[Official] Mass Effect 2

[Xerxes]

They better not be stingy when pricing the PS3 version, if it's a full price game they can GTFO.

Why? considering it'll have most of the paid DLC on disc and is running on the Mass Effect 3 Engine*, why don't the developers deserve to be paid properly for their hard work? it's essentially being re-released as a new game and should be considered that and not a budget release.

* That said, I'm struggling to see how the engine is any different to the ME2 engine! it looks identical to the Xbox 360 release and the PC version looks hundred times better then both (got ME2 on both PC/X360 and the PS3 demo)...guess most of the changes were under the hood?

[qdave]

Bought this game when it was on sale on steam the first time and just completed the main storyline. All the issues that prevented me from playing deep in ME1 are gone in ME2. I absolutely love this game. I have 28 hours played on normal and will check out the unexplored areas and finish the side quests. Cant wait for ME3.

What issues did you have with ME1?

[Prosidius]

1. Long Elevators
2. Vehicles being part of the main mission (this is why I gave up, kept dying in one)
3. The overall difficulty of the game
4. Inventory management
5. Hard to obtain credits

I found ME2 alot easier than ME1. I'm not that good at completing games (I've completed 3-4 games in my lifetime) but ME2 on normal wasn't really that difficult, I imagine easy difficulty I could play in my sleep. I died once on the final mission which is pretty dumb considering the final mission should be the hardest lol. Ideally I would like a middle ground in base difficulty between ME1 and ME2. I dont remember if ME1 had the arrow either telling you where to go for the mission, really enjoyed that since I'm not a fan of getting lost.

Honestly I'll probobly reinstall ME1 and compare the two. I stopped playing ME1 around the time ME2 released.

[mattmatik]

I finished ME1 over the weekend and - due to too much temptation (I wanted to get through Dragon Age first), I started ME2. So far, I like it, it's a bit more fast paced than ME1 but the polish is noticeable. I had to mess around with the bindings though, I hate that they changed the action button to space bar, etc.

I loved ME1, I had the best feeling when I beat it. Hopefully, ME2 will do the same and I can't wait to see what happens in ME3.

[Massiveterra]

Do we have anyting solid, I'd take that Gameinformer article over any specualtion?

It was Gamepro, not GameInformer. And it's been decades since they were relevant.

[treemonster]

Why? considering it'll have most of the paid DLC on disc and is running on the Mass Effect 3 Engine*, why don't the developers deserve to be paid properly for their hard work? it's essentially being re-released as a new game and should be considered that and not a budget release.

* That said, I'm struggling to see how the engine is any different to the ME2 engine! it looks identical to the Xbox 360 release and the PC version looks hundred times better then both (got ME2 on both PC/X360 and the PS3 demo)...guess most of the changes were under the hood?

non ps3 versions on sale after buying ALL the DLC cost about full retail price. so ps3 for $50-60 with ALL dlc included is actually pretty decent. well, retail pc version at walmart costs $20, plus you can get fair chunk of DLC for another $20(but not all the dlc)

1. Long Elevators
2. Vehicles being part of the main mission (this is why I gave up, kept dying in one)
3. The overall difficulty of the game
4. Inventory management
5. Hard to obtain credits

I found ME2 alot easier than ME1. I'm not that good at completing games (I've completed 3-4 games in my lifetime) but ME2 on normal wasn't really that difficult, I imagine easy difficulty I could play in my sleep. I died once on the final mission which is pretty dumb considering the final mission should be the hardest lol. Ideally I would like a middle ground in base difficulty between ME1 and ME2. I dont remember if ME1 had the arrow either telling you where to go for the mission, really enjoyed that since I'm not a fan of getting lost.

