Got a quick question. I'm on my third playthrough, kind of a completion playthrough where I search every planet for everything.
This post is spoiler heavy and I'm not going to black it all out so if you don't want anything to be spoiled, stop reading now.
Anyways, I've landed on Eletania (In the Atticus Tau cluster, Hercules system) and been driving around. Just came across a Prothean artifact so I recovered it and an object, Mysterious Globe rises from the ground and is now usable. When I use it, theres a message:
"Examining the strange Prothean artifact reveal a small, irregularly shaped slot on the underside in the surface. It looks as if some would fit some kind of oddly shaped key or trinket... but where such an object could be found is a mystery you are unlikely to ever solve."
Anyone know the significance of this object, if theres actually such a "key", or if this truly is a mystery we will never solve (until the sequel)?
Got a quick question. I'm on my third playthrough, kind of a completion playthrough where I search every planet for everything.
This post is spoiler heavy and I'm not going to black it all out so if you don't want anything to be spoiled, stop reading now.
Anyways, I've landed on Eletania (In the Atticus Tau cluster, Hercules system) and been driving around. Just came across a Prothean artifact so I recovered it and an object, Mysterious Globe rises from the ground and is now usable. When I use it, theres a message:
"Examining the strange Prothean artifact reveal a small, irregularly shaped slot on the underside in the surface. It looks as if some would fit some kind of oddly shaped key or trinket... but where such an object could be found is a mystery you are unlikely to ever solve."
Anyone know the significance of this object, if theres actually such a "key", or if this truly is a mystery we will never solve (until the sequel)?
Do the Asari Consort quest on the Citadel. You'll get a "trinket" or something, and then you can use it on the Prothean artifact. A bunch of text boxes come up but I didn't really bother reading them all.
fiinish a quest involving an Elcor ambassador and the Consort - you get this quest after you convince the General to stop spreading rumours about the Consort.
If you help the Consort at the beginning of the game with both the Elcor diplomat and the Turian General problem, she gives you a trinket that activates that sphere.
When you activate the sphere you get:
a text-based vision showing the Protheans studying the primitive man.
Do the Asari Consort quest on the Citadel. You'll get a "trinket" or something, and then you can use it on the Prothean artifact. A bunch of text boxes come up but I didn't really bother reading them all.
Too bad I got that little trinket from her last night and then promptly flew to Ilos.
I'm loving this game, but it seems to have a lot of "oh, I've now missed out on that completely" moments. I guess that's why they stress the multiple playthroughs.
I got to level 50 the other day with several side missions left to go. I'm pretty disappointed they capped the level to 50 on a single playthrough, I can understand if that was the level cap, but if you can get to 60 eventually, I don't see the reasoning behind a single-game cap. As it stands, I can't get any more experience, my money is maxed at 9,999,999, and I got the Completionist achievement, so I have no incentive to complete the side missions at this point. Another thing I found annoying was the way the scanning missions were handled. Those along with the Turian insignia and Matriarch writings were by far the longest in the game, but I completed the mineral one and Matriarch ones by scanning from orbit, and it never showed the reward. All that work, and I'm not sure what it did for me. I wish the mission log showed rewards. I wish I could be rewarded by completing sidequests at this point, too. Also, has anyone ever seen any Spectre items in the wild? I've never seen any in crates or weapon lockers, I'm not feeling particularly motivated to do much at all but finish the main story if I can't find better items, or sell inferior ones for profit.
So far in the first two big battles I have had (Both when trying to get that girls daughter, the architect blue chick) I died like 8 times before finally killing them.
It could be my squad, I chose Ashley and Kaidan or whatever his name is... but still, I shouldnt die that often.
So far in the first two big battles I have had (Both when trying to get that girls daughter, the architect blue chick) I died like 8 times before finally killing them.
It could be my squad, I chose Ashley and Kaidan or whatever his name is... but still, I shouldnt die that often.
