What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Fenrir]

It is pretty much this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvgvrI7HZ3M

Adept is more laid back and less tense at least. Stay from cover and watch the fireworks/shoot the flying enemies.
It is absolutely terrible in a high difficulty mode but I think It's fine in normal.

[AndrewRogue]

Eh. Tech Armor let Sentinel get away with a lot of bullshit in 2/3.

*waves the Sentinel is best class flag*

True gish awesomeness.

[Sierra]

I was also a square, although I think I was a smarmy jackass to Joker due to him generally deserving it(he is awesome, but...). I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE CREDITS MUSIC! I laughed and laughed at how eighties this was. (Still better than most game vocals!)

I genuinely liked it!

So importing character data in no way constrains you to the same class, right? (Actually, does it copy gender/face, or is it purely the story decisions that are retained from one game to the next?) You pretty much build fresh in the sequels? I will probably kill people with my brain in those just to shake things up.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Man, here one of my concerns with the shooter side of ME1 was that cover played too large a role.

Cid: You can change classes, yes.


Dark Souls - Tomb of the Giants! This was hellish until a friend tipped me off that to use the Skull Lantern, it has to be set as a -shield- and not a weapon. Whoops. Fun enough area past that, the quadrapedal skeletons were suitably scary at first. Nito kinda sucked as advertised, I beat him first try but at least he went through some of my healing? Demon Ruins now, Ceaseless Discharge was a couple tries (one where I threw myself into a pit attacking his body) then pretty easy. Afterwards I went butchering recoloured bosses until I got eaten by a sandworm. This is the life.

FE7 HHM - Up to Battle Before Dawn. Got Harken despite some grief of leaving the mobile Purge dude alive for a long time (I always find it much easier to get Karel in Kenneth's map). 5 stars in everything except Funds, damn you promotions.

[Grefter]

Cover is always going to be a factor in a shooter (unless you want to stand in the open and face tank?).  The active implementation of chest high walls is a thing though.  You honestly can get away just fine without using it much and just use natural cover in plenty of instances.

Or roll Vanguard I suppose.

This is part of what I dug about ME3 combat though, especially in mutliplayer.  I roll Engineer a lot.  In ME3 you can go with a light weapon loadout so you can use specials more often.  My overload chains to 3 enemies and stuns with like double damage to shields and barriers or something.

ME3 multiplayer lets you be Darth Quarian and it is fantastic.

[Shale]

Shining Force III: final chapter. Time to train up the Scenario 1 and 2 teams and get the super ultimate weapons. Second promotions and the attendant weapon upgrades made the last few battles pretty well balanced (plus I used a cheap way to grind for weapon skill levels). The optional boss guarding those superswords is going to be a real experience, though...

[Anthony Edward Stark]

How does Vanguard work in 2/3? I like them the best thematically, but I was told that they were hard to play as in 1 so I didn't.

[SnowFire]

I was pretty happy just playing vanilla Soldier in ME2 - but on the one-step-below-hardest difficulty level on a PC with a mouse for aiming, so getting the shots right was fairly tense at times.

I'm fine with a cover shooter, just that to make cover shooters interesting, the bad guys need to be constantly trying to flank you so they can get a tasty shot at your totally unprotected side.  There are a few enemies that do this, but not really enough, and when this doesn't happen the "lurk behind nearly invincible cover" strategy works a tad too well in the gunfights.  (evil crazed dogs or zombies or hte like can get you, maybe, but the run & gun works there.  Zombies coming for your position + dudes with guns pinning you down, that's what's interesting, but that's also fairly rare.)  Also the equivalent of explosives everywhere was the ridiculous "oh look an empty field near a landed spaceship, COVER EVERYWHERE from offloaded barrels or just random bumps in the ground or whatever.  Okay, yes, a cover shooter should be a cover shooter, but since the system works fine for some more open mobility or sniping based play, I wish it'd been more 80% cover shooter, 20% weird stuff, rather than a 90/10 split ME2 mostly is.

