Spoiler

Lol embarrassingly enough it was a mistake actually, I was skipping through dialogue and I accidently clicked the wrong option, since I hadn't saved in forever I didn't feel like going back about an hour in the game I just went with it.

This time after I finish tailoring the character I'm going to go through every little inch of it and listen to the dialogue for everything.

Also huh, thats not what I was expecting with Samara, I was expecting flat out rejection or something towards the end.

I went with Jack in the romance department my first play through before I knew Tali was an option, I'm trying to decide right now whether or not I want to go for her this time around or do like you said. Its incredible the degree which your decisions actually had an impact this time around. Even the little tiny ass side missions that you wouldn't think would make a difference at all get some recognition.

Also on the final fight inside the Reaper base I did very well up until the part where you have to get one of your biotics to take you through. I thought I got through quickly but Thane who I had leading my other team still died. I know he doesn't have to since theirs an achievement for everyone surviving but I don't know what I did wrong. Do you just have to speed rush the whole thing?

My favorite humor thing though is after you get Legion just go down to the AI core and stand in the doorway and watch him for a bit. Give him like ten minutes and it so damned funny, I cracked the fuck up every time. Also EDI is pretty funny too.

 

Spoiler

I went with Garrus leading both teams, Tali in the vents, Samara shielding, and Jacob doing escort (he died because he wasn't loyal) In my party I had Jack and Thane.

For those of you reading these spoilers here's an important thing to know.

Once you get Legion and activate him, you can visit 1 place before the abduction triggers. Activate legion > Visit planet > Back to ship > Go to new place > Abduction. So the best thing to do is do everybody's loyalty quests first then do the IFF and activate Legion, then do Legion's loyalty quest. So that when the abduction triggers, everybody is loyal to you. I didn't know about this on the first runthrough so Jacob and Zaeed weren't loyal. If you decide to go do stuff before saving the crew, half or all of them die depending on how much time you take. Watching Kelly get liquified was dope.

Scan Uranus and listen to what EDI says.

Garrus has some of the best quotes around.

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Decking the reporter again was awesome

The videogame salesmen talking about Hanar/Asari porn.

Favorite quote... definitely a tie between

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa-Ont6rOGQ

and

Spoiler

Miranda: You lost the whole crew and almost lost the ship.
Joker: What did you want me to do, break my arm at them?

 

Spoiler

I went with Legion in the vents and Jacob leading the first team, I also sent Grunt away with the crew to protect them, but I went with Thane leading the second team and Jack as my biotic shield. Everyone I had with me was loyal though. I made sure to do every single loyalty quest and get every important ship upgrade to avoid those kind of problems though. This way, as soon as the crew was abducted I just went off to save them, I didn't lose anyone from the crew, its just for some reason when I got through the biotic shield part at the very last second someone shot Thane and killed him.

Also I loved listening to the video game salesman, he was too damned funny.

 

Spoiler

I had Tali going through the vents, Garrus leading the second group, and Mordin leading the crew back to the Normandy. I had all the ship upgrades, all teammates loyal, and everyone survived - playing as adept on veteran for my first playthrough. Got to level 30 not too long after I beat the game.

Any suggestions for class to play as on insanity playthrough? I may do adept again, but I was thinking about infiltrator or a different class.

 

I went Adept on normal my first playthrough and Ill be honest, I found it stunningly easy.

Spoiler

I ran out of ammo on the last boss, and was forced to resort to biotics only to find that I fucked his shit up at three times the speed.

Im going to stick with Soldier this time around with the tailor made character Im using and after this Ill probably play through one more time just to try out the other classes with something else.

 

My first playthrough was as a Soldier and to be honest I found it to be really boring.

Spoiler

There was never any real challenge as a soldier, pretty much every encounter went the same way.

Disruptor or Warp ammo to take down shields or barriers > Switch to Inferno ammo > Rip shit apart with headshots. > Find ammo.

Inferno ammo tears through armor and organics like a chainsaw through Care Bears.

