Gaming Mass Effect Series

From my infrequent singleplayer usage of the Reegar, I generally view it to be devastating up close and a harmless sparkler at anything beyond about three meters. Probably best fitted to a character that's already melee-focused - fit it with a bayonet attachment and whatever other mod you favor (aside from a smart choke, which is useless on that gun).

 

Yep, that's why it's deemed essential loadout for the Krogan VAAAAAAAHHHguard. He's going to be up in people's faces on everything but (if not including) Escort missions, so you might as well make him good at point blank. About its only weakness for that purpose is that it doesn't penetrate armour as well, and a Shredder Mod takes care of that.

 

Huh, I must be weird because I never used a Reegar with my KroGuard. I gave him an Eviscerator shotgun with Blade and Shredder mods. Worked well enough for me.

 

For my Shaman I actually enjoyed the Scimitar, oddly enough: it had a nice feel to it. And a good "cadence": you could count off four shots and then hit Warp and/or Shockwave again. Until, of course, I picked up a Wraith and the RNG God put it up to level III. ClayMOAR I don't touch mainly because I have no idea how to reload cancel effectively, which combined with my close range accuracy means it's usually a wasted shot. My crappy short range accuracy is another reason why I use the lolgar.

 

In SP at least I rank the Piranha as king of the close-quarters firefight. Granted even with a smart choke the thing is about as precise as most unmodded shotguns, but it tends to do enough damage to outweigh that (especially if you have Explosive Burst ammo loaded and four out of the eight pellets burst into 2.5-meter fireballs on impact ).

I will admit a certain fondness for the Wraith and Eviscerator simply because of the reload animation

 

OK, I'm done with this series and Bioware in general who are over-rated idiots now.

Someone decide it was fun to create the Makok - a tank that's is most poncy piece of military hardware you'll ever find, it hits sweet FA, takes no hits and is frigging useless. THEN you have to get out and the game decides to ambush in such a way your squad gets killed fast, cover? There isn't any so you're screwed. Difficulty curve? There isn't one.

All the work they put into world-building? If they put a fraction of that in how the combat actually played it'd be smart, but it isn't it's dumb. Combat was a tiresome, irritating bore in ME2, it's far worse here.

ME3? Don't care anymore, I've already wasted £12 on ME1 thinking it was a smart buy, it wasn't - why should I get my hopes for a sequel with a truly toxic ending?

 

Heh, yeah, if ME 1 and 2 don't do it for you, ME3 certainly won't.

And yeah, the Mako... certainly needed better controls, at the very least. Oddly enough, I thought the Hammerhead from the Firewalker pack had decent controls. It was just too bad the thing's armor makes cardboard look like titanium. Weapon wasn't too bad, but it probably needed something like a machine gun and a zoom function on the rocket cannon. Personally, I think if they had taken the armor and weapons from the Mako and combined them with the controls from the Hammerhead to make a third tank (Great White? Thrasher? Tiger... okay, maybe not Tiger.) it would have been fairly good.

You know, considering the number of times they had Shep siding with one person or the other in some discussion on the Normandy, I'm kinda surprised that they didn't have one for when Vega and Steve were debating the merits of the Mako vs the Hammerhead...

 

What irritates is there's a hell of a lot I like about the games outside of the combat, but.... meh.

Bioware's stuff clearly isn't for me.

 

From my experience playing ME1 on the PC, I didn't have major issues driving the Mako with the WASD keys. In general I loved that thing - drive up to the top of a mountain, scope down a bunch of mooks, and rip them to shreds from 500 meters out before they had a prayer of returning fire. Or, if you have a sniper rifle and are intent on farming XP, use it to find a perfect perch, exit, and start dropping them. That was perhaps my favorite part of the exercise and the thing I greatly missed from ME2 and 3; in the latter two games you had very few if any real long-range encounters. If you were patient, the Mako gave you the opportunity to set up a lopsided engagement. I like it when a game gives you the chance to play smart and sneaky.

Of course, on several playthroughs where I was using a non-sniper class, there was one time when I performed a "Mako Airdrop" - Wrex's loyalty mission, where you got his family armor back. Since the outside mooks are under an overhang and you approach from a cliff, you don't have a shot at them with the gun. So I'd just drive off the cliff, land right next to them, and either blast them point-blank with the main gun or bail out and hit them like a Kansas tornado (literally, if said character was an adept with singularity).

The Hammerhead on the other hand? Worthless piece of arcade-style junk, in my book. Entirely reliant on dancing all over the place at mid-to-close range while you fire seemingly dinky little homing rockets as fast as your finger can mash the button. There's no tactical skill involved, just frantic hit-and-run punching. Most of the missions were also overly reliant on hopscotching through the environment.

 

There is a lot to like about Mass Effect outside of the combat, and that stuff is largely what made it so popular. The combat is pretty generic overall, but it can be fun if you have the right characters (biotic pwnage is great fun, covering and shooting endlessly gets tiresome fast).

I found the driving around endlessly aspect of ME1 kinda boring, scanning for stuff in ME2 was also tedious but it saved driving around a lot for not very much most of the time.

I would take the Mako over the Hammerhead though, I used that in one mission and it was far more annoying than using Mako for the whole of ME1

 

See, I have a lot of fun with covering and shooting, especially since in ME3 the weapons and mods are so diverse. I've recently had fun kitting out my infiltrator with a Javelin VII, selecting AP ammo, and then scoping and dropping Cerberus mooks right through the walls. For covering and shooting I find myself thinking about fields of fire and how well my squadmates can hold a position; last time I ran through Priority: Earth it was with my soldier and for the final rush I had Ashley, Garrus, and Shep all holed up in a storefront with N7 Typhoons equipped and all avenues of approach covered. THAT was fun .

 

I tried solely gunning my way through the Earth part, I died a lot.
Perhaps I need better guns, I found without biotics support I struggled when dealing with multiple Bashees or Brutes even if I was holed-up in a well defended position.

 

Hmm, what were you using? I have picked up both the Firefight and Groundside Resistance packs on top of having gotten the Digital Deluxe edition of the game, so that's 18 extra guns and yes some of them are virtual game-breakers. The N7 Typhoon just destroys heavy units in seconds, provided you have the weight capacity to carry it. The Cerberus Harrier is a brutal gun, but has limited clip capacity and reserve ammo. The N7 Piranha is a real street-sweeper of a riot shotgun, but against heavies the whole blast has a good chance of connecting and that gun eats Brutes for breakfast. The Venom is a freakin' grenade launcher that, provided you have the stones to stand your ground for a few seconds to charge the shot, will take down a Brute with one hit and a Banshee in 3-4. The Executioner Pistol is basically a fun-sized M-92 Mantis that'll kill a Brute with a few hits.

As far as guns in the standard game or storyline DLC, the Widow, Black Widow, and Javelin when fully upgraded and in the hands of a soldier or infiltrator can one-shot a Brute or a Banshee that's had it's barrier taken out. The M-7 Lancer and M-11 Suppressor from the Citadel DLC are also nasty pieces of work. The Lancer has slightly less punch than the Harrier, but if fully modded can have a clip three times the size that works on the ME1 cooldown/infinite ammo system. That turns it into possibly the best all-around assault rifle in the game. The Suppressor doesn't look like it does much damage, but it has a big headshot multiplier, a high rate of fire, and low recoil. I've finished off Banshees with that thing, and I've heard of folks on Normal taking down a Brute in six shots.

The other factor might be character build. Right now I have my two primary gunslingers (soldier and infiltrator) specced for massive damage bonuses from power trees, intel upgrades, and armor parts. The results are really sickening; if you add up all my soldier's damage bonuses and the N7 Typhoon's ridiculous damage bonuses for max firing rate and protection, he's got a maximum possible 352% damage bonus when engaging a heavy unit while using Adrenaline Rush.

 

Despite my fury yesterday, part of me is mulling over bringing in Wrex and kicking a large amount of Geth arse for that sodding mission to get Liara....

Just can't quit the bloody thing.... Thing is, I also really like my Shepherd......

Bloody games....

 

Yeah, ME1 does have a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you get it the fights aren't bad. One tip early on is to make sure you have at least one biotic in the squad for crowd control; ME1 enemies tend to banzai-charge you rather than staying put and trading fire. Having Lift, Throw, and/or Singularity can be a lifesaver there, especially against Krogan or Geth Destroyers. Another tip is to try and draw enemies into choke points - this makes a lot of the UNC missions much easier. I'll often command my squadmates to stand back from the door, go in, fire a few potshots to get everyone's attention, then run back out. If the enemy is dumb, they'll pile into the doorway and give me a dense, target-rich environment for powers and gunfire. Even if they don't all pile in, you can use this tactic to pick them off a few at a time. This will save your butt on the Rogue VI mission, and it makes the Paragon bonus mission a lot easier.

 

^^Yeah, pretty much that. ME1's strength is in it's Story, Characters, and World Building, not combat. And while you're probably no where near this yet. if you get 2 Frictionless Matterials and either Inferno or Polonium Rounds, and put those on either an Assualt Rifle or Pistol, you could litteraly hold down the trigger and fire an unending stream of bullets with little to no cooldown (think that one scene in Predator).

Man, why did they switch from Heat Sinks to Thermal Clips?

 

IU, from the codex:

Not the best explanation, IMO, but I did find it amusing that Conrad Verner lampshaded this very issue in ME3, thinking that the new system is a step backwards... And he's probably right.

 

I really should play ME1 again, only been through it the one time. And I didn't have the DLC for it either.



Just did the Citadel DLC today, a fine addition it is for ME3.

The actual storyline is pretty short overall and kinda weak, but the bonding with your team-mates is brilliantly done and the additional stuff like the Arena & Arcade give you something to replay once you've done all the story stuff.
I am curious though as to why Anderson needed such a massive apartment, that thing has like 5 bedrooms with attached bathrooms and one with a hot-tub. His taste in household décor is interesting to say the least, he does like his abstract art.

