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[Coxswain]

Well, not exactly a shocker, but the Hammerhead beats the absolute shit out of the Mako. It's a shame it didn't get properly completed for the main game; having a couple areas to use it where the quality is in line with story missions instead of N7 missions would have been sweet.

My only real nitpicks, apart from things that are just reality fucking with us again (ie: Little/no voice acting for small bits of DLC):
- The one thing they really should have kept from the Mako is giving the Hammerhead a primary and secondary weapon. The little missiles that lock on but don't do much damage are cool and all, but having the second mouse button be a big fuckoff laser or a railgun that needs to charge up, and then tears through everything would have made fighting the tougher enemies a lot more exciting.
- It also could have used some form of defense. You can only dodge (some of) the attacks from Rocket Drones and the Geth Colossus. Every other enemy has hitscan rifles that tear the shit out of you (at least on Insanity). I died twice on the first group of Geth troopers, and then never came close ever again, because I figured out that you'll probably die first if you get close enough to anything for it to shoot with a rifle, and just picked things off from a distance.
- The mining spots really should have been comparable to what you could get from a probe. You should have been picking up deposits of two to five thousand, and ending each mission with enough of a particular mineral to completely fill out at least one or two of the higher level research items. There's really no reason not to do it that way, especially considering that between the release of ME2 and Firewalker, they've received plenty of feedback along the lines that - to put it mildly - people would like a viable alternative to planet scanning for their minerals.
- Come on, you can't put Dr. "Good Night" Manuel into the game and not let Shepard punch him out again. He was Shepard's first! That's like releasing a "Back to Junior High" DLC where Shepard gets to run into her first schoolgirl crush... and then not letting her punch him out again.


Anyway, I hope that, since the Hammerhead is on the list of free DLC, Bioware can continue to use it in future DLC, to flesh it out a bit more. It was a good way to kill an hour, and pretty decent for something they put out for free.

 

[ahoyhoy]

Finally beat the game. I wasn't struggling to get through it; more like savoring it like a fine wine. Like with Mass Effect 1, I played about 6-7 hours a week and enjoyed "almost" every minute of it. Overall, I enjoyed it as a good companion piece to 1. It didn't seek to be totally superior to 1 in all aspects, but merely tried instead to be "different" enough to justify playing both for their individual merits. I appreciate how they made going back to 1 much easier than other games might have.

Going to be playing through 1 and 2 as a female Adept or Engineer sometime this summer. Should provide entertainment through the hotter months.

 

[Pancakes]

I would love the Hammerhead for Mass Effect 3 IF Bioware:

-Changes the weapons systems
-Puts pack the repair system
-Allow for EXPLORATION!

 

[ahoyhoy]

I would love the Hammerhead for Mass Effect 3 IF Bioware:

-Changes the weapons systems
-Puts pack the repair system
-Allow for EXPLORATION!

If they're going to put that back in, it better not be the same "ride around for 10 minutes on an almost exclusively barren landscape save for a few identical smuggler/geth caves/bases. Oh, and hackable wreckage."

Give me vast exploration on a handful of worlds instead of mediocre amounts on a hundred.

 

[Ten-Song]

Played through the Hammerhead stuff. Vehicle controls okay, killing enemies wasn't very thrilling, but then again nothing about the missions was. Odd how they use the vehicle to basically turn ME2 into a platformer, but all things considered, it's still about a billion times better than the Mako.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

I keep getting installation errors on this shitty Hammerhead DLC.

 

[Pancakes]

If they're going to put that back in, it better not be the same "ride around for 10 minutes on an almost exclusively barren landscape save for a few identical smuggler/geth caves/bases. Oh, and hackable wreckage."

Give me vast exploration on a handful of worlds instead of mediocre amounts on a hundred.

Word, could also use less mountains @ 90 degree angles.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Welp.

Beat the game and posted my review. Probably nothing that you haven't heard before.

