Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ Mass Effect 2, The Official Thread!!1

[Mr Party Hat]

So yeah,

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Martin Sheen's in it.

[JDubYes]

So yeah,

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Martin Sheen's in it. 

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Is he being more like Willard or Bartlett?

[CheddarFrenzy]

So yeah,

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Martin Sheen's in it. 

No

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Charlie?

Or

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Emilio?

I hope this is waiting for me when I get home...

[Mr Party Hat]

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Is he being more like Willard or Bartlett?

At the moment, the latter. Although I fully expect him to go batshit at some point during the game and venture into the former.

I've already been in two elevators, incidentally. And seen about twenty loading screens. It's a good job this game is fantastic, because it's bloody annoyed me a fair bit.

[Wev]

They're not long loading screens though, they're just rather frequent when on the Normandy.

Can you only level up at the end of a mission? I've only done the initial two

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Escaping the science centre and then one on the Colony

and have been able to level up after finishing them, not noticed experience increasing during though.

[JDubYes]

I've already been in two elevators, incidentally. And seen about twenty loading screens. It's a good job this game is fantastic, because it's bloody annoyed me a fair bit.

Is that with or without installation? It sounds like you're having a slightly diluted variation on the PS3 Bayonetta experience.

[Mr Party Hat]

Is that with or without installation? It sounds like you're having a slightly diluted variation on the PS3 Bayonetta experience.

With an installation.

[Alastor]

Got this with a vengeance, will play it later tonight.

I'm a bit excited!!11

[CheddarFrenzy]

Bah. It's not here. Curse you Amazon, tempting me in with your slightly-cheaper-pre-orders before trapping me in your unreliable-delivery-web. I should know better by now...

/sulks

[Jimbob78]

At the moment, the latter. Although I fully expect him to go batshit at some point during the game and venture into the former.

I've already been in two elevators, incidentally. And seen about twenty loading screens. It's a good job this game is fantastic, because it's bloody annoyed me a fair bit.

Next gen is here.

[Brian Bloodaxe]

I hate you all!

Except CheddarFrenzy, but I will probably hate him tomorrow...

[Mr Party Hat]

I can't believe those bastards have taken away my loot and inventory. It's supposed to be a fupping RPG!

(Still really enjoying it though )

[CheddarFrenzy]

Arrived this morning. Sorry Brian...

It's really very good indeed. Everything about it seems tighter, more focussed than the original. And the opening was brilliant, I particularly liked

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the bit where you walked through the vacuum outside the normandy's hull. Some great effects. Glad Joker survived too.

The cover system works well, and combat in general seems better than before. The weaving in of the ME1 story is done very well so far, and I can kind of see how it would work without importing data. From what I've seen so far, I think you'd miss out on quite a lot if you hadn't played the first one first. More so than with Uncharted.

I've finished the all the intro bits, and am off to find crew members now. I'm very much looking forward to this.

[Alastor]

I can't believe those bastards have taken away my loot and inventory. It's supposed to be a fupping RPG!

(Still really enjoying it though )

Agreed, don't like that at all.

Also, more importantly, despite how much I'm loving the game, I must express my intense disappointment with the absolute removal of the 'Explore the Planets on your Mako' bits, everyone hated them (but me it seems) so rather than improve them they've just removed them entirely. (or so it seems, but I'm told there is NO Mako bit in the game)


Two problems with this.

One, I thought a massive part of the original was how you had the universe at your fingertips, now I can only land on a Planet I have business with.

Two, I've done all the side missions, and unless I want to scan planets (which involves holding the L trigger and s-l-o-w-l-y dragging the cursor around the planet until a graph spikes, then I press the R trigger to fire a strangely satisfying Probe. o_O

My point is, I have to continue the story now, when I'd rather go to the Moon again and look at the Earth.


While I'm being extremely petty, I think having Ammo is pretty shit as well.


But, I do really like this game, honest.

[CheddarFrenzy]

Criticisms

I didn't like the Mako, but removing the exploration changes the emphasis. It seems a lot more shootery than the first one, and a lot of the work seems to have gone into making the combat smoother at the expense of freedom. Using a mission by mission structure pushes it even further in this direction too, and breaks the game up into "levels" rather than letting it flow. I am really enjoying it so far, but I'm not sure if the more intense focus is better than the wider scope of the first game. It's quite different though.

[Mr Party Hat]

It really does seem to be one of those games where you can say "I hate this, this bit is shit, why is this bit there?..." but still really enjoy playing it.

I think they've jumped the shark a bit, it's a shooter with RPG elements as opposed to an RPG with shooter elements, and it takes a while to accept that you're not playing a Bioware RPG. Accept it for what it is and it's fantastic, but after being balls deep in +willpower and herbalism stats for the last one hundred hours in Dragon Age, something about ME2 feels lightweight.

[Wev]

I think the focus towards more of a shooter sits well with the sense of emergency in the story where as the first one felt like more of an investigation, this one feels like a rush to save mankind. Still hasn't stopped me playing with sending out probe's though!

[Luscan]

We have our first very, very strong contender for Game of the Year, right here and, unless it sours hugely in the last 10 hours, I think we could be onto a winner. ME2 has addressed pretty much all the of well-documented problems that I had with the original - the combat is a lot chunkier, the actual game element is a lot more fun and the technology has finally been taken to the state it should have been in last time around. They've even started to animate more than just faces in conversations!! I was stunned!!

[cavalcade]

CE get. Aberystwyth, all is forgiven.

[CheddarFrenzy]

I'm really enjoying this still. The combat is really starting to hot up a bit and it shows how much more solid the engine is this time, and how much better the mechanics are. I've read some criticisms about how the info from ME1 feeds into this, but I have to say I can't see how they could have done it much more effectively - it hits just the right balance between looking backwards and forwards, with a great feeling of time having passed since Saren etc. Still not 100% convinced about the mission structure, but that's a small criticism, and it's pretty much the only one I've got so far.

2 questions:

1. I'm just about to land on Illium and, despite installing the game to the 360 Hdd, have had to change the discs over. Can't see any reason for it, has anyone else stumbled across this or got any idea why it's doing it? Just an artefact from playing it off the disc?

2. Are Bioware the only company who, after displaying "Press Start" on the title screen, actually insist you press start, and not X, or A or whatever. It's kind of endearing and infuriating in equal measures...