Spoiler Warning S4E24: I’m Superman!

By Josh Posted Friday Jan 14, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 117 comments


Link (YouTube)

This episode marks the return of the ever popular “episode long shooting sequence interspersed by tiny segments of largely irrelevant dialogue set against long, narrow corridors” segment.

To be honest, this is something that’s grated on me a little bit. For large portions of the game, I often find myself thinking of the game more as a plain old shooter rather than a “RPG Shooter.” It certainly feels like there’s more combat in this game than in the first one – and I don’t know if it’s just because I’m playing this game right now and haven’t played Mass Effect in over a year or if there is actually less “RPG stuff” and more “shooter stuff” – but it’s been bugging me all the same as we’ve progressed through the game.

 


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117 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning S4E24: I’m Superman!

  1. jdaubenb says:

    The game feels like it contains more combat becaue travelling time has been greatly reduced, I think.
    You neither have to ride around in the Mako before or during missions, nor have you to return to your hub to talk to some NPCs after completing one step in the quest-line.

    (I know, I know, while recruiting Samara you have to return to prison before/in between the different fight scenes, but these trips are MUCH shorter, when compared to the Makoing in ME1.)

  2. Zerotime says:

    A great biotic wind? I hear you can get pills for that now.

    1. Sydney says:

      I love that if you stop him from charging in, you get to tip him over. Best interrupt ever.

  3. ccesarano says:

    It doesn’t help that I always choose the default Fighter type class in games (in this case, Soldier I believe?), but I got the same feeling. In the first Mass Effect I found myself spending a lot of time giving orders to the A.I., which seemed pleasant enough even with the Xbox 360 controller and radial menus and all that other hated interface stuff.

    Mass Effect 2 I felt no reason to do that except to change my ammunition types or activate that ONE ability that helps me shoot gooder. All in all it became a half-assed cover based shooter with a functional story (not necessarily good). Contrast this to Mass Effect, where it felt like if you tried to play the game like a shooter you were doing it wrong, and once you played it like an RPG instead the game suddenly felt awesome.

    I guess this was too complicated for the mainstream Gears fans that bought Mass Effect because “it looked dope yo”, and now people that like a little variety in their gaming suffer for it.

  4. Sleeping Dragon says:

    Wait… so… you mean… when I do something, like watch Spoiler Warning, or read something on the web… the universe doesn’t just stop and freeze? This explains so much! They should have put up some warning in the tutorial though, especially considering how long that thing is.

    1. Tzeneth says:

      The problem is that the tutorial never seems to have ended. The tutorial also seems very broken at times, as it basically forces you to learn how to do things before you know how and for some reason, the save system doesn’t work. So, you can never save and load.

  5. psivamp says:

    I liked Deus Ex. I especially liked that time didn’t stop when you used a computer, but everyone was honorable and would leave you alone as long as you used it. Then you’d hack in, turn the turret on them and watch it go to town.

  6. Nyctef says:

    Yep, Renegade definitely needs less insulting of crewmembers and more Mal Reynolds badassery.

    Also, PERFECT timing on the “You’re not going to have to fight a gunship or anything” :D

    1. Someone says:

      There actually is at least one moment when you can interrupt your enemy gabbing about and Just Shoot Him. Some Krogan warboss, in Zaeed’s recruitment mission I believe, walks out onto a balcony and starts the usual tirade about how awesome and powerful he is and how you are no match for him, and the Renegade Interrupt is shooting a gas tank below him and taking cover.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        I think thats mordins loyalty mission.Theres also the guy you throw out the window in the thane recruitment mission.

        1. Tzeneth says:

          This interrupt is the most awesome interrupt. It cuts the conversation short and is hilariously funny.

      2. Volatar says:

        That moment was the one moment in the game that I did a renegade interrupt in my Paragon run through. Its just so awesome and fitting.

        1. Avilan says:

          Not to mention that the red star is blinking for almost a whole minute! The game REALLY knows how annoying that guy is…!

  7. Bodyless says:

    Here is a gameplay hint:

    energy cells (the ones that give heavy weapon ammo) also refill your normal ammo completely.

    and there are multiple of those at the gunship fight.