Honestly I'll probobly reinstall ME1 and compare the two. I stopped playing ME1 around the time ME2 released.

i find me 2 alot easier to just play, ie better controls and systems than i found me1. keeping in mind game breaking install corruption stopped me from getting far int eh pc version of me1, though i did play some of the xbox version.

plus the dlc vehicle in me2 is alot easier to control and is totally optional, unlike the godawful truck in me1 that's in like every single mission and has paper thin armour and hits like a 2 year old, not to mention being an incredible PITA to control on any platform.

as it stands the only way i'm going to give me1 another shot is if someone mods it to take out the truck.

i watched my bro play a fair chunk of it, and the story was great, but the gameplay... :unsure:

the map design in me2 is much better too. les slong empty rooms and corridors in me2, alot less running around and doing trash jobs. everything is much more streamlined and overall the art direction is much better, with more populated interesting environments.

the pc version has a few graphical tweaks(seems to be mainly physx, don't recall if xbox cutscenes had the DOF thing), and can be played in true 1080p.

however the big thing i didn't like about the pc version of me2 is the menus and so on are not optimized for a computer. standard ui elements such as hotkeys and scrollwheel functionality do not work, whcih is aggravating.

as well, the mining thing is just annoying on pc. holding down the button to go left or right the planets move at slower than a snail's pace, and you have to push the planet faster with your cursor(found this out by accident)

as well the one hackign mini game where you connect the matching dots is more dificult on teh pc version for some reason, and sometimes you can spend precious seconds trying to get the matching dots to properly connect because the amount of time you are given seems random and extremely quick. this mini game looked extremely easy on xbox, but is easily the more annoying of the two on pc. still they're an improvement over the me1 hacking minigames on both xbox and pc.

[Massiveterra]

I guess they really are releasing more DLC after all.

The Cerberus Daily News will begin a hiatus on January 24th, finishing its run of one full year. Daily postings will cease except for three weeks in 2011: a week of posts will precede a downloadable content release, and two more weeks will lead up to the release of Mass Effect 3.

[ViperAFK]

Hadn't played me2 in ages and last night decided to play through again with all the dlc.

Holy mother of god buying dlc on the pc is a PIA. First you have to buy bioware points, which I had to do twice because the largest points pack wasn't enough for all the dlc, and there's no way to only buy the amount you need or close to it, I had to buy two packs of 1600, then you have to buy each of the dlc's individually, and it doesn't start the downloads for you or anything, it just ads them to your entitlement page. Then you have to download every single exe file and install them all. Took me a few freakin hours lol.

[treemonster]

Hadn't played me2 in ages and last night decided to play through again with all the dlc.

Holy mother of god buying dlc on the pc is a PIA. First you have to buy bioware points, which I had to do twice because the largest points pack wasn't enough for all the dlc, and there's no way to only buy the amount you need or close to it, I had to buy two packs of 1600, then you have to buy each of the dlc's individually, and it doesn't start the downloads for you or anything, it just ads them to your entitlement page. Then you have to download every single exe file and install them all. Took me a few freakin hours lol.

i didn't find it too hard to do with ME2. alot easier than the mess i went through with the included DLC with DAO and the GFWL service not working causing me to need to hunt down 3rd party hosting of the DLC. having all the DLC in one place on my bioware profile made things WAY easier. althought he me2 dlc installer are just horrible. literally waiting for 20 seconds from double clicking the .exe to having the UAC popup and thinking it failed to start properly so doubel clciking it again only to have the first instance start only to see the second instance after finishing it and not being sure which DLC it was because absolutely no hint of which DLC it is in teh installer at any point for installing it yet again.

plus slow downloads from teh bioware host.

as for the whole bioware points, i think this is true of any of these points systems. everytime i've watched my bro buy mspoint card for dlc on xbox games and use it he always has some small number of points left over which are useless, even over the long run of buying lots of DLC for many games.

the biggest portion of DLC was enough to get the kasumi and liara DLCs and an armour pack, which is basically the major DLCs not included with the retail and steam versions of ME2 on pc.

what really annoyed me though was getting the steam CE version after buying the retail version and getting exactly the same DLCs added to my bioware account again.

to be fair though the emails and purchase confirmation pages give a link to your bioware DLC download library page. iirc. i didn't find it hard to find them at all the first time around. finding my old DAo profile information on teh other hand... i'll agree, the bioware website is not all that great at all.

