Support NeoGAF

[CabbageRed]

I'm thinking doing another ME2 play through and have been looking at the DLC. I'm sure that this has been asked before, but is there a way to buy Kasumi without having Bioware hit me up for a loan or bum a few bucks off of me? Maybe through some other DD or disc-based means where I can just pay for the product directly?

Thanks.

 

[Wallach]

I'm thinking doing another ME2 play through and have been looking at the DLC. I'm sure that this has been asked before, but is there a way to buy Kasumi without having Bioware hit me up for a loan or bum a few bucks off of me? Maybe through some other DD or disc-based means where I can just pay for the product directly?

Thanks.

No. Though you can buy the exact amount of points the DLC costs so it shouldn't matter.

 

[Wallach]

So, I think after my card arrives tomorrow I'm going to start another Insanity play through and record it this time.

I was thinking of doing one on Sentinel since it seems like there aren't quite as many video tutorial type things for the class. I'm open to ideas though if folks want to see one in particular more than another.

Also, aside from the main story missions and loyalty quests, are there any side missions folks might want to see?

 

[Truant]

Anyone know what triggers the

Spoiler

collector ghost

mission?

Yuck at Shepard's renegade face. Gonna grind 50k platinum to get rid of that nastiness.

Secret mission? Never heard of that one.

 

[JoeBoy101]

However, I doubt there is much Bioware could do to warm me up towards

Spoiler

Samara

. I hate her whole philosophy and her code. Fuck that bitch.

Maybe you should have got the other one then.

 

[Diatribe1974]

I can say that after playing through the entire game with every class (I play on Veteren as my default setting, I'm not nuts to do Hardcore or Insanity), that I don't know who I like more: Soldier or Infiltrator. Each has their merits. Soldier + Slam = Fun times. But Infiltrator + Reave = Me constantly sayin' "Suckers."

 

[Wallach]

Secret mission? Never heard of that one.

I believe he's referring to the

Spoiler

Collector Ship

mission, as the achievement for that mission is called

Spoiler

The Ghost Ship

.

Anyway, as to what triggers that particular mission:

Spoiler

completing any five missions after you finish the Horizon mission.

.

 

[Monkeylord]

Insanity Mode
Collectors Ship
Engineer





FUCK!



It's not been too hard up until this point. The only other spot I had any problems was with the Horizon courtyard... that was nasty, till I happened upon a little trick.

Anyone got any recomendations for squad and weapons (and specialisation - I go for Sniper, usually).



Also, for those interested in the Horizon trick, basically if you stand at the doorway to the courtyard but DON'T GO IN, you'll just about see one of the Scions idle behind the tower. You can send your 2 squadmates to the back of the courtyard (I told them to go to the top right hand corner) and they'll just start shooting the crap out of the Scions until they die. That's it, wave 1 now will not happen. No Husks or anything. Now carry on as normal.

When you get to the Praetorian, it'll automatically ignore your squad but will come raging after you, so I put my guys up on a walkway and just ran around the trucks in the middle. I was out of ammo, but didn't need any as my squad blew the hell out of it, whilst I was safe keeping it busy.

Made the Courtyard section a LOT easier.

 

[Montresor]

Thanks Wallach, good sir.

Insanity Mode
Collectors Ship
Engineer





FUCK!



It's not been too hard up until this point. The only other spot I had any problems was with the Horizon courtyard... that was nasty, till I happened upon a little trick.

Anyone got any recomendations for squad and weapons (and specialisation - I go for Sniper, usually).



Also, for those interested in the Horizon trick, basically if you stand at the doorway to the courtyard but DON'T GO IN, you'll just about see one of the Scions idle behind the tower. You can send your 2 squadmates to the back of the courtyard (I told them to go to the top right hand corner) and they'll just start shooting the crap out of the Scions until they die. That's it, wave 1 now will not happen. No Husks or anything. Now carry on as normal.

