The plan was to have 2 threads, one for those who don't have the game, and one for those who do to discuss it in all it's glory. Which means spoilers.
Lots of them
ME2 AND ME1 SPOILERS ALL OVER THIS THREAD
(Link to non-spoiler thread)
I have already beaten the game, and it got me deep. I'm probably going to beat it again today when I pick it up from EBGames. If anyone wants to know anything and doesn't care about spoiling it ask away. In order to not ruin it for those of you that haven't actually beaten it yet I'll spoiler mark any of my posts that have to do with plot twists and such.

Ask and discuss away.

Since there are no spoilers yet, and I haven't played it, I think it's safe to say...

Commander Shephard Dies!

Obvious minor dialog spoilers. And lots of language and violence.

Also highly amusing

"You need to relinquish your weapons before we proceed."

"Okay, I'll relinquish one bullet, where do you want it?"



Edit: I was rewatching this, and I just noticed. She... headbutted... a KROGAN. SHE HEADBUTTED A KROGAN. Goddamnit Steam let me play this game!

Only if you are an idiot
I managed, through major difficulty and major sacrifice, to get through with my whole team intact.

I did a couple of those as a full paragon, just so badass.

I'm about 6 hours in. (My last day off before classes start), I acquired Grunt/Patient Zero/Garrus, and had the first confrontation with the collectors.

The combat is phenomenal, absolutely 100% perfect. It's a perfect mix of standard 3rd person shooter affair mixed with more classic RPG stylings. I like the mix of characters, although I've definitely found some more useful than others in combat. The increase in frame rate has made the game SO much more playable.

The voice acting, the dialogue, the animations are damn near perfect as well, and the greater emphasis on the minutiae of the environments makes it so much more involving and enjoyable to play.

I liked the first one, I love the second one.

Which personal side quests have you done?

I'm with the fish on this one. The combat has been greatly improved and the enemy ai and tactics are much more interesting. I've been toying around with the new system, learning the ins and out and will be starting my real game tonight. I experienced the Archangel mission last night and it was just really awesome. I am also adoring the Vanguard. Shockwave is a blast (:P) and charge is just damn cool when use right. Charge+Punch+Shotgun2daFACE!

Best scene so far : the reunion of Shepard and Joker

The intro was ****ing amazing too!

My only issue right now is that I'm having trouble making a custom male shepard that doesn't go cross eyed from time to time during dialogue. That is just annoying. XD

I like that they removed the need for inventory management during missions. It was horribly tedious back in ME1 and I like not interrupting the awesome story with browsing through a **** load of items. This new system is loads of fun and I look forward to getting my hands on Mordin Solus and get some research done.

So far, the limited experience I've had with uncharted world scanning is that its a slow, mindless process. So you need to be looking for a change of pace when you undertake mining for ressources, or do one or two planets at a time between missions. Thats my only gripe so far, but then again its good to see minerals and materials have an effect on the game this time around.

I've heard shockwave is fun, but holy crap is it annoying to have a shockwave person on your team. I picked subject zero to go on the first collector mission with me, and she just charges the f*** in and gets her *** killed constantly. It's really annoying. She also tends not to follow my orders, and so I can't even micromanage her to take out people trying to flank us.

I think it might be better with a Grunt / Subject zero combo, where they're both trying to get in close range while I stay back, but those two just seem like too much hassle.

I want Thane, so I can do a Garrus / Thane / Me as Infiltrator combo. That would be destructive.

You can upgrade the scanner to scan faster, but I just found it's faster if you just kinda repeadility tap the left trigger button while moving the target with both sticks quickly. Then just watch the meter for spikes.

Yea thats what I do. Its still long though, scanning the whole damnable world all the way around. @_@

Oh and I totally got drunk with Doctor Chakwas!

You can start a romance plot with her that way.

WHAT?!

So you can romance Doc Chakwas, Yeoman Kelly, Tali, Miranda and Samara?

