Do you have the Particle Beam heavy weapon? It makes killing any mini-bosses easy.
Nope, I think the flash/trigger events are all just one or the other. As far as paragon/renegade goes, if it’s tricky at times to tell which is which and you’re going for one in particular, then paragon answers are usually the upper left/right conversation options, and renegade are bottom left/right.
The Particle Beam is just a lot of fun. I played around with the Cain for a while, but the Beam is just a lot more useful. The only enemy I really had trouble with was Scions, and they just took time.
Particle beam? Bah. Pure luxury.
For some reason I got stubborn and used the grenade launcher for that fight.
The quality of the dialogue writing and voice acting took a quantum leap between ME1 and ME2. I’ve been watching some old vids of ME1 character interactions on Youtube, and after finishing ME2, the first game’s dialogue seems stilted and artificial in comparison (although it seemed perfectly decent when I played it two years ago).
The most obvious examples I can find are the little interludes where your two squadmates speak to each other. In the first game, those dialogues were usually heavily expository, sometimes with a semi-humorous punchline at the end to give the exchange some mildly interesting reason to have occurred.* In ME2, the interludes are written more organically, sounding more like two people having a conversation and less like poorly-concealed info dumps. And the funny bits are just way funnier in ME2.
- Wrex dialogues being the major exception. Wrex was hilarious.
** The whole game gave me the very strong impression that Bioware’s writers and cinematics guys spent the last two years watching “Firefly” and “Battlestar Galactica,” the former for its multifaceted characters and dead-on comic timing, and the latter for its cinema verite style of animating space battles. It’s interesting, because ME1 was so obviously an homage to classic science fiction novels and old-school movies (Star Wars most of all), while ME2 is similarly a pastiche of the current generation of sci-fi classics-to-be.
[spoiler]If you have Garrus and Tali with you while you wander the Citadel, they have a hilarious conversation about the elevators in ME1. Tali ends up threatening Garrus with her shotgun by the end of it.
ETA: Found it on youtube. Reminiscing![/spoiler]
I agree. Like I said above, they also took the stick out of paragon Shepard’s ass. On the mission for the Krogan my Shepard still decided to scare the “badly wounded” gang member and then laugh about it. And “paragon” isn’t all just saying “hey, now!” He actually goes so far as to punch and threaten people to do the right thing. (The one at the end of Zaeed’s loyalty mission was just plain COLD Well, I guess I’ll just leave you under this steel beam for being a dick, dick.). For once doing the “good” path (note the quotes, don’t want to get in that debate) can make you feel funny and like a badass. I admit though, I still prefer Dragon Age’s lack of a morality system, when there’s a bar I feel like I have to fill it, I feel a little more free to react as I feel is prudent in DA.
Yeah, that was awesome. And a great example of how much better-written (and acted) the jokes are in ME2.
Garrus’s cheerful “Tell me again about your immune system,” followed by Tali’s deadpan “I have a shotgun” are delivered perfectly.
There are also some hilarious situational dialogue bits on the Citadel - some of my favorites include the little dig at audiophiles and, of course, Renegade Shepard, Class Warrior (sadly, can’t find a video).
And of course, who could forget this bit of genius from Mordin - Opera Singer. On and also from Mordin… this, just… that.
Oh cool, I just found something really nice with loyalty quests. You know how after you talk to them two or three times they shut up until they have a quest? It turns out your journal updates when they’re ready to talk to you. You still need to talk to them the first couple of times, but you don’t need to bang your head against the wall after every sidequest “making rounds” amongst your crew like I was doing.
Or you could just talk to whatsherface next to your mail console who, much like a feminine version of the AOL guy, always lets you know when you’ve got mail or have friends who need you to take time out of, like, saving the human race and everything to help with their closeted skeletons.
As I’m far more of a shooter fan than an RPGer, I found ME2’s gameplay far suprior to the first - which I abandoned after about a third of the main storyline. Unfortunately the entire thing still suffers from extreme consolitis that would be UNFORGIVABLE if it weren’t…well… Really damn fun, against my better judgment.
My one complaint is that the game is really quite easy. Playing on hard all the way through, I didn’t run into any sticking points. Every fight can be solved by putting the cursor on the enemy’s head and pressing mouse1. If you get into a sticky situation, Adrenaline Rush and a(n) (upgraded) sniper rifle means two or three dead enemies before it wears off. I’m also a little disappointed that there’s little true variety in the weapons. Once you upgrade a firearm there’s little reason to return to other variants. I never use the shotgun unless I’m bored.
