Forums: Mass Effect series

Who's your favorite character in either game? My top-five favorite squad mates are as follows:

1. Thane
2. Legion
3. Garrus
4. Grunt
5. Miranda

What do you want to see in the third game, both story and gameplay wise? Whatever happens, I'm confident the third game will be an epic conclusion, if not for Shepard, then at least for the Reaper-story. Here's some story options I think the third game could take:

-The Illusive Man will rear his silver-haired head once again, and cause trouble for Shepard and his crew. Not only will we have to deal with Harbinger and an onslaught of other Reapers, but also Cerberus after Shepard cut his loyalties to them.

-With Legion on the team, we discovered that the Geth aren't all as bad as they were made out to be in the first game. The ones we fought in the first game were heretics, and not "true" Geth. True Geth prefer not to involve themselves with the business of organics, but I think it would be awesome if the remaining Geth allied themselves with humanity in a final attack against the Reapers...because we'll need all the help we can get. Wouldn't that be a grand cinematic-style finale?

-I think it will be death's galore. We know Thane is already dying, so I think he'll be sent out on a strong note...I hope so, because he's my favorite character. Being the finale to a supposed trilogy, I think we can expect more casualties.

-I think we'll be able to explore the Citadel as we did in the first game, where as we were limited to where we could go on the Citadel in the second game...understandably so, seeing as how it was under construction. We'll see a Citadel that we haven't experienced thus far.

Anymore conversation topics you want to discuss about the Mass Effect universe? Bring 'em up!

Whoa. Don't play this one. Nice thread though.

I'm not much of a gamer but I did pick up Mass Effect 2 because I heard so many good things. I didn't play the first Mass Effect (or really any games) so it took me a bit to get used to the controls and as a result I preferred playing as an Engineer and fighting at a distance where I didn't have to tangle with too many enemies at once.

With that strategy I liked playing with Grunt and any other close range fighter who could go in, mix it up, not die, and allow me to pick guys off at a distance.

I found playing along side other distant fighters, or guys that needed a great deal of babysitting, like Thane, c*mbersome so I didn't use those guys as much.

My biggest mistake I think was worrying about mining a ton of material and by the end of the game I had such an overstock of stuff that I felt I just wasted a ton of time.

Did you bother playing through the game a second time but as a different character? I went the Paragon route and while I did enjoy playing the game I don't know if I'd care to go back and play the entire thing as a bad-ass.

@Brian: Thanks for the compliment. If you have a 360, definitely pick this up...I probably should have included a spoiler alert. My bad.

@Kevin: I actually just finished my second play through today. I did the same thing you did and played Paragon first, then I re-played as mostly renegade. It's definitely worth going back a second time if you're a gamer or fan of the series. I don't really wanna say it'll be a "waste of time" otherwise, because it's was so fantastic both times I played it...but, again, I love Mass Effect lol

Also, playing the first game before the second wouldn't have helped a lot gameplay wise because, for the most part, the combat has been improved. In the first game, rather than reloading your weapons, they overheated and you had to wait for them to cool down. Taking cover has been greatly improved upon. While it was a hassle in the first game, it became a large part of combat in the second.

Good strategy on your part about close-combat characters. Thane and people like that definitely take getting used to because of their powers, but characters like Grunt just charge into the action. I loved Thane for his story, though. I thought he was the most sympathetic and interesting to talk to out of all the characters. Quick question: did you end up gaining everyone's loyalty and surviving the suicide mission. I ended up surviving both times, along with my entire crew, so importing either to Mass Effect 3 won't be a problem.

I'm not sure if I'll go back through and play the entire thing again. I'm not enough of a hardcore gamer to really want to see all the various story lines if I were to switch to Renegade. I still might though, not sure yet.

I had particular trouble with controlling Thane. He would always sneak into the heart of a clutch of bad guys, appear suddenly and then get whacked. Very frustrating. I threw him into the ventilation shaft during the suicide mission and he didn't make it out, although the rest of the crew did. Did you manage to pull everyone back out from that mission, including the shaft crawler? It smelled like someone was going to go down in that effort and I figured Thane was dying anyway so...

I did get everyone's loyalty except maybe Miranda (I don't remember). She became a very intractable character halfway through the game so I just stopped bothering with her. Maybe another task to try if I play it again.

Right now I'm thinking about trading in Mass Effect 2 for Red Dead Redemption and maybe pick up Alan Wake when I can find a used copy otherwise my X-Box is just going to sit around picking up dust.

Red Dead's gotten really good reviews, but I haven't played it myself.

My entire crew survived both times I played. I sent Tali through the ventilation shaft because of her technical abilities. I had Garrus lead the secondary teams, Samara project the biotic field, and Jacob escort the crew that had been kidnapped by the Collectors back to the Normandy.

There's numerous women in the game you could develop a relationship with, Miranda being one of them. If you keep going back to her room, or to Tali or Jack, and keep making conversation, there'll come a point in the game just before the suicide mission where you make computer generated love...Of course, this isn't interactive like the the rest of the game lol

You got Tali through the ventilation shaft? Hmmm, I guess I did something wrong on that one, I might have to give it another go.

Now if I can somehow get Miranda naked, I really don't care about loyalty, I just have to try and get that to happen. Man, I may really need to play this thing again. Just go in as a Renegade blazing through everything now that I know how to handle the controls and exactly what I need to do. Maybe just flip the script entirely and see what happens.

I did buy the game outright but never bothered to load that extra player that comes with an original purchase. That might be another motivating factor as well. Hell, I think I'll do it, check off all those nagging issues and then trade it in. Hopefully by that time Red Dead or Alan Wake will have made the used shelves and not cost me too much.

And then there's this...

movieweb/news/NEmYiupuCJb1ps

There's no better way to blow out something enjoyable like making a straight to DVD movie for it. If that film ever comes out it'll make me have to take a shower after each time I play Mass Effect just to wash the gross off.

Nice, Brian. I saw the thread on the homepage.

It's ironic that I posted this forum and that news broke. This is gonna be a tough video game to adapt. I'm not holding my breath.

I'm actually going to say that Wrex was my favorite just because he was a total badass. I think in order though, your top 3 is good. That would probably be my 2-4

Tali is my favorite Mass Effect character. Hell, she's my favorite ficitional character from anything.

My top squadmates are:

1. Tali
2. Garrus
3. Legion
4. Mordin
5. Thane

But, I like all my squadmates, even Zaeed and Kasumi.

What I think will happen and hope in Mass Effect 3:

*The Council finally sees the truth about the Reapers and stop being such dicks.

*The Illusive Man seems like he's trying to work against you, but for the good of humanity, he's trying to help you defeat the Reapers.

*Peace is formed between the Quarians and the Geth, both forces to your aid in the final battle against the Reapers.

*The Rachni come to your aid in the final battle against the Reapers.

*You help Wrex convince the other Krogan clans to stop fighting and rebuild their homeworld. The Krogan helps you fight the Reapers

*Basically, you form an alliance with everyone in the galaxy and fight the Reapers.

There's so much Bioware could do, and I hope they do it well.

Gameplay purposes, I really hope Bioware makes a better stat system, a better HUD for combat, and more powers/abilities/weapons.

I wasn't a big fan of Tali in the first game, and wondered why they brought her back as a squad mate for the second...until I played it. Tali grew on me during the second game. It was hard to dislike anything about Mass Effect 2.

By the way, the teaser for ME3 was bad ass! Can't wait.