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Mass Effect |OT| Alien love in an elevator

Screaming_Gremlin

My QB is a Dick and my coach is a Nutt
Just finished the game completing all of the quests I had in my log. I clocked in at around 33 hours. Like Zefah, I had started to get sick of driving around in the Maco and skipped one or maybe two star clusters, although it was still enough to hit level 50 (on the boss kill).

While this isn't quite up to the level of BGII or PS:T (then again, what is), this is probably my favorite RPG since the original KotoR (I haven't played the NWN2 expansion yet). What impresses me is that I like it so much despite the flaws in the game; the annoying inventory system; repeating bunkers on shitty, computer-designed side worlds, complete with wonky Maco controls; and some annoying graphical glitches. The presentation, core gameplay, and story raised it above the flaws and really made it an enjoyable experience.

I am going to finish up a few other games before going back to play it again. I am torn although, I would like to just jack the difficulty up and play through with my established character, but I went as a pure soldier class and I want to try out the biotic powers. I will probably end starting over with a new class.

mandiller, at the end if you chose to
save the Council, the human fleet jumps in and kicks the shit out of the Geth. After they are done escorting the Council to safety they go in and destroy Sovereign, but not until after taking heavy damage. Humans get invited onto the council and you get to decide if you want the Ambassador or Captain Anderson to be Earth's representative.
 

TheWolf

Banned
um, did i miss my chance at the sex scene? i completed the main missions and am now
on the Citedal after meeting the council again and my ship is on lockdown. i heard there is a scene where Liara and Ashley confront you and have you choose one of them, but i never got it. i had been really nice to both of them...
 

DrBo42

Member
TheWolf said:
um, did i miss my chance at the sex scene? i completed the main missions and am now
on the Citedal after meeting the council again and my ship is on lockdown. i heard there is a scene where Liara and Ashley confront you and have you choose one of them, but i never got it. i had been really nice to both of them...
You are almost there.
 

Sol..

I am Wayne Brady.
TheWolf said:
um, did i miss my chance at the sex scene? i completed the main missions and am now
on the Citedal after meeting the council again and my ship is on lockdown. i heard there is a scene where Liara and Ashley confront you and have you choose one of them, but i never got it. i had been really nice to both of them...

lol I think i broke ashley. About halfway through the game she stopped talking to me altogeather. I didn't really do anything to spur that. I'm totally confused.

I got liara though. I had to sit through that horrible "romantic" dialog.

All the while I was dreaming of kaiden.

why oh why couldn't I get the interracial man on man action bioware.
 
Sol.. said:
lol I think i broke ashley. About halfway through the game she stopped talking to me altogeather. I didn't really do anything to spur that. I'm totally confused.

I got liara though. I had to sit through that horrible "romantic" dialog.

All the while I was dreaming of kaiden.

why oh why couldn't I get the interracial man on man action bioware.

pft why go with something boring like that, Garrus is a much better choice.
 

Sol..

I am Wayne Brady.
Lostconfused said:
pft why go with something boring like that, Garrus is a much better choice.

Garrus is too chatty. He might want to talk afterwards. Kaiden would be like "that could of been better sir, i'm gonna go get a ham sandwhich"
 
Sol.. said:
Garrus is too chatty. He might want to talk afterwards. Kaiden would be like "that could of been better sir, i'm gonna go get a ham sandwhich"

Are you kidding me? Jeez Kaiden is all about trying to act like a knight in shining armor, it can get very annoying. But then again, Garrus would probably be oblivious to the whole situation, the man is too dedicated to his work.

Also there is no reason to discount the Asari, its not like they have a gender, plus you know what they say about age and experience.
 

Sol..

I am Wayne Brady.
Lostconfused said:
Are you kidding me? Jeez Kaiden is all about trying to act like a knight in shining armor, it can get very annoying. But then again, Garrus would probably be oblivious to the whole situation, the man is too dedicated to his work.

But then again there is no reason to discount the Asari, its not like they have a gender.

lol he does? In my game, Kaiden is effing butch. Straight to the point with a touch of crazy. But then again i didn't use him in my party that much. I wanted to, but being a vanguard it was a liability.

P.S. Can you hook up with tali? cuz she's the type of bitch I wanna give herpes to.
 
Sol.. said:
lol he does? In my game, Kaiden is effing butch. Straight to the point with a touch of crazy. But then again i didn't use him in my party that much. I wanted to, but being a vanguard it was a liability.

P.S. Can you hook up with tali? cuz she's the type of bitch I wanna give herpes to.

I have no idea about Tali. But with me Kaiden was kept saying stuff like "Oh i wanted to get out there and do some good" and some such sappy nonsense or he was telling a story about he wanted to protect some girl from a cruel Turian, jeez the man is nothing if not a hopeless romantic.
 