Are you using cover? Are you and your squadmates equipped with the correct style of weapons? What's their party behavior set to?
These are the things I realized I was doing wrong when I first started too. I died a whole bunch, but then when I actually thought about it and equipped everyone appropriately, things started to work a lot better.
So far in the first two big battles I have had (Both when trying to get that girls daughter, the architect blue chick) I died like 8 times before finally killing them.
It could be my squad, I chose Ashley and Kaidan or whatever his name is... but still, I shouldnt die that often.
Use your abilities intelligently? The fighting is just like Kotor, it helps immensley to micromanage the fuck out of each fight. Also with Ash/Kai you'd be really short on biotics. It's not the greatest of teams unless you are a vangaurd.
Other than that, make sure Ashley has adequate defensive skills and use Kai's explosives to blow the fuck out of fuel tanks and the like, it really really helps make relatively weak abilities stronger.
As far as favorite planets, I'm a huge fan of both of the moons you can land on. One of em has this huge neon blue planet taking up like 80% of the sky, looks amazing.
So far in the first two big battles I have had (Both when trying to get that girls daughter, the architect blue chick) I died like 8 times before finally killing them.
It could be my squad, I chose Ashley and Kaidan or whatever his name is... but still, I shouldnt die that often.
There's a difficulty selector. I had to play on casual for awhile until I got the hang of combat. Now I'm going through hardcore difficulty with a level 1 character and having a blast.
I finished my first playthru yesterday and pretty much started my second one right away. Absolutely loved this game, my personal GOTY (and yes I played Galaxy, Halo 3, Uncharted, etc). It's rare that a game will make me want to play thru for a second or third go, but I'm planning on at least three full rounds of ME.
Yeah I never really replay games unless its a few years later or something.
Personally ME would have passed up Mario/Bioshock as my GOTY if it weren't for the technical issues. I just don't see any excuse for that nowadays. It's not game breaking but I did run into my fair share of annoying getting stuck glitches and shit.
So far in the first two big battles I have had (Both when trying to get that girls daughter, the architect blue chick) I died like 8 times before finally killing them.
It could be my squad, I chose Ashley and Kaidan or whatever his name is... but still, I shouldnt die that often.
I had a lot of problems early on, but it was mainly because I was lacking good armor. Maybe try and run some side quests and hope to find something decent.
But I was also an adept and it was a bit hard in the beginning because of that. Fucking uber in the end though.
I just got my package from the bioware store. I ordered the soundtrack and the t-shirt i am wearing right now and a mass effect poster.
The poster is much nicer then the box cover because if its size, its so much easier to see all the detail in it. The only problem with it is the over sized Saren face in the background which doesn't carry enough detail. Thats why i think this piece has a some funny duality in it, it has aspects that work well only on the cover of the box and the rest of it really shines on the poster rather then the box.
and I didn't know just how powerful my team and I was, we mopped the floor with those commando s.
I have to admit I am enjoying this game very much, there are some things I would change about this game. Bioware should get rid of the MAKO, in a space RPG why I am ridding around in a dune buggy. I want ship to ship battles, I want screams from the engine room and the captain screaming "raise shields!!!" It would be great to see the fifth fleet or even dock with a ship that isn't there to try and kill you. Another idea would be multiple ships, maybe have a mission to salvage ships or creating a fleet that you command. I guess all this can wait for mass effect II.
The ship designs are excellent, the citidel is just breathe taking, The Asari and Turians are probably my favorite alien design in a sci-fi video game. This whole game makes me feel like I am in an episode of BSG or Babylon 5, Mass Effect is how a star trek game should be made.
Well this game has really grown on me, I finally unloaded the regular edition for 46 bucks, no didn't sell to EB but a new place that is much much better and bought the collector's edition on bestbuy.com. Too bad the extra disk has a demo of blue dragon.....