  8. Daemian Lucifer says:

    New title for Shamus:”Shepard shot first!”

    There was that one webcomic about henchmen where a commander was giving a pep talk to one of them how he is the one,how he can beat the protagonist,and then the second he left,the commander started giving the same pep talk to another henchman while the first one was dying off panel.Its pretty much how they operate in any game.

    And yes,that last answer you gave was hilarious.Like in those jokes where a guy says something incredibly short in a “foreign language”,and the translation is a wall of text,then they start talking for 5 minutes,and the translation is just a single word.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        A yes,that one.Couldnt find it.

  9. HerrSunk says:

    At the 10.49 mark.

    So Grunt has the power to climb pillars. Is that considered a part of a manliness (kroganliness?) test or was it just a “Look at what I can do Shepard! Look look look look look look! Come on, look!” kid moment.

    And you didn’t even look. You are such a terrible mother for your adopted tank bred Krogan.

    1. Zagzag says:

      I noticed that! I thought I was going insane the first time, but watched it again! I wonder how he does that. Well I suppose being a genetically engineered super-soldier does have its benefits

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        But he can do that only while the pillar is erect.When it falls,its insurmountable.

    2. xXDarkWolfXx says:

      You just know that after this mission Grunt cries himself to sleep outside his tank because Shepard didnt look at his pillar climbing ability

      Poor heartbroken Grunt, all he wanted was for Shepard to love him

  10. Rhys Aronson says:

    You guys talk about being able to Mal Reynolds a guy, there are a fair number of these in game.

    Mordins loyalty mission
    Mission to get Thane
    Miranda loyalty mission

    among others.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      The bartender on omega.

      And those are lovely,really.Those are excellent.And we need more.

    2. jdaubenb says:

      […]
      Miranda loyalty mission
      […]

      Miranda has a loyalty mission?
      I always thought the point of her character, was to try to get her killed in the end. Why else would Bioware have made this so damned hard?
      Her face is the true final boss!

      And, to be topical, you can’t even simply shoot her!

      1. Arumin says:

        Everytime you guys make fun of Miranda’s face there is an acress quietly crying herself to sleep…

        1. jdaubenb says:

          Good.

          I would have hoped that the guy who designed her head-model would do the crying, but whatever.

          (What I am trying to say: The actress’s face is just fine. Turning that face into a texture and stretching it over a 3D-model of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man’s head is the problem.)

        2. Fede says:

          That actress has nothing to cry about, because she’s from Australia, not from the Uncanny Valley like Miranda.

          1. Jarenth says:

            It would be an interesting experiment to have that actress (Yvonne Strahovski, I believe – she did the voice at least) play through Mass Effect 2, to hear her opinion on the character of Miranda.

            1. Shamus says:

              It would please me so much if her reaction was, “What’s up with her JAW?”

  11. Nentuaby says:

    Hmmm. It might also because you weren’t making 15 minute Spoiler Warning episodes out of ME1 and thus getting whole episodes of combat…

  12. Sucal says:

    You think that Warp is bad when used on you, wait until you get to experience the joy’s of being charged. Especially when your trying to charge the charger. Does make a rather amusing game of Tag.

    1. Ringwraith says:

      Sci-Fi jousting!

      1. Sucal says:

        Alas, the whacking stick DLC hasn’t been released yet

  13. Ringwraith says:

    On the topic of that last conversation option, I think it’s longer as it’s making it clear that you’re planning on sending him out alone, as an option stating “Charge!” might be easily misinterpreted, as the sarcasm delivered in the actual spoken line is fairly difficult to put into writing clearly, especially with a single word.

  14. Integer Man says:

    Spoiler Warning + Mountain Dew = Awesome

    Possibly related: Me + Mountain Dew = Code

    1. Sucal says:

      Coffee > Mountain dew

      1. Integer Man says:

        HERACY!

        1. Swedmarine says:

          And do’t forget “HERESY” as well!

          1. Turgid Bolk says:

            Or…do.

            1. Roll-a-Die says:

              Don’t forget the space after the periods, like so… Yo.

