T w e n t y S i d e d
A reminder: The goal of this series isn’t to make a comedy laugh riot. We’re not really trying to be MST3k. It’s all unrehearsed, which means sometimes we’ll get things wrong, make mistakes, or fail to say enlightening things. You should view this more as being on the couch with us while we play, and not see it as an extended version of Unskippable.
I liked it better when you couldn’t hear me and everyone assumed I was saying these brilliant, incisive things. Now Josh has fixed my audio levels and you can enjoy witty observations about how red the terrain is. Clever material, that. Stayed up all night writing it.
We debated a lot on whether or not we should include the full Mako sections of the game. I was in favor of cutting the game to remove lengthy sections of driving and / or combat, and distilling the experience down to the story and some representative fights. I was worried the non-story bits would just be twenty minutes of dead air, mumbling, and throat clearing. That turned out to not be a problem, and now I can see there is a certain need to give the viewer the whole game without editing. It’s actually a good rule of thumb: If we can’t fill the time with commentary then we probably shouldn’t be covering the game to begin with. (Which is why we’ve dismissed Borderlands. Too much combat that looks more or less the same from the viewer’s perspective. We’d run out of stuff to say before we left the tutorial.)
But the inclusive approach does lead to episodes like this one, where basically nothing happens.
The Truth About Piracy
What are publishers doing to fight piracy and why is it all wrong?
Final Fantasy X
A game about the ghost of an underwater football player who travels through time to save the world from a tick that controls kaiju satan. Really.
Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3
Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.
The Death of Half-Life
Valve still hasn't admitted it, but the Half-Life franchise is dead. So what made these games so popular anyway?
Bethesda NEVER Understood Fallout
Let's count up the ways in which Bethesda has misunderstood and misused the Fallout property.
What do you mean, nothing happened?
Randy died. A lot.
Comedic gold.
I enjoyed this one, mostly because Randy plays the game decently well. Its obvious that he’s had some practice. I do like watching skilled gameplay.
That might be the single nicest thing I have read on the internet. Thank you. I spent a couple days before we recorded this episode practicing my Mako driving so this scene would be tolerable.
Hah, it’s nice how you spent much of the stupid the Geth, especially the Geth Armature, is and how it could win with better tactics and… Die three times or so fighting it. No mention of stupid Geth after that.
To be fair, we did still point out how stupid it was other the Geth to not just rush us and make us dead, instead it continued to just sit there and eat it, unfortunately the first fight with it, right before I killed it too, it’s trajectory was altered by y popping out real quick to get a last shot in, and it shot the ground next to my cover instantly killing me. then it got a ridiculously lucky kill as I ran out of cover directly into a nuke that I had no way of knowing was coming. so it was still stupid, it just got lucky. A broken clock is still right twice a day.
And a nuke is still a nuke. It doesn’t need to be accurate or used intelligently to kill you.
Regarding tactics, in most any shooter game, if they all rushed you at the same time, you’d probably die no matter what. Having the AI be stupid allows the game to throw encounters at you significantly tougher than what your armor and damage output are able to handle, forcing you to use tactics to survive without making the fight impossible.
As opposed to games which pit you against roughly equal-level enemies and use tactics to challenge you, you get to feel heroic because you destroyed many/tough critters. Mass Effect is more about that than about significantly difficult firefights with tactically interesting AI.
I did think that Dragon Age actually tried to combine the two, resulting in some actual difficulty. For the most part, with the exception of certain “Boss-Fights” like this one, Mass Effect was a cakewalk. At least if you allocated your skill points correctly :P
I actually did the same thing as a Vanguard, with boosting Charm the first time through. I got stuck going into the science center on the snow-planet (Noveria?), right after you get off the Mako. I walked into a room with Geth Destroyers and Krogan. I died many times, and eventually started the game over. Lesson learned: Charm is NOT your #1 priority!
I played with max Charm as a Soldier and everything was fine. (That’s because Soldiers are overpowered; you could put your points into Underwater Basket Weaving and Immunity and you’d be fine.)
That is one of the hardest fights in the game for me. No matter how many times I’ve played, it always takes me at least 5 tries to beat it.