Sol..

I am Wayne Brady.
Lostconfused said:
I have no idea about Tali. But with me Kaiden was kept saying stuff like "Oh i wanted to get out there and do some good" and some such sappy nonsense or he was telling a story about he wanted to protect some girl from a cruel Turian, jeez the man is nothing if not a hopeless romantic.

Are ya playing a female character? Maybe he was just trying to drop some game.

I'm jealous.
 
Sol.. said:
Are ya playing a female character? Maybe he was just trying to drop some game.

I'm jealous.

Yeah that was with a female character. While ash was kind of more aggressive especially with that tough marine routine of hers.

Edit:
Hell the only reason i picked Kaiden instead of Ash when it came to it is because she acted so tough i thought she could handle any situation, damn it.

Oh also another funny note. With a female Shepard if you go to rescue Kaiden when he is arming the bomb, he gets knocked out so she has to carry Kaiden slumped over her shoulder.
 

Sol..

I am Wayne Brady.
Lostconfused said:
Yeah that was with a female character. While ash was kind of more aggressive especially with that tough marine routine of hers.

Edit:
Hell the only reason i picked Kaiden instead of Ash when it came to it is because she acted so tough i thought she could handle any situation, damn it.

lol
I ended up sending Kaiden to death only because I needed ash (i don't particularly like her). I messed up and lost wrex (pretty much catalyst for my Ash hatred) so she was my last tank. I treat Garrus like a hybrid or rogue of some type. I decked him out for maximum sniper pwnage.
 

PARANO1A

Member
Here's a question that I'd like answered without spoilers if at all possible.

I just finished the mission where you battle the
Matriarch
on the ice planet. I have done lots of side missions since leaving the citadel... but I have missing member of my six-person squad. I have two humans, a blank spot, then three aliens. Did I do something wrong?
 
I said it a couple of times before, Garrus is frikin great. He will always have your back, no matter what happens.

PARANO1A said:
Here's a question that I'd like answered without spoilers if at all possible.

I just finished the mission where you battle the
Matriarch
on the ice planet. I have done lots of side missions since leaving the citadel... but I have missing member of my six-person squad. I have two humans, a blank spot, then three aliens. Did I do something wrong?

You either missed Wrex the big guy Krogan. Or you didnt go to one of the plot planets and missed Liara the Asari scientist.
 

Kabouter

Member
End/near end spoilers:
What motives do you guys think the Reapers have for the cycle they continually go through? Way I see it there are three options:
-They'll never tell us and it'll remain a mystery
-They want civilization to advance to the point where they can take technology to advance themselves but where they're not powerful enough to stop them. They also want slaves to build more of them at that point.
-It's faulty programming of some kind

Also, who do you think created the Reapers? The Keeper-race?
 

Sol..

I am Wayne Brady.
Kabouter said:
End/near end spoilers:
What motives do you guys think the Reapers have for the cycle they continually go through? Way I see it there are three options:
-They'll never tell us and it'll remain a mystery
-They want civilization to advance to the point where they can take technology to advance themselves but where they're not powerful enough to stop them. They also want slaves to build more of them at that point.
-It's faulty programming of some kind

Also, who do you think created the Reapers? The Keeper-race?

lol the reapers and their motives ruined the game for me. I was like ok this story is cool, then I talked to sovereign and it was like man....this guy kinda talks like the architect. Then he explained his plan and whatnot and i was like....holy shit this is the matrix. lulz!

So with that line of thought i've come to the conclusion that the reapers harvest physical resources from the planets and the lifeforms themselves.
With them being computers they forumlated a way to control growth and progress so that the cycle is a constant source of exactly what they need to maintain stability (hince why they don't evolve in anyway)
 

Havok

Member
Kabouter said:
End/near end spoilers:
What motives do you guys think the Reapers have for the cycle they continually go through? Way I see it there are three options:
-They'll never tell us and it'll remain a mystery
-They want civilization to advance to the point where they can take technology to advance themselves but where they're not powerful enough to stop them. They also want slaves to build more of them at that point.
-It's faulty programming of some kind

Also, who do you think created the Reapers? The Keeper-race?


Well, when asked, Vigil said it was probably something that no organic mind could ever hope to comprehend. So my bet is on something complicated that will be explained in the sequel.
 
Sol.. said:
lol the reapers and their motives ruined the game for me. I was like ok this story is cool, then I talked to sovereign and it was like man....this guy kinda talks like the architect. Then he explained his plan and whatnot and i was like....holy shit this is the matrix. lulz!