Ok, well I am a devout supporter of Mass Effect; played it multiple times, read all the dialogue, loved the story. It's not been hard to look past some of the technical issues like the sometimes god-awful framerate but I just had several moments of extreme frustration.
Within an hour, Shepard got stuck in the railing behind the Galaxy Map (not the first time this happened), my Mako got stuck between a box and the wall, and I hit one of the colonists on Feros and she flew behind an impassable pile of rock so I couldn't save or kill her, and thus couldn't activate the controls because I was in combat.
I'm glad I've been saving often because all of these things forced me to reload my most recent save.
Well, look how long it took them to make the main story here, and it's no longer than that. I want DLC too, but I wouldn't expect anything more than 1 planet with an hour or two of stuff. It would also be nice if the DLC
let me marry Ashley, so that I can provide her with the stable, secure environment she deserves.
Finished it last night -- clocked at 50+ hours, close to level 49. The game is not as great as some of you seem to find it. The main quest is amazing and plays like an action movie (loved the final citadel level), but there is much more to an RPG than the main quest and it's all pretty disappointing:
1. The sidequests define "cookie-cutter".
I loved exploring in the Mako but couldn't they have introduced a bit of variety in these planetfall quests? The Cerberus sidequest was the most unsatisfying ever, and no other arched as long as that one. Then, the deja vu: it's like the devs are reaching into the same bag of quests every game -- could have sworn I had played similar quest archetypes in earlier BioWare games.
a. stop someone from doing something stupid via a conversation tree
b. investigate a crime -- this could be a murder, a theft, misappropriation of funds, blackmail, etc
c. hack into a place or machine
d. fetch quests (oh boy!)
e. look for a tell and act accordingly in a conversation
f. "kill my competitors for i am a more benevolent dictator"
g. save someone's sibling/relative from doing something stupid
Having said that, I loved the one where you have to
save the fellow survivor of the slaver "Colonist" backstory. It was cliched, yes, but the actor did a great job of conveying the pain and confusin. Awesome work there!
I guess my complain here is that maybe they should look to inject something fresh in the sidequests. The planetfalls could certainly have used a few more templates to rotate.
2. The world is simultaneously detailed and shallow
I LOVE how much effort the devs have put into detailing the tech, politics, culture, and religion behind the game -- the Codex entries were a high point. BUT the game proper fails to transfer any of that richness to screen. The game also fails to listen to itself: I remember an elevator ride after
the exogeni purge on Feros -- the elevator declared that Feros is now doing much better and so is exogeni, and that the company's stocks are rising, etc. It made it appear that things have dramatically changed back on the planet. So I hop to the system to check on it and EVERYTHING is exactly the same -- the chick is checking the water pipeline, that other one bent down at the power station, fires everwhere, the place is still a mess, and so on. It really disappointed. Similarly, after Admiral Kahoku (did I get the name right?) dies in the Cerberus arc, there is an elevator news announcement with a political spin on how he died of natural causes, and none of the characters comments on that! Not even a nuge-nudge, wink-wink. Final point -- the "romance", lol. Williams and Liara confronted me and asked me to choose. The underlying message was a long--brewing tension between the three of us, and especially between her and Liara. Well, I never saw ANY signs of this tension, and I made it a point to make sure that I travelled with those two to see how things would head. The best of their interaction involved small talk on how women are perceived in each culture.
3. The romance is hollow, hollow, hollow.
I am not sure if it is nostalgia-googles, but I think even BG2 handled this better (see the elevator spoil in the point above as an example. I am sure I remember BG2 sprinkling these conversations in the game proper, to build up to the resolution). Which brings me to --
4. The followers are boring.
Wrex is awesome, but only because everyone else is so boring. Although Wrex + Garrus is guaranteed entertainment. I really missed HK-47 and Bindo Did any of the followers apart from Wrex and Tali get their own quest arcs? Even their ars were boring: Tali's was just random stumbling onto; Wrex's was the shortest kill-run ever (althought the fight was awesome).
