Mass Effect 2
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fuxberg said:Pinnacle Station DLC.What a load o'crap.
What is it exactly that you disliked about it? I mean I've finished it and that IGN article reads like a parody to me. Simply said the reviewer starts with the bias that the combat in Mass Effect sucks, which is something I can't really wrap my head around, but whatever. Since he has already decided that the combat sucks, then the whole thing can only suck because it's combat-oriented. Yeah, great. Special mention to the complaint about not being able to restart the mission right away. It takes like 10 seconds to do the same mission again.
Personally I liked Pinnacle Station. I find it on par with if not superior to Bring Down the Sky. BdtS was mostly combat and exploration with very little story as well and I don't remember people complaining about that. It was also visually as inspired/uninspired. At least Pinnacle Station has a beautiful scenery if you look outside the window. And I found the combat scenarios fun, although maybe a little easy once you get the hang of them. All in all it's not worth more than 5€, but then again that's what it's sold for, so it's fine with me.
I honestly don't know what people expected in order to be disappointed by this DLC. Yeah it's combat scenarios set in the world of Mass Effect. If you don't like the combat in Pinnacle Station it means you didn't like the combat in Mass Effect and then my question is why did you buy DLC for the game in the first place?
In conclusion, what I'll remember from this is its final review, which I found awesome.
Now I know where my Shepard will spend his time while I wait for Mass Effect 2! 
I'm spoilering this out of zeal, but I'm referring to the bungalow you win from Admiral Ahern. It's great. Only missing Liara!
I'm spoilering this out of zeal, but I'm referring to the bungalow you win from Admiral Ahern. It's great. Only missing Liara!
Well, I've played several of the missions in pinnacle station, and I can't say anything about this DLC is very polished but... I can't deny I'm having some cheap fun:
Really, with master Barrier AND Immunity, it's not even fair. I could have held out indefinitely but after 20 min I was getting pretty bored. Primary weapon was of course the assault rifle, but I had some hilarious moments with my cannon: a spectre-class sniper rifle equipped with 2 scram rails and explosive rounds. BOOM.
Really, with master Barrier AND Immunity, it's not even fair. I could have held out indefinitely but after 20 min I was getting pretty bored. Primary weapon was of course the assault rifle, but I had some hilarious moments with my cannon: a spectre-class sniper rifle equipped with 2 scram rails and explosive rounds. BOOM.
Walter said:
Hahaha that's great, I don't think I told you yesterday but I actually lasted around 21:30 in Survival mode on the volcano mission. I hadn't checked the leaderboards and didn't know how long I was supposed to last, but after 5 minutes I started to wonder. I kept going just because I could though, and eventually decided to stop at 20 just for the hell of it. Then I stopped using talents and just went hand-to-hand on the enemies and it still took them a minute and a half to kill me. And I stayed out in the open from the start too, wasn't hiding or anything.
I don't even have Immunity in my build but as you know, Master Barrier is where it's at. Long live Vanguards!
Walter said:
I did everything with my trusty team of Liara and Tali myself, weapon being the handgun. Anyway, to go back to the DLC proper, the more challenging modes are "Hunt" and "Time Attack". Ahern's simulation is fun as well but not very difficult for an impregnable Vanguard.
While the masses complain about how "terrible" Pinnacle Station is, I didn't mind it all that much. It was just another reason to play more Mass Effect to me. Did anyone else
I could have done with some non-holographic enemies somewhere so I could freeze/burn/melt away some flesh for fun-but hey, I can do that in the rest of the game, so what does it matter.
PS:
feel like they had actually "retired" from the game after they earned Ahern's home away from home? I actually sat there staring out the windows for a few minutes which is really long when you're doing nothing. I really wish there was a seat you could sit in and just stare out the window, or did I miss something?
PS:
And I thought I was the only one who was nerdy enough to buy Spectre Armor...
Ko Ninja said:
Agreed. More of the game I love, and frankly I didn't expect anything better than what we got. In fact after the early reviews I expected it to be worse than it was. Like I told Wally the other day, the Kotaku review was also rather positive, meaning we're not alone!
Ko Ninja said:
No, I did the same, and the view's fucking awesome. It really is the best part of the DLC for me and really even if the rest was all awful I'd still love it. Like I said, it's only missing Liara.
Ko Ninja said:PS:And I thought I was the only one who was nerdy enough to buy Spectre Armor...