If you don't feel like reading all that crap I'll sum it up:

-Characters are great
-Story sucks
-Combat is decent but lacks originality
-Combat could also stand to have more "oomph".
-Straight-forward approach to everything rubs me the wrong way
-Could do without planet-scanning or hell dealing with other planets in general cause I know I won't get some Star Control-esque system where I can explore the fuck out of every little planet.
-Characters are way too similar to each other in combat
-Lack of options for everything from conversation to combat
-Not too bothered by lack of customization.

I think that about covers it. Still looking forward to part 3 cause if nothing else the characters & writing should be great.

I don't know how anyone could find ME1's "exploration" entertaining. It was one of the worst parts of the game.

Pretty much.

I hate to say it but I'm actually kicking around the idea of having some kind of multiplayer system for gathering materials. Take on co-op or versus missions to get those materials, then cash them in back in singleplayer.

 

[∀ Narayan]

I don't know how anyone could find ME1's "exploration" entertaining. It was one of the worst parts of the game.

 

[Lime]

Exploration stuff like this I really enjoyed in ME1 and made the game more atmospheric.
I somewhat missed that in ME2. And the more ambient synth music instead of the big orchestral pieces.

 

[Pancakes]

I don't know how anyone could find ME1's "exploration" entertaining. It was one of the worst parts of the game.

I enjoyed driving my little dune buggy around planets fighting tresher maws and staring at the glorious skyboxes.

 

[diamondstar]

Landing on the planets was a great experience for me. That is why I didn't mind the Mako driving at all because I loved the environments Bioware created. Look at that shot above, that shit is pure beauty. I absolutely hate they got rid of the planet explorations. Can you imagine what the surfaces could have looked like in ME2.

And I liked the idea that the planets were bare. It gave me the sense of discovery. I wanted to see those same planets that were bare have more civilization in ME2 but that didn't happen.

Thank God they are not bringing mining back. Even with alcohol I couldn't bare it.

 

[mujun]

I really enjoyed the two Firewalker missions I played.

If they have ME1 style vehicle sections combined with ME2 style on foot areas ME3 will be an amazing game (even more so than ME1 and ME2 which I consider to both be amazing anyway).

 

[OMGLOL A LLAMA]

Does anyone else dislike the hacking minigame? I felt it broke the flow of the game, whereas the bypass minigame could be done quickly.

 

[Ten-Song]

Does anyone else dislike the hacking minigame? I felt it broke the flow of the game, whereas the bypass minigame could be done quickly.

Yeah, I wish every time I have to do it that there was an option to push a button to make it scroll faster. It's annoying as shit when you see the bit of code you need, and it's nowhere on the screen, so you just have to sit there and wait...

 

[Pancakes]

Yeah, I wish every time I have to do it that there was an option to push a button to make it scroll faster. It's annoying as shit when you see the bit of code you need, and it's nowhere on the screen, so you just have to sit there and wait...

Taking out the mini-game bypass was one of the many bad decisions made in ME2 .

 

[dralla]

I can't DL the Firewalker pack. It gets about half way than stops, stuck on 'pending' :[

 

[ahoyhoy]

Does anyone else dislike the hacking minigame? I felt it broke the flow of the game, whereas the bypass minigame could be done quickly.

For 3 they should have multiple versions of hacking/bypassing mini-games like the bypass one from 1. Each should take no less than 10 seconds and should be scalable in difficulty. While 1's bypass was sometimes difficult, the only time I failed with 2's was the first time when I didn't know what button to push.

Also, not needing a tech expert made me ignore Garrus much more. And I liked hearing Garrus comment on stuff.

 

[Dresden]

I didn't mind the hacking/bypass minigame too much. They take like five seconds, usually, sometimes more only if the line you need doesn't float up fast enough.

I do wish they'd go back to a stat-based system for tech unlocks and dialogue options, though. Being a suave bastard should make you sacrifice a bit: unlocking Persuade or Intimidate early on in ME1 meant you weren't as effective of a combatant as you could be, and that was good.

 

[Mutanthands]

The Firewalker missions feel like a dress rehearsal for ME3. The Hammerhead would be great for some ME1 style planetary missions, and the mineral collection mechanic was good, but the level pack was half-baked at best. It does give me hope that there may be a mix of the exploration mission types from ME1 with the more focused mission types from ME2 in part 3.