Thats a whole lot of options. Oddly enough, I never consider spanking the gray haired doc. O_o Even if she has an awesome voice.

You didn't notice her talking about loneliness, and the paragon option "A toast to friends?"
I haven't pursued it myself, but it makes sense.

And does anyone else feel that the Tali romance plot feels... wrong?
I mean like, my paragon Shepherd would never risk her life that way, but there is no way to simply say "Well, after the mission?"

I toasted "to friends"

I might try and hit that ****

I've not read anyone else's posts to avoid any spoilers, but here I will make my statement.

I just finished the Archangel mission, and I liked it. I like the gameplay, the AI is much much better (both enemy and squad). I do however, dislike the change in controls, and the use of cover in place of crouching manually. I also HATE the lack of a healthbar... games are selling out to this and it's getting annoying. This single reason is probably what will make me stop playing shooters in the future.

Aside from that, the ammo is a little frustrating. But it's tolerable, as it adds more strategy to the game.

Overall I'm definitely liking it so far - I may or may not have spent most of the night playing >.> I never actually played the first Mass Effect, but now I want to go back and do so.

Recruiting the team is getting a bit repetitive; no matter how beautifully detailed the world is (and oh wow, they are), all the stories ("okay, here's this guy we want, for whatever contrived reason we have to fight some dudes on the way there, then find him, and fight some more dudes on the way back") are blending together a bit.

The combat segments really are a joy, though. Intuitive use of cover, snappy controls, a helpful squad... I love the options that the biotic powers give you too. My favourite combo is definitely adrenaline rush and the sniper rifle. Slow down time, line up headshot, BAM.

Yeah the AI has improved. Though I really like the control change, more responsive, and I like the cover system, easy to get the hang of.

I went with the Infiltrator, I like the hacking abilities and sniping. Oh and as far as the hacking goes, reminds me of Bioshock even though the "mini games" aren't similar. But they are cool, better than hitting combos of buttons. I really like the code segments hack.

The upgrades system is nice, though I'm still lacking in the guns department as far as choices.

Well don't forget, after the last mission (when you play it I guess if you havent) there are probably a lot of races who would like a shot at one of Shepard's crew members. And since most of them went out to do their own missions once Shepard vanished.... well, who wouldn't be in trouble without almighty shepard to bail them out lol

And maybe Jack haha

I'm liking the game so far. Just saved "Archangel" and was pleasantly surprised. I like hacking and bypassing in this game. Its a lot more fun to do.

Hacking also isn't based on skill points or career choice.

For the record, Chakwas cannot be romanced.

And yea, Matty, I agree with you, the new minigames are a lot of fun. I find its a shame that its not class based, removing a significant part of squadmates decision, but its alright. The minigames themselves rock.

Damn, I just thought with her loneliness and brandy...

This just in: Tibby fantasizes about cougars

Don't hate the cougars man... What's not to love? They don't want your money, they don't get attached, they know what to do.

Did Liara turn evil? I forgot to give her **** about threatening to torture that guy and then the dialogue option disappeared.

She's really cold and obnoxious. She was my love interest in the first one (BECAUSE LESBIAN SEX IS AWESOME), and the game opened with me saving her and a last final embrace, only for me to encounter her on Illium and get the cold shoulder.

Now I've just decided to have sex with everyone on the ship.

Character development! OH NO PEOPLE CHANGED AFTER TWO YEARS.

In other news: I have no idea why, or how, I thought this had an MP component.

Screw character development, I want to know how every weapon in the galaxy suddenly became unable to handle heat discharge in the past two years. This ammo analogy is pissing me off. I want to snipe, not run and gun with a pistol because you refuse to give me enough ammo to take everyone out!

Also, this just in; greatest threat to the galaxy: Collectors? Reapers? Geth?

No.

SHIP CANCER.

Well to be fair, she lives for like 1000 years AND knew he didn't die, so it would be kind of a dick move.