I thought almost exactly the same thing. Except i was thinking of
the end of the second renaissance part 2 from the animatrix
 

Hunter D

Member
Sol.. said:
lol the reapers and their motives ruined the game for me. I was like ok this story is cool, then I talked to sovereign and it was like man....this guy kinda talks like the architect. Then he explained his plan and whatnot and i was like....holy shit this is the matrix. lulz!

So with that line of thought i've come to the conclusion that the reapers harvest physical resources from the planets and the lifeforms themselves.
With them being computers they forumlated a way to control growth and progress so that the cycle is a constant source of exactly what they need to maintain stability (hince why they don't evolve in anyway)
This would be true if the reapers didn't have the ability to control minds. Why let societies evolve to this point if all they wanted to do is use them as fuel? I think the reapers let organic life evolve because they need them to. AI will always be AI and can't in thinks like living things can. The reapers are machines which means someone had to have built them. My theory is that they wait until society reaches this point to harvest them because because there would be unique things developed by living things.
 

Eric WK

Member
Wow. Easily my favorite videogame story of all time.

About midway through my playthough I began to think that there was too much side stuff and not enough story planets, but that didn't really turn out to be the case. Can't wait to start up a Male Soldier and do it all again.

Does anybody know if the achievements for completing the majority of the game with each squad member include side quests like the Completionist achievement? Or does it just mean the majority of the storyline?
 

Havok

Member
Eric WK said:
Wow. Easily my favorite videogame story of all time.

About midway through my playthough I began to think that there was too much side stuff and not enough story planets, but that didn't really turn out to be the case. Can't wait to start up a Male Soldier and do it all again.

Does anybody know if the achievements for completing the majority of the game with each squad member include side quests like the Completionist achievement? Or does it just mean the majority of the storyline?

From what I gathered from a dev's post on the Bioware forums, the 'X Ally' achievements are recorded exactly like they were Completionist achievements for that character. So yeah, sidequests do matter, or I might be wrong. Who knows :p.
 

Screaming_Gremlin

My QB is a Dick and my coach is a Nutt
Eric WK said:
Does anybody know if the achievements for completing the majority of the game with each squad member include side quests like the Completionist achievement? Or does it just mean the majority of the storyline?

Just the main storyline and you should probably use the same people on all of the missions once you get out of the Citadel for the first time. I used a different group for one planet and because of that I never received the achievements.

Havok said:
From what I gathered from a dev's post on the Bioware forums, the 'X Ally' achievements are recorded exactly like they were Completionist achievements for that character. So yeah, sidequests do matter.

Really? I don't see how I couldn't of got the achievements if side quests were included.
 

Havok

Member
Screaming_Gremlin said:
Really? I don't see how I couldn't of got the achievements if side quests were included.
I'm not 100% sure about that, you might be right and I misread it. All I know is that I was super pissed when I didn't get the Krogan Ally one when I had Wrex in my party for all but one quest.
 

Screaming_Gremlin

My QB is a Dick and my coach is a Nutt
Havok said:
I'm not 100% sure about that, you might be right and I misread it. All I know is that I was super pissed when I didn't get the Krogan Ally one when I had Wrex in my party for all but one quest.

I know what you mean. For the first planet mission I used Ashley and Garrus. For the rest of the game I used Liara and Tali and ended up getting nothing.
 
Quagm1r3 said:
Yeah, but only because Ashley's a bitch.

When she shot Wrex in the back, I was like "Oh no u Di-Int":D

Dude, when that happened, I was seriously thinking about how turned on I would be if I was in Shepard's shoes. I would honestly just do her right there on the beach.
 

Quagm1r3

Member
avatar299 said:
Can you tell us what happens if you save the council. Details, please.

Basically, the council greets you and is grateful that you saved them, but the council also feels sorry for those who died protecting them. They basically spend 2 or 3 minutes complimenting you on how great a specter you are and how now the human race is now considered an equal in their minds.
 

Quagm1r3

Member
FunkyMunkey said:
Dude, when that happened, I was seriously thinking about how turned on I would be if I was in Shepard's shoes. I would honestly just do her right there on the beach.

No love for the lizard??
:'(
 
Screaming_Gremlin said:
Just the main storyline and you should probably use the same people on all of the missions once you get out of the Citadel for the first time. I used a different group for one planet and because of that I never received the achievements.



Really? I don't see how I couldn't of got the achievements if side quests were included.

Damn, I used Wrex and Tali on Feros, but was thinking of swapping in Liara when I find her (looking for her currently). Oh well, at least I'll get one achievement for keeping Wrex.
 

Eric WK

Member
From what I read on the BioWare forums (http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=600480&forum=104), it seems like you need to do the majority of the quests including sidestuff with the character to get the achievement. I'm definitely going to go through the game again more than once, but I'm not sure if I'll do all of the side stuff just to get those achievements.

