Mass Effect 2 - BioWare
 

Surprised there wasnt a Mass Effect 2 thread yet even though its coming out in 2 months (NA - 26 January 2010 and EU - 29 January 2010) the official website:

http://masseffect.bioware.com/

Omega Trailer:



Subject Zero Trailer



Basically sequel to Mass Effect from the makers of Dragon Age: Origins and of course Mass Effect 1, coming out for PC and the Xbox 360, in this Mass Effect by continuing your save from the old Mass Effect; all the decisions you made from the old game will continue into this game if you choose to or you can start afresh and the game will make a canon backstory for this Shepard for you.

Furthermore the central theme during this game is the death of Shepard due to the fact that Shepard is going into what could be called a suicide mission and the end of the game can range from:

Everyone in Shepard's crew surviving - A bloodbath where everyone dies including Shepard

To everything in between, this being a permanent death will mean that Shepard will not appear in Mass Effect 3 unless of course he survived during your play through, so you should probably be careful about your choices.

Features:

- There are 10 Squad Members 3 of which have been left unconfirmed (Hoping Ashley/Kaiden will be in it :p )

- Heavy Weapons system added

- New guns of course including a gun that turns enemies to dust and a freaking nuke gun :D

- Pistols have been split into 2 types: Machine and Heavy

- New biotic abilities

- New combat moves including an arcing concussive shot attack that delivers a "physics punch" to foes and a heavy adrenaline rush which slows down time and allows the player to close the gap between themselves and the enemy.

- Limbs can be targeted and shot off and characters with limbs blown off will limp or crawl (Im gonna kill someone Monty Python style)

- Ammo Upgrades such as Cryo Rounds and Incendiary Rounds are now accessible from the radial menu like biotic and tech talents and there are new upgrades

- The interrupt system intended to be in the original Mass Effect has now been implemented. In longer conversations, button prompts may occasionally appear that allow Shepard to intervene and control the flow of the conversation. Interrupts will add renegade or paragon points just like normal options

- Dragon Age: Origins special armour for people who bought the game and pre-order items have been shown

- A lot more DLC

- Changed the inventory system

- Your morality will effect your appearance kind of like Fable 2 with renegade worsening Shepard's scarring and facial implants (but I like having the GAR Renegade character, which renegade do you see who is ugly?! Dont they know that evil is sexy)

- New creatures, enemies and interest groups

- Leader of the group Cerberus in the first game makes an appearance

- Two new alien species called the Drell and the Vorcha and others yet to be revealed

- New locations

- Places will look a lot more busier and livelier

- Improved Normandy

- Engineers and allies who are "heavy tech power specialists" will now be able to use drones in combat. These drones will attack enemies that the controller selects and then auto-select their next targets. Their intended role is "to distract, suppress, and lock down enemies.

- Over 200 animations for taking cover

- Improvements to the engine and better AIs for squadmates and enemies and improves other areas

- Planet exploration will be more interactive

- Controls have been streamlined to make combat and squad commands more natural. Shepard can give context-based squad commands and powers and abilities can be now be button mapped.

- Sadly no new game plus feature is there however after completing the main missions continued play is allowed to complete side missions and unlocked missions. However Insanity mode will be there from the start

- No medi-gel packs instead regenerating health system

- New vehicle to replace Mako to improve handling

- Good news: Casey Hudson has stated that the elevator loading scene transitions are gone and have been replaced with "A completely new system to handle transitions between areas that speeds the load times and turns the loads themselves into part of the game experience."

- Texture pop-in has been fixed

Yay ME2 thread, about time.

I did a third playthough on my infiltrator paragon some time back and everything is set for ME1 with my preferred choices. As backup I also got my renegade soldier... although I can't remember what choices I made.

Anyway, I've watched numerous gameplay vids and it looks much better, both in terms of textures and gameplay. All changes noted above are welcome, especially the horrible elevator scenes. However, I ahdn't heard of morality affecting appearance so that will be very interesting to see.