Good for free, but I would be slightly perturbed if I had paid money for it.

Spoiler

Certainly not worth getting worked up over and calling a fellow Gaffer an idiot.

Looking forward to some real Hammerhead missions in the ME2 expansion or ME3.

 

[Owzers]

Does anyone else dislike the hacking minigame? I felt it broke the flow of the game, whereas the bypass minigame could be done quickly.

All the minigames sucked. Sure bypassing was quicker than hacking, but it still sucked.

Quit putting crap into games just to have more crap.

 

[thatbox]

This is kind of a weird question, but I bought ME2 through Steam, and I'm not sure how exactly to obtain the Firewalker DLC - how do you get it? Clicking the NEW CONTENT button on the main menu brings me to the costume pack and asks for a credit card

 

[vocab]

This is kind of a weird question, but I bought ME2 through Steam, and I'm not sure how exactly to obtain the Firewalker DLC - how do you get it? Clicking the NEW CONTENT button on the main menu brings me to the costume pack and asks for a credit card

Go to bioware social site. Create an account or use an EA account, and register your Cerberus key.

 

[gibration]

Just picked the game up yesterday and so far this game's fun but I hate the upgrade system compared to the first Mass Effect. It feels as if they tried to make this game more of a shooter than an RPG.

Also does anyone know if it's better to customize his default armor or should I just stick with my armor that came with the LE?

 

[pmj]

I don't know how anyone could find ME1's "exploration" entertaining. It was one of the worst parts of the game.

The exploration, like so much else in ME1, came with problems. It did however help make the universe seem like a huge place that you were actually traveling around and discovering new shit in, and that's something ME2 completely lacked.

Just look at the pics posted above. ME2 had nothing of the like, and that's my personal biggest disappointment with that game.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

You people need to listen to podcasts. It made the exploring in ME 1 enjoyable for me. Seeing some of those sky/space scapes where amazing. I loved the planet with the huge scar in it from a millenniums old particle weapon. so mysterious!

 

[Coxswain]

I think the fact that damn near every single picture supposedly used to illustrate how good the "exploration" in Mass Effect 1 was, is a picture of Shepard or the Mako with the camera pointed straight upward at a moon, a planet, or a star that you will never explore or get to interact with in the slightest, with maybe the tips of the tallest mountains of the planet that you're actually exploring showing up in the very, very bottom of the shot, is a pretty good tell that "exploration" has nothing to do with what people actually liked about it.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

At 7 dollars, I BETTER BE ABLE TO MAKE LOVE TO HER BIOWARE!!!

 

[heringer]

So, just finished the first and I'm about to start this one.

Any differences I should know? Any protips?

I played Mass Effect with the Soldier class and I thought it was enjoyable. I like shooting stuff, it doesn't have to be fancy.

How are the classes balanced this time?

 

[Fox1304]

I played as Soldier in the first too (in fact, started the game without seeing the option to change class, so after 5 hours or so, didn't want to start over :lol ).

Chose Adept this time, to keep offensive but using more biotics.

And it was pretty enjoyable

 

[witness]

So, just finished the first and I'm about to start this one.

Any differences I should know? Any protips?

I played Mass Effect with the Soldier class and I thought it was enjoyable. I like shooting stuff, it doesn't have to be fancy.

How are the classes balanced this time?

Very simple equipment management; you don't have to look in your inventory every time you loot anymore, much better interface, simpler leveling system. No mind numbing Mako driving. Shooting is much better so soldier is nice to try ou first but all the classes are really good though an engineer is pretty boring to me.

 

[Sai]

I think the fact that damn near every single picture supposedly used to illustrate how good the "exploration" in Mass Effect 1 was, is a picture of Shepard or the Mako with the camera pointed straight upward at a moon, a planet, or a star that you will never explore or get to interact with in the slightest, with maybe the tips of the tallest mountains of the planet that you're actually exploring showing up in the very, very bottom of the shot, is a pretty good tell that "exploration" has nothing to do with what people actually liked about it.

:lol It's true.

