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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. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    As I've stated before, I actually kind of liked the Mako; I think the fan reaction was more due to the fact that most of the UNC maps were mountainous hellholes that made driving around a pain. I loved being able to line up devastating long-range shots with the main gun. On the Hammerhead, you couldn't zoom and your attack range was drastically reduced. You had to rely on hopping around like a spastic hummingbird, lest you find out the hard way the thing had aluminum foil armor.
     
  2. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    I was just never that good at firing in the Mako. I got better, I think, and just drove around and around avoiding turret fire while making my shots when I could. But I just did not like combat in the Mako. Like Han Solo, I prefer a straight fight...to all the driving around. :p
     
  3. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    I think, looking back, that what really bothered me about the endings were the major plot holes. Such as the squad magically being on the Normandy, Joker flying away, etc. While I would have liked to see more of the battle that took place, I think that the endings are realistic in that sometimes stuff happens and there's not a lot you can do.
     
  4. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999
    Not a lot you can do alright. Especially when Casper CataKid, the Unfriendly Ghost in the Machine, still exists. Or otherwise forces you to make equally crappy choices to determine the fate of the Universe and all that. I guess that alone still makes further playthroughs - DLC or not - a really annoying prospect.
     
  5. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    I thought the Extended Cut was pretty good, overall. The only thing that pissed me off was shooting at the StarBrat and losing terribly.

    In other news, I finally got the Mail Slot achievement (don't laugh) and the Eden Prime info one. Almost had the Hijacker, but for some reason I couldn't use the Atlas mech.
     
  6. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    What makes life easy is stopping and then firing - drive to a spot where you can either fire on the target with impunity or can duck back into cover with a tap on the reverse key, then snipe away. Tanks use a similar tactic called hull-down fighting where they position themselves behind cover so they have just enough clearance to spot targets and shoot. Either that or you could just tap the jump jets to hop over incoming fire. The only enemies where I really found it necessary to run and gun were thresher maws (and even then I typically fired from a standstill) or those retractable turrets on Bring Down the Sky.
     
  7. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    I've done the ducking back into cover, but sometimes you don't always have good cover because of cramped conditions due to the terrain. I've also done hopping over incoming fire. And yeah, definitely runned-and-gunned with thresher maws!

    I guess I'm a lot better than I was at the Mako, but I still don't feel quite comfortable with the controls to like combat in the Mako.
     
  8. Clone_Cmdr_Wedge

    Clone_Cmdr_Wedge Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2006
    Fixed that. :p

    Okay, okay, admittedly, the EC did fix a few things, even if I had to use a fair amount of suspension of disbelief with the Normandy hovering about 500ft away from Harby and his laser show :p . And if just one of two things were added, I'd be... okay(?) with the endings. If telling Caligulyst to stuff it resulted in a scene reminiscent of Halo: Reach or Final Fantasy: Crisis Core's endings, I'd have been okay with that. Also, if there was just *something* added after the "breath scene" in high ems destroy, even if it was another flippin' slide with a couple lines of dialogue, I could mute and ignore everything with StarBrat and pretend he doesn't exist. Right now, it's just... nothing. "Oh, you may be alive in a bunch of rubble," is not how you conclude a story. I can understand leaving things open-ended for what Shepard does *afterwards,* but I think as storytellers BioWare had a responsibility to unambiguously say, "Yes, Shepard survived and got back with his/her crew."

    That's pretty much what I had to do with the Hammerhead. Sit back a ways and treat it not so much like a tank or fighting vehicle, but a mobile artillery piece. :p I think in ME 1, you could kind of go toe-to-toe with geth platforms on lower difficulties without too much trouble. Especially if you ran into them.
     
  9. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Oddly enough, I didn't find that worked with the Hammerhead - you couldn't do those 500-meter plus sniper kills anymore. Thankfully there was usually cover you could dodge and weave in and out of and the guided missiles made "aiming" more or less redundant, but as far as range went you essentially were knife-fighting and relying on the M-44's agility to shoot and survive.

    As far as the ending - frankly, I didn't mind that it was sort of left up in the air. After having sworn off Star Wars EU in the post-NJO era (with the marked exception of the Legacy comics), I see the value in just plain ending a story and leaving any further developments up to the reader/player's imagination. If BEAWare is goign to do another ME game, I almost hope it's kind of like KotOR II - you play a new protagonist and Shepard is a Big Damn Hero of the past.
     
  10. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    Yeah, as much as I love my Shepard and would love to play him/her again, it would be interesting to play a new protagonist and see the events of ME through their eyes and then forge your own story. Even better, I'd love to play an alien species.
     
