Mass Effect (1)
- Thread starter Ood Sigma
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The trick for surviving that last wave is basically the same as that bit on Tuchanka with the brutes by the maw hammers; keep moving and try to stay as far away from the banshee's as possible. Don't worry too much about killing anything. On my first playthrough I made the mistake of trying to clear the map; even tried steering them into the reaper beam. Must have died about a dozen times before I decided to just keep hitting adrenaline rush and legging it.
Thanks for the tip, Reverend. Didn't realize it was a "get to the object" scenario and not a "defeat all the enemies" one. Well, planning to fire it up in about an hour here. Looking forward to it and nervous about it all at the same time. My saga is about to end...
^Actually, it's not really a "get to the object" so much as a "stay alive in an area for X amount of time" and that's just the final wave. There are a few before then which are indeed of the "kill everything" variety. I don't want to get into details for fear of spoilers, but you'll probably know it when it happens. I think the same music plays as that bit way back in the beginning when you're waiting for the Normandy with Anderson, so that'll be a bit of a give-away.
I don't think you even need necessarily to worry about a specific interval passing during that segment. I think if you empty your thermal clips, you're done - just like for the Normandy rescue in Vancouver.
My trick to beating that part was to use my squadmates as decoys while I stayed out of harm's way. 
I ordered them into the shop while I hid behind one of those old red telephone-boxes at the end of the street. Every time one of my squad died, I'd revive them (there's no reason not to be liberal with the medi-gel at that point). It's not a great strategy, but it worked.
I found that section is pretty easy as an infiltrator, just cloak constantly and stay in cover.
I ordered them into the shop while I hid behind one of those old red telephone-boxes at the end of the street. Every time one of my squad died, I'd revive them (there's no reason not to be liberal with the medi-gel at that point). It's not a great strategy, but it worked.I found that section is pretty easy as an infiltrator, just cloak constantly and stay in cover.
Ok, guys, I'm highly ticked off right now. For some reason when I go to the title screen I am only getting the option for New Game. I have verified my career data is on the memory unit. So I can't even play and now I'm worrie I've lost my save data. Off to EA's website to see what I can do about it. @$!?&
Yeah, I tried their online support and they just said to delete the corrupted saves. Which of course will delete all my progress. I guess worst case, I'll have to start from the beginning of ME3. Don't really feel like that right now though. I'm going to attempt to get a live person help me.
XBox, sadly. The weird thing is that when I go into the memory unit, it says my saves are there - it has my character name, the date created, etc. But the title screen will not recognize them. I was reading online that most people when they have a corrupted save, it will just be one individual save. I actually have two saves - one prior to the final Cerberus mission, and one right before I was headed to Earth. But I can't get to them.
Things I am considering trying:
- Uninstalling the Extended Cut. Perhaps this is causing the issue? It's a long story but I actually think it's possible that I did that last mission without Extended Cut (I apparently downloaded it to the wrong memory unit).
- Starting a new game, saving as soon as I can, and seeing if that doesn't sort out my issues with the title screen.
- Calling EA tech support. Their live chat operator was no help whatsoever.
- Apparently there is an application you can get on your PC that will allow you to examine and modify XBox save files. That makes me extremely nervous but as a last resort I could try it.
- If not I will probably just start over by importing my ME2 save file and going through ME3 again. I can probably get through it much faster now that I know what I'm doing and I can skip a lot of the cut scenes.
Things I am considering trying:
- Uninstalling the Extended Cut. Perhaps this is causing the issue? It's a long story but I actually think it's possible that I did that last mission without Extended Cut (I apparently downloaded it to the wrong memory unit).
- Starting a new game, saving as soon as I can, and seeing if that doesn't sort out my issues with the title screen.
- Calling EA tech support. Their live chat operator was no help whatsoever.
- Apparently there is an application you can get on your PC that will allow you to examine and modify XBox save files. That makes me extremely nervous but as a last resort I could try it.
- If not I will probably just start over by importing my ME2 save file and going through ME3 again. I can probably get through it much faster now that I know what I'm doing and I can skip a lot of the cut scenes.
Well, if that ends up being the case, at least you can remedy any mistakes you may have made the first time through. For instance, since I habitually always pick the upper right dialogue options on my paragons, I told Kelly to keep helping the refugees, and as a result she ended up getting killed when Cerberus invaded. Telling her to change her appearance ensures she survives, and she still sticks around to help people anyways. And there's a few arguments around the citadel where choosing what seems to be the renegade side actually results in positive asset points (siding with the dock worker instead of the refugee trying to dock for instance.)