[Hedon]

Xbox 360 and PC also getting the PS3's Mass Effect comic to introduce you to Mass Effect 2:

http://www.electronictheatre.co.uk/index.php/industry-news/6781-mass-effect-interactive-comic-book-announced

[qdave]

Xbox 360 and PC also getting the PS3's Mass Effect comic to introduce you to Mass Effect 2:

http://www.electronictheatre.co.uk/index.php/industry-news/6781-mass-effect-interactive-comic-book-announced

thats definately a good way for players to customise their game a little bit.

[Massiveterra]

The entire comic is already on youtube

[Corris Veteran]

Xbox 360 and PC also getting the PS3's Mass Effect comic to introduce you to Mass Effect 2:

http://www.electroni...-book-announced

That's good, I saw it earlier on-line and thought it would have been awesome to have for the original release of ME2 for those that didn't play ME1 before going straight to ME2.

I would hope they do something similar for ME3, in case anyone does jump straight to ME3 without going through the first 2.

[Xerxes]

I guess they really are releasing more DLC after all.

That makes no sense though, why release DLC for ME2 2 weeks before ME3? my money is on it being for ME3 (probably for the Collector's Edition, much like what was done for ME2 I'd say), BioWare have stated repeatedly Lair of the Shadow Broker was the final DLC for ME2. However, *maybe* the DLC will be for ME2 and BioWare are planning a tie in to ME3 with it? I dunno.

I've been playing ME2 alot recently and loving it :) There is so much detail and extra info just waiting to be discovered, sure you could just stick to the storyline and not explore and/or take the time to talk to NPCs but your missing so much!

Why are the Geth screwing around with the weather on some planets (and what will Cerberus do with that tech)? Who is accelerating the aging process of at least 2 stars? (we know Dark Energy is involved, my guess is the Reapers are doing it...but why?). What was it that Kasumi's partner found? we know it had to do with the Reapers, but why would it implicate the Alliance? why will it cause a war? Who are the "beings of light" are they just a red herring? or did the creators of the Reapers create another race to [try and] keep them in check? (or perhaps the beings of light are the creator race) and if they do exist, I think is fairly safe to assume the Reapers defeated them but maybe they just trapped them and didn't outright destroy them. Maybe the dying stars are the "Beings of light" trying to come back, no idea. Naturally all this is wild speculation and most likely not true, but it's fun to try and speculate! as we learnt from ME1, even the slightest thing can pan out to be something big. Remember that planet in ME1 with the "glancing blow" and the gas giant that had something "organic" orbiting it, back in ME1 was just bit of useless info but turned out to be a key part of the ME2 storyline. Plus there is another gas giant with an anomaly* that is yet to be determined, useless info? or something big? Oh and I forgot "Leviathan of Dis", apparently that one was Sovereign and that was where it "rested" (which means that Reaper was nearly a billion years old...insane)

I seriously cannot wait to get ME3, the more I play and explore ME2 (and ME1) the more excited I get about what will happen in ME3 :woot: Ok that is my 2 cents, take with a grain of salt.

Edit: Decided to add spoiler tags just incase any PS3 owners here planning to get ME2 and never playing the games before.

Edit 2: * After some research that anomaly is theorized to be a "Jupiter Brain" of unknown origin and unknown purpose (A Jupiter Brain is a planet-sized supercomputer!).

Edit 3: For those wondering about this "beings of light" business and wonder what the hell I'm on about, here is a snipet:

Klencory is famously claimed by the eccentric volus

billionaire Kumun Shol. He claims that a vision of a higher being told

him to seek on Klencory the "lost crypts of beings of light." These

entities were supposedly created at the dawn of time to protect organic

life from synthetic "machine devils."

You find this on one of the planet Klencory description, in ME1 I think it was. What does it mean? red herring? or something big is coming? Damn you BioWare, stop teasing us!!!