On another topic, I wonder how many people actually liked the Mako? I’ll agree with anybody that the random exploration planets generally sucked and the feel of the vehicle was off, but a better solution would have been to make them not suck, as opposed to the ME2 method. And I defintely agree about the need for a turret direction indicator. That would have been helpful on some of the more annoying Thresher Maw fights.
In the comments on the last episode, we had near unanimous approval of the Mako, which makes me think that people in general really like the Mako, and just hate the bland places you get to use it. I do feel that a hover tank that was barely affected by rough terrain would have been infinitely more fitting.
This was definitely my experience. I found the Mako itself to be pretty fun to drive. It was the unforgiving cliffs and long, boring vistas where nothing happened that made the driving sections my least favorite part of the game.
Hopefully the Mass Effect 2 DLC Hammerhead hover tank will reflect those lessons learned.
‘zactly. Vehicle cool. Buncha rocks… Not so much. I have Fuel; I enjoy Fuel. But if I want that, I’ll play it.
Oh cool! I’m glad it’s not just me. I too have high hopes for the Hammerhead, which I’ve heard is coming out next week *crosses fingers*
This episode really captured my own experience of the game. I had to replay the entire mako thing on this planet 3 times due to game crashes and similar to what you see in the end after the titles, a buggered autosave. I was also bloody annoyed by how it forces you into the cutscene and then ends up with you being surrounded. I was a sniper myself and I never ever got this close to the combat and all of a sudden i was being swarmed. And the insta nuke thing also got me a few times, making me hate that cutscene with a passion even more. So yes, this was exactly how I experienced this and i enjoyed seeing the same frustration :)
I’m old. I had no idea there was a recent Borderlands, and became confused about how your comment applied to the old game of that name in a German Medieval setting.
2009 Borderlands does not quite take place in medieval times. It’s a 1-4 person shooter set on a distant planet with approximatly two plants per square mile. Haven’t found any Nazis there, yet. :)
Wasn’t that game called Darklands?
This along with the train fight on Eden Prime are probably the hardest in the game, I can’t think of any others where I had so much trouble and frustration.
Although, I’ve gotta be an ass and ask this: didya forget those five grenades you could have lobbed at the big Geth? I don’t think you used a single one on it. Eitherway, I’m glad you guys are including all the frustrating fights from the game.
My Shepard is a soldier. The ONLY fight that was truly hard (aside from MAXIMUMSUGARSPEEDCAFFEINEOVERDOSECRACKSAREN) was Benezia because I got 1) magicpowered through the wall and vibrated away from the entire facility and 2) magicpowered through the handrail WITH WREX into the space between the wall and the catwalk where I could hardly move and didn’t have a shot at the Asari commandos that poor little Liara had trouble killing. Thankfully in the latter case the cutscene saved me from some unsaved replaying by warping me back onto the catwalk.
Sure, being able to easily hammer your way through everything may make things a bit bor… WHO AM I KIDDING, I LOVE SHOOTING ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!
I had a biotic/tech shepard which I felt was ridiculusly overpowered ^^. Every boss in the game was ridiculusly easy since I could just take away their shields and make them stop shooting, the only places I had problems with were the random mission a lot of simple guys in a generic room situation.
Stupid iPhone let me edit and stop making me spell wrong by correcting me :E (given a few of those spelling errors are on me but still).
Heavy armor? Armor upgrades? All the right skillpoints? The only problem I had with large mobs was that they’d always run into me while trying to get to my companions, so there’d be a huge brawl where 1) nobody’s shooting at me and 2) I’m unable to shoot at anyone.
Hell, I have to work hard just to get my gun to overheat, and it’s almost worth the effort to use the assault rifle instead of Mako’s gun!
I still wonder if it was a good idea to start on Therum. It’s seriously misbalanced that early in the game, and I actually messed up one playthrough because I played it too early: I got in the bossfight against the Krogan warlord and wasn’t able to win it – unfortunalety, I also couldn’t go back because the game said “One way dead end, sucker!”
Yeah, my second time through I went to Therum first to pick up Liara. I thought it might be interesting to see what she had to say to her mother, Matriarch Benezia on Noveria. I had expected a dramatic scene where Liara would attempt to save Benezia. Turns out she only had one line of dialogue with Benezia and then we proceeded to kill her. The result wasn’t worth the trouble of replaying all those impossible fights on Therum.
