14 replies to this topic

[the bigg]

I tried the Mass Effect 2 demo, but still am undecided whether I should buy the games (starting for ME1). I have a specific question; I greatly dislike the CoD approach to combat: while (enemies are alive) repeat (hide() wait_for_health_regen() peek_out() fire_three_rounds() ), and vastly prefer a more dynamic approach to battle (for example shotgunning while on the run and using the odd Biotic). Is such an approach viable?

Are there any other factors that should discourage my purchase (E.G. instability, lots of bugs, inane dialogue / characterization / quests)? I'm (eventually) getting it on the PC via Steam, so no DRM issue for me (ME on Steam drops the standard DRM in favor of Steam's).

Finally, is Pinnacle Station worth the 5$ asking price? PCs get Bring Down the Sky for free.

[Jarno Mikkola]

vastly prefer a more dynamic approach to battle... Is such an approach viable?

Not really in Mass Effect 2, as besides the corner that shields you, your fire accuracy and Shield and Health regeneration is increased within and leaning out of the cover.
In Mass Effect 1, the more run and shoot approach is little better in some situations, especially in the open air areas... but it really depends on what you are thrown against, and what class you have.

Finally, is Pinnacle Station worth the 5$ asking price? PCs get Bring Down the Sky for free.

Well, it's more of the same, if you like the battle system in ME1, you'll like the Pinnacle Station... And you'll really hate it it you don't.

[vilkacis]

I'd say running and gunning is somewhat viable in ME1 if you level up your shield-boosting abilities and upgrade your armour. It's also a lot more open to just "standing behind things" as opposed to actually using the "cover" function.

Enemies in ME2 will usually chew through your shields and health pretty quickly if you're not hiding behind something, but you might enjoy the vanguard. Level up the charge power and it'll refill your shields when used, and if you get good at it, you'll pretty much never need to take cover (...and it's fun to kill things by hitting them with your face).

The characters are... pretty standard for Bioware, I guess. You can mostly ignore them if you don't care for them. (edit: ...other than having to take two of them with you at all times.)

There is one rather annoying bug in ME2 where if you press up against certain objects, you may get thrown into the sky and have to reload your game, but it doesn't happen that often. IIRC there's a way to get down again with some .ini fuckery, so eh. In ME1, I've had some issues with elevators freezing the game, but it's quite rare.

Pinnacle Station is pretty bad. It barely has any story and you'll be running around the same handful of levels several times to complete it. I'd say something about how it might be worth it if you're really tired of the levels in the vanilla ME but still haven't tired of the combat, but IIRC the "new" levels all use resources from the existing ones, so... eh.

Edited by vilkacis, 07 February 2011 - 09:52 AM.

[Choo Choo]

Mass Effect is worth it for the asari bartender on Illium alone. C'mon, she's awesome.

(and Garrus. But I'm a fangirl and thus biased.)

[the bigg]

Gameplay: I'm not expecting to circle-strafe enemies and completely disregard cover and other environmental advantages, but that video was pretty much what I was talking about (I guess you could call it "high risk, high reward play style"), so thanks for linking to it.

Pinnacle Station: I don't really hate recycled areas per se, but since you say that it doesn't really add anything to the game I'll pass.

[Dakk]

Run and gun is perfectly viable, but made a lot more doable if you use "tactical aim". That is, when you use the pause-function (to use tech, biotics, change weapons on teammates) you can put the reticule on an enemy and when you unpause you will be aiming at him - no matter your previous direction. You will be forced to use that if you want to run in the open a lot.

I'd recommend some light modding of the .ini to bind some new keys not possible in-game, it's a lifesaver (I'd probably not enjoyed the game remotely as much as I did without it).

EDIT:
Path (Swedish Win7): C:\Users\[user]\Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect\Config
File: BIOInput.ini
Section: [BIOC_Base.BioPlayerInput]
Where the "Bindings=" begin, insert new ones.
No bindings overwrite vanilla keys or functions, I only use free keys. Keyboard layout is Swedish.

Bindings=(Name="§",InputMode=BIO_INPUT_MODE_NONE,Command="ToggleCommandMenu",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
* the spacebar makes you enter tactical pause, but it's click-and-hold, this will allow you to enter pause and fiddle around without killing your thumb (believe me, your thumb WILL suffer).

Bindings=(Name="MouseScrollUp",InputMode=BIO_INPUT_MODE_NONE,Command="SquadCommandMoveTo 1| GuiKey BIOGUI_EVENT_KEY_WHEEL_UP",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
Bindings=(Name="MouseScrollDown",InputMode=BIO_INPUT_MODE_NONE,Command="SquadCommandMoveTo 2| GuiKey BIOGUI_EVENT_KEY_WHEEL_UP",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
Bindings=(Name="MiddleMouseButton",InputMode=BIO_INPUT_MODE_NONE,Command="SquadCommandRally",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
* by using the "up" (arrow)key, you can command you squad to move to location, but it would be MUCH more useful to just move one at the time, leapfrogging. This will allow you to move squadmate 1 & 2 by aiming where you want the squadmate to go and scrolling up and down, respectively (much easier if you have, or can enable, "geared" scrolling on your mouse). Pressing the middle mouse-button will issue "rally" and the squad will come running to your side again.

