joacqin's Mass Effect experience

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I have been replaying ME2 recently, with a Vanguard, with reave as a special ability (since I replay). Fun class. The most versatile however is the Sentinel (overload + warp + throw), IMO. Playing on hardcore now and don't find it all that difficult. Besides, entering and playing the Tali mission on hardcore without changing settings will yield a nice bonus weapon.

I did that mission with my Sentinel, Garrus and Miranda with all having their overload maxed. It was obscenely easy.

Are you playing any of the DLC?

 

I got some but I do not really get it. I downloaded them, installed them but don't know if they all work. I did the crash site and I hacked some consoles for Tali and I got an arc thingy. Is there a "best" heavy weapon? I have enjoyed the collector laser a lot, the only one I actually used when I had it equipped. The Cain is good I guess but one or two shots only it seems.

I also wonder about romance, I had a thing for Tali already in the first game but had to settle for Liara but now the girl next to the map says that Tali has it in it for me but nothing overt has happened yet, trying to talk to the canned girl as often as it seems plausible.

What is the main difference in hardcore? I play on normal as a soldier and I basically just shoot stuff and generally it is quite easy even for me who is really bad at shooters. Do not even use that slow down power soldiers give, hmm, havent actually used it once maybe I should.

 

As for DLC, the consoles you hacked were for Liara and that's not DLC. Liara's is the shadow broker mission, which is a pretty nice and large-ish add on. To trigger it you need to talk to Liara in her office and say 'Let's go get the Shadowbroker' (it may be level dependent, and/or you need to first finish her two little quests before you can do that), she'll tell you to get a cab, you go to her place and the mission starts. Nice mission, nice fights. Kasumi's DLC is nice, too, with good loot and good fights. The Overlord mission is pretty nice; only the Firewalker missions are so-so but still ok.

The DLC missions - they work like other quests, you land on a planet and the mission starts. I found some of the Firewalker missions annoying as you cannot save when in that darn thing, i.e. when you crash you got to start all over again. Bad for me since I happen to hate this particular mini game.

On hardcore, pretty much true to the literal sense of the word, enemies often are armoured - i.e. when in veteran you were easily able to just sweep your way through a horde of husks with throw field or shockwave, you now need to reduce their armour first (warp ammo & incendiary ammo, incinerate, inferno grenade, warp - or by simply blasting away). Enemies also routinely will have shields (best against that: overload), or barriers (best against that: warp & concussive shot). It means you'll need to rely more on tech and biotic powers and need to adjust tactics. Naturally, it will be even more pronounced on insanity (never felt the urge to try that).

My fav special ability for the soldier is inferno grenade, giving him a nice indirect fire ability. Fortification would make sense, too.
My fav special ability for the sentinel was warp ammo since it is good against everything and since the sentinel doesn't have an ammo power.
My fav special ability for the vanguard (so far) is reave as it restores health and barrier while reducing enemy health, barrier and armor. Wicked.

My fav heavy weapons are the grenade launcher, the arc projector and the cain, but the latter is pretty much a single shot weapon, since you'll probably want to use it on an end boss, but there is never enough ammo around for a second shot. I don't like or use the rest much. The collector beam is so-so, imo. I prefer tech and biotics for reducing armor and barriers. It's great for soldiers though, since they lack these abilities.

Romances will progress after you got that Reaper IFF. To trigger them, talk to your interest a lot and give the right answers. Oh yes, also talk to Mordin a lot, and in particular around and after that mission.

 

Gave my soldier the inferno grenade, then I got greedy and thought he should have slam as well. Ooops, didnt notice that you could only have one extra power at a time.

Glanced at a walkthrough and noticed that I am two missions away from the end, that was a bit of a let down. Will make sure I clean up everything before I start but the last few missions I have been on have been very brief and no loyalty or recruitment jobs left. Going to check and see if I can start the shadowbroker, I should be able to.

 

You can respec the special ability in the upgrade menu - will cost you some element zero.

 

I know and I did but it kinda sucked to lose the ele0 but I am pretty sure I have enough minerals for all the remaining upgrades.

Used that adrenaline boost for hte first time today, that stuff is pretty darn good. Imagine discovering that this far into the game. Oh and I am getting closer to getting it on with Tali and Jack and Miranda even though Jack is definately not my type and can't say that Miranda is much of my type either. Give me alien ass any day.

