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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Gaming Mass Effect Series

Discussion in 'Community' started by Valyn, Sep 7, 2012.

  1. Clone_Cmdr_Wedge

    Clone_Cmdr_Wedge Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2006
    @Jedi Ben So... you didn't get to the part where you find out the whole thing was orchestrated by a Cerberus-created clone of Shepard, who was created as a back-up in case the Lazarus Project didn't pan out (and who suffers a death that was ripped off from the ending of The Mummy Returns)? :p



    Never really used them much myself, but what I did like to do in 1 was to get a couple of damage increase mods and explosive rounds and add them to a shotgun, creating an improvised grenade launcher. I remember one time using that against a Husk. I guess because of the wall it was right in front of and the ragdoll physics, the Husk got sent of flying into the air Team Rocket-style. Had me laughing for a while (and wished I was recording it).



    I agree as well. Early on the sniper rifle can be a pain, but once you put some stat points into it, sniper rifles can be a beast. They make taking out the geth rocket turrets on the final run up the Citadel tower much easier.
     
  2. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    You're not exactly selling me it you know! ;)

    Did start off the replay of ME1 aka the Wrex-Lives-&-Saren-Blows-His-Own-Head-Off replay!
     
  3. 07jonesj

    07jonesj Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2010
    Jedi Ben That suppressor pistol is OP as hell, though! Headshots will pretty much kill enemies in one hit, and you can even upgrade the thing with cranial trauma mods to increase headshot damage by 40%.

    I guess the solo bits never bother me because I always run as a soldier first time through. Whether I'm alone or with squadmates rarely changes my strategy, I can take on pretty much any enemy alone with Javik's Particle Rifle. Also didn't struggle with the casino sections. I'm surprised you encountered such resistance during the DLC, honestly. The most common complaint I've seen of people who usually don't like the Citadel DLC is that it's too sentimental and borders on self-parody.

    Having literally just finished playing Arkham City yesterday, in the Two-Face boss you just ignore the goons and hop around the gargoyles until you can jump behind Two-Face and get a takedown. Then whip away and wait for another opportunity. Same with Harley Quinn except with Robin.

    Is it bad level design if I get it? :p
     
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  4. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    You assume headshots are easy! I do love the particle rifle though.

    OK, fine, you stuck the simile there so that saves you from a Death Star-class fragging! :)

    Quite seriously, what I'm finding is that games are becoming more difficult for me in terms of fine coordination combined with 3d game arenas. On the one hand it's great, on the other it's making demands I find very difficult - as it involves 2 analogue sticks, d-pad, 2x 2 shoulder buttons and 4 face buttons, all while processing a fast-changing environment in 3 dimensions!* Add in that most game "puzzles" operate on a twisted logic I never get, or tend to break the rules they apparently set and it's a recipe for high-level dis-satisfaction! I'll freely admit this is unique to me but....

    I can't see games succeeding as a mass medium with this attitude that whatever a game does must be OK, if you don't like X then that's because you're bad at it! (I do loathe the infinite bad guy trick greatly as it throws strategy out the window, why bother when there'll be more? Wave attacks I can work with, short of them teleporting them in on top of me or doing mass ambushes - I'm looking at you Dragon Age II!)

    I'm similarly opposed to people carping about games being too easy, there's these things called difficulty settings dumb ass, go use them and don't come crying to me when Dark Souls II rips you a new one! Difficulty settings are needed for people like me to enjoy games now, removing them and sticking one standard setting that can't be changed is a recipe for disaster - as Sleeping Dogs proved.

    (You only find it a challenge in any of the ME games by playing Insanity level? Well, that's nice, bet you're also the guy who plays Akuma in SF punch-ups and does his hard-as-hell-to-pull-off super-nuclear-death-at-the-atomic-level one-hit-kill move with ease too? Yeah, thought so, that's always cool to watch. Still pales to being on the receiving end of a red shell in Mario Kart but I digress....)

    The biggest problem I have with the Citadel DLC is it's marketing. It was sold as fun, but having to run around with an artificially restricted inventory and health, while being solo in a squad-based shooter just doesn't qualify as that. It still spins a good story that I wanted to see what happened next, so kept going through the tedium and irritation of it, but the whole time I was seeing the dead hand of game creator artifice, the curtain not so much flapping as shredded to crap and once you see that it all collapses quick.

