Most companies other than microsoft also save a stray dog every time you buy one of their products, but you won't see microsoft doing that, because they're greedy and it would affect their profits negatively.

Really?

Oh yes. Everytime you buy one of their products, they save a dog. They also save a whale. And a rainforest. But not Microsoft. Every time you buy one of their products, they use the profits to develop tools to kill kittens. Wal-Mart too, only they kill puppies.

I wonder if (I assume it does,) you encounter the Rachni queen you released earlier, if you did

Mass Effect 2 allows the player to import their characters from any completed Mass Effect playthrough. This means that all decisions made by the player in Mass Effect will carry over into Mass Effect 2 and have the potential to impact the story. Decisions confirmed to have an impact on the game include:

* The decision to save either Kaidan or Ashley.
* Whether or not the player kills Wrex on Virmire.
* Whether or not the player decides to save the Citadel Council at the end of Mass Effect.
* The player's choice of love interest.
* Whether the player spares or destroys the Rachni Queen at Peak 15.
* The player's treatment of Conrad Verner.
* Whether or not the player completed the UNC: Asari Diplomacy sidequest.
* Whether the player chose to allow the Alliance to conduct experiments on Nirali Bhatia's body.

YES

Hmm, so that I ended that side quest with my gun against his head may come back and bite me, huh?

Ah ****. Looks like I'll be putting Demon's Souls aside again so that I have time to play through Mass Effect again with a fresh and clean character. I deleted my savegames a while back for some stupid reason .>.,<

Man, did everyone threaten to shoot Verner, or what?

I need to replay the first... just finished inFAMOUS, so looks like I have time. Awesome.

I need to play through a third time, but am waiting for a few paychecks so I can get a new rig. Both times I saved Ashely, at the bomb. Third time I may have to take another route.

I was curious as to how it works if you have no save files to transfer, since I burnt myself out on Mass Effect when I first got the game but subsequently lost my files during a reformat. Apparently you play an introductory sequence to establish a background. I guess like at the start of KotOR 2 when you talked to Atton about what Revan was like, but more expansive. Good news for me; I tried to play through the first game again a few months ago in preparation but just didn't have it in me to do it all over again.

Will the Mass Effect DLC have an effect on Mass Effect 2?

I found mass effect kinda boring and it's controls... Well let's just say i'm not a fan of the game. However I love most of Bioware and number 2 looks goof. Neverwinter Nighs 2 taught me that a sequel can be infinitely better than the original...
Anyway my question is this... Knowng that I dislike the game, would you suggest I sill play through it to get a good scope of the second game, or do you think the game will stand on it's own well enough?

I think its going to be the same basic game design... just more story, better graphics, and more of all the types of items/abilities....

So if you didn't like it, you likely won't like the sequel.

Well, I saw that it had potential. I liked how it handled dialogues but found the dialogue itself to be lacking. Liked the potential gameplay but found it to be poorly executed. The game had a lot of potential but (for me at least) it missed the mark. I would be surprised and very dissapointed if they haven't imporved anything besides graphics

What is it you would have liked to see in the first? I thought the conversations and dialogue were about as good as they could be, considering.

As weeks pass by I'm growing more and more exciting.

Picked up Soldier character this weekend where I left him off before moving this summer, and am almost done with yet another play through. I'll have an infiltrator (renegade) and a soldier (paragon) ready for release and am highly considering a Vanguard to have a biotics user ready too. The game looks insanely good and I love that they added more "unique" class abilities like the Biotic Charge for Vanguard, cloaking device for infiltrator, tech armor for Sentinels, etc.

Today they released a video introducing us to Subject Zero, who looks like an violent, highly-aggressive Nathalie Portman. XD

I ran through the game over the weekend, it has me very excited to play the second.

Having two weeks to kill, I'm thinking of doing a full run of the game and complete all content (excluding the crapass DLC)

I don't have any of the DLC, and skipped most of the side missions (as I had done them on previous playthroughs).