          2. Integer Man says:

            Apologies. Drunk on Mt. Dew when I wrote that. Thankfully it let me build the code I needed.

            1. Sucal says:

              Who needs mountain dew when you have caffeine.

        2. Nentuaby says:

          Heracy- errors in one’s understanding of the queen of the gods.

  15. Hitch says:

    It definitely feels like longer stretches of shooting to me (while playing as well as watching) and the talking between shooting segments doesn’t seem to mean much. I don’t know if it was all just smoke and mirrors, but Mass Effect at least created the illusion that decisions you made in dialog trees meant something.

    Oh yeah. I get the feeling things won’t turn out to well for Niftu Cal in the next episode, but he’s the type guy I want to see as recruitable in Mass Effect 3.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Its because the elevators were removed.

      1. Ragnar says:

        Yes, but they put in lengthy loading screens instead (yes, I timed them, it takes about a minute to change floor on the Normandy).

        Plus you spend a lot of time in the mining mini game.

        1. Robyrt says:

          Wow, am I ever glad I played the PC version. Changing floors on the Normandy is about 4 seconds.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Unless you have multiple cores,in which case it takes a few minutes.

            1. Robyrt says:

              That’s weird, I have an i7 with hyper-threading on, so it should be deeply confused about cores. Guess I won the driver compatibility lottery!

            2. Simon Buchan says:

              Specifically, certain Intel Core 2’s, I think. MassAffinity seems to work well, but I haven’t gotten out a stopwatch.

              1. Lalaland says:

                Mass Affinity made ME2 playable for me on the PC with my Core 2 Duo e8400, prior to that swapping decks on the Normandy was ridiculous.

                1. Avilan says:

                  Personally I have replaced the loading screen movies with shorter ones. Makes a heck of a difference.

            3. Velkrin says:

              I’ve been over this. Go into task manager. Right click on ME2.exe. Click set affinity. Unclick all boxes except CPU 0. Enjoy new reduced loading time (mine is about 7 seconds).

              Another poster also suggested removing the loading screens from the ME2 directory to force it to not play the damn things.

              1. Ragnar says:

                That is really helpful. Thank you.

                I need to remember this if I ever bother to play ME2 again.

  16. Kibbin says:

    Not all the organisations in this game have names taken from a bad Star Wars novel. I mean doesn’t Blue Sun make anyone else think of this ever present company, with it’s hand in everything?
    I apologise if that reference has been made before.

    1. Integer Man says:

      Or Firefly / Serenity’s Blue Sun

      1. Someone says:

        Or Evil Sunz Orks.

  17. Groboclown says:

    Maybe I just haven’t played Left 4 Dead enough, but whenever I hear “Boomers”, I keep thinking of Bubblegum Crisis.

    1. Integer Man says:

      If you hear Boomers and think of something other than Left 4 Dead or Battlestar Galactica, you’re doing something wrong.

      1. GabrielMobius says:

        I hear Boomer and immediately think Gears of War, and then I run for the nearest chest-high wall to hide behind.

      2. Irridium says:

        I was reminded of those people who shot explosives at me in New Vegas.

      3. Chris Robertson says:

        Doing something wrong, like, being old. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer

        1. Integer Man says:

          That’s no joke. I hear being too old gets you killed.

      4. Avilan says:

        Personally my only connection to the word Boomers is from Australian slang… As in the Christmas song “Six White Boomers”, where Santa and his six white male kangaroos (“Boomers”) rescue a joey from a zoo and return him to his mommy on Christmas morning.

      5. Wonderduck says:

        Nope, I immediately thought of BGC as well. It’s a better Boomer than the ones in L4D or BSG anyway.

    2. krellen says:

      Yeah, I get BGC too.

      1. Irandrura says:

        Another vote for Bubblegum Crisis. Really, that was a very good show.

  18. Shep says:

    If you count driving around aimlessly, trying to get up 90 degree mountains as “RPG stuff”, I guess Mass Effect 1 was definitely more of an RPG.

    1. Josh says:

      Touche.

      Maybe it is just that Mass Effect simply had longer travel times between combat. And it may be that I actually like just having to take five or ten minutes to get to the fighting, which is a bit of a disturbing thought actually. Even so, at the very least, Mass Effect did feel more like a “world” and less like a TV set with a maze of linear, narrow corridors filled with chest high walls.