I'm just sayin.


I don't mind the new ammo system, but I agree they're ****ing stingy with it. And then suddenly there's a huge drop of ammo and you can't even carry it all because your ammo maxes out at like 15 shots. F U BIOWARE

God, I am half way through my second playthrough within a week.
This game is basically the perfect video game for me, it's absolute perfection in my eyes.

How does the DLC work exactly? The main menu says there's new stuff but there's nothing listed on the site.

I've been playing for 3 days for hours at a time and I'm not even close to done

It just keeps deluging me in missions

GRUNT WANTS TO TALK TO YOU SHEPARD

YOU HAVE NEW MESSAGES

YOU SHOULD TALK TO GARRUS SHEPARD

also I just pissed off Miranda after doing her loyalty mission and she's not loyal anymore

Unless they are all loyal you stand a very real risk of losing them or yourself, it comes down to the crew of the Normandy or your team
How in the hell did you manage that?

when she fought with jack, I didn't have enough charm or intimidate points so I just told her jack was right

she was like f u shepard

The blue / red options are based on Paragon / Renegade scores.

I have to agree with the ammo complaint. At first I didn't mind it, but I think Bioware got things wrong with the gameplay. Health needs to go back to ME1 style, ammo as well. I don't really like the lack of control in leveling up either. It seems like we've downgraded the game here.

I just hope the story stays as good as it is right now. Just met the collectors.

I dont see how there is a lack of control in leveling up. Aside from the fact that you get levels AFTER missions instead of in the midst of action is the only change I see there. You still have to pick which abilities to upgrade, including additional choices/branches when you hit rank 4.

The ammo I've had no issues with so far. I actually like that its forcing me to use various weapons. Sure I miss not being able to run around shotgunning everything in the face, but its working out great so far nonetheless. I do think some of the ammo caps are too low (15 slugs for a shotgun, 10 for sniper) but it promotes precision shooting over going gun-ho. I don't see whats wrong with the game forcing you to juggle a pistol and a sniper rifle. There are situations for both, really. Sure its not perfect, and the fact that they try to explain it all in lore as an upgrade is a smidge silly, but I think its working fine.

The current health/shield system is off, without doubt, but Mass Effect 1 was overall too easy once you got the hang of the system. It was easy to stack tons of shield and become invincible. Biotics were too powerful, heavy armor + shield was equally overpowered. The last few missions were a breeze because everything became so easy. Even on Hardcore.

Thats not to say ME2 doesn't have its issues. They downscaled biotics way too much when facing off enemies with shields/armor/barriers and promoted shooting. Where in ME1 you could just fling throw, lift, warp, stasis, singularity, etc all over the place and everything would be dead, in ME2 anything with shield and armor take forever to kill. Pull, shockwave and throw are all useless against shield and armor (they dont lift or throw enemies), and by the time you've worn through these shields and other protections, you and just shoot them in the head once and they'll die because enemy health is so low.

I think they have their work cut out for them for Mass Effect 3. I think they need to reach a happy medium between ME1 and ME2, and innovate from there.

It's their way to force a balanced team. You need someone with concussive shot for biotic barriers, someone with disruptor ammo or overload for shields, and someone with pyro ammo or incinerate for armor. With effective micromanagement you can make quick work of all enemies. Concussive blast from Grunt takes out barriers in one shot, and overload takes out shields in one shot, then I can pick them off one by one. Most people can cover 2 types of attacks through their ammo & abilities, so it gives you freedom to choose whatever squad you want, as long as you can effectively micromanage for ultimate destruction.

The ability to use the D-Pad to target squad abilities without stopping battle is huge to me. It keeps the action flowing but doesn't feel limiting.

My one real complaint is the lack of quick swap of weapons, like you had in ME1. Having to stop combat every time I want to switch from my sniper rifle to my heavy pistol is really annoying, especially considering how often I have to switch due to ammo constraints.