Mass Effect 1/2

[Belle Hibiki]

The last mission was awesome. I was able to get through it without losing anyone. For those interested, here's what I did:

[spoiler]For the Tech specialist I sent Legion. I imagine Tali would have worked fine. For the first Fire Team leader I picked Garrus. I would have gone with Miranda, but she was one of my "main" squad members, and I wasn't really big on giving her up. For the Biotic Specialist I chose Samara -- I almost went with Jack, since she's supposed to be some kind of ultra-powerful uber biotic, but meh -- and for the second Fire Team leader I chose Miranda -- I chose her for the second leader because I thought Samara would actually be fighting, not just maintaining the bubble. To escort the rescued crew members, I went with Jacob.[/spoiler]

Most of the choices seem obvious if you read the character descriptions, but I spent a few minutes trying to decide whether or not there was some kind of trick that I was missing. "Yeah, I need a tech specialist, but that squad member just seems too perfect..."

I liked the end mission, but:

[spoiler]The end boss just seemed so... cartoony. I guess we'll see how it pans out in ME3 and get a more definitive answer as to why the fuck they'd go through the effort to build a human Reaper.

I picked Legion for my Tech specialist and Samara for my fire team leader, but Legion still got shot in the face by a rocket. I had Samara lead the second squad again, and she got shot in the gut. Jack was my biotic. I sent Grunt back to the ship since I figured dude is probably tough enough to handle minimal Collector presence, and he survived (thank God).

I took Garrus and Jacob with me to the final boss and the Solarion doctor ate it.

Not sure if it's a specific combination of squad selection that does it, or if there's something external, like upgrades on characters.

Also fuck you Liara. She apparently didn't want to give me any more missions after I helped off her assistant.

I better get poon from you in ME3 since I passed up a chance with the sweet black guy and the chick with the dyke haircut.[/spoiler]

[Belle Hibiki]

Also, why the fuck is Joker not a romance option for femShep if Tali is for manShep?

I didn't care much about Joker in the first game, but he's a fucking badass in this one. Really liked him.

[Vad]

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.

[Kaden]

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:

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.

[Belle Hibiki]

It did indeed feel as if there was a lot of build up that didn't go anywhere.

You'd normally expect a few twists and turns, but in the end, I think your perception of events remains more or less static.

[spoiler]I was kind of expecting the Collectors to be doing something else, like creating an army of altered superhumans to fight back against the Reapers. In the end, nope; they're just the evil bugs, and everything that's said about them from literally the first mission on is dead accurate. The only bit of info you learn is that "zomg, they're Protheans!" But who gives a fuck because it never ends up mattering.

I was also waiting for Cerberus to pull a Xanatos Gambit that ended up with me being equally valuable to them living or dead, or simply tipping their hand as to their real intentions. You get "CERBERUS IS EVIL!!!" jammed into your skull so often that having them actually turn out to be "omg no we're just misunderstood " is... Kind of boring.

Why even have Ashley Williams on that planet and have her shit all over you for being with Cerberus if it never goes anywhere?!

But despite those complaints, it was fun.

(Again, FUCK YOU Liara. I was promised the chance to continue my romance, dammit - not get an extremely awkward hello kiss and then be her fucking errand girl, so pathetic that the only thing I do on the night before we jump through the Omega relay is stare at her picture on my desk.)[/spoiler]

[Waffuru]

I kept all of my Heavy Weapons when I new game+'d (Import ME2 Character). You also don't actually have to get the Long Service Medal, you'll start with the bonuses as long as you've cleared the game once.

btw Yeoman is her job title, her name is Kelly Chambers.

[Kaden]

I kept all of my Heavy Weapons when I new game+'d (Import ME2 Character). You also don't actually have to get the Long Service Medal, you'll start with the bonuses as long as you've cleared the game once.

I know you get that for an imported ME2 character, but I didn't know you just needed a clear game for new characters.