      I suppose it would be interesting to go back and play Mass Effect now and do a comparison, but after the Christmas Steam sale I’m a bit swamped with new games to play.

      1. Integer Man says:

        Yeah. There was something oddly entertaining about driving a Mako and defeating the terrain. Annoying at times with the 90′ climbs, but still kind of fun in an odd way. Plus there was always the firing rockets at helpless grunts.

        1. LadyTL says:

          I found driving up the 90 degree mountains to be one of my favorite parts but then I hate gravity. It drives my husband crazy when he sees it though. He starts ranting about how friction doesn’t work that way.

      2. Dude says:

        Take it from someone who played ME2 before ME1: they both have different strengths for the first two or three playthroughs.

        They both break apart after that.

      3. Shep says:

        Apologies if the above seemed somehow trite or snippy, but I really do despair at the almost mythological status the original Mass Effect has aquired. I know it has become almost a Spoiler Warning trope to do the old “this was so much better in the original X” thing, but in this case there really is a disconnect between perception and reality. I think the following article(s) are the best possible description of my love/hate relationship with Mass Effect 1: http://gamedesignreviews.com/reviews/mass-effect-interface-fail/

        It’s a catalogue of all the horrible design flaws in ME1, and it doesn’t even mention some of the other often forgotten flaws of ME1: carbon copy merc bases, terrible mako mini game, atrocious inventory management, a character development system that is complicated and badly presented and yet ultimately very shallow, laughably bad combat mechanics and a fair few inexplicable plot holes and abrupt terminated storylines.

        Now, I still loved ME1, but it never had to put up with massive expectations of the nostalgia crowd. Mass Effect 1 was already a third person shooter with a few half-arsed, badly designed token rpg elements thrown in. If not having to spend 30 minutes on tedious, unnecessary inventory management makes it less of an RPG, I’ll happily accept that. But if by RPG sections, you mean talking to people, learning about the story and the galaxy and exploring the setting, ME2 has that in bucketloads, moreso than the original.

        I suppose that because ME1 just spent so long wasting your time driving around empty planets or performing tedious inventory management, ME2 is always going to seem like there is proportionally more combat time simply because Bioware stripped out the stupid, timewasting elements of the original.

        Except that stupid mining minigame. Goddammit.

        1. Shamus says:

          Did you see our series on Mass Effect 1? We gave it a pounding for all of those flaws and more.

          1. Shep says:

            I just read your list of nitpicks with Mass Effect, and you did basically say exactly what I said above (albeit articulated in a more entertaining way than I could manage). Which I guess makes me more surprised at the general level of negativity directed towards the game, given the lengths Bioware went to in order to adress those very flaws.

  19. Adalore says:

    That gunship died silly fast to the viper sniper rifle I had at the time. :)

    … Still annoyed that everything in this game is on a global cool down.
    I am also pretty sure I got to shoot her without getting shot AT.

    1. 4th Dimension says:

      Doesn’t global cooldown ruins pure biotic (caster) class?

      1. X2-Eliah says:

        More or less, yeah. It’s just sticking in cover and casting warp/shockwave all the time.

        Then again, higher difficulties than Normal ruin the pure biotic classes anyway.

        1. Vipermagi says:

          First time I played ME2, I was an Adept, Hard difficulty. I had very little issues with the global cooldown, and didn’t feel underpowered.
          I haven’t ever played on Normal (twice on Hard only), so I wonder how higher difficulties ruin biotics?

          1. Dude says:

            Higher difficulties often add more than one layer of protection on even the low level mooks. So you can’t just shockwave your way through a husk hoard. You have to chip away at their armour first.

            1. Ringwraith says:

              This is where the improved area of effect powers come in handy, as stripping the armour of a bunch of husks is much easier with a bigger incinerate.

          2. X2-Eliah says:

            It’s more the point where the health bar is the last, smallest part of a mook. So you spend about 5 seconds draining their defences, and half a second is enough to bring his health bar down – and using powers at that point is just a waste of cooldown timer, since a few bullets will do the job faster and leave you open to use warp (Adept’s bread and butter at higher difficulties).