I also hope I can have two krogans in my squad... the combination of Wrex and Grunt would probably provide entertainment. If not, Subject Zero is an obvious candidate.

I've been too distracted by Star Ocean 4, Gears of War 2 and now I have MW2 so completing my 2nd and 3rd playthrough is beginning to look like a dream. Ashley and the gang are said to make an appearance Subject Zero looks like the new rebellious chick that wants to hold Shepard's gun :naughty:

Two Krogans would be overkill though, especially if the AIs are smarter, the interrupt thing sounds cool (Im gonna be interuppting that freaking Ambassador Udina whenever they give me the chance). I dont like the whole morality effects your appearance, these days renegades dont look ugly instead they are the ineffectual loner that every girl wants and every guy wants to be and in the case of the female the guy and girl thing is reversed.

I got a renegade soldier as well and the Council died and Commander Anderson was put in the Council in my 1st playthrough just to stick it to Udina (I really hate that guy)

I'm still wondering, how exactly will your save affect ME2? Not to mention that I have a character with whom I've done the last mission at least a dozen times. I wonder if that'll give me trouble.

For my latest playthrough I actually saved the Council and let them decide everything. I haven't done that before so the result was quite interesting and I will see how that affects ME2.

I guess it works from your latest ME1 save, since you choose the character to load the save from. Characters that died on the latest playthrough don't return, organizations you made enemies I guess won't like you (in my case, Cerberus... they really don't like me). Since Cerberus is confirmed to return, I can only guess they will give me more trouble than help...

The Illusive Man (leader of Cerberus) is said to be giving Shepard orders throughout the course of the game so he might not hate you.

Hmm... too bad. I guess it only affects their attitudes somewhat. Still, I'm going to be in-character and resist them at every corner for the heck of it :p

First must-buy of the new year.

One thing to notice is that sex scenes and strippers are hinted/shown in the trailer so be prepared for controversy!

I also like how at a certain point in the story, Shepard gets a facial injury that can heal or get infected/scar depending on his moral stance. Minor, but still a neat little addition.

*shrug* My Shepperd already has a badass scar anyway. One more won't hurt.

Try playing a Sentinel with AR extra talent. You won't regret it.

I never bother with biotics much, I'm more of a weapons kind of guy, so the Soldier class was the choice for me.

Same here, special powers dont interest me unless the come in the form of special techniques that can be used with a weapon, it would be good if we got to play as my squadmates during missions instead of always being Shepard

You underestimate the power of warp with the sniper rifle + HE ammo, or throw + grenade.

Biotics are hard to use I must admit, but they are a whole lot more fun than just pure weapons.

Regarding the nude and strippers, if my media ministry intervenes, I am firing off a letter to the corruption police regarding their rating, then making a whole big fuss about it. The last time they delayed ME1's release is because of the false rumors about the sex scenes (remember the evangelist radical and the fox-b*tch?), which is purely on a cock-and-bull basis and assumption. Since when do taxpayers hire such over-educated yet retarded individuals to run some degenerate rating system? Play the damned game, then rate, instead of listening to some incoherent Christian Taliban-wannabe spout nonsense.

Difficulity doesn't enter into it for me, I just like 'throw down the door guns blazing' a lot more than biotics. I get to use enough magic in the other 5734 RPG's, so I tend to grab one that lets me use guns with both hands.

Though perhaps if we can hotbutton a skill or two...

You can hotbutton the skills Kero-chan. Since you like guns blazing in, maybe I should call you Sgt Kerorko from n- *IS SHOT*. :p

*tilts head* You can? How? I've always wondered how.

You put 2 female anime characters together, make them drunk and put them in the same room then PRESTO! :p

No. Actually if you are playing PC, you just drag them to the 1-4 hotkeys at the very bottom of the screen. Default keys for weapons are F1-F4 instead of the number buttons, so unless you reassigned them, you should be able to do so.

*slaps in the bacck of the head*


but yea Biotech's are fun, too bad they only spec Shotguns. I played as a vanguard my self