  11. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Yeah, I'm curious what they might be planning to do if that's not just a pipe dream. Regardless of what you think of the ending or what you chose, I think ME3 should have closed the book on Shepard and the Reapers. If there is going to be another game, I'd like it to be about another protagonist either fighting in the war during the events of ME3 or facing a new enemy in the aftermath. The Leviathans in particular sound like a troublesome future threat, and there's no guarantee either the ideology of Cerberus or actual remnants aren't still on the loose.
     
  12. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Hehe ... just took out the Collector Base for the sixth time. As Zaeed might say, nothing so g*ddam sweet as watching that Human-Reaper burn, especially when it's been "double-tapped" right in the chest with the Cain. Now I just have to take on Arrival again and it's on to ME3 with my engineer - kind of surprised how much of a shine I took to that class. I got through a number of missions without even firing my gun.
     
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  13. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Ooooh, Zaeed. How awesome a piece of DLC is he? He's got my favourite "combat chatter" line of the whole series: "SIT DOWN!"
     
  14. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    I just love Zaeed's voice...
     
  15. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Robin Sachs definitely nailed (another Zaeed bit of chatter there) the crusty merc stereotype that crops up in all kinds of media (come on, who here didn't see him as ME's equivalent to Jango Fett?). It was also very nice to have another tough heavy hitter for certain missions.

    Finished Arrival with my engineer; might wait a bit to get ME3 started. I'm debating going back and redoing the last bit of ME2 with my second character, an infiltrator - originally I was just going to do three and she was going to be the control option, so at the end of ME2 she neutron-bombed the Collector Base and gave it over to the Illusive Man. Now I'm thinking I might go back and reverse that choice. It's funny how that one mellowed from being an outright renegade in ME1 to being about 2:1 paragon in ME2 and 3; in general I found the renegade choices in the sequels were more morally questionable. For instance, I don't think I'll ever screw over Wrex and the krogan in ME3.
     
  16. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    Yeah, I think the way they changed the Paragon/Renegade was interesting. I was so afraid of taking a Renegade action in ME2 or ME3...but I mean, how could you not just knife Kai Leng after what he did at Thessia and what he did to Thane? However, I don't really agree that's a "Renegade" action and some of the other Renegade interrupts or options could easily have been Paragon, I think.
     
  17. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999
    I honestly don't see how could giving Kai-Leng his most deserved reward be deemed Renegade. Shepard deflected the sword blow in an act of self defense. As for the coup de grace, well, the little prancing **** had it coming. Even the most self righteous Paragon wouldn't find fault in that.
     
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  18. Sam Lavelle

    Sam Lavelle Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 2012
    When is the anime coming out?
     
  19. Ulicus

    Ulicus Lapsed Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2005
  20. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    I took almost every solo renegade interrupt (as opposed to the ones where you had both a renegade and paragon interrupt to choose from) in ME2, even with my most goody two-shoes characters. Some of them actually help out in the following fight - and Invid, you're right; no way am I ever passing up the opportunity to punch Kai Leng's stupid ninjato in half and then shiv him in the kidneys, especially since by all rights I beat him like a rented gong on Thessia.

    ME1 had a lot of situations where a non-lethal renegade option got you more renegade points than something bordering on cold-blooded murder - i.e., threatening a guy with your gun could get you nine points whereas shooting him dead outright would get you just two. There are also situations in the game where the renegade option is perhaps the most rational one; sacrificing the hostages to take down Balak in Bring Down the Sky and blowing up the Heretic Station in ME2 are examples.
     
  21. Handmaiden Yané

    Handmaiden Yané Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    In ME1 and ME2, I reached the top of the Paragon meter with what seemed a lot of time left until the endgame. So I felt more at liberty to make Renegade choices because I knew it wouldn't affect my Paragon standing.

    IMO, the only rational options that were Renegade were ones that helped you make the battle easier...like sabotaging stuff before the Archangel fight on Omega or blowing up that fuel tank in Mordin's loyalty quest.
     
  22. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
  23. Winged_Jedi

    Winged_Jedi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2003
    Otherwise known as the most pointless interrupt in the game.



     
  24. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    So Patch 4 just updated on my copy. Noting that among other things it restored the explosive rounds with squadmates using the Krysae sniper rifle, I gave it to Garrus on Priority: Palaven ...

    ... I think I just Sithed my pants. I've turned that Turian into a mobile artillery piece. Now he can't complain about not getting the Scorpion or Arc Pistol =P~
     
  25. Clone_Cmdr_Wedge

    Clone_Cmdr_Wedge Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2006
    Okay, I'll admit, I'm kinda interested in this. It looks like it's a little more than just "new characters, maps, weapons, etc". [face_thinking]

    Also, anyone taking any bets that the Collectors are going to be involved in the Omega DLC because of this? :p