Mass Effect 2

[Ryan]

Spoiler: Ending spoilers

For example, I was going for a romance with Miranda and it was all going well until I sided with Jack against her and couldn't get her to agree with me again.

Spoiler: Loyalty missions

Completing Jack and Miranda's loyalty missions triggers the fight. I made the mistake of doing them right away in my second play through and got burnt because my paragon wasn't high enough. I was never able to fix it because you apparently need 100% paragon to get Miranda (or Jack?) to forgive you.

The other weird thing I noticed was my paragon play through had more chances to be evil than my paragade one. For instance, I was given the chance to betray Samara on Omega station as a paragon but as a paragade I automatically sided with her. Go figure.

 

[Ryan]

So I just got the mission to recover the Collector IFF. How far along the story missions am I?

Close to the end. Finish off the loyalty missions before getting the IFF.

 

[Mr Light]

Yeah that's what I figured. It sounded like the beginning of the endgame.

 

[Jax]

So I just got the mission to recover the Collector IFF. How far along the story missions am I?

Close to the end. Finish off the loyalty missions before getting the IFF.

Thats what I am doing (got onnly 2 left) and then going to explore and scan systems to pick up the hidden side missions and upgrade much as possible before getting the IFF and using the Omega Relay.

 

[Ryan]

Unless you need the elements to complete them, buy the upgrades. Scanning does nothing but make you poor and bored.

 

[firehawk12]

Fuel and probes are so cheap that I don't think it's possible to be a in situation where you can't afford them. Not saying that it can't happen, but it seems to be very difficult to buy stuff in a way that leaves you with 0 credits.

It's 2700 credits to max out fuel/probes on a fully upgraded ship. Trust me, spend any serious time scanning planets and it adds up really fast (it's easy to put 12+ probes on a mineral rich planet, especially since they have 2-3 big element spikes even after the scanner says it's depleted).

To new players I'd recommend not even scanning planets until you need the resources for an upgrade. ME2 lets you explore the galaxy but there's just nothing interesting out there.

I bought nearly every upgrade and finished the game with over 100k credits... I dunno, I just never had a problem with money in terms of exploring. Then again, I didn't bother gathering resources after I upgraded everything (except for the Med Bay).

 

[bullethead]

Here's a good guide to minerals and N7 missions (the planets with asterisks next to them): Planetary Database

 

[Ryan]

I bought nearly every upgrade and finished the game with over 100k credits...

100k credits is low. We're talking upgrades here that cost 90k each. In the end I earned almost everything but it's still annoying to come up short.

I suspect this is a matter of knowing what to buy and when and completing some missions in a certain way (there's also the matter of character imports giving various credit bonuses).

But like I said, the real problem here is that the ability to spend credits is unlimited but the ability to earn them isn't.

 

[Bishbot]

Unless you need the elements to complete them, buy the upgrades. Scanning does nothing but make you poor and bored.

You get the N7 missions via scanning, I spent a few joyful hours playing them because, hey, it's more Mass Effect 2. I don't see the need to fully upgrade everyone though because I'm at the end of the game. There's no value in a piece of equipment I'm never going to use.

 

[bullethead]

Most of the upgrades for the party members are well worth getting, except for Grunt's krogan shotgun (mostly because shotguns suck in this game), because they increase the survivability of your team members during combat and you're going to get a lot of them anyway (particularly armor and weapon upgrades). There's only one upgrade for the ship that's truly a ripoff and you only have to worry about the thing it fixes if you play pure Renegade.

That said, I wish there were a few more upgrades to ship, since Garrus and Tali should have more to contribute, since they are a space combat nut and quarian with considerable engineering skills respectively.

 

[Ryan]

Unless you need the elements to complete them, buy the upgrades. Scanning does nothing but make you poor and bored.

You get the N7 missions via scanning, I spent a few joyful hours playing them because, hey, it's more Mass Effect 2. I don't see the need to fully upgrade everyone though because I'm at the end of the game. There's no value in a piece of equipment I'm never going to use.

Yeah, from the list posted it looks like there's a bit over a dozen out of the 200+ scannable planetoids. I definitely wouldn't bother with scanning now. Just print out the guide and go straight to them.

 

[Bishbot]

Most of the upgrades for the party members are well worth getting, except for Grunt's krogan shotgun (mostly because shotguns suck in this game), because they increase the survivability of your team members during combat and you're going to get a lot of them anyway

Yeah but I'm past the end of the game. I got the upgrades I wanted while playing the storyline, sure, but I can't see the point in busting my hump trying to scavenge for them now. I'll play all the N7 missions I missed and that'll do me for this playthrough. I will have to try hard next though, because I loved this game like nothing else but it wasn't exactly a challenge on normal. It's also possible that a higher difficulty will make the upgrades more essential.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

Just finished the game. I didn't think the ending quite had the epic feel of the end game for ME1. The end of ME 1 impressed the hell out of me and I was hoping for more.

