I finally was able to pick-up my copy of Mass Effect 2 and I am way loving the game. Let me try to explain how much I enjoyed Mass Effect. Despite some major flaws that would ruin most games, I weathered through it to finish the game. And finish the game I did . . . . 4 times. I just became obsessive compulsive about hitting the Quick Save key.
But Mass Effect 2 is not without it’s problems. So far I have encountered one, but it was pretty big. Mass Effect 2 has major issues saving games if your ‘My Documents’ folder is not in its default location apparently. This was a problem with Mass Effect 1 but yet had no problem in Dragon Age. Go figure.
Unfortunately I only “discovered” this issue about 2 hours into my first playthrough when I finally died and the game refused to load any of my saves. My obsessive saving habits from ME1 were still with me and the game even displayed a ‘Saving Game’ notification too. Needless to say, it was super frustrating.
Finally, after about 2 hours trying to browse their forums (which are still in beta by the way and lack an easy method to get to their search feature) I was able to coerce it into saving my games. And then the fun began.
Mass Effect 2 fixes tons of the things people didn’t like in ME1. Mako combat, galaxy and planet exploration, inventory system, load times, and other things all have been greatly improved. The game loads remarkably quick and to me it feels like it runs smoother despite the graphic upgrades.
I am also impressed at the number of tie-ins from Mass Effect 1. I haven’t progressed very far in the game yet but the number of characters I have interacted with from ME1 has been awesome. While most of it doesn’t have any true bearing on the main quest, so many other side quests and events have been related to decisions from the first game.
And so far I am absolutely loving the voice acting. In fact, I think the only way this voice cast could be any more geek-friendly was if they had included Felicia Day. I mean, come on now. Sarah from Chuck. Jayne/Casey from Firefly/Chuck. Tricia Helfer from oh, let’s see . . . Burn Notice, Battlestar Galactica, Chuck, and StarCraft 2. And Seth Green. It’s awesome.
The story has been great thus far. While still tied in to the first game, its not just a re-hash in any sense, which is great. There a whole slews of new enemies as well as the familiar races and baddies. All the old races make an appearance in addition to new friends. You see Batarians around a lot more, which you might remember from the ‘Bring down the Sky’ downloadable content from the first game if you played it.
And because I picked up Mass Effect 2, I haven’t even gotten in my weekly ICC10 or my weekly raid quest yet and it’s Monday night! And I am not even worried about it. I don’t know what it is about the Mass Effect world, but it just sucks me in. I loved Dragon Age, but Mass Effect owns my soul comparatively speaking.
As I mentioned, I am not very far in yet, but I am hoping some of the old characters play slightly more important roles then they currently are. And the fact some of them are questioning my motives considering what happened in the first game is quite saddening.
I know one thing I am excited about, which I read on the forums, is the ability to keep questing after the main story line is completed. It was one thing I loved about Oblivion and was kind of bothered about in ME1 and DA:O. Sometimes you just don’t get to do everything but then the game ends.
Well, that’s my ramblings for now. Thoughts, comments, opinions. Played Mass Effect 2 yet? Plan to? Leave your comments!
Played through as Paragon, completed the main questline in about 32 hours (between sessions with STO).
(As an aside, I sorely miss the Mako missions and can’t wait for the Hammerhead DLC to arrive to see if they’ve brought that gameplay back in some shape or form – the planet scanning minigame is rather… unappealing, especially in comparison to the hands-on approach of driving the Mako.)
Seriously considering playing through ME1 again, but as renegade, and then giving ME2 a renegade playthrough. At least, I would if it wasn’t for Bioshock 2 having materialized on my to-play list.
I just finished the main quest line last night too. It seems to have fewer side quests this time around. At the moment, I only have one random one left to do unless I can find some others somewhere.
Finished my first playthrough last night (Paragon Infiltrator from ME1) and started a fresh game with a renegade adept from ME1. I tend to be the “good guy” in most of these games, but its so fun to be bad sometimes.
The mining minigame is a little frustrating sometimes, but the research function makes it a lot nicer. Less inventory nonsense to work through. I’m glad the mako is gone. I didn’t think I would be, but I am. The tie-ins to the characters from ME1 is awesome, especially the 2 you can recruit. End section is really well done, and sets up ME3 much better than ME1 sets up ME2, but would have loved to go back to the citadel and done the whole: “You didn’t listen to me last time, and we got screwed, so you better listen to me this time” with all the information from the collectors, etc., but I can understand why they didn’t.
First playthrough was about 35 hours with 99% of the side quests done. Second playthrough will be about the same, since I’m doing it on hardcore instead of normal. I’m not looking forward to the insanity playthrough.
I will probably jump up to Insanity on this playthrough I think. Not sure what class I want to play yet. I was an Infiltrator the first time through.
Insanity is only worth playing for the achievement. If you have no interest in the achievement (since you’re on PC), I’d say don’t even bother! It’s so hard that it isn’t even enjoyable at most parts unless you’re playing as an Infiltrator with the widow maker rifle.
Would rather pound my hand with a hammer over and over.
Game itself is amazing, though. I’m on my third game right now because ideally I’d like to have two “perfect” end game saves. One renegade, one paragon, both with all of my crew still intact.
Meh, when is this blog getting back to something hunter-ish?
I’m sorry Dro and far from me the desire to be harsh or unrespectful, I truly enjoy reading your writings but to be honest I was hooked to qqpewpew.com back before WotLK hit the shelves, you used to try out everything of all specs and give out tons of informations.
Right now I guess you can rename your blog to “what_I_do_during_the_day”.
I mean, videos are cool and all that jazz but it’s not they are enlightening us with amazing inputs, it’s just a crit showoff.
New Embles are out, did you think about setting up a “shop list” for the new gear?
Like, to show whether it’s better to go for all tier pieces or wait and invest in the ilvl264 non-tier stuff, in perspective of a 25men raider or a 10men?
How’s out new set bonus? When to get it and how to manage the transitions from T9 set bonuses? Any piece in ICC5 any worth for us? (random ArP trinket in FoS, anyone?)
I used to come to your blog everyday more than 10times per day to check hungrily for new informations, yet the past two months I only browse your page thinking about what random non-WoW related info I will find.
Another game review, meh. :(
Still, thanks for the time spent for the community and for all the very useful informations you gave me. That’s the past though, I fear.
I’m not sure if it’s on the blogroll here, but Hunter’s Mark used to compliment this blog well. I took technical advice and ideas from here with the unique and considered discussion and very hunter-centric topics of HM.
The HM is most definitely on the blogroll. Lassirra and I have been in contact for a long time now. In fact, I kind of wish we had kept doing our podcast beyond one episode. Heh :)
^ That. Long time reader first time poster from the land down under. Bring us the hunter gold Dro.
It’s been a challenge. I have been bored in WoW mainly because I can’t devote a schedule to raiding. So without the ability to push the new content, I don’t feel I can provide the best information without first hand experience. There are a ton of blogs that re-hash the information they read on Bosskillers or MMO-Champ and I don’t want to be one of those.
I’ve also been challenged to find things to write about that isn’t just plain facts. As the game continues to progress, there is less and less mystery and discovery needed to be done it seems. It feels like there is less of a need to for people like me to do what I did in Burning Crusade. And unless I am able to post Lich King videos and hard modes early on, I can’t provide any significant content given my current playtime.
I’ll figure something out.
You ever think about exercising some of your web skills and making something Hunter related with it? Article on efficient UI’s, how to design a decent kgpanel configuration, the pros and cons of your own UI. Maybe design some tool of sort, possibly even more helpful than SSGCD was. Heh.
I acknowledge that Hunters largely haven’t changed to much since 3.1, kind of making it hard to post about new and interesting things in regards to mechanics and content. The biggest change that comes to mind after that overhaul was the ArP change. Anyways, just a thought.
I’ve thought about sitting and making a UI before. Could be lots of fun.
I still think SSGCD is way useful. :) Let’s me know if I hit the soft haste cap easy enough.
How dare you forget to mention Michael Dorn (Had a huge nerdgasim on that one!) and Martin Sheen!
The biggest improvement I’ve noticed is the combat. Enemy’s actually remain at range and use cover now, it’s not the continual bum rush that ME1 turned into. I felt like using a pistol and assault rifle, and OMG the sniper was actually viable this time around instead of just running around with a shotgun. One of my favorte games ever was Rainbow Six: Vegas with their cover system, and it felt like ME2 covered that system quite nicely, while still having some melee enemys. The references to ME1 have been great, although I’m sure I missed a lot since it’s been awhile since I played that game. No Mako really sold me the game. Although the scanning planets thing is kinda lame I’ll take that over the stupid mako missions any day. I would have appreciated a greater weapon selection, especially since the combat is so FPS focused. As a soldier I only ended up with access to three different assault rifles and they got old after a while. It’s a shame since after doing a bit of research there seemed to be more promotional weapons than weapons that shipped with the game. I’ve run into very few bugs, and no save issues on the 360, however I’m still saving regularly. I know Bioware better than that by now.
I also forgot Carrie Anne Moss Aka Trinity from the Matrix. Dunno how I left that one off. :)
Supposedly there is going to be some DLC for Mako combat after they fixed it. At least that was the rumor on the street. And I was glad Bioware was able to laugh at themselves about the horrid Mako missions. They sold a shirt on their site that said Mako Off-Road Club or something and had a picture of a Mako going straight up a wall. :)