            Simply put, on high difficulties, Adepts can use their superpowers on npc’s roughly when they are already on the brink of death only (again, except for warp), which makes them largely useless.

        2. TSED says:

          I saw a youtube video of some adept on insane difficulty. Now, I am nowhere near as good as this person but they were just SLAUGHTERING EVERYTHING.

          EVERYTHING! Blue suns, even, so no “warp is good on barriers!” stuff going on. I swear, the enemies lived about 2 seconds after engaging Shepard if they were lucky. The dude finished almost all of the Grunt recruitment mission in one single video.

          Now, naturally, this person is very good at the game. I was just left in awe at how… unstoppable they were. It was several steps beyond ludicrous. The difficulty might as well have been on the easiest for how much the mooks slowed Shepard down.

          …Now I have the urge to find these and watch them again.
          And found! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAOrx_3EWx8 – though ‘2 seconds’ was a bit of an exaggeration.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            To be fair,hes not doing much,its the companions that reign death while he crouches behind the wall and waits to deal the final blow.

          2. X2-Eliah says:

            Kinda proves my point.. Other two characters are doing most of the damage, and the only power Shepard uses there is heavy warp, and mostly only for finishing the enemies… All other skills are fairly useless, and a lot of the combat sequence is spent just waiting for the team to do their work.

      2. Irridium says:

        Which is funny, because Bioware said they wanted players to use they’re powers more often. So to do that they made each power share a cooldown, so instead of casting all powers at the beginning then waiting, you cast one power then wait for the others to cool down.

        Totally faster.

        1. Vipermagi says:

          Cooldowns went down from fourty seconds to three seconds. Toss, pull or throw (I just… don’t know which it was) could go below two even.

          1. Irridium says:

            Didn’t help much on the harder difficulties, since you’d poke your head out to cast, nearly die, then wait to cast something else.

            At least thats how it went for me.

      3. Ringwraith says:

        Not sure about a biotic, but it was fine for an engineer, who doesn’t get anything beyond a SMG and pistol weapon-wise either.

        What the global cooldown does fix however is the problem where you unleash all your powers at the start of a battle and end up twiddling your thumbs for the next few minutes while they recharge.

      4. James Pony says:

        ME2 “ruined” the Soldier class for me. My first Shepard was a Soldier. At the end of ME1 I was pissing a virtually solid stream of incendiary with ridiculous accuracy. The upgrades were such that the heat indicator was flashing the second or third bar without going beyond that until it got one bar higher after literally five minutes of unceasing fire. And yes, I did in fact test it. I even piled stuff on my mouse to keep firing so my hand wouldn’t die from cramp.
        Then in ME2, it’s DON’T FORGET TO RELOAD, DOC.

        I can somewhat understand the reasoning of the developers to change to the ME2 system, but the “clips* enhance reliability so that you don’t have to be afraid of being unable to fire during combat”-crap makes little sense when YOU’RE CONSTANTLY UNABLE TO FIRE DURING COMBAT BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO RELOAD EVERY FIVE PICOSECONDS.

        *And fuck anyone and everyone who thinks “clip” and “magazine” are interchangeable. The next time someone says “clip” when referring to a magazine-fed weapon, I’ll poke their eyes out with a paperclip screaming “HAVE YOU READ THIS MAGAZINE YET? HAVE YOU READ THIS MAGAZINE YET?” in their face, frothing at the mouth with my eyes pointing in opposite directions.
        And before you start, I do understand that thermal “clip” is the “correct” term for the ME2 system although it still sounds a bit silly. I’m just an allergic to the word “clip” in computer games because it’s almost exclusively used wrong. If you ever meet anyone reading Cosmo, National Geographic or Duct Tape Monthly saying “this sure is a great clip”, it’s probably me.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Well most games have both clip and magazine(as well as “other”)fed weapons,so using just one term for all of them is not really that wrong.And clip is shorter(though I wouldnt mind if everyone started calling them mags,which is shorter still).