When I started my new character, it definitely listed the bonuses as "Long Service Bonus."

btw Yeoman is her job title, her name is Kelly Chambers.

See, that's what I thought, but she introduced herself as Yeoman Kelly Chambers and the subtitles list her as Yeoman Chambers... I figured she just went by her middle name. I also didn't know until about 8 minutes ago that Yeoman was a form of petty officer.

@Belle: I saw somewhere that not pursuing one of the new romances would matter in ME3.

[Waffuru]

Yeah, it listed them as Long Service Bonuses for me too... but I still got them without having that achievement.

[Alura]

Yeoman is a Navy job. =x

Anyway, for the final mission, I:

[spoiler]-Lost Legion on the ship.
-Had Thane as my tech specialist, but he got shot in the face
-Garrus led the fire team
-The Professor escorted the doctor back
-Morinth was my biotic in the bubble.
-Jack led the second fire team and died
-Brought Tali and Garrus with me on the final boss.

Ended up losing Legion, Thane and Jack. Thane was my love interest, so that was lame.[/spoiler]

[Alura]

Btw, I'm kinda bummed out by the default game choices. It's like I have to commit to an entire playthrough of ME1.

[Kaden]

Yeah, it would be nice if they let you pick some of the choices from ME1.

Adept, btw, is turning out to be a lot of fun. Last game I really did not like having Jacob (what's the point of two Vanguards?) but this time I'm keeping him around just for Pull. Warp is crazy strong when it explodes a biotic, and my Warp Ammo does bonus damage.

[Belle Hibiki]

I went straight for maximizing Singularity on my Biotic first thing, but it's nowhere near as strong as it was in ME1 (which is good I guess because it was retarded then). Picking up and tosses around people with no defenses, and makes people with defenses stagger (but eats up a 'charge' of the power).

[Kaden]

I prefer Throw over Singularity. Did you take Wide or Heavy for the top tier? I was kind of hoping Wide would be more along the lines of the ME1 Singularity, but I haven't gotten enough points to actually try it out yet. I'm only going to bother with one point of Pull (just so I can power-up my Warp Ammo, really) and I don't care about Shockwave at all.

Has anyone tried Solider or Infiltrator yet? I've heard bad things about the Cloak, which is sad because it sounded fun, and I'm curious if anyone has used Adrenaline Rush, because that sounds crazy broken.

[Vad]

Soldier gets the most weapons and you don't get debuffs this time around for using ones you aren't trained in. I played through as Soldier, I enjoyed it. You get Cryo, Incendiary, and Disruptor Ammo as well.

Cryo freezes them solid, Incendiary rips through Armor, and Disruptor rips through shields.

EDIT: Concussion Shots is nice too.

[Belle Hibiki]

I took wide because yeah, I was hoping for more ME1 Singularity style. Isn't quite there, but it covers a decent area, and with Biotic Master IV and Singularity IV it recharges pretty damned quick.

And I'm not exactly surprised that people say Cloak is bad. I haven't tried Infiltrator myself, but all you have to do is look at the action in ME2 to see that sneaking around is a fucking retarded idea.

[Tyr]

Cloak is a 'oh-shit', positioning tool or 'he's going down' power (if you go for the assassin cloak).

[Rafael]

blech. So far, don't like it at all. Only doing the very first mission, but the interface is less obvious,movement just feels less smooth and...ammo. Do not like having ammo at all, regardless of whatever "this is leeter technology than overheating,we swear!" they give me. Haven't even really started and my pistol's empty ftl. Also hate having to run around picking the shit up off the ground. Here's to getting used to it, I guess?

[Jesper]

*shrug* Overall, I like the gameplay a lot more than the first one.

[Vad]

*shrug* Overall, I like the gameplay a lot more than the first one.

^

[Tyr]

Just finished it as well. Kudos to Kaden for his guide to make everyone live through it, you made my first playthrough on hardcore very enjoyable. Here's to New Game+ or renegade on Insanity!