When you get to the Praetorian, it'll automatically ignore your squad but will come raging after you, so I put my guys up on a walkway and just ran around the trucks in the middle. I was out of ammo, but didn't need any as my squad blew the hell out of it, whilst I was safe keeping it busy.

Made the Courtyard section a LOT easier.

Lol, I did the exact same thing to kill those two scions, but it took me 15 minutes to get the trick to work. I got that trick from this guide. Honestly, it's close to being a terrible guide through and through - he tells you to do every single loyalty mission and practically every single side quest, but he doesn't tell you why. IMO, this is insanity, and with the way the level scaling works you want to get through the game at as low a level as possible, as painlessly as possible and as quicky as possible. That's why, like I said before, I'm just going to do the minimum 4 loyalty missions to trigger the last mission. HOWEVER, the guy does have some invaluable tips (especially for Horizon & Grunt's recruit).

I haven't played my insanity run-through since I beat Horizon... been chugging through Assassin's Creed 2. Anyone else hate Ubisoft's fighting mechanics? From the Sands of Time back on Gamecube, to Warrior Within, to The Two Thrones, to both Assassin's Creed games and the cel-shaded PoP game... fighting has always sucked in Ubisoft games. They have what seems like an innate talent for platforming sequences - I love love love jumping and swinging around in Ubisoft games. But stop making me fight people with your crappy fight mechanics! Case in point, the awesome tomb sections in Assassin's Creed 2. My eyes light up whenever I foresee a section that requires a lot of acrobatics, but I groan if there are any enemies patrolling the area.

 

[subversus]

Does anybody know when Overlord DLC will come out?

By the way

Ray Muzyka: Yeah, I think we have really high expectations. Our teams are really pushing for each game to be better than the last. All of our main releases have always been like 90+ Metacritic, you know, and a pretty high bar to exceed. Mass Effect 2 has definitely exceeded that; Dragon Age has actually exceeded it, as well… Both exceeded our sales targets.

Greg Zeschuk: It keeps kind of going up. Every game is bigger than the last one, from a sales perspective. At least it takes off…

I like that. I'm playing DA now and just can't stop...

 

[firehawk12]

I haven't been following ME2 for a while... whatever happened to the Liara DLC?

 

[Patryn]

I haven't been following ME2 for a while... whatever happened to the Liara DLC?

Still just a rumor.

 

[firehawk12]

Still just a rumor.

Guh, too bad.

 

[Diablohead]

But you forget that ME1 also had the task of setting up this new world and universe, which I thought it did quite well, for the most part. That's the point of the first part of a trilogy: Setting up the toys, explaining what is what.

The second part of a trilogy is supposed to be about upping the stakes, sending the protagonist to their lowest point and establishing an overwhelming obstacle to be overcome. ME2 came to a table already set with players just waiting to be positioned, without the need to spend time carefully explaining everything. And then it proceeded to do nothing. So what's its excuse?

I am playing through ME1 currently as the last time I played it the rental had to go back when I was only 12 hours in but now that I have the chance to 100% it over the month I been looking forward to the rest of the ME1 story and then more in the sequel.

I still need to play it but so far it sounds like ME2 is more action then rpg and story, I love the role play elements of the first game with finding loot, upgrade items, stat points.. it all sounds like it was simplified and then simplified a 2nd time for mass effect 2.

 

[X-Frame]

I am playing through ME1 currently as the last time I played it the rental had to go back when I was only 12 hours in but now that I have the chance to 100% it over the month I been looking forward to the rest of the ME1 story and then more in the sequel.

I still need to play it but so far it sounds like ME2 is more action then rpg and story, I love the role play elements of the first game with finding loot, upgrade items, stat points.. it all sounds like it was simplified and then simplified a 2nd time for mass effect 2.

Yeah it's been "streamlined" in ME2 though I welcomed the change. After a while gathering hundreds of armor, items, weapons, etc (most duplicates) became frustrating even though it's easy to become a millionaire.

ME2's a great second sequel that's going to bridge the gap between the ME1 and ME3.