Haha dude I had the armor before you did! I got it right away when I learned about Pinnacle Station, before anything else. I even bought a N7 t-shirt despite the fact I'll likely never ever wearing anything else than the full armor. I'd been waiting for it ever since the feature was added to the Xbox Live, and BioWare didn't disappoint.
Aazealh said:Haha dude I had the armor before you did! I got it right away when I learned about Pinnacle Station, before anything else. I even bought a N7 t-shirt despite the fact I'll likely never ever wearing anything else than the full armor. I'd been waiting for it ever since the feature was added to the Xbox Live, and BioWare didn't disappoint.
I know, I was thinking to myself "Man are people going to think I'm nerdy!" Then I go to my friends list and sure enough, hahaha! I almost bought that N7 shirt as well but I used the reasoning of knowing I'd never, ever wear it to ward off that evil purchase.
I'm sure it's not new to anyone, but I watched the new trailer on Xbox LIVE for
Ally: Grunt.
Oburi said:
Remember those credits you don't bother to sit through? Well you really should sit through them sometimes.
Like Walter said, what counts is the special save file created after you finish the game (that is also used to start a new game with the same character). I don't believe the game asks you anything in the Xbox 360 version though, it just auto-records it.
Oburi
All praise Grail
Aazealh said:Remember those credits you don't bother to sit through? Well you really should sit through them sometimes.
Ah ok thanks. And yea just to make sure I'm going to finish the game again and watch the credits this time. Bad habit i got.
Edit- I also want to go back and explore more because I know there is stuff that I missed. My thing is how do you know if you have any quests left? Also I want to go back and collect all the ancient things I haven't completed yet (sorry havent played in a while and forget what its called). Other than the achievement you get for collecting everything is there anything special that happens? Should I even bother? seems like it would be a bitch to do.
Oburi said:
Check your logbook in the menu, under "Assignments". Of course if you haven't found the quests yet, you can't know whether you've done it or not. There are lists on the web though. If you're really desperate
Oburi said:
Nah, those don't give you any particular reward when you complete it. Completing the assignment and finding all of the minerals/artifacts isn't the same thing either. You can still find a lot of them after having completed the quest. It's the kind of thing I'd recommend doing as you do other assignments. Getting them all at once would probably feel a bit boring to you.
A brief interview with a BioWare team member about the ideas behind Pinnacle Station.
[quote author=http://kotaku.com/5360658/all-things-bioware-answers-from-the-rpg-powerhouse-about-mass-effect-dragon-age-star-wars-and-more]Mass Effect DLC: Pinnacle Station - A Quick Post-Mortem
"We wanted to make something different,' Zeschuk said of the recently released expansion to the first Mass Effect, Pinnacle Station. "The reaction's been quite vigorous from a lot of folks. I think part of it was the time. The expectation was that it took so long that [people thought] it would be something very grand. But what we want to do in Mass Effect was just riff on stuff a bit and do a combat simulator. We thought it would be neat to have this neat little encapsulated thing .... It [contained] a few things we weren't able to get in the full game."
Zeschuk said Pinnacle Station took longer than expected because, he laughed, "Games are hard to make." He said that BioWare didn't find it easy to incorporate downloadable content in the base game of Mass Effect. The team wanted to keep everything in the fiction — to make it accessible through the natural exploration in the game — but didn't find the most accessible hooks to attach the new content. "From a structural perspective, Mass Effect the game — even though we had one piece out pretty early — it wasn't ideally structured for downloadable content. I think, pretty early, we've been saying that Dragon Age is a platform. I would say Mass Effect 2 is as well. We took the learning from how tricky it is to put things into the game in Mass Effect and that was a very big factor."
In my review of Pinnacle Station I had guessed that BioWare was testing possible multiplayer mechanics in their still-single player Mass Effect squad combat battle system. Not quite. "I wouldn't say exactly multiplayer, but definitely taking the combat further [with] some kind of competitive mode," Zeschuk said. "We do a lot of story at BioWare. Sometimes we want to do something different than just a story."[/quote]
Could someone please explain to me what "we've been saying that Dragon Age is a platform. I would say Mass Effect 2 is as well." is supposed to mean?
I mean, I write bullshit for a living and I can't grasp what he's trying to say. ME2 will be easier to integrate DLC into? Does that really make it a _platform_ ?