I spent most of the game using the exact same party since they fit EVERY situation, Shepard, Jack, Miranda. Soldier Shepard doesn't really need help shooting anything, Miranda to take down shields and barriers, Jack for Shockwave.

Don't pick up the Assault Rifle (its really an LMG) from the Collector ship, thing is fucking awful. Go with the Widow instead.

I'm having so much more fun playing as an Infiltrator than as a Soldier, its far more of a challenge but once you figure out the method then you're set.

Probably going to run with a Shepard/Thane/Garrus triple sniper Warp/Overload combo. Eventually switching Thane out for Legion and his Widow and retraining my points into Warp ammo to pick up the slack.

Might make a squad with guys who can take some punishment like Grunt so I can just chill back and provide cover while they take the damage in close quarters.

Spoiler

I'm also going to take note of all the women who want Shepard's nuts (aside from the ones you have to work for) in this playthrough.

So far we've got.

Kelly
Gianna Parsanini (Investigator from Noveria, you can find her on Illium in ME2)
Shiala (Green Asari from Feros that you save from the Thorian, also on Illium in ME2)

There are definitely more that I can't think of right now, please feel free to contribute to this list.

 

Alright so I've just finished Mass Effect 1 again and I'm starting to test out my specially tailored Soldier in Mass Effect 2 on hardcore difficulty and I have to ask, why was I not informed how ludicrously improved sniping is in this game? Adrenaline burst and a sniper rifle is pretty much an I win button. I just have to watch my ammo, ammo type and cooldowns properly and I'm waltzing through this so far with no troubles. The only downside is the ammo bs, I dearly wish for a bigger clip but still this is painfully easy right now. I can't tell you how utterly frustrating I found sniping in Mass Effect 1, they way overdid it with the bobbing and weaving of the rifle barrel and it only came down to a reasonable level with a maxed out skill set and good augmentations. Having a steady scope for a change is heartwarming.

Also any recommendations on what I should use on my next playthrough after this when I go for Insanity difficulty? I actually want a challenge, no Adept and no Soldier. I'm thinking I'll take an Infiltrator out for a spin next time just to test out this cloak business.

 

Ya, go for infiltrator if you want a challenge. You have to pace yourself as an Infiltrator or you're just going to get annihilated. Varren kill you in about 2 hits, get shot once and depending on the attacker either half or all of your shield is gone. Get caught in close combat? Ya no, enjoy hitting the Resume option.

The Archangel mission on normal I died once because I wasn't used to the game yet, on Insanity as an Infiltrator... took me nearly an hour and a half.

Spoiler

Just in the massive room, closing the shutters, the rest was a cake walk.

A problem I've noticed as an Infiltrator is that if you cloak and pop out to shoot someone, they won't raise their heads above cover because they don't know you're there... which means you have to time it so that teammates draw their fire.

Teammates on Insanity are worthless, Zaeed had trouble taking out a single Varren, and Miranda and Jacob couldn't take down a single Krogan... You're basically on your own.

Incinerate will become your best friend (until you get the Widow)

At level 8 I can already kill pretty much any enemy with a single layer of defense in one shot thanks to cloak and stacked sniper bonuses, it's just enough to pick up the slack from useless teammates. Once I pick up the Widow and get all the sniper upgrades I'm pretty sure only Scions, Praetorians, and Harbingers will take more than one shot.

Oh and husks have armor, I'm really looking forward to the IFF mission... luckily your Incinerate burns through the armor in one go.

 

If you like the Adrenaline Rush combo with the Sniper Rifle, you will love Infiltrator, since their class skill gives you an ~2 second long rush whenever you scope in with a sniper rifle.

 

Yeah that is something I've noticed Dr., my big problem with my teammates though is that for some reason, I don't know if its my imagination but they seem exponentially dumber than they did on easier difficulty levels. Its almost as though they seriously can't find a single better vantage point to shoot from than wherever places them directly in my line of fire. Its irritating the shit out of me.