    It could have recovered, sure, but that rubbish in the Casino just finished it off. Apparently there is this 1 way to crack that puzzle but even a vid walkthrough didn't make any sense as I'd done similar and been detected and there's no other way of doing it, so that's a killer roadblock right there. Games work when you accept the rules and the reasoning they're based on but here those just came across as transparently arbitrary and I ceased to care. well, not strictly true, it was either cease playing or continue getting hacked off, with it ending with the disc ejected and hacked to death with a steak knife and the fragments ending up in the bin!

    EDIT: * It's interesting about the 3d element - as on the old 2D horizontal shoot 'em ups and platformers, I could pretty much learn and recall entire levels quite easily. Think about it and the answer's clear - it's less variables and more sequencing that does not alter, thus can be predicated and responded to pro-actively.
     
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  5. 07jonesj

    07jonesj Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2010
    Jedi Ben I totally pulled out and removed that comment, thinking it to be too on-the-nose, but you quoted it and now it's there forever. Damn you!

    I consider myself to be quite average in skill level, actually. I wasn't trying to be elitist or anything (which was I decided on removing that last comment). I completely agree with you that difficulty settings should be a thing, and I'm of the opinion that they should actually change more than just making enemies do less damage and you do more damage. Puzzles should be simplified and the game could be streamlined. Put directly, I'd actually like games to allow you to alter things more than just having 3 or 4 pre-sets. Maybe you're good at puzzles but not at shooting? Okay, well then have puzzles on max and combat on easiest.

    I'm pretty young (18) and so have grown up with 3D games, and I guess I forget that they are actually still relatively new in the gaming medium.

    In terms of how I find Mass Effect, yes, on normal setting I'm never challenged. As long as you take cover, pop out, then cover again, you almost never lose your shields. Of course, I'm playing on consoles, so there is some auto-aim helping me with those headshots. But I'm not one to boast that every game is a piece of cake. Demon's Souls is still kicking my ass, so it'll be a long time before I get to Dark Souls II. The biggest problem I have with that game is not the difficulty actually, but the fact that you have to restart the whole level again. Not everyone wants to "waste" that amount of time. An option for respawning a little ways back would be nice.

    But, you're absolutely correct. Games should be accommodating all types of gamers, especially when story-focused. With something like Demon's Souls or Ninja Gaiden, you can argue that the hard difficulty is the point so having easier modes defeats the objective the game set out to complete. But for anything like Mass Effect or Dragon Age... bring on that custom difficulty setting!
     
  6. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Quite seriously, I got your joke there 07 - but I also saw it as a very good opportunity to kick off a bit of discussion on games generally! Which you seem to have picked up on nicely.

    In 20 years, not so good at games will you be! :) It doesn't help that I'm a dyspraxic gamer either and one of the areas it hits is fine coordination! Wiring a plug or threading a needle? Forget it, ain't happening.

    I'm not good at puzzles nor stealth, shooting or beating people up? Yeah, that I'm fine with - obviously a Krogan at heart! :) One of the things I really liked in ME are how the conversations work, in ME1 they really matter and it's a shame that wasn't applied to the end of ME3. Using the fact you reconciled the Geth and their makers would obliterate the Catalyst's argument on a philosophical level, it'd take one of the biggest wins of the game and elevate it even further.

    I really enjoyed the Killzone games, yeah, I was playing on Easy but you really had to think about what you were doing or the Helgast handed you your arse! Similarly ME games on Easy / Casual work pretty well for me most of the time - still can't work out how ME3 upped the difficulty on the sly to Normal. And I can say I did once get through Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on Easy - likely never pulling that off again, as those final level were utter gits!

    Oh and Demon's Souls? Redoing the level is your punishment for being crap! ;) Have to give it and NGS due credit they never claimed to be anything other than hard bastard games and were marketed as that! Thus I knew to avoid and leave to those more foo - ahem, more receptive to its challenge! ;)

    EDIT: Right, time to call it a night, but hopefully there's enough to continue this discussion in a positive fashion tomorrow!

    Come to think of it why can't I bribe / threaten / persuade a guard to open the door for me at the end of that casino anyway?
     
  7. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    The early bit is a bit tough - your health is down to 20%, no medigel, and between the multi-frag grenades and drones the CAT6 specialists have a lot of ways to flush you from cover. Infiltrators or Engineers probably have that section the easiest - both have Sabotage, which turns the drones back on their owners with gratifying results, Infiltrators have Cloak and headshot bonuses, and the Engineer has Overload, Combat Drone, and Turret to generally screw with the enemy. The Soldier's Adrenaline Rush and weapon damage boosts are pretty good assists, the Vanguard's Charge is useful, and the Sentinel has the usual bag of tricks plus Tech Armor. Really the Adept is the only one that kind of gets shafted, and even then he has Warp + Throw detonations to even the odds.

    If you're having issues with headshots, here's one trick - pause, line the shot up, and shoot as soon as you take it out of pause. I usually double- or triple-tap them; two headshots is an assured kill and three body shots will probably do the job. Spendier on the ammo, but given the fire rate on the Suppressor it allows you to tear through enemies quickly.

    As for the casino, yeah - that last one is tricky. Easiest bet for the guards in each situation is to stand and watch their movements for a bit. On that last one, the one guard is patrolling near the door to the main floor and gives you a pretty good window in which to act. Once you figure out when that window starts, have your squadmate distract the standing guard. If you pull it off right you can take down the whole shebang before the squadmate is done talking. If you screw up, I generally start talking to either the group near the first camera or the Turian con artist outside the door to throw off suspicion.

    Once you get past those two sections, I think you'll like Citadel better. After that you get your squad (including Wrex) and your full suite of weapons (soon to include the utterly awesome M-7 Lancer) back. Just watch for the CAT6 Heavies - first time I ran into them they dealt me my first in-game death in a long while. The clone bit I forgave; even if it was a campy idea there were several aspects to it that were fun (the best of course is facing a final boss that uses your favorite tricks against you; a Vanguard-vs.-Vanguard charge/nova/shotgun/melee slugfest is pretty entertaining).
     
  8. Jedi_Jason5001

    Jedi_Jason5001 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 30, 2001
    Does anyone know, for the Citadel DLC, if I decide to leave the place without first having the BIG party and instead go do a side quest, for example, whether I can come/go back to the Citadel DLC and finish it off later?

    And I have to agree about those CAT6 heavies with the shields. Sheesh! I had to have my entire squad (including me!) focus on just one just to beat one quickly. Normally I would get my guys to focus on one baddy while I go after another. I am pretty sure I did - no word of a lie - at least 10-12 times when those four or five guys with shields show up and rise from the floor. [face_blush]
     
  9. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002

    I think you can. I've left the Silversun Strip before to purchase things elsewhere on the Citadel.

    The CAT6 Heavies can be beaten in a few ways. Just like Cerberus Guardians, a "mail slot" hit can kill them, except with their armor it has to be a very hard-hitting gun to one-shot them. Pull will destroy the shield, although it can be regenerated after a short while. Overload, Energy Drain, or Sabotage will also destroy the shields and then stun-lock the Heavy for some easy shots or a tech combo burst. I believe that while the shield is resistant to piercing mods and AP ammo, it will still be pierced by weapons with innate piercing like the Widow/Black Widow, Javelin, Executioner, Typhoon, and Crusader.

    Otherwise - get some distance and unload. The bit where four of them come up through the floor is actually pretty easy; I order Wrex (who I always have in the Archives) to take cover near the ladder while myself and the other squadmate climb up on the catwalk and turn that area into a shooting gallery. By the time the Heavies show up the Specialists and Snipers have been greatly thinned out and I can snipe the Heavies from high cover with whatever scoped weapon I have handy.
     
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  10. Shadow Trooper

    Shadow Trooper Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 18, 2013
    You are able to do the party at anytime after you finish the Fighting portion of the dlc. I had to do this on my infiltrator playthrough because I hadn't beaten Horizon yet, so I could have Miranda at my party. As for the Cat 6 Heavys, I find the Revenant with a piercing mod and Warp ammo does an admirable job of killing them quickly.
     
  11. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Yeah, if you're going for plain ol' dakka just go for something that puts out a lot of damage before you have to reload. I just went through that section with my vanguard, and an N7 Piranha or N7 Hurricane did very well for up-close and personal work. At longer range I could almost one-shot them with an Executioner.

    Not sure if this is an exchange of Oh Crap looks or if these guys are Distracted by the Sexy:
    [​IMG]

    The cloneShep battle on the vanguard playthrough was epic as usual - she charged right into my cover area at the start, so I switched to an N7 Piranha and commenced a running shotgun/biotic slugfest at point-blank range. The amount of damage being exchanged was insane; the cutscene with Cortez and Joker in the skycar is supposed to trigger once the clone is down to its last two medigels but I actually made her use them all up before the cutscene could kick in. In return I got shotgunned/warped/nova'd down to my final hitpoint and only a timely charge saved me.
     