Also, does anyone know a foolproof way to get the Scholar achievement? I thought for sure I completed the Codex for each race, but apparantly not.
 
im maybe 20+ hours into the game and did all the side quests, almost all the side quests kind of sucked and were he exact same thing over and over again, but the main mission parts are fun.

but this game is just so glitchy sometimes, around an hour ago the game randomly cleared all my saves and now they are back to single numbers, it doesnt make sense.

and would it have killed Bioware to put some freaking rockets on the back of the Mako to move a bit faster or help me up mountains? and another problem I have with the Mako is that every freaking planet has the same amount of gravity, I kind of wish Bioware went a bit more into really making it feel like you are on different planets.
 

Quagm1r3

Member
Linkzg said:
im maybe 20+ hours into the game and did all the side quests, almost all the side quests kind of sucked and were he exact same thing over and over again, but the main mission parts are fun.

but this game is just so glitchy sometimes, around an hour ago the game randomly cleared all my saves and now they are back to single numbers, it doesnt make sense.

and would it have killed Bioware to put some freaking rockets on the back of the Mako to move a bit faster or help me up mountains? and another problem I have with the Mako is that every freaking planet has the same amount of gravity, I kind of wish Bioware went a bit more into really making it feel like you are on different planets.

I personally experienced no glitches. I also got up mountains pretty easily with the mako. You can basically drive straight up in that thing. I don't understand that complaint.

As for the gravity thing, I thought about that too. Perhaps it would've been too difficult to implement that in the physics engine. But what do I know? Yes, it would've been cool if gravity effected driving. Oh well.
 
Quagm1r3 said:
I personally experienced no glitches. I also got up mountains pretty easily with the mako. You can basically drive straight up in that thing. I don't understand that complaint.

As for the gravity thing, I thought about that too. Perhaps it would've been too difficult to implement that in the physics engine. But what do I know? Yes, it would've been cool if gravity effected driving. Oh well.

it isnt hard to get up mountains, just sometimes it takes time, this game just loves to waste your time in so many ways and only a few times it feels like they are doing it to mask loading times. The worst is getting to the docking bay in the Citadel, it is just unnessicary with how long it takes.
 

Havok

Member
Mindlog said:
Any advice for starting a new adept?

Don't play on Hardcore unless you enjoy playing certain parts of the game many times. Its a lot of fun, but its difficult. Unless you have played through already, then go for it and pour points into Barrier.
 

squicken

Member
Mindlog said:
Any advice for starting a new adept?

Singularity is your friend, and you need to always have Ashley/Wrex and Garrus/Quarian. I never will use Kaiden b/c the voice actor is obviously the same as whoever did Carth Onasni, and nothing against the actor, but Carth is the worst character evah and his voice brings up strong feelings of resentment.

edit: And to those of you complaining about not having any man on man romance, I gotta say that having my male Shephard talk to Kaiden couldn't have been more awkward. So use that as a surrogate.
 

Spire

Subconscious Brolonging
Much to my surprise, I beat the game tonight. Holy damn, was that a short game. I know, I know, you can get a good 25 hours out of it if you do all the sidequests (and I did a good number of them) but it still only took me 11 hours to beat the game. For an RPG, that's somewhat alarming.

The story wasn't nearly as impressive as the reviews made it out to be.
The reavers are essentially Lavos/Deus from Chrono Trigger/Xenogears, although those entities were far more interesting than what we've seen of the reavers so far.
Everything else was adequate but nothing overly compelling. Their plan for the trilogy is pretty obvious and while I look forward to the next game, it won't be for the story.

The technical problems do get annoying but they don't keep the game from looking stellar at times. The texture loading is the main offender, it's downright atrocious at points. The frame rate does dip in places but it didn't bother me that much. Beyond that the game looks pretty ace.

Anyway it's a good game, maybe an 8. I'm pretty starved for good RPGs so I'll probably go back through and finish off all of the sidequests. Here's hoping this is the first of many good RPGs to come this gen.
 

Robert R1

Banned
GhaleonEB said:
So, I kind of traded this in today for store credit.

That is all.

Happens. No game will be for everybody. BTW, good on you to trade it in instead of forcing yourself to play through something you didn't like and spend just as much, if not more time to bitch about it on forums! I seriously mean that as a compliment.
 
Quagm1r3 said:
Yeah, but only because Ashley's a bitch.

When she shot Wrex in the back, I was like "Oh no u Di-Int":D

my game played out quite a bit differently

I shot rex on the beach

when it came to the decision, i saved ashley, and ended up nailing her

the human-human sex scene > the human-alien sex scene
 
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