You should tell them that they can respec the character. There’s a button you can hit that undoes all your point allocations and you can go back and get rid of those useless charm points and put them into good stuff.
You can only undo the choices you have currently made, not the ones you’ve already locked in after leaving the character screen.
You should have used Sabotage on the armature – it prevents it from using its heavy blasts. I would know from beating Geth Colossi on foot on Insanity.
Oddly enough, I enjoyed this episode. The lack of progress Shamus mentions happens, and is just as much part of playing the game as the witty banter and main storyline. I think I went through that fight three or four times, and though I always _tried_ to position my party to help, it seemed in almost every instance one of them ended up buying the farm. Throw became my friend. I’m glad you decided not to cut the battle or Mako run.
The exact same thing happened to me, at the end of the video? You’d think that, in game testing, they’d find that that battle was particularly unforgiving, and maybe place a freakin auto-save SOMETIME before the start of the whole bloody planet.
I had no trouble in the game, not even on the train, until that spot. Then, I also died a few times on that one mission where you go to the moon to shut down the rampant AI combat trainer. They do no tactics in that fight, just send every bot towards your spot. I got overwhelmed.
Oh god. Not the Rampant VI on the moon. That thing was hellish… Died so many times against those stupid drones, and the best part? Not even a single Autosave. Tali’s AI hack was ridiculously useful though.
Holy crap, I had to beat those bots by exploiting the bad AI and some buggy cover.
However, what is with everyone here complaining about autosaves? You can save at any point in this game – at least on the PC.
I tend to hammer on the quicksave button while I’m playing, so long as it’s not too obtrusive. I don’t recall if ME1 stops you from playing while it saves, but ME2 makes it very convenient – it just saves in the background while you keep doing whatever. It always sucks to die and realize just how much you lost.
Yeah, I had to redo that fight a few times exactly the way you did, through eating the big blue balls of doom, though I did save it where I parked the Mako, not right at the start of the planet.
I also never bother to position my troops, and just resign myself to unity, adrenaline, unity every fight.
Still on my first playthough, trying to keep ahead of you guys, but its clear you are a wee bit better at the game than me (or atleast know all the overpowered skills/combos).
The moral of the story is: Save often, and watch for nukes, and don’t spend every damn point in charm.
I spent every point I could in Charm and only had to retry the fight in the video twice, and the fight with Benezia once. (oh, and the rouge AI like 5 times but no one can do THAT fight :P )
Ironically enough, I streamed myself playing thru the entirety of Mass Effect as a warm up to doing this, and I only died once in the entire game, to the krogan after you rescue Liara. The Rampant VI was really easy with Tali and Garrus. I just sent them in to fight, when they died, used unity, then adrenaline rush, then unity again, then adrenaline rush, until all the drones were dead.
That one was a very dodgy fight. I survived the first time it but I must have made at least a full circle and a half moving around with the sloooow xbox controller (long time pc gamer, fledgling xbox gamer here too) to target enemies and beat them down, accidentally leaving the krogan last. Luckily, it didn’t think of battle ramming anyone until it was almost too late and even then it targetted one of my companions.
As for the colossus fight in the front, I’m embarassed by how I passed it. I never used the point-your-squad feature, so when Tali kicked the bucket some 10 seconds after the end of the cutscene, I used unity..30 seconds ensue, both Tali and Garrus? are dead..so I hit and waited for unity to recharge =\
Anyway, even if that’s not as much fun as Unskippable, do keep up with the interesting/witty comments, as it has been for now :)
I spent a good chunk into charm, but most into unity and other stats. Then again Therum was the second main planet I visited, after Feros and loads of side quests so I was pretty beefed up :)
But I remember that AI fight on the moon, that fight pissed me off. So many damn drones.
Hovertank – I was just playing today and thinking “if the jets came on automatically to keep you stable and help you land and climb, it would totally explain the whole hot-air balloon physics of a 4-ton futuristic dunebuggy”. And, if you could boost them for like a 30-yard steerable leap, then the Mako mechanics would make a lot more sense.