 

[karasu]

It's a shame that the enemies we met in the first game are a thousand times more interesting and intimidating than the Collectors.

I just beat the game and I agree. I thought a lot of interesting information would be revealed with their heritage and all, but there was bupkis. I didn't get any sense of satisfaction from defeating them or halting their cause like I did in the first game after beating up Sovereign. Pity. They're just bipedal roaches with laser guns.

Fuck Cerberus.

 

[Monkeylord]

YES!!! After 2 days, and countless deaths, my Insanity Engineer run is back on track. I FINALLY managed to get past the damn platforms in the collectors ship, thanks to the very first platform having a spaz attack and not landing. It took a while, and if it wasn't for the last platform being JUST high enough up for me to kill the collectors and Harbinger I would've been fucked.

In contrast, I only died 3 times on the following Praetorian.




Now I feel I actually have a chance to finish my Engineer Insanity run

 

[Cep]

IMO, this is insanity, and with the way the level scaling works you want to get through the game at as low a level as possible, as painlessly as possible and as quicky as possible. That's why, like I said before, I'm just going to do the minimum 4 loyalty missions to trigger the last mission.

Say what?

 

[user_nat]

YES!!! After 2 days, and countless deaths, my Insanity Engineer run is back on track. I FINALLY managed to get past the damn platforms in the collectors ship, thanks to the very first platform having a spaz attack and not landing. It took a while, and if it wasn't for the last platform being JUST high enough up for me to kill the collectors and Harbinger I would've been fucked.

In contrast, I only died 3 times on the following Praetorian.




Now I feel I actually have a chance to finish my Engineer Insanity run

Heh, I'm stuck at the same place on my Adept run. Haven't played in a few weeks now, I spent hours trying to beat it.

 

[X-Frame]

I'm doing an Insanity run with the Sentinel and it's pretty simple - though I guess that's one of the easier classes to do it on (Infiltrator might be easier).

 

[Cep]

I'm doing an Insanity run with the Sentinel and it's pretty simple - though I guess that's one of the easier classes to do it on (Infiltrator might be easier).

They are all actually pretty easy to do it with, you just need to know what you are doing when it comes to Vanguard, Engineer and Adept.

 

[Wallach]

They are all actually pretty easy to do it with, you just need to know what you are doing when it comes to Vanguard and Adept.

FIFY.

Engineer might be the easiest class to take through Insanity. I have no idea what they were thinking with the drone cooldown.

 

[Monkeylord]

Up until the Collector Ship, I hadn't even used the Drone lol. IM DOIN IT RONG! :lol


Definitely gonna be using it a lot more now. Husks love that little bugger.

 

[Wallach]

Up until the Collector Ship, I hadn't even used the Drone lol. IM DOIN IT RONG! :lol


Definitely gonna be using it a lot more now. Husks love that little bugger.

Husks are actually probably not the place to use it (unless you're putting it on a Scion that is generally accompanying a Husk assault). Incinerate or Cryo Blast is what you want for Husks. Remember that any type of "crowd control" effect that hits a Husk that does not have any defense is an instant kill, even if those do not cause damage (like Cryo Blast or even Pull).

A super awesome team to take with you as an Engineer when you know you have a lot of Husks to deal with is Grunt and Mordin. Mordin's Cryo is only a 4.5s cooldown for some reason, so you can just pair that with your own Incinerates and wipe out groups of Husks for free. Grunt's there for Squad Incendiary Ammo, and seems to enjoy charging through Husks.

 

[karasu]

Wow. i just started playing with a male shepard and his voice is funny as hell. He sounds exactly like Eddy Murphy's stereotypical white guy voice. This is the galaxies biggest badass? :lol

 

[WanderingWind]

Wow. i just started playing with a male shepard and his voice is funny as hell. He sounds exactly like Eddy Murphy's stereotypical white guy voice. This is the galaxies biggest badass? :lol

FemShep is canon. MaleShep is gaming's biggest troll.

 

[karasu]

Femshep should be canon.

 

[Cep]

FIFY.