 

I'm honestly not interested in playing ME1 again, since I don't have the time to, so I just used the only save game I could salvage from my half fried hard drive, which is a Paragon, (Alenko died, saved Council, Wrex survived). Was wondering if anyone had a Renegade game where they let the Council die, Wrex and who died on Virmire doesn't matter, and if they could upload it somewhere?

I played through ME2 on my last really free weekend of the next few months, so I can't really spare the 20 hours to clear ME again, so if anyone could do it, thanks.

Edit: Nevermind, found http://www.annakie.com/me/home.htm ... It mostly had what I need.

 

Going through the game has been exceedingly easy on Veteran for me. Ridiculously easy, actually. Here's my setup.

Spoiler

Garrus, Mordin, me as an Adept.

Mordin uses AOE Incinerate on all the HP baddies that have no armor/barriers
Garrus uses AOE Concussive Shot on the same ones - everything dies in less than a second.

Go into cover, wait for cooldowns.
Chuck a warp at the nearest armored / barrier'd enemy
Garrus overloads
Mordin incinerates

As soon as there's 4 or less enemies left its completely done. Reason?
Fully upgraded biotic powers in Duration and Cooldown
Bastion fully upgraded on Adept [Minus cooldown again].
Slam. Miranda's loyalty mission. Fully upgraded.
This lifts any unarmored enemy at a cooldown of like 2.25 seconds, and keeps them incapitated or on the ground for around 5. Kind of destroys the game balance.

Only really hard enemy was the

Spoiler

Thrasher Maw

but I just got the final Heavy Weapon before going to him. Nuking THAT was satisfying.

 

The nuke gun is alright but I loved the shit out of the Collector Particle Beam, it was too funny fighting the Collectors with that thing. Whenever Harbinger took over a body I could kill him before he finished even half of his little speech. The only time it ever let me down was on those big Collectors that fire off the biotic shockwaves, I forget the name but those things were a pain in the ass.

 

Scions.

That particle beam is the only reason I beat Horizon on insanity.

Spoiler

The Praetorian at the end of Horizon was ridiculously hard, used the particle beam to take down his barrier and followed up with Armor Piercing rounds with my sniper rifle to take him out.

Teammates are now completely retarded, no other way to describe them. Half of the time when I tell them to move they don't do it, when they do move they decide it's a great idea to either walk right up to the enemy and die or just hide behind cover without actually shooting anything.

I had a moment yesterday where a husk literally stood in front of my team for over a minute, neither my team nor the husk attacked each other...

Spoiler

I had to glitch to beat the Jadore fight when recruiting Grunt. You have to fight Jadore who has Shields, armor, and health, a massive Mech with Shields, armor, and health, and a Krogan with armor and health (Every time you kill one Krogan another one spawns)

I positioned my team just outside of the door leading into the boss room, attacked Jadore once, backed out of the room, and let the Krogan come to the door.

Once the Krogan was at the door I opened it and Cloaked, he killed my team in less than 3 seconds and I snuck through the door and let it close behind me. Leaving the Krogan trapped on the other side with my dead team. From that point taking down the Mech and Jadore from behind cover was relatively easy. Those fucking Krogans made the level impossible to beat otherwise.

 

I just started playing through on hardcore and I nearly pulled my hair out in frustration with my teammates during the fight in the Environmental Control room on Omega. For some reason they both apparently determined the most effective way to stop a Vorcha with a rocket launcher or flamethrower was with their face and don't even get me started on the Krogan. Only Miranda has shown any hints of intelligence thus far as in when the Krogan charged her she used her biotics and got the fuck out of the way. Jacob is less than useless now though, now hes an active hindrance, instead of using the great abilities he has intelligently, he'll just try and melee people half the fucking time. My jaw dropped when he tried to go mano e mano with a shieldless Krogan instead of just using biotics to yank him off the ledge.

I can understand making them less effective to up the challenge level but I think this lobotomy they got is a bit much.