Oh my lord, see what you mean with the firewalker missions. At first I didn't mind as they were not that prevalent as the Mako driving and it was actually kinda fun driving the thing but I have now failed twice on the artifact gathering mission the last time on the last pack which is rather frustrating. I am dancing as best as I can but they shot me down, maybe I should shoot them from even further away. Wish I could just get out and blast them with my machine gun.

 

My tactic was to move around and above obstacles (jump, fire, go behind cover again) that obstruct the Geth line of fire and if necessary disengage to keep my distance.

Besides, you should use your powers more often. It's fun to use throw, shockwave and the like, for instance on the Dantius towers bridge Why shoot someone when you can push him over a cliff? That was the beauty of the Sentinel - with warp and overload you could basically single handedly defeat any opponent since you could peal away shields, barriers, armour and then just slam them into a wall with throw or blast them.

Really, I'd only wished that the game had free exploration, stealth (or recon drones for tech characters) and that you could move those fuel cells around to create kill zones as in Deus Ex. After all, the game already has Kasumi's shadow strike.

 

I found a better way, you can outrange the get no problem. Just stay far enough away and they cant shoot you but you can shoot them which is pretty stupid.

Have you bought all the dlcs? I got some but not all and only the ones that was included and I doubt that any of hte ones I dont have is worth any real money. Was also sure I installed the shadowbroker but it doesnt show up.

I am superdisapointed though, finished the Tali romance and I did not freaking get to see her face. That was the entire point! I have been intrigued by that since I recruited her back in the first one. As for the last battle, I dont know, fun and all and I guess it was normal but it felt more like a cinematic than an epic final battle. I was sadly right about Cerberus though, didnt sell me out completely but showed enough human supremacy intention that I felt justified for being suspicious of them the entire game.

Looking forward to the third one hopefully it will be as much better than 2 as 2 was to 1.

 

I was also disappointed with the Talli romance. Beyond that, and as I said before, I hold those sensationalist a**holes at FOX responsible for the poor quality of the romance scenes in ME2 when compared to ME1 . The company thought that they'd rather not want that sort of bad press (never mind that it was unjustified) again (even though that doesn't account for Tali; I gather that, since they decided to do the romances half-assed anyway, why bother with trifles like Tali's face?). So now FOX is extending their baneful influence into some of my favourite computer games? Typical. They stop at nothing to piss me off!

I have all the DLC but the one with the Archon Visor. The quests are mostly worth it. I think that the Firepower and Agis packs are ok. I like the Mattock rifle. The Kestrel armour and incisor sniper rifles are ok. The rest is frills. On the other hand: I don't really like the concept of DLC. It essentially means that you'll get an unfinished game and that then they'll sell you the rest at extra charge. That should be discouraged. Alas ... my actions are not consistent with my thoughts. I justify it to myself by arguing that the two hours or so for each DLC come at less than a visit to the cinema. But that's a rationalisation anyway.

On a side note: I have just played the Kasumi quest with a female Shepard and I found it hilarious that they put the toughest chick in the galaxy in high heels and a black dress. That was especially funny when she conjured up her gun from a concealed location and slammed herself into that guard with a biotic charge, kicking him off the roof.

Reacting to that, I have her now in a more fashionable armour - metallic blue with red markings ...

 

joa,
have you finished? How do you like it?

 

Oh I have finished, had finished when I made my last post. Didn't you see my comment on the last battle? I liked it, liked it a lot and wanted more when it was finished but I can't help but notice how as soon as I finished it I was back to WoW. Some new content in that game and even a great game like ME2 paled. I might do another run through around Christmas on a higher setting but I want to play Fallout: New Vegas as well. Can't help but notice how all singleplayer games nowadays are entertainment for the moment and that they all feel shallow and limited.

I kinda regret that I played it on the second easiest setting, would have gotten a lot more out of the game if I had allowed it to be more challenging. One final comment is something I mentioned before but the main quest almost doesn't exist, the bulk of the game is NPC recruitment and doing their quests it almost feels like half a game. You spend all this time building your team and then when you have done that you barely need it. If you don't recruit extra npcs you can probably finish the game in well below 10h.

 

Oh, I fully expected you to replay (mirror imaging on my part)

Try a Sentinel or Vanguard on Veteran, and do Tali's quest on Hardcore (set it so before you travel to Haestrom, and don't change while you're there). Challenging enough and good fun.