[quote author=http://kotaku.com/5360658/all-things-bioware-answers-from-the-rpg-powerhouse-about-mass-effect-dragon-age-star-wars-and-more]Mass Effect DLC: Pinnacle Station - A Quick Post-Mortem
"We wanted to make something different,' Zeschuk said of the recently released expansion to the first Mass Effect, Pinnacle Station. "The reaction's been quite vigorous from a lot of folks. I think part of it was the time. The expectation was that it took so long that [people thought] it would be something very grand. But what we want to do in Mass Effect was just riff on stuff a bit and do a combat simulator. We thought it would be neat to have this neat little encapsulated thing .... It [contained] a few things we weren't able to get in the full game."
Zeschuk said Pinnacle Station took longer than expected because, he laughed, "Games are hard to make." He said that BioWare didn't find it easy to incorporate downloadable content in the base game of Mass Effect. The team wanted to keep everything in the fiction — to make it accessible through the natural exploration in the game — but didn't find the most accessible hooks to attach the new content. "From a structural perspective, Mass Effect the game — even though we had one piece out pretty early — it wasn't ideally structured for downloadable content. I think, pretty early, we've been saying that Dragon Age is a platform. I would say Mass Effect 2 is as well. We took the learning from how tricky it is to put things into the game in Mass Effect and that was a very big factor."
In my review of Pinnacle Station I had guessed that BioWare was testing possible multiplayer mechanics in their still-single player Mass Effect squad combat battle system. Not quite. "I wouldn't say exactly multiplayer, but definitely taking the combat further [with] some kind of competitive mode," Zeschuk said. "We do a lot of story at BioWare. Sometimes we want to do something different than just a story."[/quote]
Could someone please explain to me what "we've been saying that Dragon Age is a platform. I would say Mass Effect 2 is as well." is supposed to mean?
I mean, I write bullshit for a living and I can't grasp what he's trying to say. ME2 will be easier to integrate DLC into? Does that really make it a _platform_ ?
SaiyajinNoOuji
I'm still better than you
I think I know what he is saying (I speak babbling and dumb talk) and even with that, I don't think he is correct. When he says platform, I think games like mario brothers . Wouldnt Mass Effect be more of a FPS with RPG elements? Then again terminology with games get changed to which ever which way all the time.Walter said:A brief interview with a BioWare team member about the ideas behind Pinnacle Station.
Could someone please explain to me what "we've been saying that Dragon Age is a platform. I would say Mass Effect 2 is as well." is supposed to mean?
I mean, I write bullshit for a living and I can't grasp what he's trying to say. ME2 will be easier to integrate DLC into? Does that really make it a _platform_ ?
Naah, I don't think that's what he means. That would be a "platformer." After reading it again, I think he's just saying that, in terms of DLC, ME2 will have a stronger foundation, i.e. platform, onto which expansions can be built upon, whereas ME1 was kind of a mess to expand on through DLC. However, I don't agree. I thought the DLC in ME1 were integrated well enough. I just wanted more of themSaiyajinNoOuji said:
Walter said:
It's easy enough I think (and it's got nothing to do with platformers like Mario...). Keep in mind BioWare is the company behind Neverwinter Nights. So they've worked with heavy additional content in the past. That's what he's calling a platform. He wants Dragon Age: Origins to be the new Neverwinter Nights, and he wants ME2 to be equally able to receive add-ons. I think what he's expressing here is that they didn't create the first Mass Effect with DLC in mind. They wanted the game to feature lots of DLC, but they probably figured they could just add it as an afterthought, and it turned out they couldn't (it was complicated and that's why we didn't get many of them). I think that's why they've made it so you could keep playing after finishing the game in ME2, to add in new quests a lot more easily.
So, is anyone planning to buy this? I think the cover is infinitely prettier than the standard one, and it comes with these:
* The full version of Mass Effect 2
* Bonus in–game Collectors' Edition weapon and armor
* 48–page hardcover art book
* Limited Edition Cerberus Network card granting access to bonus content
* Issue #1 of the Mass Effect comic book by Dark Horse comics.
* All housed in a premium tin package with exclusive artwork.
If you're gonna buy it for the PC (like me), it's probably a bit soon to decide, because BioWare made such a nice Deluxe Digital Edition for Dragon Age...
Man I can't wait for this, I'm actually expecting this game more than The Last Guardian, which two weeks ago was the only game I was looking forward to.