5. The UI! MAKE IT STOP!
Of the 50-odd hours, I must have spent 2 struggling with the UI:
a. Why can't I view my squad member's stats while on Normandy? Even otherwise, while shopping, why can't I access all my squad members inventory/stats? Why is the requisition office an elevator ride away on the Normandy!? Why is that elevator ride even necessary!? (TLX 008 WMX AT)
b. PLEASE PUT SOME FILTERS ON THAT INVENTORY WHILE BUYING/SELLING. Something that will bundle all my ammo upgrades together, armor together, etc. I am not even asking for a proper inventory system. AND IF THERE IS A LIMIT TO WHAT I CAN CARRY, TELL ME THE COUNT so that I can monitor and control it, it and not panic when it hits 135!
c. The RB triggering for squad control is good. But I still prefer the old-school pause-and-direct route in combat.
d. The map should have been more accessible. For the first two hours, I thought they didn't have a map system in the game. Maybe a right-analog stick press? Is that already used?
6. Male Shepard's voice-acting sucks. Easily the worst enunciation of the bunch and sticks out like a sore thumb for it.
7. The dialogue system is great, BUT: they could have added some needed flair by using more cinematic camera angles while chatting. Right now it's face, face, face, back of head with Shepard in view, face, face, side, zoom out to cover both parties, face, face... I think the camera panned and moved around only a few times during my conversations and at least one of the times was hilarious for all the wrong reasons.
On the beach while the Alien captain/commander whatisname gives the rallying speech. Was it just me who thought his speech jarred badly with his hilarious gait as he walked across his troops?
. I would like to see some interaction with props, some dramatic camera angles, some walking around, maybe see Shepard walk hand-over-Wrex's shoulder as he tells him about the birds and the bees and why it's best Wrex can't have any...
8. The good/evil thing continues to disappoint. Why is sparing the
queen of an historically aggressive and genocidal race
considered good? Maybe it is the dumbest decision ever, as hinted by others in the game? If it is a good act, why then, did I not get Renegade points for
killing the plant?
Maybe these are bad examples, but the Renegade/Paragon thing was unsatisfying. I think the moral choices deserved far meatier quests.
9. These doors! They do nothing! Except impede my flow through the levels. WHY do some doors require a button press to open? GAH! And most of those doors were completely unnecessary. Someone likes them swishing sounds...
They have created something special here, with the ME universe, I just wished they had put in some effort to flesh it out. I do hope some great DLC will fill that hole. Nice, meaty quests please, no more of the template quests, with their template layouts, and template rewards.
It was a great game, just not up to the OMGAWESOME levels. Or maybe, it would seem OMGAWESOME if you did not sink 50+ hours straight into it. Hmm? But then, I prefer my RPGs to last even longer
the exogeni purge on Feros -- the elevator declared that Feros is now doing much better and so is exogeni, and that the company's stocks are rising, etc.
The ME doors are like the MP3 doors - they mask loading.
I'll agree with your story points, including the romance stuff. It's kind of depressing that you can only speak to your party members three or four times throughout the entire game. Even their sidequests are boring collect-a-thons.
Didn't know you could have sex with her. One minute she's giving me her speech and the next we're stark naked! Kaiden and Ashley must have got a real good view...
Ooo, could be! But I remember people commeting on how Exogeni has completely turned around for the better and I so I assumed the progress was for real...
I hope they started working on a sequel already. I want 2 and 3 to be EPIC! EPIC YOU HEAR ME!
Funnily enough, the Codex entries on combat point out to the futility of ship-to-ship fights. But I guess they could add these in, seeing how
Sovereign is taken down. I remember one entry on why ships are never too close to each other due to their exhaust jets and then the end melee. Heh. Ok, I am being TOO picky.
I too would love all this, and would also love a meatier "away team" experience.