  12. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    So ME1 replay - good news / bad news....

    Bad news - Mako remains a piece of crap.

    Good news - With an arsenal of level X Spectre weaponry and high-level charm, Shep can kill everyone but isn't actually doing so!
     
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  13. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Just dealt with Major Kyle, walked in, talked, he agreed to give up, walked out.

    Last time I did that it ended up a blood bath and everyone died - it's surprisingly satisfying going the non-violent route! Wish more games allowed for the possibility.
     
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  14. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    The funny thing I found about ME1 is that sometimes you can get more renegade points for making badass threats than you would for just shooting everyone. Makes for the interesting possibility of playing a renegade character who scares the hell out of everyone without crossing a moral event horizon.

    Been getting reacquainted with my ME3 vanguard in the Citadel arena - interesting change of pace. Usually I'm not voluntarily shotgunning a Banshee point-blank in the face or pretty much literally jamming an assault rifle up a Possessed Praetorian's ass (the latter is what you get when you pick on my vanguard's little blue girl, although given how the thing staggered right back into me Liara was holding her own quite nicely).
     
  15. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Completed Citadel with my sentinel. I decided owing to the fact that he's my Tali romance I'd switch his primary weapon to a Geth Plasma Shotgun. First time I've really made extensive use of it in ME3 - if nothing else the visual effect (to me it looks like a futuristic double-barreled shotgun) was of the real Shepard getting grouchy and grabbing 'ol Bessie to shoot that whippersnapper of a clone. I was able to play pretty aggressively with tech armor active. I had forgotten how Tali and Shepard have an exchange in the CIC fight that's right out of The Hunt for Red October - "Shepard, be careful! Some things in here don't react well to bullets!" "Yeah, like me! I don't react well to bullets!"

    Did have one hiccup in the arena - decided to take Tali with me on a couple of Collector sim runs and found out she's not a good pick; Scions were dropping her over and over again. The first time around I had Garrus as my other squadmate, and as he's not too sturdy either that was a long, messy brawl against Collector super elites. At two points I got pounced on by badly damaged Praetorians; the first time it happened it was a possessed Praetorian that was down to its last armor bar and I finished it off with a melee beatdown.
     
  16. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    NEW ANDROMEDA GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE?? [face_dancing]=D=^:)^
    Just take my money and my house and my first-born now, BIOWARE.
    [​IMG]
    I know this is from ME3, but c'mon..IT'S GARRUS.
     
  17. Blackhole E Snoke

    Blackhole E Snoke Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2016
    Calibrations!![face_party]
     
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  18. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    I wish I could create a poll on here to see who punched the reporter in ME1 on their very first playthrough.
    I guess a Paragon/Renegade poll would make more sense. I just loved punching her.
     
  19. Deputy Rick Grimes

    Deputy Rick Grimes Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    Can't wait for the new game!
     
  20. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    Me too! What did you think of the gameplay footage??
     
  21. Deputy Rick Grimes

    Deputy Rick Grimes Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    I thought it was good
     
  22. Kynirin

    Kynirin Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2015
    Something to watch on and on until the N7 Day when we'd seem to be getting the next bit of official news. :)
     
    The Vanguard likes this.
  23. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    I heard some more story news..

    [​IMG]
     
  24. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    Well, happy N7 day everyone. And a new trailer of course.



    Feels really different from the original ME trilogy. Is that our first look at male Ryder? Still no official release date, but guess they want to be cautious just in case of further delays. At least they have the boxart for the regular and deluxe edition already (and the deluxe price is only a bit more than the regular).

    Despite myself I'm still excited. Might as well snag a PS4 pre-order... unless there's some bonus from old save data, but I don't have an Xbox One and haven't bothered to replay through the trilogy on PS3 yet, hm.

    And they're really pushing the Nomad (new Mako). Here's hoping it drives better at least.
     
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  25. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    Happy N7 day! :D

    Had to re-watch the new trailer with my noise-cancelling earbuds, my worksite is too dmn loud.

    Nobody145 you should totally brain-jump and playthrough the series on PS4! I'm int the same boat in that I don't have an X1 but still have my old 360 copies. Nostalgia never dies..

    This definitely feels different from the oringinal trilogy. I'm very excited and hope they take all the time they need. Even if they postponed it to next Fall. *knocks on wood that they don't*

    The Nomad looks dope. I hope the armament includes a long range/short range combination like the Mako did.