I like that I can interrupt people’s boring monologues with a biff! in the jaw or handgun to the face.
If only I could get this kind of FPS experience in a fallout-style setting. Pure heaven. ME2 is pretty close anyways. 9/10
Care to tell us what happens? I had my hand off the mouse during this part and was too slow to press the button.
I was going to try to describe it, but I finally found a vid.
Cool, thanks. BTW what armor is she wearing there?
Does anyone else’s er… Archangel have the survival instinct of a suicide victim? It doesn’t matter if I explicitly direct him into cover or not, he seems to really, really like to forget to duck when his health is low and just stands there acting like an immobile defense turret. I like him, he works with my group well ability-wise, but he seems to be unconscious as often as he’s up. I figured it was my tactics at first, but no other character seems to die nearly as often as him.
Archangel doesn’t last long, but he lasts longer than Jack. I levelled her shockwave all the way before I knew how useless it was, and the only way I can work out how to use her is to tell her to run to somewhere exposed and use shockwave against the exposed enemy. She’s then immediately gunned down - maybe surviving long enough to give someone a couple of shots on the way.
It’s not Archangel’s actual health or shield that bothers me, it’s just the fact that he acts like he only has two days left until retirement. Given no direction he’s only slightly less likely to just stand out of cover than he is to use it. Even with cover he has a terrible habit of popping out of it when he can only take one or two more hits while the only danger present can’t hit him while he’s ducked. I can understand the AI taking risky shots under certain circumstances, but I wish they’d have the sense to mostly stay put until their shields are charging or everything is mezzed.
The other AI does it too, I’ve lost Tali that way a couple times, but I’ve noticed that in general most of the AI is smarter about it. Maybe he’s just making up for lost wounds since he was doing so well on Omega.
Ah - that’s not it for me. When I’m not watching him explicitly, my Archangel has the tendency to wander out from cover in what I’m now convinced is his tribute to the climactic scene from Scarface.
It typically works out about as well.
Jack, on the other hand, is my pawn exchange. Wind her up, point her at the bad guy and pick up her corpse on the way through.
So what are your favorite squads? Lately, Ive been using Jack and Mordin for their aoe powers. I play soldier, so I dont need another gunner. Jack dies a little more often than I care for, but she’s completely manageable.
If you give your teammates a specific order to move behind cover, they’ll stick to that location instead of using their own judgement with movement. If you move too far away from them, they’ll try to catch up and will need another order, but I managed to keep mine alive fairly well on Insanity by telling them which cover spots to use.
I found myself changing up squad composition a lot more than in the first game. You usually get some information about what sort of enemies you’ll be facing in a mission, so you can plan for it. Mordin & Jack are great for Blood Pack and husks, able to drop armor and then shockwave everything to death in large clumps while keeping the rest at bay, and Tali & Morinth’s abilities to turn an enemy friendly is great for thinning out ranks if you pair them with someone who can quickly drop shields or barriers. Thane, Garrus & Legion provide effective fire for shooting standoffs with their sniper rifles, and so on and so forth. I saw squad choice and use as almost its own tactical minigame.
Yeah, the squad selection is much more situational than the first game, and can also depend on what skills have been levelled both by you and the other team members.
When I’m going into a quest blind, though, my squad tends to be my Infiltrator (currently maxing out Disruptor Ammo, Incinerate and Reave), Archangel (maxing Overload and AP Ammo) and Miranda (maxing Overload and Warp). It’s a generalist team that isn’t bogged down if you come up against any of the three armour types, and between my rifle and Garrus’ concussive shot I’ve got good sniping capacity - even if my accuracy isn’t up to the standard demanded by a TPS.
But if the capacity’s there to guess what I’m likely to come up against or to guess the terrain type across which I’ll be fighting, I’ll build a more appropriate team.
Unlike the first game, where the A-team was my Infiltrator, Wrex and Liara in every mission after I found them.
ETA: The only ones that don’t really get taken out at all are Zaeed (he’s too “in between” as a fighter - I’d prefer either Archangel’s range or the krogan’s stopping power), Jack (I levelled her wrong and she’s both useless and fragile) and Jacob (who I also levelled wrong and is overpowered by other team members).