For females, I read that Garrus is one of the romance options. I'm going to try it on this second run-through. Yeoman, btw, isn't an actual romance option.
My squad mates for the final mission were Miranda and Mordin. I took Mordin on a complete whim and thank god. Vanguards blow chode at dealing with Armor, so having Warp and Incinerate was crazy helpful. I had Warp Ammo, but c'mon. Vanguards get shotguns and SMGs. wtf was I going to do with those?
I had Sniper Rifles from my advanced weapon selection, and that was really helpful as a Vanguard. Hang back, pick off a couple as they move to cover, then switch to my shotty and Area Charge into the remaining group. Lawltastic.
Some random fyi's:
-After you get the Long Service Medal achievement, all your new characters get the resources, money, and XP bonus (it claims you start with all your Heavy Weapons unlocked, also, but you don't)
-The bonus power you pick at character creation is not permanent, you can purchase "Advanced Training" once you get Mordin to switch it out for any other loyalty power you unlocked.
-Grunt's Heavy Shotgun (which you can get when you get to pick more weapons) is awful, it is crazy strong, but you have to reload after every single shot, which they don't tell you. I ended up switching him back to the assault shotty when I realized this.
-The powers that give you bonus defense will stack on top of whatever you already had. Geth Shield Boost gives you shields, Barrier gives you barrier, and Fortification gives you armor. You can use them to stack defense types, like the enemies do.
-Ammo powers do not stack. If you flip on Warp Ammo and then tell Jacob to use Team Incendiary Ammo, you don't get both. You only get the most recently activated one.
-Shredder Ammo sucks.
-You don't get to see Tali's face. Yeah, it's a spoiler, but I promise, you're better off not building up interest just to be horribly disappointed.
EDIT:
Playing as kinda Paragon (if you max out your Class passive early enough, it's not hard at all to get massive amounts of both alignments) I'm going through the whole game with Shepard going on and on about how much Cerberus sucks and he doesn't trust them. I'm going to spoiler the rest since I'll be talking about one of the endings.
[spoiler]But Cerberus never really does anything untrustworthy. Illusive Man is kinda creepy, yeah, but he's fairly straight-forward about everything (barring the derelict reaper mission, where he was just a wank). He wants to stop the dudes that are murdering humans en masse and brought back the closest thing to a super-hero he could find. Shepard's whole attitude about virtually everyone around him, since they're all Cerberus, started a build up towards some big, inevitable betrayal. Personally, I was waiting for EDI to fuck everyone over and the Illusive Man to watch as, like, shot Shepard back out into space (that whole full-circle thing). But it never came.
The only time the Illusive Man is ever even close to mad at Shepard is when you decide to blow up the collector base. Even then, the only pseudo-betrayal (for me, at least) was when she ordered Miranda to stop Shepard. Obviously that didn't work, she flipped him the bird and we went on our way. After that, everything he says to Shepard is a very reasonable response to the situation he's up in.[/spoiler]
It just created this kind of disconnect for me. I understand that, given the nature of the game, there has to be plenty of room for players to react to the main story elements however they want. This time around, though, the nature of the main storyline didn't stand up -- as convincingly as the last game's, at least -- to that added flexibility. I'm hoping that things gel more cohesively on this Renegade playthrough.
Though, I admit, I have a personal problem with my character just trusting Cerberus after the last game. Hunting down and killing Kohaku, luring a marine squad into a Thresher Maw so they could watch, and trying to bring back the Rachni, who threatened to wipe out most life in the galaxy, don't seem like things that lend themselves to trust.
EDIT2: The above paragraph is all stuff that happened, involving Cerberus, in the first game. In case someone didn't know.
Also, despite what I said, I still like the story overall.
My squad mates for the final mission were Miranda and Mordin. I took Mordin on a complete whim and thank god. Vanguards blow chode at dealing with Armor, so having Warp and Incinerate was crazy helpful. I had Warp Ammo, but c'mon. Vanguards get shotguns and SMGs. wtf was I going to do with those?
I had Sniper Rifles from my advanced weapon selection, and that was really helpful as a Vanguard. Hang back, pick off a couple as they move to cover, then switch to my shotty and Area Charge into the remaining group. Lawltastic.
Some random fyi's:
-After you get the Long Service Medal achievement, all your new characters get the resources, money, and XP bonus (it claims you start with all your Heavy Weapons unlocked, also, but you don't)
-The bonus power you pick at character creation is not permanent, you can purchase "Advanced Training" once you get Mordin to switch it out for any other loyalty power you unlocked.
-Grunt's Heavy Shotgun (which you can get when you get to pick more weapons) is awful, it is crazy strong, but you have to reload after every single shot, which they don't tell you. I ended up switching him back to the assault shotty when I realized this.
-The powers that give you bonus defense will stack on top of whatever you already had. Geth Shield Boost gives you shields, Barrier gives you barrier, and Fortification gives you armor. You can use them to stack defense types, like the enemies do.
-Ammo powers do not stack. If you flip on Warp Ammo and then tell Jacob to use Team Incendiary Ammo, you don't get both. You only get the most recently activated one.
-Shredder Ammo sucks.
-You don't get to see Tali's face. Yeah, it's a spoiler, but I promise, you're better off not building up interest just to be horribly disappointed.
EDIT:
Vad Wrote:My intention isn't to shoot down the game, but the story in this one left me feeling a little empty. I didn't feel satisfied.
Playing as kinda Paragon (if you max out your Class passive early enough, it's not hard at all to get massive amounts of both alignments) I'm going through the whole game with Shepard going on and on about how much Cerberus sucks and he doesn't trust them. I'm going to spoiler the rest since I'll be talking about one of the endings.
[spoiler]But Cerberus never really does anything untrustworthy. Illusive Man is kinda creepy, yeah, but he's fairly straight-forward about everything (barring the derelict reaper mission, where he was just a wank). He wants to stop the dudes that are murdering humans en masse and brought back the closest thing to a super-hero he could find. Shepard's whole attitude about virtually everyone around him, since they're all Cerberus, started a build up towards some big, inevitable betrayal. Personally, I was waiting for EDI to fuck everyone over and the Illusive Man to watch as, like, shot Shepard back out into space (that whole full-circle thing). But it never came.
The only time the Illusive Man is ever even close to mad at Shepard is when you decide to blow up the collector base. Even then, the only pseudo-betrayal (for me, at least) was when she ordered Miranda to stop Shepard. Obviously that didn't work, she flipped him the bird and we went on our way. After that, everything he says to Shepard is a very reasonable response to the situation he's up in.[/spoiler]
It just created this kind of disconnect for me. I understand that, given the nature of the game, there has to be plenty of room for players to react to the main story elements however they want. This time around, though, the nature of the main storyline didn't stand up -- as convincingly as the last game's, at least -- to that added flexibility. I'm hoping that things gel more cohesively on this Renegade playthrough.
Though, I admit, I have a personal problem with my character just trusting Cerberus after the last game. Hunting down and killing Kohaku, luring a marine squad into a Thresher Maw so they could watch, and trying to bring back the Rachni, who threatened to wipe out most life in the galaxy, don't seem like things that lend themselves to trust.
EDIT2: The above paragraph is all stuff that happened, involving Cerberus, in the first game. In case someone didn't know.
Also, despite what I said, I still like the story overall.
![[Image: Kaden2.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v403/Nezumi16/Sigs/Kaden2.jpg)
"It's on my brain, driving me insane. It's on my mind, all of
the time, and if it left... I would be fine."