The skyboxes were nice though. It'd be great if, for ME3, Bioware could find some kind of way to please everybody. Keep/Fix the planet/mineral scanning, find dropoff points with open terrain to roll around in(doesn't have to be nearly as big as what we were used to seeing in the first game) with the Hammerhead or whatever it's equivalent will be, then find areas that'll lead to some of the more streamlined shooting areas we got in ME2.

 

[Clockblockers]

It'd be great if, for ME3, Bioware could find some kind of way to please everybody.

That's a dream, no matter what BioWare does someone will complain about something, but then again you are on GAF; so you probably already know that.

 

[heringer]

Very simple equipment management; you don't have to look in your inventory every time you loot anymore, much better interface, simpler leveling system. No mind numbing Mako driving. Shooting is much better so soldier is nice to try ou first but all the classes are really good though an engineer is pretty boring to me.

Glad to read that the interface is better. It was one of my major grips with the first one. Everything was cumbersome.

Disappointed that there's no Mako driving anymore. I loved the feeling of exploring different planets, even if they were very empty and generic.

I played for about 30 minutes and I was very impressed with the evolution in the shooting mechanics. Apparently they are putting more efforts on the cutscenes this time too. The beginning of the game felt pretty epic. I'm not very far into yet, but it seems way more polished too. Didn't notice any texture loading and all the transitions (saving, game to menu, gameplay to cutscenes, etc) are smoother.

 

[Sai]

That's a dream, no matter what BioWare does someone will complain about something, but then again you are on GAF; so you probably already know that.

Yeah.

But I like my dreams. :/

 

[duckroll]

Played one mission of the Firewalker Pack so far. Glad this is free DLC. I probably wouldn't have felt happy if I paid for this.

 

[Confidence Man]

That's a dream, no matter what BioWare does someone will complain about something, but then again you are on GAF; so you probably already know that.

It's a dream now, because they've already commited to the shitstreaming of the series. It didn't have to be that way, though.

Maybe if EA hadn't been in the picture...

I think the fact that damn near every single picture supposedly used to illustrate how good the "exploration" in Mass Effect 1 was, is a picture of Shepard or the Mako with the camera pointed straight upward at a moon, a planet, or a star that you will never explore or get to interact with in the slightest, with maybe the tips of the tallest mountains of the planet that you're actually exploring showing up in the very, very bottom of the shot, is a pretty good tell that "exploration" has nothing to do with what people actually liked about it.

The exploration was good in Mass Effect. Plenty of planets to land on and you never knew what you were going to find on them. I still remember wandering around a random planet, and ended up helping some soldiers fend of a Starship Troopers-esque onslaught of Rachni.

It wasn't all "fun" but then again it wasn't trying to be fucking Gears of War where it all has to be intense battles. I'd take the bad with the good from Mass Effect over the straight line level design and nonexistent exploration of ME2.

 

[Sai]

The exploration was good in Mass Effect. Plenty of planets to land on and you never knew what you were going to find on them.

?... I think the game always made it clear what you were going to find on those types of assignments through either distress signals, or a message from Admiral Hackett.

Not much different from what we have now. We just don't have to spend five minutes rolling around terrain to get to the main objective.

 

[pixel monkey]

It's a dream now, because they've already commited to the shitstreaming of the series.

I'd take the bad with the good from Mass Effect over the straight line level design and nonexistent exploration of ME2.

Wait. So you're actually suggesting that the first game is better than the second. Wow. To each his own...but, wow.

I couldn't disagree more. As far as I'm concerned, everything Bioware haphazardly (and beautifully) attempted in the original, they were able to hone in on like a laser in Mass Effect 2.

Enough praise can't be heaped upon them in my opinion, the game was and is the Game of the Year, and I cannot fucking wait for part 3.

 

[Dilly]

Exploration stuff like this I really enjoyed in ME1 and made the game more atmospheric.
I somewhat missed that in ME2. And the more ambient synth music instead of the big orchestral pieces.

http://i41.tinypic.com/11me3iw.jpg[IMG]

[IMG]http://i44.tinypic.com/2i1lehj.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

I swear I took a screenshot some time ago on the same place as you did on your second shot :lol

 

[Confidence Man]

Wait. So you're actually suggesting that the first game is better than the second. Wow. To each his own...but, wow.

