Apparently they recorded audio for Shepherd/Kaiden in ME1 but they didn't put it in the game...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPMOlEfhWGE

Kaiden: If things don't go well, I want you to know, well, I've enjoyed serving under you.

Shepard: Kaiden, I don't think I've had the pleasure of you serving under me. Don't you think it's time to rectify that?

lol

I lied.

Just finished. Saved everyone.

The lack of weapons pisses me off. There's only 2 heavy pistols in the game? 3 sniper rifles? It's pretty stupid.

You'd rather they go back to ME1s useless hoard of crap?

Yes, there can only be 2 extremes: 2 weapons or 150. There is no in between.

Well they provide enough in this game for variety, I'm not sure what they could add that wouldn't already be covered.

Between all the upgrades and the different ammo types, they didn't need a butt load of different weapons.

I AM ASSUMING CONTROL OF THIS THREAD

From what I gathered of the ending, it was a Reaper acting as the Harbinger, and that Spiderish-Collector whom we thought was the Harbinger was just another pawn.

Of course, I've only seen it once, and it kinda flew by.

Finished over the weekend.

Anyone else see this plot coming up in ME3?

This new Geth Alliance with Shepard indicates to me that they will be the key tool in defeating the Reapers/Old Machines because they cannot be indoctrined.

Also, was anyone else pissed off you didn't get to see Tali's face? I mean COME ON.

Edit: Oh, I lost jack because she wasn't loyal, but did everyone else lose the 'specialist' that went in the vents? I sent Thane, and he got blasted in the face.

No, no one died. I sent the Geth to be the hacker (I figure he's a robot, so he's a good hacker and expendable), Garrus as the squad commander both times (that was his job, yeah?), and Jack as the bio-shield (most powerful biotic ever, anyone?). Everyone lived.

I did the exact same thing, with the same reasoning. (Although I used Samara for the bioshield since Jack had some difficulties with the crew)

My thought's were: Ventilation shafts = Thane (The sneaky assassin.), Garrus as the squad leader (haha everyone), and Samara as the biotic, since Jack wasn't loyal to me.

Strange that different characters caused different outcomes, dispite most similarities. I wonder why Thane died on mine...

finished it last night soooooooooooooo awesome.


i lost thane and jack the first time through, fishstickz and i were discussing it, i had thane as the leader the 2nd time which proved to be a mistake and as for jack she died defending the door so i don't really know what decision caused that.
i did the loyalty missions for everyone, i lost zaeed's loyalty on his mission, and i sided with miranda after jack's loyalty mission. this morning i redid the collector base mission and made sure to save everyone.

overall this game was fantastic, admittedly it does have a different feel from the original but it makes up with a much better combat system. i went with a vanguard this time and biotic charge is soooooo cool. it is a very risky move as it takes you out of cover and until you get the damage protection upgrades its very easy to die. shockwave was an awesome biotic too, especially against all the husks later in the game. next game im goin sentinel, tech armor looks really cool, and warp/overload combo will be super useful.

the recruitment and loyalty missions were all very cool, they each had something a little unique which i thought was a nice touch. all the voice acting was spectacular, despite the character animation being somewhat lacking. the character interaction seemed somewhat improved over the original as well.

garrus was probably my favorite team member throughout the whole game, he got so much cooler since the first game. mordin was pretty bro-tastic as well, grunt was great if you needed a damage sponge and thane was pretty good to have around for organics and armor. tali was good to have for the combat drone, but unless you had synthetics to use AI hacking, you usually had a better option to fill the squad. i did end up romancing tali but i did wait to "seal the deal" until i knew i could keep her loyal once i got legion.

Protip: If you had a romance partner in ME1, and you romance a new character in 2, it is rumored to have consequences in the upcoming ME3, whenever that comes out.

Whatever. When I met Ashley on Horizon she was being a *****, so I banged Miranda out of spite.

Did anyone else notice that you have a picture of your ME1 romance in your quarters, but once you start a new romance, he puts the picture face down?

Because Thane's an incorrect choice for that mission. He doesn't have much technical expertise, so it takes him too long to hack the door and he gets shot. I'm pretty sure only Tali and Legion can survive the specialist mission.

I lost Jack the first time through because I made her the leader of the distraction team. Replayed, gave that job to Garrus, and everyone survived.

Anyone else notice that there's going to be two more squad members added? (Speculation from the ME2 website, shows two slots "Classified")

Those are Legion and Morinth (Samara's evil brain f*** daughter). They're not listed because they would ruin the plot. Garrus is also unlisted for the same reason.

There is one more DLC squad member to be released and that is Kasumi, which was accidentally leaked a while back. (Ence the far right opening in your character screen, left one being Zaeed Masini's spot)

*facepalm*

My biggest disappointment is one thing with two parts: the space stations/cities/hubs. There are so very few. Illium, Omega, Citadel, Tchuchanka, maybe you can include Migrant Fleet. There are very few places to explore.

Also, they're not very big. Remember how big the Presidium felt? Granted, it was mostly empty space, but it still felt like it was something special. These are just little strip malls with some doors. There are few shops. Nothing to explore. There's only the one map shop on Illium, and it only had three maps. The galaxy feels somewhat small. I got bored of exploring rather quickly.

I felt like one of the biggest problems with ME1 was huge empty environments that required you to run back and forth for hours to get anything done. The smaller (and much more densely packed in terms of NPCs and other items of interest) levels were a big improvement, to me

Yeah, the "run 8 kilometers to return this cell phone you found" missions were weak, but I still feel the stations are small. Omega supposed to be this huge space station with 30 million inhabitants, yet I can only explore a small section the size of your local Kroger's.