Also on the particle beam

Spoiler

Me too Dr., using that thing is what got me through most every boss fight with ridiculous ease, on my first playthorugh on Veteran I put any boss I came across down like a rabid dog in about a minute thanks to that gun. However just to see what they're like I'm going to try out the other Heavy Weapons. This Avalanche looks like it might be entertaining.

 

I had intended on going with sniper support as my squad. But I think I'm just going to run with Jack and Grunt. I can handle the long distance, Grunt and Jack both have shotties so they can take short range, combine that with Jack's shockwave and Grunt's Concussive shot and I should be ok.

I just need to make sure that they don't go more than 3 feet from me.

Avalanche is the same as Cryo rounds... only really works on guys without shields, barriers, or armor. So basically it's useless on any difficulty above normal.

The Cain seems to be the way to go for Insanity, except in the exact opposite method as the particle beam. Use bullets to take down barriers and shields, follow up with a massive Cain shot and drop its health by half.

Spoiler

Also, was reading on the gamefaqs forum, some guy asked why he didn't get the romance achievement for fucking Jack in the very beginning. The response he got made me chuckle.

Wow, spoiler quote spoiler is complicated...

 

How not to lose anyone during the suicide mission:

Spoiler

The first rule is, only pick people for tasks who are loyal to you.

For the other choices you had to actually listen to the characters and know them.

The best techs are Tali and Legion, so choose either one for the shaft.

As squad leaders, choose either Miranda (she has experience in leadership and was genetically engineered to be a leader) or Garrus (who commanded his own squad). Jacob might also work, though I haven't tried him out, as he was in command of security at Cerberus.

As a biotic you should obviously choose the strongest one. So either Jack (who is a prodigy) or Samara (who trained her biotics for hundreds of years to become a Justicar). Morinth might also work as she seems just as capable at biotics, though I let her be killed so I don't know for sure.


I intentionally let Grunt die, because he seemed just a bit too antagonistic and unstable to tolerate for my extreme Paragon playthrough which I want to import for ME3.

On the game as a whole: I thought it was much better than ME1. In ME1 I only completed the main missions and the sidequests on the main planets. I was too bored to do anything else.
Here I actually explored everything.

A few tedious things: Having to gather ammunition all the time, especially as an Infiltrator with the Widow. Scanning and Probing after the first few systems.


One thing: The whole time playing through ME2 I wondered which actress Miranda was based off, because she seemed strangely familiar the whole time but I couldn't put my finger on it.
I checked "Yvonne Strahovski" after the credits and boy did I feel stupid after that... I actually watched the new Chuck episode while I was playing the game and still didn't notice. Doh!

 

Infiltrator on insanity: took until about halfway through first recruitment mission (Mordin), but then I figured out a playstyle that doesn't result in frequent deaths. Died maybe once on Archangel's recruitment. Still would rather be playing as adept, but infiltrator is different.

I have my squadmates' power usage set to off (defensive powers only). Don't know why anyone would play with the powers set any other way - even in the first ME team AI was horrible. Using d-pad my teammates are always in good positions.

edit: weapon dmg, for those that're interested

 

Spoiler

There's also a renegade option to suggest a sort of 'friends-with-benefits' setup, but she turns you down saying something along the lines of "Were I a maiden, I would drag you to the floor right now, but I'm not anymore and casual sex without feelings doesn't interest me."

Well I just beat it on hardcore, and I've come to the conclusion that the soldier class is fucking boring. Most of the time, you don't even need your damn squad while you're mowing down every enemy you come across. Anyone got an opinion on what class is the most challenging to play as? I actually want to work for my victory next time.

 

Not entirely true...

Spoiler

I had Thane leading the the first team you send off with the dude going into the shaft and Legion going into the shaft.

Thane survived, Legion didn't. ;_;

Samara for the biotic with Grunt doing the other one... Think I sent Mordin back with the crew. Grunt got got. :/

The rest of the everyone survived. And everyone was loyal and I had all their personal upgrades and shit... :\ Fucking BALLS D: