**Official Mass Effect 2 Thread** - The Thread of Unique Planets, New Species and Amazing Scores

[Qbah]

I am debating whether or not I want to go back to Mass Effect 1 and get my level 59 Soldier to level 60. It would provide a nice base for Mass Effect 2 but man, Mass Effect 1 is just so...primitive. He needs about 200k EXP to get from 59 to 60...would a quick run through of just the story missions net me the required EXP?

Yes. But you will miss out on all the extra stuff from doing side missions in ME1 that "follow up" in ME2 (as you'd be importing the lvl60 character that skipped most of the side stuff). I don't think it's worth it. If you want to import a lvl60 character, I'd say do some of the other stuff too, to have a full story in ME2. From what I can remember the extras are (obvious spoilers for both games):

Spoiler

- Conrad Verner on the Citadel (you need to be nice to him in ME1 or he dies in ME1) - this gives a discount at a store on Illium (where you meet him - he's pretending to be like you - funny quest)
- the "receptionist" on Noveria - Giovana Paganinni or something Help her in ME1, you meet her on Illium (quest)
- the Rachni queen - let her live and you meet an Asari on Illium that has a message from her (talk)
- Shiala on Feros - let her help Zhu's Hope after she's free from the Thorian, you meet her on Illium (quest)
- Helena Blake - I met her on Omega, doing social work - told her to steer clear from crime in ME1 (talk)
- let Wrex survive Virmire and he will lead the Krogan on Tuchanka Otherwise it's his "blood brother" (talk)

Plus you get a lot of mails from individuals you encountered or helped in ME1, that are just emails for the story (very nice touch!).

I have some questions though, connected with the Council:

Spoiler

- If you let them live and have Anderson join the Council, thy tell you you're crazy but if you play nice, they reinstate you as a Spectre.
- A generic character from ME2 lets the council die and appoints Udina as the new Councilor - when you come visit him, he's a dick, to put it short, you don't even get to speak to the new Council
- So... if you let the Council die and appoint Anderson as the councilor... what happens? Who is in the new council? And what are they saying? Obviously Anderson believes in the Reapers and would steer the Council in helping you with that. Anyone has an idea? I'm very curious

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Spoiler

The vast majority of your choices in Mass Effect 1 have no real consequences in Mass Effect 2. At most there might be a comment or an email about something that happened in ME1.

For instance, I treated Conrad like crap, and he was still there in Illium. There is a bug anyway where Conrad always acts like you treated him badly in ME1, despite whether you did or not.

There is a long and extensive FAQ on GameFAQs that details what carries over and what happens in ME2. Most of it is not worth the hassle of a full replay of ME1...I'm just interested in the bonuses of being level 60. Seeing as how my dude is level 59, it seems like a waste to not get that last level to have a nice import base. Still though, playing ME1 again...ugh...:\

 

[Gooberlx2]

Just beat it last night.

Spoiler

Grunt died on the second team split...I figured a big, tough Krogan would be the man to fight through, but obviously, he sucks. Apparently there are only certain chars that can succeed in the situations. Grunt was not one of them.

Overall, a very satisfying game. I enjoyed the first Mass Effect, and this one is much better. Sure, there are minor gripes, but I could foresee myself playing it at least two more times. Right now I'm trying to decide what class to choose...I've already done Soldier, so I'm thinking more of a "caster" class to mix things up.

Also, more free DLC is awesome. This is doing DLC right. Give people an incentive for buying the game new. Finally, a good shotgun! This might make me rethink choosing a Vanguard...

Vanguard is an awesome class. I love charging a badguy and following up with a shot from my super shotgun w/ full incendiary ammo skill.

Spoiler

On my first run through of the Collector ship, Thane was the only character I lost. He got shot in the head after infiltrating the tunnels. You have to use a Tech character (Legion or Tali), otherwise the door doesn't shut and the character gets killed.

I used Garrus to lead the other team each time. And had Legion + Grunt on my team until the end, where I chose Miranda and Garrus. No one from either of my teams died...but I did complete ALL loyalty quests. I started replaying this morning (want the achievement). I'm at the T1000 with Garrus and Mordin and no one has died yet. I chose Mordin and Miranda for my combat teams this run through. I should have been playing with Mordin more...his incinerate power is pretty awesome.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Spoiler

On my first run through of the Collector ship, Thane was the only character I lost. He got shot in the head after infiltrating the tunnels. You have to use a Tech character (Legion or Tali), otherwise the door doesn't shut and the character gets killed.

I used Garrus to lead the other team each time. And had Legion + Grunt on my team until the end, where I chose Miranda and Garrus. No one from either of my teams died...but I did complete ALL loyalty quests. I started replaying this morning (want the achievement). I'm at the T1000 with Garrus and Mordin and no one has died yet. I chose Mordin and Miranda for my combat teams this run through. I should have been playing with Mordin more...his incinerate power is pretty awesome.

Spoiler

Yes, only certain chars can succeed in the situations. It's pretty obvious that you need to send a tech and a biotic for those situations, but the "lead the alternate squad" ones are pretty ambiguous. I figured Grunt would be able to lead an attack squad, since he is big and tough, but "his shields went down...sorry Shepard" and died, despite his massive health and regen. Totally lame. I will probably reload my save right before the Omega 4 Relay just to get that achievement.

 

[Rage187]

Yes. But you will miss out on all the extra stuff from doing side missions in ME1 that "follow up" in ME2 (as you'd be importing the lvl60 character that skipped most of the side stuff). I don't think it's worth it. If you want to import a lvl60 character, I'd say do some of the other stuff too, to have a full story in ME2. From what I can remember the extras are (obvious spoilers for both games):

Spoiler

- Conrad Verner on the Citadel (you need to be nice to him in ME1 or he dies in ME1) - this gives a discount at a store on Illium (where you meet him - he's pretending to be like you - funny quest)
- the "receptionist" on Noveria - Giovana Paganinni or something Help her in ME1, you meet her on Illium (quest)
- the Rachni queen - let her live and you meet an Asari on Illium that has a message from her (talk)
- Shiala on Feros - let her help Zhu's Hope after she's free from the Thorian, you meet her on Illium (quest)
- Helena Blake - I met her on Omega, doing social work - told her to steer clear from crime in ME1 (talk)
- let Wrex survive Virmire and he will lead the Krogan on Tuchanka Otherwise it's his "blood brother" (talk)

Plus you get a lot of mails from individuals you encountered or helped in ME1, that are just emails for the story (very nice touch!).

I have some questions though, connected with the Council:

Spoiler

- So... if you let the Council die and appoint Anderson as the councilor... what happens? Who is in the new council? And what are they saying? Obviously Anderson believes in the Reapers and would steer the Council in helping you with that. Anyone has an idea? I'm very curious

Spoiler

Anderson appoints all humans to the counsel and they still coverup the reapers. There was a lot of distrust with the counsel when it became all human and you hear about it from most of the alien species during your citadel conversations.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Spoiler

Yes, only certain chars can succeed in the situations. It's pretty obvious that you need to send a tech and a biotic for those situations, but the "lead the alternate squad" ones are pretty ambiguous. I figured Grunt would be able to lead an attack squad, since he is big and tough, but "his shields went down...sorry Shepard" and died, despite his massive health and regen. Totally lame. I will probably reload my save right before the Omega 4 Relay just to get that achievement.

Spoiler

It's probably because he has no experience leading. I think the only reasonable selections would be Garrus or Miranda (possibly Jacob) as team leaders. I imagine Grunt would just yell "CHARGE!!!" and get his ass wasted...or accidentally run off a cliff, being the big dumb violent brick he is. :biggrin:

My first run through, I thought it made most sense to pick Thane since, ya know, he's an assassin and skilled with infiltration and all that (even says as much when you pick him). And I thought I remembered he had decent tech skills...I was wrong. Doh! :\

I'll get the achievement, but I do feel like someone should die, for story/drama sake. So on another run through, I might not fully upgrade the ship, or intentionally mis-pick my squads.:hmm:

edit: On another note, maybe we should have an official "spoilers approved" thread, because having to hover over all the black-out text is getting old.

 

[SR1729]

Spoiler

Yes, only certain chars can succeed in the situations. It's pretty obvious that you need to send a tech and a biotic for those situations, but the "lead the alternate squad" ones are pretty ambiguous. I figured Grunt would be able to lead an attack squad, since he is big and tough, but "his shields went down...sorry Shepard" and died, despite his massive health and regen. Totally lame. I will probably reload my save right before the Omega 4 Relay just to get that achievement.

Spoiler

You chose a pubescent Krogan to lead a team into battle and you're surprised it didn't end well?

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Just started a Mass Effect 1 playthrough to get a good Renegade base to import into Mass Effect 2. Man, ME1 is rough, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be compared to ME2. It's kind of fun to spam all of your abilities and then use Adrenaline Rush so you can spam them all over again. I really do miss OP abilities like Immunity.

Mass Effect 2 is better in almost every single way, but Mass Effect 1 still has that certain charm to it. Well, except for the Mako parts, which are absolutely dreadful. The Mako makes planet scanning seem fun.

 

[state 08]

Just beat the game today! Simply awesome.

The one thing that kinda kills the replay value for me though is that you can't change you're class if you are importing your ME2 Shepard.

 

[gorcorps]

Just beat the game today! Simply awesome.

The one thing that kinda kills the replay value for me though is that you can't change you're class if you are importing your ME2 Shepard.

Yeah I didn't like that either. Now I'm just starting a fresh character with different gender, paragon/renegade choices, and class.

 

[Qbah]

I think I found a bug... It's related to Heavy Weapons Ammo upgrades... so I have 6/6 for +90%, I do the

Spoiler

second Blood Pack side mission, to shut down their communication relay

, I am given the 7th upgrade for a +105% bonus (even says so at the summary screen), yet it doesn't show up for research and I still have +90% (I see it on M-920 Cain). I really need those +105% to

Spoiler

kill all 3 mechs at once on the recover supply depot mission from Aria, as otherwise the robots manage to destroy some of the crates

. 190% gives me only one Cain shot, 205% would give me two (and I saw people writing that they shot twice) - enough to kill the bastards before they do anything. I also remember this happened on my other play-throughs... but in the easier levels you can one-shot everything with a nuke, even a YMIR. Not on Insanity (drops then to exactly 50% of armor, so half of their total defense) - you need two, I think (never had enough ammo for two shots...). But since one Cain shot dropped them to half HP, I'm pretty sure the next one would kill them.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

The one thing that kinda kills the replay value for me though is that you can't change you're class if you are importing your ME2 Shepard.

Yeah I didn't like that either. Now I'm just starting a fresh character with different gender, paragon/renegade choices, and class.

Uh, it's exactly like ME1 in that regard? I don't recall people complaining about that "replay value killer" in the first one...in fact, since the game even includes a New Game+, it has more incentive to replay than your average game.

At least in ME2, you can retrain your skills and choose a different advanced power. I swear, people complain about anything...BioWare can't win. They include a great feature with New Game+, improve it in ME2 by allowing you to retrain your skills if you don't like your choices, give the Long Service achievement and reward to add incentive to replaying the game, and people still complain.

 

[Pheran]

Also, more free DLC is awesome. This is doing DLC right. Give people an incentive for buying the game new. Finally, a good shotgun! This might make me rethink choosing a Vanguard...