Also, why isn’t the model number M4K0? *scratches head*
I like the Mako. It makes fights really easy, you just park laterally, point your turret, and move forwards and backwards to dodge while megaturreting everything to death.
Oh and you can change how much XP you get in the mako. I generally put it to 1.4x on-foot XP, because I’m impatient and like getting a level up from every single turret, armature, and thresher maw.
I remember my first playthrough, I actually managed to get the mako through that crack. It flipped on its side and then drive through there by getting traction on the narrow cliff edge, and then proceeded to automatically self-right itself once out. I was VERY confused once I got to the cut scene, because I was thinking “what happened to the mako?” As an aside, the fight was very easy in my all-terrain-tank.
Also, if you read the planet profiles they talk about how many gravities there are per planet. I wish these actually changed the Mako physics.
On foot, you get significally more XP for kills than in the Mako. I bring geth armatures / thresher maws to a few % health, then exit the Mako and finish the enemy in a few seconds, earning the XP ammount which I would get on foot.
I too drove the Mako thorough the blockade on my first playtrough, the “boss” fight with the armature was ridiculously easy with it.
I agree it’s a pitty they didn’t implement the planet’s gravity into the Mako driving behaviour. They could make obstacles which you could cross only using your Mako and the low gravity (perhaps jumping over a canyon with enough momentum and thrusters at the peak of the jump).
Another example would be a planet with high gravity (You couldn’t jump over incoming rocket blastv or armature energy blasts because your thrusters wouldn’t generate enough thrust to escape the planet’s high gravity, forcing you to strafe more around enemies than snipe from a static position).
Actually, I really liked this episode, despite “nothing much happening”. The mild arguments between everybody as Randy kept dying, followed by periods of silence where you can just FEEL the concentration of everybody as you duked it out with the Geth Armature… It just harkened back to the old days of gaming when you and your friends were crowded around the TV, silently cheering on whichever friend had the controller at the time… Followed by the blame-games as your friend died yet again. I was almost expecting Josh or Shamus to butt in with a “You suck! Let me have a go!” XD
As far as the Mako is concerned, I liked it and didn’t like at the same time. I really enjoyed battles in the Mako, as well as driving around on some of the more visually impressive planets. There’s one in particular with a HUGE blue sun in the sky, along with a much smaller red sun. If you read the entry for the planet from the galaxy map, you’d also know that the red star was MUCH closer to the planet than the blue star, which just gave you a whole “Woah… That star is BIG” feeling.
At the same time though, the controls of the Mako are absolutely HORRIBLE. It drives like a drunken elephant on rollerskates. Ironically, it was not an issue on the “box canyon” worlds (aka the mission planets) because paths there tend to be relatively straightforward and require minimal complex maneuvers, but on the unexplored planets? The ones with the absolutely shocking geography and near-90 degree mountains? Total pain in the ass.
I’m really LOVING this series, even this episode. It’s the only online video series where I’ve noticed myself actually anxiously anticipating the next episode.
I’m really confused about the so-called ‘difficult’ combat this game possesses and this battle especially. I’ve been playing mostly side missions so far as an infiltrator I believe…whichever one is good with the sniper rifle and at this point in the game, I was getting to where 1 – 2 shots was all I needed to down these guys. I’ll admit, I had to restart here a few times, but that was because my colleagues kept dying and I hadn’t yet figured out they would be revived after a battle, but I was able to breeze through once I used a little strategy.
Since then, I haven’t had one challenging fight and I’ve yet to progress on another main-story mission cept the Thorian.
Like Neil Polenske, I played as a sniper on my first playthru and I found it so damn easy to kill things with my rifle. Sway didn’t even bother me. I never used powers and used my pals as cannon fodder and watching Randy die is giving me an awkward feeling. Insanity was fun and a true normal difficulty until I tried and failed to drive the Mako in Ilos thru the mini relay.
Kinda of nice to see a different approach to the game. Waiting to see Randy to act like a real Jedi gone bad.
On a side note, much of the comedy in the first season of MST3k was improv, and it only became fully scripted at the start of the second season. So in case you’ve never watched episodes from the KTMA days of MST3K, I would say that you guys are at least as funny.