Vanguard is pretty amusing and I'd probably give it a run if I ever replayed ME2, though.

[SnowFire]

So Cerberus I guess is the Umbrella Corp of the Mass Effect universe. Create horrifying, uncontrollable monstrosities -> ??? -> profit!

And oh yes, while on the ME note.  Cerberus is more competent in ME2, but it definitely has a few headscratcher moments.  The Overlord DLC is pretty notable as one - the chief supervisor at this Cerberus research facility has basically screwed up in the usual "create horrifying, uncontrollable monstrosties" way; you can read reports about how he's in trouble with the higher-ups due to not delivering results, and how he forces his scientists to do the obligatory "attempt this incredibly dangerous operation and who cares about safety or turning on deactivated Geth to turn the area into grounds for a cover shooter mission."  Fine, we all need excuses for a cover mission.  However, the big choice at the end is something along the lines of "spare him and his human test subject so he can continue working for Cerberus" or "Punch him but then let him continue as before, having cleaned out the current problems at the base."  And then Cerberus will be pissy at Shepard if you pick the Paragon option.  UM.  Frankly I'd assume that the only reason Cerberus would want this researcher who managed to get a bunch of Cerberus personnel dead and half an expensive facility blown up is so that they could inflict extreme torture on him.  And they want to let him continue working?  Wut.

[Grefter]

He still had a use.  Cerberus do often dispose of agents that have failed, but only after they aren't useful.  He clearly showed progress in some area.

Frankly in ME2 and ME3, all the classes play differently, but the core shooting mechanics are strong enough that I am confident you could get through the game as a Sentinel only using your Pistol.

If you are going to play on Normal (or easy!  Don't dismiss faceroll mode if you aren't having fun with shooter stuffs) then Adept will play perfectly fine Ciatos.  The specifics of why they don't scale well is that in ME2 enemies can have Armour, Shields or Barriers to get through before you can do HP damage.  They can damage Armour (and barriers?) pretty good with Warp, but otherwise you can't do much until things are in HP range.  Most of your other spells only effect things down to HP.  On normal you don't face much with shields/armour.  On Hard or more everything has something like that.  So they scale horribly with difficulty because of it though.

I think they are kind of OP on Normal honestly because you can just dump a Singularity and fuck up an entire room.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The higher difficulty modes are one of the best examples of scaling up difficulty in a game. It doesn't just scale up all enemy stats with a coefficient and call it a day like most RPGs do, it actually gives enemies new abilities and makes you change your tactics. I can't think of another game that did it so well. Alpha Protocol has the same idea but the combat in that game was so totally unbalanced it doesn't work as well.

[Grefter]

It is a neat vector for difficulty scaling to be sure, it just does not apply equally across all classes.  Tech classes in general really shine under it due to trending to having more tools to handle the different layers of protection.  I think that is fine for Insanity where the game really doesn't pull any punches (and I consider doing it as anything but Infiltrator a wilful increase in difficulty on the player's part), but Hard scales it up too hard too fast.

[Fenrir]

Oh yeah I don't think we have mentioned it yet, but one of the biggest problems with Adepts in ME2/3 is that nearly every skill shares the same cooldown. You can't Lift and then Throw; if you use Lift you have to wait a few seconds to use anything else.
That's also why an adept is probably only going to level up one spell and only ever use that + guns.

I wanted to like the tech classes but found them more boring than soldier.

[Ryogo]

In the ME series, I always made a point of keeping the same class through each game with my Shepard. I think I was Infiltrator my first run down the series. Having a sniper rifle was always a huge plus in those games I found. In ME2 though, it was negated a bit when you get to choose an extra weapon proficiency later. ME2 was definitely my favourite in the series, though I'm one of the people that wish they didn't simplify the character leveling. Still fantastic games though.

Actually, I'm curious to know who everyone else used as their go-to party now. My party as a rule was Shep, Jack, and either Thane or Grunt to round it out.