I agree with it being too empty in the first, but also with it being to small in the second. I think they should have included the original areas from ME1 on the citadel and added the new wards. Maybe add a lot more people walking around the upper citadel. Plus, never getting to see the council??? Not even knowing if you're still a spectre? Was I the only one that would have liked something more there?

I think it depends on your choices in ME1. I talked to the council and they reinstated me as a Spectre.

Which has absolutely no baring on the game at all. I think it gives you one extra dialogue option during Tali's trial.

And WTF is up with Ashley getting frozen by those bugs, then magically she appears and is not captured by the collectors, then disappear from the game completely?

Anderson can do it too, and he even states that it isn't worth much.

Lets share our end game teams-
Full Victory(Saved crew and team)
Did all loyalty missions before IFF, Then did Legions. (So I had all loyal right after the attack)
Garrus as secondary team lead both times (**** you Miranda he's a badass and has plenty of experience)
Samara as shield (Power and experience)
Legion as specialist (He's a robot, who else would I put in a highly toxic pipe of heat-death?)

Completed all loyalty quests and, I'm pretty sure, bought all squadmate upgrades.

Specialist 1: Legion
Fire Team Leader 1: Miranda
Squad 1: Garrus, Jack
Specialist 2: Samara
Fire Team Leader 2: Garrus
Squad 2: Miranda, Grunt
Crew Escort: Mordin
Squad 3: Garrus, Miranda

No deaths.

tech specialist: legion
leader 1: miranda
squad: grunt, thane
biotic specialist: samara
leader 2: garrus
squad: grunt, thane
escort: tali
squad : grunt, thane

that was my replay where no one died.
the first time i did it i switched thane and garrus in my above list and lost thane and jack.

I just completed my first run through. EPIC.

Infiltration : Tali
Fire Team Leader 1: Garrus
Squad 1: Miranda, Jacob
Biotics Shield : Samara
Fire Team Leader 2: Garrus
Squad 2: Miranda, Jacob
Crew Escort: Zaeed
Squad 3: Miranda, Jacob

No deaths on my ground team, however I have lost all my ship crew except Doctor Chakwas and Joker due to delay in completing my team.

The ending was epic, and the very final scene with the reapers approaching the galaxy was terrifying.

My first play through was on Veteran difficulty, with my imported Paragon Soldier, whom Cerberus saw fit to implant with L5x biotics and turn him into a Vanguard. The story and the trek took him on a bath of brutally, and he grew more and more ruthless until one event with the Illusive Man gave him a wakeup call. I was surprised at how much my character roleplayed itself. I thought it was great development.

Putting the roleplay/nerdy stuff aside, the combat was definitely improved from the first game. It was fast paced, viceral and the enemies did more than just rush you (except for Husks, obviously.) They utilized good tactics and I was flanked and caught off guard a few times. Charge is a dangerous move to pull, very risky, but the rewards it reaps when used properly were beyond brilliant.

My next play through will be with my imported Infiltrator, who I will roleplay as a Cerberus-sympathizer (Will use armor based on Cerberus colors)

Tali was my infiltrator too, but she died when the doors were closing and caught a head shot...

Miranda and Grunt went with me to stop the human reaper, but Miranda died in the aftermath of the platform crashing down.

Next round I'm going to try on insane difficulty

My next quest is to kill and screw as many people as possible. I've heard the maximum number of romances in a single playthrough is 3. I think it's impossible to kill Doctor Chakwas, though. I know I can kill a fair amount by not upgrading the ship, probably Tali, Thane, some others, and if I start to send the worst people for the jobs. (Tali leading a group, grunt doing the tech job, mordin leading the second group, etc)

Maybe I can kill chakwas by not having someone escort her back to the ship.

I will try this.

Tali doesn't seem like a terrible lead, She lead a squad of Quarians.
Jack, Mordin, or Legion would be worse.

If three is possible, it seems like four ought to be, provided you don't care about surviving. I refer, of course, to Morinth , who I think I read will sleep with you right after the suicide mission ends.



I would recommend that you not waste Mordin leading a group. He has a strange tendency to die on his own while you're fighting the Human Reaper if you don't use him as an escort.

Assuming here that you kill off Tali and Thane. My guess at worst assignments would be something like this (though obviously there are many, many ways to screw everything up):

Specialist 1: Garrus
Fire Team Leader 1: Jack (but it doesn't matter, because only the specialist dies)
Squad 1: Eh, whomever. None of these guys can die at this stage.
Specialist 2: Jacob
Fire Team Leader 2: Jack
Squad 2: Miranda, Grunt
Crew Escort: Nobody
Squad 3: Legion, survivor of Miranda/Grunt

This approach will kill at least Garrus, Jack, and one member of Squad 2, no matter how well you've prepared your team to this point. I think there's a solid chance that it also kills Mordin.

The real trick is losing as many people as you can and still having Shepard survive. From what I've read on the forums, even Bioware isn't sure what the lower limit is; their testers have managed it with three, but two is theoretically possible.

And... wow. I think I just got inspired to start a new ME1 playthrough, just to see how many NPCs I can possibly kill off over the course of the entire trilogy.

lol

I started a new ME1 playthrough so I could save Wrex

diff'rent strokes

Wierd that Tali and Miranda died when they survived the door closing and crashing platforms respectively, which were the same tasks I assigned them and they joined.

Did you pick Legion's and Jack's sides in their respective arguments?