 

My thought was that if Anderson's N7 days were anything like Shep's adventures in ME1, he probably picked up a few million creds in loot (not to mention he does seem to know Barla Von fairly well ...). Unlike Shep, Anderson blew it on a luxury bachelor pad instead of guns and armor.

It would be interesting to see a baseline stats comparison between say an upgraded HMWA X and one of the ME2/3 assault rifles in terms of damage per bullet. Also, from experience with the Lancer and Particle Rifle, I can say that overheating one of those guns in combat results in about the longest ten seconds of your pixellated life, especially since dodging or using powers cancels the cooldown. That said, yeah - I remember when my soldier went from pretty much shrugging off anything short of concentrated artillery fire and laying down hellfire in ME1 to having problems with a mob of LOKI mechs in the start of ME2. Bit of a rude awakening.

Overall, I don't mind the thermal clips in terms of gameplay - it's rare that I find myself running low without more to stock up on, and even in those rare instances it adds something. I still remember the time my infiltrator took out the ME2 proto-reaper with her last five M-98 Widow shots, probably growling "Smile, you son-of-a-b**** ..." in homage to Chief Brody.

Also, for me it fixes one of ME1's big flaws - all the guns had just three stats to differentiate between them, and you just ended up managing that nightmare of an inventory system by exchanging guns for better ones until you had a full armory of Spectre weapons for your entire team. ME2 and especially ME3 give you a lot more options to customize your loadout according to your preferences.

 

...And on the 186th day of playing the goddamn MP, the Random Number God gave Saintheart a Typhoon.

 

^"I felt a great disturbance in the Mass Effect, as if a thousand AI enemies crapped bricks in terror and were loudly and repeatedly shot to death ..."

 

I know what you mean, my Soldier Shepard in ME1 was a one-man arsenal of pain who could laughed at the thought of biotic support (I spent most of the time using Garrus & Wrex or Ashley who prefer to just blast everything) but in ME2 that doesn't really work so much and you rely far more on stuff that does a wider-range of damage or immobilises enemies. Must be something to do with more of them using cover in ME2.

 

Although to be honest I'm really liking my Turian Soldier with a Cerberus Harrier. Didn't think I would, but it all depends on your approach. Assault Rifle IV Rail Amp, Drill Ammo II or III, Thermal Clip V mod and Scope mod makes that thing a ROFLfest on Silver. In particular, I seem to draw Reapers as the opposition and Firebase Hydra a lot. This is fun mainly because when the Banshee comes screeching, I tend to ignore her and bust everything else in sight: against all my expectations otherwise, Ravagers are now my target of choice because they're squishier than a Brute, you can see them from half a mile away, they're less annoying than Marauders, and they at least give you the blue lights of warning before shooting their wall-hacking missiles. One long burst from a Marksman'd Cerberus Harrier right after the Ravager gets done shooting its wad will take down said Ravager after it shines blue lights on you again, but before it gets to fire.

Why do I do that rather than shoot the Banshee? Because it's actually more of a help to the team if I'm blowing away smaller opposition. Waves in MP have a set "budget" to them, and if you erode that budget by taking out smaller opposition while a Banshee is on the map there's much less chance the computer will throw another Banshee at the team -- because it won't have sufficient points left to send another one in.

I do have a little chortle when I find myself top scoring against guys who have N7 scores in the thousands and Challenge Point totals in the 15,000 range, especially the ones with the 'Lone Wolf' banner. And especially when said guys ragequit after a single match with me

 

Actually, I thought biotics were somewhat less useful in ME2. Enemies with armor, shielding, and barriers were pretty much immune to crowd-control powers like Pull, Throw, Singularity, and Shockwave until you wore their defenses down, and by then they were just a few bullets from death anyway. In ME1, you could even toss the Saren husk around. Crowd-control powers were best when either I was facing husks or there was an opportunity to fling unprotected enemies into a chasm. Warp was useful for chewing down barriers and armor, but again - hand me a Revenant or Widow with AP ammo and that wasn't a very big problem either. I did plenty of missions without biotic support; my usual BUG squad for Horizon was Garrus and Grunt. No biotics, just concussive shot and a lot of firepower. Enemy reliance on cover was considerably better, which is why aside from my soldier and infiltrator every other character of mine took sniper rifles as a bonus weapon proficiency. Even a vanguard can benefit from being able to hang way back and pick off enemies in cover from a distance.

Biotics however got a big boost in ME3 with combo detonations. Setting my vanguard up with Liara and Javik is a recipe for annihilation. And as far as cover - load AP ammo on a Javelin and you could theoretically kill mooks sealed in a bunker with six-foot thick walls.

 

This is why people roll their eyes when they see a Geth Infiltrator armed with a Javelin. Once you're used to it, it's the single most overpowered MP kit available. Don't just pick off mooks sealed in a bunker with six foot thick walls, do it WHILE INVISIBLE and with Geth radar that shows you exactly where they are before you put your eyes eye to the viewfinder.