aspro said:

gamingeek said:

Is this scene in the game?

Is this the end boss?

I WILL BUY MASS EFFECT 2 IF THIS SCENE IS IN THE GAME.

I still have the first one, sealed from launch.  I'll never get around to this series.  Hell, I still have to play through the KOTORs.

Steel, what made you play it? Was it out of appreciation for Bioware after DA?

Oh, I was already in love with the first game. Flaws and all. I'm a sucker for sci-fi stuff, and the depth of the background on the first game at so many levels, historical, technological, religious, social, and economic was a high point for me. I would delve for hours reading upon codex entries, which in turn rewarded me with a deeper understanding of the events that unfolded throughout the first game.

It wasn't a perfect game by any standard, but I loved it to death anyway.

gamingeek said:

Sucker for sci fi? Aren't you the star trek hater?

I should have said sucker for good sci-fi. *zing*

gamingeek said:

Tell me about hacking, is it optional now? What about menus? In terms of intuitiveness vs the first game.

Hacking is much improved. Most of it is optional, you'll face two instances of hacking, in minigame form, one of them asks you to pair hidden computer nodes, like a memory game, in order to open files or safes, the other asks you to choose a number of file chunks from a moving screen in order. Much better than the first game's QTEs.

Inventory system was dropped off altogether, so no more cluttering with a million different sinks among a million of the same armor. You choose the weapons and armor for your party when you get off your ship. Upgrades are handled via the research facility inside yoour ship, and as far as I've encountered, they seem to be applied broadly between the members of the same class.

gamingeek said:

Can you bypass hacking completely?

Sure. It's not needed for progression, although you'll miss some cool stuff if you do. And hacking carries some neat rewards.

Say you're going to face a battle, the game will sometimes allow you to hack mechs so they aid you instead of attack you, randomly, you'll find scattered data pads or hackable stuff that can reward you with credits or even side quests.

Wee! Finished ME2, a bit shy of 50 hours, migh do an Insane playthrough, at least to reach Lv 30 and see if I can earn the ability points that I'm missing. Great game, through and through, even though I'm not in complete agreement with the way they toned down the RPG elements. Given how things unfolded here, I'm now extremely pumped for ME3.

gamingeek said:

Wow 50 hrs.

Do you think they will do a trilogy box pack?

It would be a wise choice, but I don't know.

Neutered would be a more apt term, lol.

There are less class-specific abilities to allocate points to. 6, to be exact, as opposed to the 15-20 of the previous game. So whenever choosing your class, you are pretty much told which abilities you can develop, and have no way of going off the predetermined path.

Since there are only a handful of class-specific abilities, leveling is not needed as often. I finished my first playthrough at Lv 27, by comparison, my first ME playthrough ended at Lv 51 or so. You only earn exp points when finishing missions/side quests.

You can't upgrade individual weapons or armor. Instead, minerals gathered are used at the ship's research facility to upgrade all weapons of the class (assault rifles, handguns, shotguns), armor and biotic/engineering upgrades, and such changes are not modifiable. So you end up having all your members using the same type of weapon if available (only soldiers can use all weapons). I hated the cluttered inventory system of the first game, but this one is less an RPG element than an action-adventure one.

SteelAttack said:

Neutered would be a more apt term, lol.

There are less class-specific abilities to allocate points to. 6, to be exact, as opposed to the 15-20 of the previous game. So whenever choosing your class, you are pretty much told which abilities you can develop, and have no way of going off the predetermined path.

Since there are only a handful of class-specific abilities, leveling is not needed as often. I finished my first playthrough at Lv 27, by comparison, my first ME playthrough ended at Lv 51 or so. You only earn exp points when finishing missions/side quests.

You can't upgrade individual weapons or armor. Instead, minerals gathered are used at the ship's research facility to upgrade all weapons of the class (assault rifles, handguns, shotguns), armor and biotic/engineering upgrades, and such changes are not modifiable. So you end up having all your members using the same type of weapon if available (only soldiers can use all weapons). I hated the cluttered inventory system of the first game, but this one is less an RPG element than an action-adventure one.

That sounds better to me, more streamlined. In these games I tend to just beef up things like health and power anyway. None of this medical or lock picking stuff.

SteelAttack said:

Oh yeah. For people shunning overly complex inventory/abilities management, these changes are godsend. I feel it takes some depth away, but it didn't harm my overall enjoyment of the game.

I'm sure the uber PC nerds will be whining to hell and back about these changes though.