I'm on my 2nd playthrough and I'm about 40k experience-points away from 60. I was hoping to get to 60 before I beat the game.. hmm, still hope. I just completed the dig site
(did Noveria-Feros-Vermire-Dig site)
I got my other two ally achievements pretty early by comparison to my 1st playthrough
The 59-60 grind forces you to play the game again to completion... but most people are probably doing the Insanity run with that character anyway, so I guess it's not that bad.
The 59-60 grind forces you to play the game again to completion... but most people are probably doing the Insanity run with that character anyway, so I guess it's not that bad.
Funnily enough, the Codex entries on combat point out to the futility of ship-to-ship fights. But I guess they could add these in, seeing how
Sovereign is taken down. I remember one entry on why ships are never too close to each other due to their exhaust jets and then the end melee. Heh. Ok, I am being TOO picky.
I too would love all this, and would also love a meatier "away team" experience.
Actually its talking more about how ship to ship fights are usually done at long range and that close combat is akin to a knife fight where point defense lasers come into play. Also it states that ship to ship combat is rarely resolved because the ships engaged usually can escape using FTL before any fatal damage and that the only way to ensure a decisive outcome is to force the ship to stay and defend some valuable objective. Oh and yes combat also ends when one of the ships overheats and is incapable of continuing combat without frying the crew to death.
Oh also shields are always on except when in atmosphere because it would cause serious collateral damage or something like that.
Actually its talking more about how ship to ship fights are usually done at long range and that close combat is akin to a knife fight where point defense lasers come into play. Also it states that ship to ship combat is rarely resolved because the ships engaged usually can escape using FTL before any fatal damage and that the only way to ensure a decisive outcome is to force the ship to stay and defend some valuable objective. Oh and yes combat also ends when one of the ships overheats and is incapable of continuing combat without frying the crew to death.
Oh also shields are always on except when in atmosphere because it would cause serious collateral damage or something like that.
Yes! Well done But I was referring to how close-ranged combats between ships of class greater than frigate is not a good idea due to their high-temperature exhausts. They mention sending fighters to harass; but ships of higher classes generally do not fight their peers up close. I LOVE how detailed the science is in ME.
The only thing I can assume is that the game is bugged due to the fact I can't beat the Lorik Quinn mission since I got a pass before ever speaking with him. Now when I go back and even try, Shepard just automatically says "I should let you go."
sangreal said:
He is just an angry person. He is like that in the Zune thread too
I just don't take well to things making me waste my time. There's no excuse for a product breaking within the first few hours of use. None. There's no excuse for a game in development for this many years to be so fucking buggy and to have these ridiculous achievements that are so arbitrary. The fact they don't tell you how many more kills you need, etc. is absolutely shocking.
It's completely asinine to think I could have done this much and yet never gotten any of the ally achievements or the Completionist one. I intended on playing through again, but I honestly can't even see why I'd bother now considering I don't even know if I'll get anything other than Renegade and Beat it Twice.
Are there different tiers for the spectre weapons or just one set? Just unlocked the "rich" achievement so now the guy on the ship has some for sale. Also fully maxed the shotgun skill tree today, and holy shit you can pick people off from pretty far away with that thing lol.
Just started the Ilos mission. I spent a good hour or so doing side missions in the Citadel though. I like the side-missions in cities like that they're fun, pretty straight forward and you get some cool decisions to make. I'm going Paragon this time but I can't wait to play again as a Renegade.
Oh and for Mass Effect 2...My requests are a class that can dual-wield, sort of like an off-shoot of the Soldier accept they can only use Light Armor or something as a trade. That and playable Volrus' and that fat emotion pronouncing race:lol
Completionist means doing pretty much most of the sidequests in the game.
The Ally achievements force you to use the same characters throughout the whole game and to do al lthe side quests.
Did any of the followers apart from Wrex and Tali get their own quest arcs? Even their ars were boring: Tali's was just random stumbling onto; Wrex's was the shortest kill-run ever (althought the fight was awesome).