Engineer might be the easiest class to take through Insanity. I have no idea what they were thinking with the drone cooldown.

Drone-spam is nice and all but it is nothing compared to the tools the other classes have when it comes to cruising through the game. Besides, it is not like Adept/Vanguard have any real problems either (Vanguard can finish fights way faster than any other class).

The only time where I definitely will say drone spam wins out is if you are running a fresh character through NG+. A boring/broken strategy for a boring broken scenario.

 

[Skilotonn]

Wow. i just started playing with a male shepard and his voice is funny as hell. He sounds exactly like Eddy Murphy's stereotypical white guy voice. This is the galaxies biggest badass? :lol

Man, you need to check your speakers or something if he sounds anything like that.

And shut up about the female Shepard thing already - I thought we moved past that noise a long time ago, you'd think that the voices were night and day with the way some of you go on about something that just comes down to preference.

 

[Cep]

Man, you need to check your speakers or something if he sounds anything like that.

And shut up about the female Shepard thing already - I thought we moved past that noise a long time ago, you'd think that the voices were night and day with the way some of you go on about something that just comes down to preference.

Yes it is down to preference.

Some people prefer inferior voice actors.

 

[Wallach]

Drone-spam is nice and all but it is nothing compared to the tools the other classes have when it comes to cruising through the game. Besides, it is not like Adept/Vanguard have any real problems either (Vanguard can finish fights way faster than any other class).

The only time where I definitely will say drone spam wins out is if you are running a fresh character through NG+. A boring/broken strategy for a boring broken scenario.

For sure it is not very efficient (or entertaining), just that I think you don't really need to know what you're doing or anything to get around as an Engineer. They've got a pretty easy time with defenses and a super short CD on the drone.

Vanguard definitely moves at a pretty high clip but I would not say it's significantly faster than the other classes played properly - I think it's more than folks fail to be properly aggressive when playing a class without a move like BC. Definitely one of the most fun ones to play on Insanity though, only one I enjoy more is the Sentinel.

 

[Cep]

For sure it is not very efficient (or entertaining), just that I think you don't really need to know what you're doing or anything to get around as an Engineer. They've got a pretty easy time with defenses and a super short CD on the drone.

Vanguard definitely moves at a pretty high clip but I would not say it's significantly faster than the other classes played properly - I think it's more than folks fail to be properly aggressive when playing a class without a move like BC. Definitely one of the most fun ones to play on Insanity though, only one I enjoy more is the Sentinel.

No, Vanguards definitely are faster due to the fact that Charge allows you to skip/staunch spawns at will.

This means that you can be even more aggressive than the other classes as you have less enemies shooting at you and you have less enemies to deal with in the first place.

 

[Wallach]

No, Vanguards definitely are faster due to the fact that Charge allows you to skip/staunch spawns at will.

This means that you can be even more aggressive than the other classes as you have less enemies shooting at you and you have less enemies to deal with in the first place.

I was just talking about killing speed. By that logic Infiltrators are probably the fastest class in the game because you can skip a very large amount of the combat sections entirely.

In terms of forced combat sections, the Vanguard can clean through areas very quickly (even if only out of necessity), but I don't think anyone's actually been able to hit a speed record in any of them using a Vanguard, even though most wound up being fairly close to each other.

 

[karasu]

And shut up about the female Shepard thing already - I thought we moved past that noise a long time ago, you'd think that the voices were night and day with the way some of you go on about something that just comes down to preference.

Damn. Sorry, man. :| I just got into the series last month. I don't know what the hell you guys already talked about. :|

 

[IoCaster]

Yes it is down to preference.

Some people prefer inferior voice actors.

I would guess that's why they choose the FemShep VA. Her voice gets all husky and low pitched when she tries to pass off a renegade line. Her screechy "this should be useful" is annoying as well. Too much overcompensation and emoting for my taste. I couldn't make it past Horizon with that embarrassing bit of 'voice work'. I think she did a better job in ME, but whatever floats your boat, ya know.