Spoiler: end game and stuff

I mean walking on the surface of the citadel in outer space as you watch the impossibly huge badguy in the background was just so awesome. The giant human like reaver was cool and all, it just wasn't on the level of the first game. The whole set up felt like a contra game or something rather than a space opera.

I ended up romancing Tali (and Yeoman Chambers but I don't think that counts), but after the end game it looks like the Miranda dialog option for romance is still there. So I guess if can bone Tali, then tell Tali I think it's too dangerous after she already has sex with me and gets sick, then bed Miranda. I wonder how many renegade points I get for that?

As for money, the only time I ran out was because of a glitch of some kind. I returned to Omega for finish off a side quest before the end and stopped by the shops and saw that a bunch of stuff was for sale. I just bought everything without checking and went back to the ship, but there were no new options. I reloaded my save and went back, and all the upgrades on sale were the same ones I had purchased before and already researched. So I wonder if this glitch is causing some people to run low on money. Also towards the end game you seem to end up picking up upgrades that you already have so maybe there's some redundancy there.

Money is really kind of random. In one mission I'll take the time to hack to get 1k credits, but in some salvage a few feet away get 4k credits. It also irked me that getting hit or even exiting during a hack or bypass permanently ruins whatever you were working on.

I'm going to start a new playthough on insanity after modding the game. I've already changed the assault rifle so it shoots twice as many shots per burst but half the damage per bullet. I also turned one of the sniper rifles in to a heavy, slow machine gun with atrocious recoil. I'm going to see what I can do with the shotgun to make it not as terrible.

 

[Arrqh]

Spoiler: romance and ending

I romanced no one... instead Shepard gazed longingly at the picture of Liara on her desk. Which was a nice touch, I thought, even though Liara's gone a bit crazy

I made it through the end with no casualties on the first time through. I did send Legion into the duct (Legion very quickly became one of my favorite characters I might add) and he made it though I've heard some people have had him die... apparently it has something to do with buying his upgrade. I thought the intensity of the ending was great, every time I had a decision about who would go wear I was panicking. This was my damn team and they're all doing to make it, dammit!

 

[Reverend]

The only thing I don't like about Legion is that by the time you get him, the game is damn near over and you hardly get any time with him. Though yes, you can continue playing after a successful finale, but since I'd already done all of the loyalty & N7 missions there's nothing to do but buy crap you don't need anymore and freak out the customs agent on the Citadel.

 

[Dac]

Just completed it. Wow. My heart is still pumping from the closing cutscenes. I was literally screaming at the TV to make it.

Spoiler: ME2 Ending

For those who are interested, I ended with going against The Illusive Man and destroying the Human Reaper and the only casualty was Doc Mordin (I didnt like him all that much anyway).

 

[TheGodBen]

...Doc Mordin (I didnt like him all that much...

How can anyone not love Mordin?! He sings Gilbert and Sullivan and gives you advice about inter-species sexual relations.

I completed my game with paragon Benedict Sheppard on Tuesday night, although he was much less of a paragon in this game. He started out as a paragon, peace-loving, council-supporter in the first game, but after Kaidan died on Virmire he blamed the council and went a bit renegade. Now he's about 2/3 paragon, 1/3 renegade. I loved the game, although the story did feel more like the necessary gap between the awesomeness of ME1's story and the sure-to-be-epic story of ME3. It's a fantastically immersive universe and I can't wait to see how the decisions I made in the first two games will carry over into ME3.

Spoiler: final mission

I managed to save everyone except Thane, he was shot in the back after I sent him into the heating ducts. I was upset about it, but he said he was dying anyway so it felt fitting that he went out as a hero. I handed the station over to Cerebus because I felt that it might give humanity an advantage over the coming Reaper onslaught, and I decided to stick with Cerberus, because I want more Martin Sheen in ME3. Oh, and I hooked up with Miranda because I couldn't resist that accent coupled with the dark blue outfit. Benedict needed the companionship after being dumped by Ash for working with Cerberus.

I've already started a new game with my femShep Denise, the renegade hard-ass who has a liking for the blue ladies. I can't wait to see just how red her face is going to go...

 

[Bishbot]

I love how I can

Spoiler: Ending

lose three of my team, including Garrus and Miranda and not consider it a failure. It's part of the storyline. While I was disappointed that I couldn't patch things up with Miranda it's actually a lot more dramatically interesting that we never quite made it.

She gets angry with Shepard, but by the end of the final mission is ready to go with him against her boss, clearly signalling that they were ok again but then, of course, she dies. The game doesn't QUITE make it as dramatic as it could because they clearly can't plan for EVERY eventuality, but I like that I can read more into Shepard's melancholy staring at the coffins than is necessarily there.

 

[Arrqh]

Spoiler: the geth

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwzoedQ_ZQ8[/yt]

 

[BigFoot]

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