          1. James Pony says:

            It’s still wrong. It still is really THAT wrong and it doesn’t matter how many ignorant fools try to shove the cube into the circular aperture. It’s wrong and it stays wrong.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              To be fair,calling the magazines would be just as wrong because,excluding very few exceptions,you never waste unfired rounds when you reload.Those things used in games are belts.

        2. Ringwraith says:

          Also, pretty much everyone says the change to thermal clips makes no sense, but if you think about it, with them they can now engineer much more powerful weapons as the excess heat they’d generate can be removed much easier as there’s no risk of it melting itself nearly as much anymore.
          Compare how easily people die in ME1 to ME2, it seems the lethality of combat just increased.

        3. Avilan says:

          I don’t know about you, but even me (a certified non-FPS:er) have no problem remembering to reload. Maybe it’s because I spent a year playing FO3, but hitting “Reload” after every single battle, to make sure you always have a full “clip” becomes instinct after about 5 seconds of gameplay. As for “ammo” shortage… I don’t play on Insanity (you don’t say if you do or not) but if you do, the whole point with that difficulty is to be unfair. I don’t know about ME2 specifically, but most game designers throw balance out the window there, and let the player have it.

          On normal and veteran I really don’t see how you can run out of ammo as a soldier or infiltrator (and even less so on other classes!) unless you are extremely bad at aiming.

          1. James Pony says:

            I have no problem pressing R over and over again. My problem isn’t reloading or ammo, it’s the transition from weapons upgradeable to the point where overheating is as relevant as scientific facts to a biblethumper to weapons that need reloading to prevent “being unable to fire during combat”. I played ME1 for the first time not long before ME2 came out. I also played ME1 just before ME2 came out, to level up my Soldier Shepard for MAX PHAT WHATEVER ADVANTAGES YOU MIGHT GET FOR ME2.
            And then it was all chest-high walls and CLIPS EVERYWHERE. It just seems like a downgrade.

  20. Eddie says:

    You know, the last time someone blocked your movement like Tali did this episode, you blew him up with a nuke. Now, I’m not saying that you should kill Tali because she is way more awesome, but it might be worth just casually mentioning it to her in conversation. She might be a little more aware of where she stands that way.

    1. Hitch says:

      She didn’t throw a crate in front of the doorway he was trying to go through.

      1. Volatar says:

        With a ticking clock counting down no less.

  21. Zukhramm says:

    In defense of the Novac quest it’s not just laying around but locked up.

  22. neothoron says:

    In Mass Effect 1, I also spent a lot of time looting/converting to omni-gel objects I didn’t need or care for, and tidying up the inventory. Weapon/Armor upgrade was a lot more complicated (what with every weapon having 3 characteristics and me trying to find which one would suit me the best, and then customizing weapon ammo), and you had a lot more skill upgrades.

    I don’t mean to say that I like all the changes in ME2 (weapon cooling/reloading system, removing inventory outright, streamlining the powers) – and the level design is certainly monotonous and less immersive (still have to try the DLC tank btw) – but I would like to argue that part of the reason ME2 felt less like a RPG was because they removed a lot of elements traditionally associated to RPGs that often translated to more tedium in ME. (Don’t forget that the time spent in menus in ME was simply cropped away)

    1. krellen says:

      “they removed a lot of elements traditionally associated to RPGs”

      You say that as if to imply that it’s a positive change.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        In case of inventory and ammo management,it is.Besides,those things are traditionally associated with rpg when they shouldnt be.Rpgs should have nothing associated with inventory management and number crunching,they just crept in artificially through decades of dungeon exploring.Thats why we now have rpg rule books with dozens of pages dedicated to numbers,and just a page of to dedicated to npc interactions.

        1. krellen says:

          You can have my inventory when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

          (Which is probably why ME2 had to start off with killing me.)

        2. Irridium says:

          But ME1 had no ammo to manage.

          And in terms of inventory: they could have streamlined it a bit, but cutting it out completely is just overkill.

          Hell, from what I’ve seen, Dragon Age’s inventory management on the 360 was tolerable. Why not just borrow from that?