Speaking of shotguns, I now have 4 of them (starter, upgrade, Krogan, Cereberus DLC) but since none of them have stats, I don't have any idea which one I should use (well, beyond not using the starter shotgun). I've been having Grunt use the Krogan shotgun, but who knows if this is the most effective or not.

Though ME2 is a great game, I really wish they hadn't overcompensated for the burdensome inventory system in the first game by ripping out everything.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Speaking of shotguns, I now have 4 of them (starter, upgrade, Krogan, Cereberus DLC) but since none of them have stats, I don't have any idea which one I should use (well, beyond not using the starter shotgun). I've been having Grunt use the Krogan shotgun, but who knows if this is the most effective or not.

Though ME2 is a great game, I really wish they hadn't overcompensated for the burdensome inventory system in the first game by ripping out everything.

Well, your initial starter weapon is always the worst. I would assume that the special shotgun you have to

Spoiler

choose in the Collector ship

is better than the one you just find during the normal story. As far as the new DLC one, who knows? I'm sure it's better than the starting one, and it has a nice feature with the improved range.

There are spreadsheets out there that show the power of the weapons. Sure, they probably should have included the stats, but hey, maybe they read that "no more stats in RPGs!" thread over in the PC section.

In fact, you should go post your story there.

 

[Kev]

I think I found a bug... It's related to Heavy Weapons Ammo upgrades... so I have 6/6 for +90%, I do the

Spoiler

second Blood Pack side mission, to shut down their communication relay

, I am given the 7th upgrade for a +105% bonus (even says so at the summary screen), yet it doesn't show up for research and I still have +90% (I see it on M-920 Cain). I really need those +105% to

Spoiler

kill all 3 mechs at once on the recover supply depot mission from Aria, as otherwise the robots manage to destroy some of the crates

. 190% gives me only one Cain shot, 205% would give me two (and I saw people writing that they shot twice) - enough to kill the bastards before they do anything. I also remember this happened on my other play-throughs... but in the easier levels you can one-shot everything with a nuke, even a YMIR. Not on Insanity (drops then to exactly 50% of armor, so half of their total defense) - you need two, I think (never had enough ammo for two shots...). But since one Cain shot dropped them to half HP, I'm pretty sure the next one would kill them.

Spoiler

I killed all 3 with one shot from the cain, that's actually the only point in the game where i used that weapon

 

[Qbah]

Spoiler

I killed all 3 with one shot from the cain, that's actually the only point in the game where i used that weapon

That is not possible on Insanity. I did that too on lower difficulty levels on this mission (one shot and mission complete ). At Insanity, even a direct hit takes a YMIR to 50% armor.

Spoiler

You shoot once and all 3 mechs go down to 50% - and manage to waste a few crates before you kill them (I managed to save 14 tops)

. Two shots would solve that - I think a +90% upgrade together with the +10% leggings would do the trick, but I was at 190% and had to find a Power Cell container on another mission (as the leggings don't add the last 10% automatically, you have to find the ammo) - I just let it go, not THAT important for me.

Spoiler

On my last attempt I saved 10, got half the extra credits (so 3750 less than maximum) and called it a day. Nothing I need to buy anyway - with a Rich imported character and the replay bonus, I got enough credits to buy everything.

.

EDIT: As a side note, the YMIRs are very deadly on Insanity. You survive a total of 1.3 seconds under their fire, even with tech armor from my Sentinel.

Spoiler

That sequence from the first mission, when one YMIR wastes 3 quarians - they try shooting at him but die fast LOL That's an YMIR on Insanity vs you. Around 10 overloads for the shields, 10 reaves for the armor and then it's cake with the health (overload = stun).

 

[Kev]

LOL these spoiler tags are out of control. I agree we need a version of this thread with spoilers.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

LOL these spoiler tags are out of control. I agree we need a version of this thread with spoilers.

Make a new ME2 thread with SPOILERS INSIDE in the thread title, boom, there you go.