I've been reading up on it on the BioWare forums, quite alot of the fans are angry that BioWare might introduce an "all powerful god race" that will defeat the Reapers and feel it's a cheap cop out. What do you guys think? I mean sure Shepard and Co did defeat Sovereign and stopped the Collectors but at what cost? before Sovereign was defeated it took down most of the Alliance/Turian fleets and didn't get a scratch and wasn't till Shepard defeated it's "consciousness" did it's near impenetrable defenses go down and now there are hundreds, maybe hundreds of thousands of them coming. I think it would be an even cheaper cop out if they were suddenly able to defeat them on their own, considering the struggle to kill just one (ala Independence Day, the humans defeated all powerful aliens with a simple computer virus!) that is just as bad as all powerful beings saving the day, well I think so. While you could argue the Alliance/Shepard are better prepared and now possess more powerful technology, but even with the Collectors they were only able to defeat the ship one-on-one. Even with a fleet of Normandy SR2s (fully upgraded) might not be enough to defeat an Reaper invasion fleet (because remember, Sovereign said their fleet is large enough to "blacken the skies of every world"), in my eyes Shepard needs MAJOR help to take on the Reapers (just look at the ME3 teaser, the Reapers are laying waste to Earth). However, I don't think these beings should save the day but instead maybe in a last dying act either provide some advanced technology that will even the playing field (i.e. advanced shields that can withstand a Reaper's main weapon, maybe even powered by weapons fire (ala the Ori shield in Stargate SG1) etc) or some other act that gives Alliance/Shepard a chance to fight back. What do you guys think?

[Neo003]

Just found out that only 8,864 ME2 copies on 360 were sold in japan, now let see how many ps3 copies are sold (which I'm sure will be over 100,000+).

[soniqstylz]

Just found out that only 8,864 ME2 copies on 360 were sold in japan, now let see how many ps3 copies are sold (which I'm sure will be over 100,000+).

Easily. Amazon sold out of their supply and won't have stock for 2-3 weeks.

[soniqstylz]

So, I hadn't gotten very far in ME1 on the PC, but far enough to know the basic story and enough to learn who the characters were. ME2 is much more enjoyable so far.

[Massiveterra]

Just found out that only 8,864 ME2 copies on 360 were sold in japan, now let see how many ps3 copies are sold (which I'm sure will be over 100,000+).

I'm guessing this game won't be very popular in japan. You don't attack an enemy by selecting it from a menu :rofl:

[The Laughing Man]

I'm guessing this game won't be very popular in japan. You don't attack an enemy by selecting it from a menu :rofl:

haha so true.

[YounGMessiah]

Man I can never get tired of Mass Effect no matter how much I play it or leave it alone! I love being a bad ass in it haha

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Man I can never get tired of Mass Effect no matter how much I play it or leave it alone! I love being a bad ass in it haha

Me too. I almost-always play as the bad guy. I've learned that apathy and ruthlessness gets the job done. Sympathy and kindess - not so much.

[Xerxes]

Me too. I almost-always play as the bad guy. I've learned that apathy and ruthlessness gets the job done. Sympathy and kindess - not so much.

It does but *could* have dire ramifications in ME3 though, you **** too many people off and maybe they don't fight along side you when it matters. However, I think it's pretty safe to say that a Renegade character can safely finish ME3 but gonna be interesting to see how much being a "bad arse" really affects the final fight and/or affect the final outcome (i.e. Cerberus could end up having the balance of power in the galaxy and they start like a ruthless galactic empire maybe ;) ). Personally I prefer the Paragon path and always play as that first, but is always fun to then create a Renegade character and just see how different things play out too :)

[trag3dy]

I still haven't finished this game, almost a year later, my CE purchase was totally not worth it. :rofl:

[Corris Veteran]

Me too. I almost-always play as the bad guy. I've learned that apathy and ruthlessness gets the job done. Sympathy and kindess - not so much.

I like both, I find it quite hard to be truly evil on games unless I have a separate good play through first so I know how things could turn out, and I also like to play as a good guy, and an evil gal to see more diverse differences in each run through.

My female Sheppard kicks ass, lol.

At the moment I'm doing my "final" paragon run through now that I have all the DLC at this point, creating that proper save I want for continuing into ME3.

[qdave]

Me too. I almost-always play as the bad guy. I've learned that apathy and ruthlessness gets the job done. Sympathy and kindess - not so much.

Playing as a hard guy is much harder than playing as a good guy. i dont mean difficulty of the game, but emotionally :p I know its a game, but still!