God, I'm glad the Insanity-level husks from ME1 are gone. They took hours to take down. I think I've said it before in here, they were more of a chore than a challenge. Edit: BTW, post #1000 in the ME2 thread
If only the ME2 Husks couldn't stun you when they hit you. Because of that, I prioritize killing Husks ASAP whenever possible. The Cain is good for that.
^You'd waste a shot from the Cain on a bunch of poxy husks? If you're lucky you might be able to fire that thing once per mission - twice if you're very lucky. Personally, I'm often so concerned with conserving ammo that I forget to use the heavy weapons at all. Usually only pull it out for big bosses like gunships, praetorians, the thresher maw and the baby reaper. BTW, tech armour is officially my new favourite power. It's just a shame you can't customise the colour...that'd be fun. Actually I think sentinel is my new favourite class (note, I've yet to play as an infiltrator, engineer, or an adept.) I'm playing on hardcore and having both overload and warp is a huge help! Vanguard can be fun but it's a bit disappointing that you need to lock on for charge to work. It'd be nice to be able to use it go get some distance if you're getting overwhelmed. Sure you can do that already, but only if there just so happens to be an enemy in just the right spot at the right time.
That's what I'm playing as on this "massacre" playthrough. It's been fun to cloak, circle around behind an enemy while the squad keeps him distracted, then put a heavy pistol round into the back of his head -- or just melee the punk a couple times.
Saved game modding man. It's the shit. I give myself like a million plus rounds for my guns and a huge amount for the Cain's ammo, then go to town. Plus I don't have to do mineral scanning or worry about money: just set them to 9999999 and go on the missions.
Yeah, that sounds pretty pointless. It's not like you don't get some pretty hefty credit and mineral bonuses for importing an ME1 character and giving yourself infinite ammo sounds like it'd take away most of the fun. Incidentally, I'm playing on hardcore for the first time (I want me some geth rifle) and for some reason I'm actually finding the combat easier than on the lower difficulty levels. How weird is that?
Infinite Ammo, Fire Rate modifiers, etc can be fun if you want to test a game engine's limitations, but they tend to take away the fun if you want to play "seriously", as in: for the challenge.
I've already played it 5 times, so the challenge isn't there for me anymore. Plus I wanted to get some more mileage out of the heavy weapons and not have to deal with the carpal tunnel inducing mineral scanning the Xbox version has, even with the improved mineral scanner that BioWare gave us with that patch. Playing a modded game is actually a lot of fun, as you can alter squadmate weapon loadouts and stuff to change things up a bit. Jacob is actually useful once you swap out that shitty pistol he has with for an Assault Rifle
I must admit, the idea that Jacob couldn't use an assault rifle never made much sense. I suppose it's a case of gameplay balancing overriding in-universe logic. Still, with a team that big there's always going to be at least one character that's never used, especially when you can only have two party members at a time. Indeed, did anyone ever use Kaiden much after Eden Prime? I know I didn't.
I tended to stick with Liara if I needed a biotic as her powers were a lot more useful. Plus of course she's not Kaiden, which always works in any character's favour.
Kaidan was very useful. Throw, Lift, Barrier, Stasis, Sabotage, Neural Shock...he worked well with my Infiltrator and Wrex.
I have to admit, I never figured out a use for stasis. Sure it bought you some time if a Krogan or something was getting too close, but you usually still had another half dozen enemies constantly shooting at you and I invariably found my team either backed up against a wall, into a corner or camped out down a long corridor to stop the baddies from running up behind us. I'd sooner have Liara drop a singularity in their path. It buys time AND does some actual damage.
Even though there is no "My Shepard" Thread. I wanted to post my 4 kids. This is My First: Lorenzo Shepard Class Vangard He is Primary Paragon This is My Second: Lief Shepard Class Solider He is Primary Renegade This is My Third: Kassc Shepard Class Adept Her is Primary Paragon This is My Fourth: Aayliah Shepard Class Sentinel Her is Primary Renegade
I tend to design my Sheps with the idea in mind that in a few hundred years, what we think of as ethnic groups will become much more mixed and diverse. My primary character is Jade Shepard; a soldier class paragon (with a slightly ruthless Renegade edge.) Her background is an Earth born sole survivor. I tried to make her look like a mix of asian, a little african and some Caucasian (you can't see it in this picture, but she actually has red hair.) I think she looks of for the most part, but as is often the case, only really looks good from certain angles and has a tendency to go cross-eyed...but there's not much one can do about that. The one I'm playing at the moment is my pure paragon Shep with a war hero colonist background. She started out as a vanguard in ME1 but as I mentioned earlier I switched her over to a sentinel when I imported her into ME2. Believe it or not she actually looks better in ME2, but I can't figure out how to take screenshots in ME2 without a 3rd party program running. I tried to give her a mix of Indian, Caucasian and central African features. I tried for a bit of Pacific islander too, but I'm not sure it came out right. For my two male Sheps I used the default face (because I was feeling lazy) for my renegade and for the "maximum damage" playthough I talked about a few pages back, re-imported my renegade and changed the face. I initially tried to make a celebrity lookalike just for fun, but it didn't look right, so I instead make a "Joss Whedon's leading man" composite by combining Nathan Fillion's nose with David Boreanaz's forehead...with a stubbly goatee. I'd post an image, but again I can't figure out how to take shots in ME2 without running another program than tends to slow things down.
I have four Shepards (one with the default face), but since I don't have the PC version, I've had to rely on a friend of mine to get some screencaps. I only have pics of two of my three custom Sheps so far: Valentina Shepard (Infiltrator/Paragade, Earthborn/War Hero) James Shepard (Soldier/Renegade, Spacer/Ruthless)