 

[state 08]

Zero Punctuation reviews ME2.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1461-Mass-Effect-2

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

How was I really the last post for this game over the course of a week? Has interest dropped off that rapidly? Wow.

I'm playing through again on Insanity with a Soldier. Good times, and so far, I've only hit one or two really frustrating parts that required multiple reloads. Hardened Adrenaline Rush is the bomb.

 

[Drako]

I'm playing through again on Insanity with a Soldier. Good times, and so far, I've only hit one or two really frustrating parts that required multiple reloads. Hardened Adrenaline Rush is the bomb.

Hey, I'm doing the same thingA I have acquired most of my team - have not done Tali or Thane yet.

The most frustrating part so far was getting Grunt. That final room was a real bitch to get through - took me 5 retries to get through it.

Insanity is pretty much all about team placement at the start of each level, then weathering the rushes.

 

[R Nilla]

How was I really the last post for this game over the course of a week? Has interest dropped off that rapidly? Wow.

I'm still playing, just don't have much to post about. I brought my femShep over and am playing as Sentinel on Insanity, about 6-7 hours in.

I've died a fair amount of times mostly due to impatience. The most frustrating part is that it takes so damn long to kill anyone that if you get pretty far into a battle and die you have to start all over again. But usually as long as you are smart and patient it's not too bad. A lot of the renegade options are pretty amusing.

Also, for this playthrough I'm planning on

Spoiler

letting as many party members die as possible. I'll have to look into this more as I get closer to the end so I can figure out how to get the most bang for my buck. If they all die then I think that causes Shepard to die at the end as well, so I'll have to make sure that doesn't happen.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Hey, I'm doing the same thingA I have acquired most of my team - have not done Tali or Thane yet.

The most frustrating part so far was getting Grunt. That final room was a real bitch to get through - took me 5 retries to get through it.

Insanity is pretty much all about team placement at the start of each level, then weathering the rushes.

Spoiler

There was one room in the building during Thane's recruitment mission where there was a wave of probably literally 50 guys. It never ended. It was ridiculous. That was the only tough part...oh, and taking down the big Geth at the end of Tali's mission. It appears that the Geth spawn infinitely, because I kept trying to clear them out before taking on the big guy. They kept coming until I was out of ammo.

I'm still playing, just don't have much to post about. I brought my femShep over and am playing as Sentinel on Insanity, about 6-7 hours in.

I've died a fair amount of times mostly due to impatience. The most frustrating part is that it takes so damn long to kill anyone that if you get pretty far into a battle and die you have to start all over again. But usually as long as you are smart and patient it's not too bad. A lot of the renegade options are pretty amusing.

I've found while playing around with my Sentinel on HC that powers have really been nerfed in ME2. It takes forever for him to kill guys as well because his level 4 powers barely do any damage. I prefer to just run and gun, hence the Soldier.

 

[R Nilla]

I've found while playing around with my Sentinel on HC that powers have really been nerfed in ME2. It takes forever for him to kill guys as well because his level 4 powers barely do any damage. I prefer to just run and gun, hence the Soldier.

Yeah I'm finding this out the hard way but Overload and Warp have been very useful to have, especially when I can double them up using a squadmate. Tech Armor doesn't hurt to have either.

It will help when I pickup the extra weapon. Is the sniper rifle any good? It's the only one I haven't used yet and I was thinking of getting it but the assault rifle was extremely useful the last go 'round.

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Still playing, although I seem to be going at a snail's pace compared to everyone else. I just crossed the 40-hour threshold, and finally have nothing left to do aside from the

Spoiler

suicide mission

, so I'm amazed that people are finishing the game on Insanity with half the time logged.

I hope you all have gone to visit the games vendor on the Citadel. The dialogue there is the funniest material in the game, with the possible exception of

Spoiler

Mordin pre-emptively shooting me down for possible romance. Damn, that's cold, but oh, so hilarious

.