I've played all three games on Xbox and have never come across this problem. I don't see why the extended cut would cause it, I had saves set just before and during the London mission and the extended cut didn't cause them to disappear, but I suppose it can't hurt to try deleting it. 
).
As for replaying to fix things you did wrong, I don't like doing that, it feels like cheating. That being said, I did replay much of ME1 with my main Shep so that I could romance Ashley, because I somehow missed the fact that I could walk around the entire Normandy and not just the CIC. By the time that I realised that there was a downstairs to the ship it was too late to romance anyone, so I replayed it just to do that, but I kept all my choices the same throughout.
That's why I stopped being a pure-paragon and became a paragade, I found myself blindly picking the upper-right option in every conversation and wasn't happy with some of the things Shep said. Once I stopped doing that the game became much more personal and far more interesting (and upsetting, poor Mordin
).As for replaying to fix things you did wrong, I don't like doing that, it feels like cheating. That being said, I did replay much of ME1 with my main Shep so that I could romance Ashley, because I somehow missed the fact that I could walk around the entire Normandy and not just the CIC. By the time that I realised that there was a downstairs to the ship it was too late to romance anyone, so I replayed it just to do that, but I kept all my choices the same throughout.
Hmmm, I've discovered something interesting that may help me get my saves working again. I was reading an article about ME3 being unable to import ME2 saves that were stored in the cloud. Their solution was to download the save file from the cloud to the *original* hard drive the save began on. Perhaps my problem is that I moved my save files. Here's what happened:
- I played Mass Effect 1 and stored everything on the internal 4GB memory unit.
- I imported ME1 to ME2, on the internal unit.
- I began downloading DLC for ME2 but soon realized that there was not enough space for it.
- I purchased an 8GB memory stick, and formatted it for XBox use. The configuration tool said that it didn't meet the specs for XBox but I had read that you could use these sticks anyway. I transferred all my ME1 & 2 data to the new stick. Indeed, it worked (for the most part), and I was able to store all my data on that.
- Every once in a while the XBox would stop recognizing that I even had a memory stick. Through trial and error I was able to determine that removing the stick and re-inserting it would usually cause the stick to start working again.
- I finished ME2 and started ME3 on the 8GB stick. Ocassionally had the memory stick issue.
- I downloaded the Extended Cut DLC, but it seems that I actually installed it to the internal 4GB unit.
- Yesterday I was having a heck of a time getting the XBox to recognize my stick. It took me nearly a half hour before it would recognize it. At this point I decided to move all my ME3 saves to the memory unit, because (a) Extended Cut was already downloaded to it, and (b) it was much more stable than my flaky memory stick.
- So now, all of my ME3 data is on the 4GB unit. But the game will not recognize that it is there, even though when I browse into the unit I can see all my ME3 data, including the career block that holds my save games. (As a side note, all of my ME2 data is still on the stick.)
I am wondering if I put the ME3 data back on the stick if it will work, provided I can get the XBox to recognize it. I also noted a seemingly direct correspondence between the % chance the XBox would recognize the stick and the amount of free space left on it. (i.e. once I cleared the ME3 data and the stick had about 3 GB free, it seemed to register more often).
Clearly this could have been solved by not cheaping out on buying a memory stick initially and buying a higher-quality stick. But now I'm stuck with the situation I'm in, because apparently moving it to another unit doesn't work. If I do have to re-start I am for sure going to keep it on the internal unit. (I guess I'll have to initially do it on the stick because that's where my ME2 saves are). What a mess. And the worst timing... so close to the end!
- I played Mass Effect 1 and stored everything on the internal 4GB memory unit.
- I imported ME1 to ME2, on the internal unit.
- I began downloading DLC for ME2 but soon realized that there was not enough space for it.
- I purchased an 8GB memory stick, and formatted it for XBox use. The configuration tool said that it didn't meet the specs for XBox but I had read that you could use these sticks anyway. I transferred all my ME1 & 2 data to the new stick. Indeed, it worked (for the most part), and I was able to store all my data on that.
- Every once in a while the XBox would stop recognizing that I even had a memory stick. Through trial and error I was able to determine that removing the stick and re-inserting it would usually cause the stick to start working again.
- I finished ME2 and started ME3 on the 8GB stick. Ocassionally had the memory stick issue.
- I downloaded the Extended Cut DLC, but it seems that I actually installed it to the internal 4GB unit.
- Yesterday I was having a heck of a time getting the XBox to recognize my stick. It took me nearly a half hour before it would recognize it. At this point I decided to move all my ME3 saves to the memory unit, because (a) Extended Cut was already downloaded to it, and (b) it was much more stable than my flaky memory stick.