 

[Wiggum2007]

Glad to see the Femshep vs. Maleshep argument back in full swing. :lol

I prefer the husky, screechy, overcompensating tones of Femshep's voice, personally.

Also Femshep's smirk is a hundred times less scary than Maleshep's grin so I think she should get points for that.

 

[Cep]

I was just talking about killing speed. By that logic Infiltrators are probably the fastest class in the game because you can skip a very large amount of the combat sections entirely.

In terms of forced combat sections, the Vanguard can clean through areas very quickly (even if only out of necessity), but I don't think anyone's actually been able to hit a speed record in any of them using a Vanguard, even though most wound up being fairly close to each other.

Here is the thing though, even in situations of forced combat, the Vanguard still out-perfoms because he never gets the extra spawns that some of the other classes have to deal with.

Also this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lek_gn3h6oc

I do not particularly like playing as a Vanguard (aggressive or otherwise) but they are pretty damn absurd.

 

[brentech]

Upcoming today on Amazon gold box:

Upcoming Deal
Commander Shepard is back in this X360 hit.
Deal starts in: 07:45:24

 

[Wiggum2007]

I keep trying to play as a class other than my usual Adept but I always miss my Pull/Singularity + Warp combo so much that I end up switching back. :lol

 

[Dorrin]

Anyone know what triggers the

Spoiler

collector ghost

mission?

Yuck at Shepard's renegade face. Gonna grind 50k platinum to get rid of that nastiness.

For me I was able to get loyalties for all of the initial recruits, several side missions, Thanes recruitment and loyalty and then when I recruited Tali and it triggered. Also for me Collector Ship was a nightmare on insanity. I was playing an infiltrator around level 20 and the moving platform section.. ughhhhhh. I actually thought about rerolling as a Sentinel or Engineer. I was finally able to get it after watching some video clips and I got it without using a Heavy Weapon. I just recruited Samara and that was an absolute joke compared to what I had just done.

So on Insanity how bad is the IFF and final misison going to be compared to the Collector ship?

 

[gregor7777]

Thinking of getting back into playing ME2. Haven't played since around release, and never got the chance to finish it.

I may start over. Is there a good, up to date and concise review of all the DLC available now?

 

[Speedymanic]

Overlord DLC - June 15th, 560msp.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2010/06/10/coming-soon-to-the-xbox-live-marketplace-june-10.aspx

 

[Alucrid]

They really need to stop with this jackassary that is 560 msp.

 

[FlawlessCowboy]

Mass Effect 2 is going to be one of Amazon's Gold Deals of the day at 3:00 PM PDT.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref=cs_top_nav_gb27

Go go go!

 

[Son of Godzilla]

So what is this new DLC?

 

[JoeBoy101]

FemShep is canon. MaleShep is gaming's biggest troll.

 

[Speedymanic]

So what is this new DLC?

The DLC will have Shepard and company battling through a laboratory to stop an enemy AI run amuck. It will be comprised of "five levels set across one story on one planet," according to BioWare's Casey Hudson, and will also apparently be less linear than past Mass Effect 2 DLC, allowing players to explore the new planet in the Hammerhead.

Can't wait.

 

[Patryn]

Overlord DLC - June 15th, 560msp.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2010/06/10/coming-soon-to-the-xbox-live-marketplace-june-10.aspx

How long will this take an average person to complete? Length equivalent to Bring Down the Sky, for instance?

And if you can explore the planet in the Hammerhead.... test balloon for ME3, maybe?

 

[dekjo]

Eh, not interested in Overlord unless it ties to the overall story, which it doesn't appear to. Haven't been interested in any of the paid DLC yet. Maybe if there was a sale on them I'd be interested, but as is, I'll pass.

 

[Snuggles]

I'd rather have smaller, self contained stories like Bringing Down the Sky from ME1. Shepard's main goal may be stopping the Reapers but it makes sense that she would have other shit to do outside of that.
My only major complaint about ME2 is that it didn't have enough to do outside of the main plot, so this DLC sounds nice.