          1. General Karthos says:

            Dragon Age Inventory: It depended on how you ran it. The inventory was, for the most part tolerable, but I could have used about twenty extra slots, even buying all the backpack upgrades I could find. I still found myself destroying valuable loot because I couldn’t carry it on me. It started off with destroying the nearly worthless stuff that I had picked up because it wasn’t ENTIRELY worthless. But I usually ran out of that pretty quickly, and I started destroying the less worthless stuff. With really long missions (like the Mage Guild tower) I wound up destroying things worth upwards of an entire gold piece because I just didn’t have the inventory capacity for all the stuff I looted. I would also equip as much of it as possible to people, even if it didn’t give them any bonuses, since equipped items don’t count towards your inventory limit. And I still found myself destroying things without having a chance to see, for example, if Alistair’s sword was better or worse than the one I had just picked up. Then I would sell just about everything to the in-camp merchant and repeat.

            That said, I don’t think that the total removal of the inventory was a positive change for ME2, but in the choice between the ME1 inventory, and ME2 lack thereof, I’ll take the ME2 thing any day of the week.

          2. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Except it had,only it was under upgrades.The way its done in me2,for me,is the best one yet(you get one good shotgun,and everyone can use it).The problem is that the upgrades are paid for by resources which are tedious to obtain.But thats due to probing,so not an inventory problem.

      2. Avilan says:

        I agree with neothoron; inventory management, as such, adds nothing unless you want artificial complexity.

        The “tactical decision” on what weapon to keep and what to sell or destroy is extremely limited when you find 6 more of the same type in the next weapons locker.

        Number crunching and Inventory are both examples of artificial complexity taken for granted by many RPG:ers, when, as Daemian L points out they are really solutions to a problem, not a feature.

        The amount of actual RPG:ing in ME1 is in no way bigger than in ME2, it is just stuffed with more tedium between fights and interactions. Be it Elevator Rides, Mako Driving or “Hang on guys I have to spend 10 minutes destroying loot”.

  23. xXDarkWolfXx says:

    The later guards here the gunshots and think
    “Sweet, promotion”

  24. General Karthos says:

    I think the problem that I had with the first Mass Effect’s combat was that there were essentially three different “side-quest” base designs that you could encounter. All of them exactly the same, without any deviation even down to the placement of the crates, which could have been placed ANYWHERE in the sprawling cargo spaces, but were all stacked EXACTLY the same way.

    The five main quest planets plus the side of the Citadel were different enough, but when you’re like me and you try to complete EVERY. SINGLE. SIDEQUEST (I’m a completionist and a power gamer) it can start to get really repetitive. To the point where by the end of the first game, you identify which of the three pre-fabricated base layouts you’re in and you can almost just go through it with your eyes closed.

    So I appreciated the different environments and layouts afforded us in Mass Effect 2. And don’t think I’m all about the combat. I’m 40 hours into my second play through of ME2. Just finished the final loyalty mission with the exception of Legion’s of course. Yes, there’s a lot of combat, but each mission takes between 30-60 minutes to complete, and then there’s some down time. And when you’re on the hub planets, there’s a LOT to do if you talk to folks, and much of it (most of it) doesn’t involve combat.

    But I think that posting in chunks of 15 minutes, while making it easier for us to watch, does lend the feel of much more combat.

    Seriously though. Try to complete all the ME1 sidequests…. Kill mooks in the same environment for HOURS… then see which game’s combat feels longer.

    1. Arumin says:

      I completely agree.

      The levels in mass effect 2 might be “smaller” then 1, but the scenery is much more varied and alive. (it even has trees!)
      Much and much better then the lifeless pieces of rock you were on in part 1.

  25. SpammyV says:

    Why can’t the Biotic God join our team? We could just kick Miranda out, and then she’d be all like, “What the hell, Shepard?” and Shepard would be all like, “A: Your jaw is creepy, B: You’re not blue enough to pull that look off, and C: This guy is way more qualified.” “More qualified how?” “Tell her.” “I AM A BIOTIC GOD! YOU ARE LIKE UNTO AN AMOEBA BEFORE ME!”

    You don’t even have to bring him on missions, just give him Miranda’s room to tick her off and then make him the team mascot.

    1. Dante says:

      That volus made me think of Fontaine near the end of Bioshock, talking about how much he was spliced….