- So now, all of my ME3 data is on the 4GB unit. But the game will not recognize that it is there, even though when I browse into the unit I can see all my ME3 data, including the career block that holds my save games. (As a side note, all of my ME2 data is still on the stick.)
I am wondering if I put the ME3 data back on the stick if it will work, provided I can get the XBox to recognize it. I also noted a seemingly direct correspondence between the % chance the XBox would recognize the stick and the amount of free space left on it. (i.e. once I cleared the ME3 data and the stick had about 3 GB free, it seemed to register more often).
Clearly this could have been solved by not cheaping out on buying a memory stick initially and buying a higher-quality stick. But now I'm stuck with the situation I'm in, because apparently moving it to another unit doesn't work. If I do have to re-start I am for sure going to keep it on the internal unit. (I guess I'll have to initially do it on the stick because that's where my ME2 saves are). What a mess. And the worst timing... so close to the end!
Call me shallow, but I'm obsessed with always trying to have the happiest outcome whenever I play a Bioware RPG. Bugs the heck out of me when something turns out bad. I started playing Dragon Age II for the first time over the weekend and if I encounter a choice where I'm doubtful of the outcome, I go and look it up on the wiki to make sure I make the "right" one.That's why I stopped being a pure-paragon and became a paragade, I found myself blindly picking the upper-right option in every conversation and wasn't happy with some of the things Shep said. Once I stopped doing that the game became much more personal and far more interesting (and upsetting, poor Mordin
That being said, I'm really loving the game's personality system and how it changes your character's auto-dialogue. Once I finished act 1 with my goodie two shoes female warrior who chooses all the good/diplomatic blue dialogue options, I immediately started a new game with a male rogue who chooses all the sarcastic/charming purple options, then once he was finished with the act, I created a female mage who takes all the red options and will kill every templar she can. I'm debating whether to restart my warrior and have her be 100% pro-templar, but it's really hard not to sympathize with those persecuted mages...
I don't think it's shallow, I just think you're missing out on part of the experience by not owning your mistakes.
(I'm going to put this behind spoilers because it deals with alternate consequences from the Mordin/genophage decision that Ood might not want to know about.)
Shooting Mordin in the back was the most difficult choice I made in any of the games, but if I had known when I did it that Wrex would find out and withdraw his forces, and then I'd have to kill him too, I wouldn't have done it. But I didn't know that, and watching Mordin desperately crawling on the ground, trying to be a hero after being betrayed by a friend, that was one of the most powerful pieces of art I've ever experienced. I can't undo the way I felt in that moment, I can't deny that that was a choice I made, and to try to undo it so that I could have a happier outcome would cheapen the experience.
Yeah, I'd go so far as to say there's really no such thing as making a mistake in these games. There are choices and there are consequences and it's far more interesting to play them with that in mind.
I've never thought of my main Shepard as a "paragon", despite as it turns out her rep ended up being pretty consistently split 75/25 between paragon & renegade. When I designed her I came up with some basic personality traits and have since fleshed it out over the course of the games into a character I'm very familiar with. I never think "should i pick the paragon or reneagde option", I think "what would she say"? Indeed, I know her so well by this point I barely have to think it and just shoot from the hip.
It only recently struck me how much of a difference it makes when I was reimported her for a game plus playthrough. Playing through with some of my other Shepards (my pure renegade male vanguard and my pure paragon female sentinel) I started to get very easily bored by the conversation because I'd just be blindly hitting the same responses regardless.
Myaby part of it is giving the game a rest for a few months but playing as Jade Shepard again was a *much* more engaging experience for having to think about character responses, choices and consequences.
These games are called role-playing games for a reason. If you treat it like pac-man and just try for attain some illusionary high score, you're just missing the point.
I've never thought of my main Shepard as a "paragon", despite as it turns out her rep ended up being pretty consistently split 75/25 between paragon & renegade. When I designed her I came up with some basic personality traits and have since fleshed it out over the course of the games into a character I'm very familiar with. I never think "should i pick the paragon or reneagde option", I think "what would she say"? Indeed, I know her so well by this point I barely have to think it and just shoot from the hip.
It only recently struck me how much of a difference it makes when I was reimported her for a game plus playthrough. Playing through with some of my other Shepards (my pure renegade male vanguard and my pure paragon female sentinel) I started to get very easily bored by the conversation because I'd just be blindly hitting the same responses regardless.
Myaby part of it is giving the game a rest for a few months but playing as Jade Shepard again was a *much* more engaging experience for having to think about character responses, choices and consequences.
These games are called role-playing games for a reason. If you treat it like pac-man and just try for attain some illusionary high score, you're just missing the point.
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