Bindings=(Name="C",InputMode=BIO_INPUT_MODE_NONE,Command="Superspeed | OnRelease Superspeed",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
* this is a MAJOR convenience-tweak. When in combat (enemies nearby, not just weapons out) you have a limited "storm" ability that moves you really fast, but when just trudging along the same old place again and again (Citadel Station and Normandy comes to mind, especially) you just semi-run. It gets really old after a while, and this will allow you to storm infinitely when you need it. You might want to come up with some self-restrictions when and where you are not allowed to use it. Oh, you will love this when you leave your vehicle three minutes run time back, and can storm there in 10 seconds Your squadmates can't keep up with you, so beware, but they'll magically teleport to you every so often.

Bindings=(Name="ThumbMouseButton",InputMode=BIO_INPUT_MODE_NONE,Command="SwitchToWeapon 0",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
* I play Infiltrator and almost only use the Pistol, this allows me to switch to it immediately no matter what weapon I'm currently equipping (most often for a quick switch from Sniper Rifle). The quick buttons for weapons (F1, F2, F3, F4) are really awkwardly placed for that matter...

Bindings=(Name="L",InputMode=BIO_INPUT_MODE_NONE,Command="ToggleHUD",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
* disables the HUD, mostly usable if you want pretty screenshots

Edited by Dakk, 07 February 2011 - 12:44 PM.

[vilkacis]

Pinnacle station has nothing to do with the original story. It's a kind of "arena" thing. IIRC it plays out in three stages - first you have this guy telling you you can't beat his record, so you do, and get a weapon from him (which is vendor trash iirc). Then you get access to the "advanced" version, which is basically doing everything you just did again with stricter time limits/more enemies/whatever. Then you have a final mission where you can win a house, which gets you a free grenade refill machine and an opportunity to buy random high-level gear, which may or may not be useful.

ed: I should also add that the games handle pretty differently, so the vanguard video above is only valid for ME2, it doesn't play anything like that in the first one.

Edited by vilkacis, 08 February 2011 - 11:51 AM.

[the bigg]

Apparently, the best way to be a front-line Vanguard is to roll a 'throwaway' Engineer and cast Overload at a wall 75 times before rolling your Vanguard. I really "love" the unlock logic.

Still, this is the first game I can think of where you can collect Evil Renegade points by randomly punching people in the face without looking like a complete lunatic.

[vilkacis]

It's pretty dumb. Just cheat it in.

GiveBonusTalent 84

[the bigg]

Actually, I cheated in all achievements (the Electronics one because I must've cast Overload 100 times but the Achi didn't register because of an Internet brownout, the others out of spite of the Achi system). It's also more enjoyable to play as I wish and have the bonuses rather than having to 'waste' my first playthrough fussing about to get all possible Achi bonuses. Plus, the bonuses are sizable but not stupid overpowered (for ex. selling the Cudgel's Reaper as soon as you reach your first vendor).

[Dakk]

Out of curiousity, did you use any of my key bindings?

[the bigg]

So far I only used the toggle pause one; I'll probably start using the Storm one once I stop hopping on random planets and start the main quest.

PS: are there mods to disable the Electronics/Decryption minigame and/or Thrasher Maws?
PPS: Did I already mention that the morality system is heaps and bounds above any other game I played so far?

[Dakk]

So far I only used the toggle pause one; I'll probably start using the Storm one once I stop hopping on random planets and start the main quest.

PS: are there mods to disable the Electronics/Decryption minigame and/or Thrasher Maws?
PPS: Did I already mention that the morality system is heaps and bounds above any other game I played so far?

For the cracking/hacking; if you don't care for it just paste on some Omnigel. With that said, you should never sell ANYTHING of Level III or lower, it should be omnigel'd to the last item.
Thresher (sic) Maws; if you don't care for the XP or money, can't you just ignore them? There are few places where you actually need to kill them instead of just driving off into the sunset - MAKO style.

Yeah the morality system is fantastic, the way Good Paragon and Evil Renegade is not on the same scale so that you don't have to be either goodie-two-shoes or evil incarnate is ingenious.

Edited by Dakk, 13 February 2011 - 09:56 AM.

[the bigg]

For the cracking/hacking; if you don't care for it just paste on some Omnigel. With that said, you should never sell ANYTHING of Level III or lower, it should be omnigel'd to the last item.

Yes, I noticed you can omnigel them; it's just that I'm failing almost all Average and Hard and almost half of the Easy ones (which imposes a great tax on items you can sell... not that money is really a problem as far as I've seen).

Thresher (sic) Maws; if you don't care for the XP or money, can't you just ignore them? There are few places where you actually need to kill them instead of just driving off into the sunset - MAKO style.

Some quests require you to go near one, and you can't quite run in, grab the item, and run away, since they can one hit kill the Mako (sometimes by spawning right on top of you without warning).

Yeah the morality system is fantastic, the way Good Paragon and Evil Renegade is not on the same scale so that you don't have to be either goodie-two-shoes or evil incarnate is ingenious.

Having separate scales is good, but the thing that is greatly lacking in other games is making the Evil side actually appealing. In most other games with morality meters (at least those I played: BG series, Elder Scrolls, Torment...), the 'evil' choice isn't really a choice - to take it, you have to skip quests, lose rewards or further quests, or even randomly kill people; in ME, being Renegade means making choices like killing a thousand to save a million, which is a far more credible motivation.

[vilkacis]

I think the best you can do for the minigames is to cheat in as much omnigel as you can carry (InitSalvage 999).

If you're having trouble with the maws, I believe it's completely safe to run in circles outside their closeup instakill radius while shooting. Takes a while, but they'll just sit there spitting at you and missing a lot (and you get more XP for killing them on foot anyway).