Does anyone know what the point of the Paragon/Renegade scale is? I know it's like good or evil, but it doesn't seem to offer any use.

It doesn't really. As far as I could tell, the only real change was the "free" intimidate and diplomacy skill points given when you entered a new morality quadrant. I suspect that it'll affect your reputation in mass effect 2 though. People will either see you as a hero or a hard ***. Something like that.

I just did some digging and found out that even if you import a character, you can still redesign his looks and select his class. The story will support the changes too. So I'm not too worried about starting a new class.

Also from what I understand, even if you don't have any save games anymore, you will be presented with an introduction movie to catch you up on events from the first, and you will have some dynamic decisions to make so you can set up the canon story as you'd like it.

edit : bleck someone posted this before

I don't think I'll be picking up Mass Effect 2. I still can't get the original to install properly.

I installed in my $300 Xbox just fine
I didn't even have to waste time or money updating hardware or drivers

Another reason why being a console game is far more worthwhile.

EDIT: Just for kicks, I'm trying the old "manual install" method where you just use winrar to dump all the data files into a folder. Let's see if that actually works.

Worst tactical shooter I ever played.

That's probably because it's not a tactical shooter

This.

The only thing that sucks about console games, especially today, is they ship with glitches, and sometimes never get fixed. (See: Bully: Scholarship Edition Xbox360)

I just like being able to slouch in my living room and play on a big tv, instead of playing on a sub-par pc, on a small 21" screen, in a semi-comfortable computer chair. No keyboard of mouse will ever make up for these discomforts. And I just cannot justify constantly dishing out money to keep up with computer technology.

My computer hooks up to my big tv and has a 360 controller plugged in it =p
I'll give you the point about dishing out money for it though.

Why bother playing it on PC if you're just going to use a controller? The entire difference in PC vs Console is Controlling... sometimes a touch better graphics, but its all about the detail of control.

Mouse > Joystick all day.

I never said I always use the controller... quite the opposite in fact, I mostly use my bluetooth mouse and keyboard.
Some things are better with a controller (fighting games, platformers), almost every fps in existence is better with mouse and keyboard.
Hell when I play a game like Saints Row 2 I use both.
If you think the only big advantage a pc has is the mouse and keyboard than you're missing out on a lot.

As far as gaming goes, the only big advantages PCs have that I can see are input (mouse/keyboard/joystick) and user made game mods. Occasionally graphics are better, but not worth the extra effort and expense to get the PC to that level.

Microsoft stole $16 from me!

I pre-ordered this the other day, so I can get that cool gun and armor

Pre-Ordered from EBGames(Gamestop)
Hells yeah!

As an Xbox 360er (due to not having an up to date PC), I will say it's not really all that much less expensive compared to PC gaming, what with the cost of Xbox peripherals, and that you can build a budget computer that will still run the latest games. It's also easier to find PC games at a very low price, and if you buy every game when they come out, you're gonna end up having paid considerably less for PC games in the long run.

Especially when you can get killer deals on Steam

I completely and utterly disagree with you.

I don't see how 300$ CAN for console + 1 additional controller (50$) + 1 headset (50$) for a grand total of 400$ CAN +tx compares to the 1000$+ CAN you require to build a suitable uptodate computer from scratch.

Additionally, a typical console has a life of 5-6 years (assuming next xbox console is released in 2012) while a pc needs to be upgraded every 3ish years to keep up to date. I bought my current PC in early 2006. 4 years later, forget running anything that comes out (unless its a technical miracle) on it. And it cost me 1500$ CAN.

When it comes to cheap games, I just have to walk into my nearest EBGames or Microplay to find any game I want relatively cheap when used.

Of course, prices might very tremendously overseas, I hear europeans get the serious shaft when it comes to gaming prices.

In conclusion, however, here in Canada, its not even comparable.