a giant Schwarzenegger Reaper? WTF!?

Why did I spend time getting my ship upgraded if I never got to control it in a space battle? or see it get into any kind of real combat? Pointless.

Why did they introduce the Collector General and Harbinger and never flesh them out? Harbinger was so fucking cool in every fire fight (I KNOW YOU FEEL THIS) but they never give us any interaction with them. They could have made them as cool as Saren but instead the threat, the main baddy of the game, became a faceless threat.

Why did they introduce Legion so late in the game?! Okay, I'm pretty sure that Legions storyline was a foreshadowing of coming events in ME3, but god damn it, this guy was so awesome, I wanted more of this guy.

And then there was that ridiculous half finished Terminator Reaper. What the hell. This is the end boss? A boss fight taken out of an old NES game? What they should have done here in my opinion is that they should have made this point of the game the beginning of new arch. They arrive in time to witness the the completion of the infant Reaper and watch as it launches to begin harvesting human colonies that it will consume to grow stronger and bigger and badder with its end goal being planet earth. THIS would have been an awesome final series of missions for the game instead of the anti climax of an ending. This way they could also have finally let the player visit Earth, something I think the series has been missing.

But all the bitching aside. I really loved every minute of this game. All the characters where great and the stories connected with them were awesome. I loved the conflict of philosophies that came from teaming up with Cerberus.

One thing I didn't understand about the story though. So the Council refused to acknowledge the existence of the Reaper threat and would not back up Sheppard but what about Earths own defences? It's own army? We heard from ME1 that the Human fleet has grown to become a force to reckon with. Why was the Alliance fleet or what ever it was called not called out to Earths colonies?

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 15 September 2010 - 04:19 PM

[Garak]

You upgraded the ship in order to survive. There are three critical upgrades (shields, armor, guns) and each one you fail to get results in a dead team member during the space fight.

[Aptorian]

I did not know that, interesting. Lucky for me that I pimped up my ride.

About character deaths:

Spoiler

Much like ME1 they telegraphed the coming death of a character when you had to chose who had to go through the air-duck to unlock the doors. I almost chose Jack because her violent psychopath shtick wore thin early on but in the end I went with Thane. I loved the guy, but he was dying and he was looking for a good death, so I gave him one.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 15 September 2010 - 05:14 PM

[Garak]

Actually you need to send a hacker through the ducts (either Tali or Legion), when the team splits up you need someone who is a leader (miranda, Garrus), when you need a biotic (Jack, Samara). If you choose the wrong people then someone will die.

[MTS]

LOL.

[Aptorian]

Oh dear. Forgive me Thane...

[Gothos]

Good riddance, he sucked. Anyway, Apt, the whole game IS preparation for the final mission. There's a TONNE of aspects that count in that final mission and it's outcome, who dies and who lives. In the end you can save everyone, you can lose everyone too, including yourself.

[Aptorian]

Gothos, on 15 September 2010 - 06:46 PM, said:

Good riddance, he sucked. Anyway, Apt, the whole game IS preparation for the final mission. There's a TONNE of aspects that count in that final mission and it's outcome, who dies and who lives. In the end you can save everyone, you can lose everyone too, including yourself.

Indeed I just find it bizarre how short the act after entering the Mass Relay was.

[Garak]

Think of commando ops (or SWAT ops or whatever), weeks - if not months of preparation and the whole mission is over so fast you can barely believe it. The amount of prep work for D-day was ridiculous and the whole thing was over pretty fast (the landing not the rest of the stuff - a day of fighting ain't much in a war that lasted five years).

[Morgoth]

I have to agree that the terminator was more than a little stupid.

Especially as two nukes took him out.

[Garak]

He was easy but he did get a "WTF are these assholes up to?" out of me. The Geth were a fun enemy (and hopefully will be a fun ally in ME3) but the Collectors are just wrong and the Reapers are pretty sick - I love enemies I can hate with no reservations. Thought if that's how Reapers reproduce (which would explain why they purge the galaxy of all life every 50k years or so - talk about evil reproduction) then I wonder what tentacled species got genocided when Sovereign was created - Cthulhu?

This post has been edited by Garak: 16 September 2010 - 08:05 AM

[Aptorian]

Indeed. Especially seeing as the last shot we got was showing thousands (millions?) of Reapers that were all the same shape as Sovereign. Assuming that all the the old Reapers all have the same form.

[Garak]

I'm starting to think we need no fear the Old Gods anymore - they got turned into goo and that was used to make Reapers

[Primateus]

Aptorian, on 16 September 2010 - 08:20 AM, said:

Indeed. Especially seeing as the last shot we got was showing thousands (millions?) of Reapers that were all the same shape as Sovereign. Assuming that all the the old Reapers all have the same form.

Y'know, some of those reapers actually kinda different to me....

[Aptorian]

[Garak]

Awesome. I always thought that was a crazy idea.

[Gothos]

Allright so I just finished the Overlord DLC. Took me about 2+ hours. And it was AWESOME.
It tells an awesome story. It has Kain/Loghain voicing one scientist. It has flavors of HAL 9000, Shodan and japanese-grade science insanity. If you have ME2, I can't see you not buying this DLC. Easily the best DLC for any game I ever played. I have't been able to take my eyes off-screen for the entire duration (well, except for the Hammerhead bits, I don't like vehicle stuff much in ME)

Installing Lair of the Shadow Broker now. We'll see how it goes.

[Slow Ben]

I was JUST getting on here to ask if anyone had played the DLC's yet and whether they were worth getting. Good news on the Overlord.


Are the others worth getting?

[Gothos]

I'd take Kasumi: Stolen Memory - it's a cool mission, and Kasumi's a great team member. Armor and weapon packs are quite good as well - the Geth Plasma Shotgun is FUCKING INCREDIBLE.

Also, I just had to finish LotSB. There's a tonne of loretext available afterwards, and new info becomes available as the game progresses, apparently. Great DLC, even better than Overlord, a must-have imo.


//sleep, at last.