I couldn't disagree more. As far as I'm concerned, everything Bioware haphazardly (and beautifully) attempted in the original, they were able to hone in on like a laser in Mass Effect 2.

Enough praise can't be heaped upon them in my opinion, the game was and is the Game of the Year, and I cannot fucking wait for part 3.

Suggesting? No, I'm asserting it. It was, by a large margin, the superior game.

They completely dropped the ball, taking what was fresh and unique and turning it into an overly processed paste.

Their smugness only infuriates me more.

If no other games were released the entire year but Mass Effect 2, it still would not be game of the year material.

 

[pixel monkey]

Suggesting? No, I'm asserting it. It was, by a large margin, the superior game.

They completely dropped the ball, taking what was fresh and unique and turning it into an overly processed paste.

Their smugness only infuriates me more.

If no other games were released the entire year but Mass Effect 2, it still would not be game of the year material.

What you label an overly processed paste, I'd call fine space opera cheese whiz.

Seriously, I cared not only for my lady Shepard, but for each and every one of my crew in a way that I never even began to in the original.

The magnificent story in conjunction with much tighter game play and spectacular visual and aural design, was simply nirvana for this sci-fi nerd.

But we can agree to disagree. I loved the original as well...just not nearly as much.

Let me ask you this if you're a genre fan...Star Trek or Star Wars?

 

[WanderingWind]

Wait. So you're actually suggesting that the first game is better than the second. Wow. To each his own...but, wow.

I couldn't disagree more. As far as I'm concerned, everything Bioware haphazardly (and beautifully) attempted in the original, they were able to hone in on like a laser in Mass Effect 2.

Enough praise can't be heaped upon them in my opinion, the game was and is the Game of the Year, and I cannot fucking wait for part 3.

You're in the minority with that opinion. ME1>ME2 in every way, save for the superior combat of the second.

 

[firehawk12]

It's funny, because in the now dead spoiler thread, everyone pretty much agreed that ME1 was generally the better game.

 

[Gillian Seed]

Mass Effect 2 does everything better than Mass Effect. The only thing i miss is exploring planets on the Mako.

 

[LCfiner]

You're in the minority with that opinion. ME1>ME2 in every way, save for the superior combat of the second.

maybe only on Gaf. which is typical, since Gaf tends to really like stuff that has lots of broken or overly clumsy bits in it as long as it exudes a charming vibe.

but critically, ME2 is much preferred over ME1. And, in this case, I happen to agree with the critics. ME2 rocked and had way better characters that I actually gave two shits about. ME1 only had Wrex… and even he wasn’t that great.

 

[EatChildren]

You're in the minority with that opinion. ME1>ME2 in every way, save for the superior combat of the second.

Minority? Have you not been following this thread? Countless others, including myself, considering ME2 to be the superior game, and if not both being par.

It's funny, because in the now dead spoiler thread, everyone pretty much agreed that ME1 was generally the better game.

No, they didnt, and it would be nice if all those butthurt over ME2 would stop saying it.

 

[dejan]

You're in the minority with that opinion. ME1>ME2 in every way, save for the superior combat of the second.

Yeah, riiiight.

 

[pixel monkey]

You're in the minority with that opinion.

That's okay, I don't mind. Like I said, I love the original too.

I was asking about the Trek/Wars preference because I believe the original was much more Trek, while the sequel followed a Star Wars, specifically Empire Strikes Back model.

Less emphasis on exploration and more on the action. I very much enjoy Trek (make mine TNG), but I'll take Lucas' original trilogy over any of the films. It's funny because much like Bioware, the Trek folks have embraced the action/adventure space opera model to great success with last year's Trek reboot.

Apologies for any sidetracking of the thread with the comparisons.

 

[WanderingWind]

:lol @ the responses. Maybe public opinion has changed since the initial impressions, but a ton of people didn't prefeer the stripped-down ME2 over the first. Weird.