Oh, and Aazealh, thanks a lot for the huge description of Mass Effect Galaxy. There's no way for me to play it and, everywhere I looked for info, all I found was people badmouthing the game and that's it. Your review actually made me a little sad I won't play it so soon.
* The full version of Mass Effect 2
* Bonus in–game Collectors' Edition weapon and armor
* 48–page hardcover art book
* Limited Edition Cerberus Network card granting access to bonus content
* Issue #1 of the Mass Effect comic book by Dark Horse comics.
* All housed in a premium tin package with exclusive artwork.
If you're gonna buy it for the PC (like me), it's probably a bit soon to decide, because BioWare made such a nice Deluxe Digital Edition for Dragon Age...
Man I can't wait for this, I'm actually expecting this game more than The Last Guardian, which two weeks ago was the only game I was looking forward to.
Oh, and Aazealh, thanks a lot for the huge description of Mass Effect Galaxy. There's no way for me to play it and, everywhere I looked for info, all I found was people badmouthing the game and that's it. Your review actually made me a little sad I won't play it so soon.
I probably should have posted the details of the different editions here back when they were announced in September. I'll likely be getting the Steam collector's edition, which hasn't been announced yet, but is sure to exist, just as BioWare did for Dragon Age. I like the convenience of keeping my games available online, wherever I am, with no install disc nonsense.
Anyway, the official ME website shows some more details about which editions there are, and the perks of each of them depending on where you pre-order it: http://masseffect.bioware.com/info/preorder/
Basicallly:
preorder at Gamestop, get Terminus Assault Armor and Blackstorm Weapon.
preorder at Amazon.com, get Inferno Armor
(I have a feeling the Steam collector's edition will include all of these, and if not, you'll be able to get them through paid DLC.)
To elaborate on the above details that Eluvei listed, the "Bonus in–game Collectors' Edition weapon and armor," is based on The Collectors, a mysterious race mentioned in Mass Effect: Ascension.
I actually am beginning to have a problem with these release tie-in armors. The Blood Dragon plate in DA was completely broken -- waaaay too powerful. It's the best armor in the game, and I got it with 0 effort. I really hope that's not the case in ME2.
On another related note, I just bought Mass Effect Galaxy over the weekend (it was on sale for $3). Played about 20 minutes or so, and it's good. Not stellar, but definitely fun to play around in a side-story chapter of the Mass Effect world. I'm interested in learning about what the unlockable will be, since it says you can tie your game in with ME2.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
There are already many, many spoilers released from BioWare in their marketing of ME2. Aaz and I have been doing our best to dodge these, but some unfortunately always end up slipping through the cracks... Story and character details are only going to increase as we get closer to the release of the game in January. Spoilers will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread until weeks after its release, and then, only within spoiler tags. Just a forewarning in case I come across any spoilers, they're going to get deleted without hesitation.
Anyway, the official ME website shows some more details about which editions there are, and the perks of each of them depending on where you pre-order it: http://masseffect.bioware.com/info/preorder/
Basicallly:
preorder at Gamestop, get Terminus Assault Armor and Blackstorm Weapon.
preorder at Amazon.com, get Inferno Armor
(I have a feeling the Steam collector's edition will include all of these, and if not, you'll be able to get them through paid DLC.)
To elaborate on the above details that Eluvei listed, the "Bonus in–game Collectors' Edition weapon and armor," is based on The Collectors, a mysterious race mentioned in Mass Effect: Ascension.
I actually am beginning to have a problem with these release tie-in armors. The Blood Dragon plate in DA was completely broken -- waaaay too powerful. It's the best armor in the game, and I got it with 0 effort. I really hope that's not the case in ME2.On another related note, I just bought Mass Effect Galaxy over the weekend (it was on sale for $3). Played about 20 minutes or so, and it's good. Not stellar, but definitely fun to play around in a side-story chapter of the Mass Effect world. I'm interested in learning about what the unlockable will be, since it says you can tie your game in with ME2.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
There are already many, many spoilers released from BioWare in their marketing of ME2. Aaz and I have been doing our best to dodge these, but some unfortunately always end up slipping through the cracks... Story and character details are only going to increase as we get closer to the release of the game in January. Spoilers will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread until weeks after its release, and then, only within spoiler tags. Just a forewarning in case I come across any spoilers, they're going to get deleted without hesitation.