  26. Benny Pendentes says:

    ME2 definitely has less RPG-stuff than ME1, to its detriment in my opinion. I say that as an unrepentant RPG fan who played (and continues to play) ME1 just about every way it could possibly be played, thoroughly enjoying the RPG aspects with only minor and easily-ignorable distractions, but has never been compelled to visit the sequel a second time.

    And I actually have data to back up my perspective: when ME2’s release was impending, the developer’s log had a series of posts about the changes they had made – there was even a video interview, though I forget who was in it. The purpose of these logs was to inform us of the great lengths they went to make the game “better”.

    And with a straight face, the guy said “players spoke, and we listened: I am proud to say that our team revised nearly every gameplay mechanic to address players concerns and to give the majority of players an enhanced gameplay experience.”

    I couldn’t believe my ears: ME1 is tied for my favorite game ever, by far the most enjoyable game I have ever played… and they were going to change what, exactly?

    Well, it turned out the guy was telling the truth – they addressed every complaint. Every whining little trivial complaint, without discerning the “must haves” from the “nice to haves”, and apparently with great regard for the squeakiest wheels, to which they applied the most grease… whether the din was the roar of the masses, or the screeching of some ultra-sense-of-entitlement superwhiner. They rototilled it all. And in the end, they changed all of the things that I thought made the first game so good. I was almost relieved when they totally disregarded the history of the first game and struck out with new bad guys and a new plot… as a result of that genius move, I didn’t have as much to lose when I walked away from the game after a single unfulfilling playthrough.

    Their attention to player concerns can’t be dissed, unless you make the case (as I do) that they gave too much uncritical attention to the revision of what were either pretty damn good core mechanics from the first game or fringe complaints that didn’t really need that much thought wasted on them. They *gutted* the RPG aspects of the game, and I felt that they had dumbed down the shooter parts too. I couldn’t figure out who got ahead on this one – unless it was the console players, for whom the bulk of the changes appear to have been made. I’m not a console player, and my playing style and preferences pretty much dictate that I never will be… so for me, these changes were akin to moving to a new school in the middle of the term after everyone had already made new friends / formed cliques. I dyed my hair black, started smoking cloves and listening to death rock, and mostly never thought about the glorious days of ME1 that once were. Mostly.

    1. Avilan says:

      The point is that you were in the minority. The majority of players that played ME1 wanted the inventory madness gone, the mako exploded, and the combat improved.

      As for the gutting and dumbing down: Again, what you miss is the pure artificial complexity.
      …And the combat is not dumbed down anyway, it is WASTLY superior compared to the “doom with magic” combat style in ME1 (I have never died as much in an RPG as when I first played ME1 (after playing ME2) and kept trying to use tactics in combat and just got owned. It wasn’t until I learned to basically disregard cover and just run and gun (YUCK!!!!) that I started to survive).

  27. Avilan says:

    Oh btw I didn’t see this in any of the comments above:
    The whole thing with this part of the game is that you are inside their base of operations (that’s why you need a pass to the elevator; it is their front door) so the fact that they have stuff “just lying about” is not that strange.

    You can argue that it is a bad idea to have your front door right there, but there is a comment made that the Eclipse is virtually running that part of town. It seems that the problem this time stems from a newbie killing someone while leaving the body to be found in such a way that the cops could not look away (at the same time as a poor business decision was made (to cooperate with Morinth) which drew the Justicar’s attention).

    Illium also seems to be the new Noveria; as long as you have a signed contract that wavers someone’s rights away, you can do almost everything.

    As for the next episode… the leader of the Eclipse is not just waiting for you; she is in the process of evacuating. She is also smart enough to actually get away from you if possible (if you don’t kill her fast enough, she will actually escape and you have no chance of killing her).

  28. Wide And Nerdy says:

    So I know I’m late to the game. But that Biotic God you guys liked? That Volus you thought was funny? That was Mark Meer, otherwise known as the voice of male Shepard. He does alot of Volus voices for the game. Makes you rethink your position on his talent doesn’t it. Maybe it was a direction problem when he was voicing Male Shep because the guy has some range.

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