I actually beat Bioshock Infinite today, and all I can say is DAMN it was good. I'm a masochist when it comes to shooters so I made my first playthrough on hard. I immediately dove back into 1999 mode and am loving every second of it. Apparently, I missed a good 15 voxcorders and 10 sightseeing locations so I've got something extra to do other than just replay the game. I get to go on a scavenger hunt too

[AndrewRogue]

ME3, I want to say, was where they finally found the happy balance for powers + shooting? ME1 it was WAAAAAAY skewed to powers being amazingly stupid, ME2 shifted a bit too heavily for shooting (particularly on higher difficulties), and ME3 hit that sweet spot?

Honestly, for raw gameplay, I think I'd be hard pressed to argue 3 wasn't flat out the best game? Just got all the elements to come together right (shooting, powers, use of cover, mobility, flanking, etc).

Anyhow, my default party trended towards Shep, Tali, who the fuck cares (more seriously, rotated between most PCs, but did generally use Mordin or Garrus the most).

League of Legends: 5 game winning streak! Followed by 4 game losing streak! I dunno. Still having trouble with decision making, I think. My general mechanics are improving pretty well, but I'm still not that hot at determining what I should be doing when, especially come midgame. I'm also still a little prone to not vary my item builds enough.

Bioshock: Decided to play this and then replay Infinite to really look at the two next to each other. Up past Steinman. He is very pretty now.

Fun fact: Infinite uses a completely different (read: more natural) control scheme on console then Bioshock does. Fuck Bioshock's control scheme.

[Fenrir]

ME3 has a good evolution of ME2's gameplay, but its mission structure and characters just aren't as great.
I mostly rotate characters in ME2 too since there are so many great ones and you don't have to micromanage them like in ME1. Mordin steals all the spotlight though, he's the best character in the series and I have to stop myself from using him all the time.
The best complementary powers were Warp and Overload, making Miranda particularly effective. At least in higher difficulty modes. In lower ones I tend to forget I can give orders to them.
I don't use Miranda that much though, because she's supposed to be the perfect woman but looks like Michael Jackson.

[MC50]

As someone who played through all three Mass Effect games at roughly the same time, (I started the series a little before 3 came out) as an adept, I had the most fun in 3 by far.

Oh, Adept is the most overpowered in 1, no doubt. Stasis works on everybody. Even the last boss.

And they're useless in 2.

But in 3, they're great. OK, Singularity is pretty bad (except in MP), but Warp/Throw is good. Warp/Cluster Grenade is better. And pull has its uses if you're using a good shield stripping gun. They're a lot of fun.

I put about 300 hours into ME3's multiplayer, and I almost never take cover. I usually just use soft cover like Perfect Dark or something, as Mass Effect is the first FPS I've played since, uh, Perfect Dark. It seems to work!!

[Grefter]

Multiplayer moves way way faster than single.  You can still use cover in it, but not being stuck to a wall leaves you way more agile yeah and mobility is super useful in levels that are largely just kill boxes.

If you liked ME3 multi you should really check out Warframe by the way.  F2P game on Steam that is pretty friendly.

[Sierra]

I don't use Miranda that much though, because she's supposed to be the perfect woman but looks like Michael Jackson.

God dammit Fenrir now I can't not see it. It's a good thing she goes out of her way to be unlikable anyway.

So yeah, started ME2 as an adept. Amusing that the facial scar I picked for ME1 didn't carry over to the ME2 character model, but I guess it makes some odd sense. Shepard did acquire new ones, after all. I can't say I think much of my new employers, but it's okay because space Dirty Harry's got my back. Everyone really calls the Illusive Man "the Illusive Man," even the people who work for him? That's barely a word!

I have to wonder, has anyone shifted Shepard's gender between games, and if so does the game comment on this in any way?

[Cotigo]

I don't use Miranda that much though, because she's supposed to be the perfect woman but looks like Michael Jackson.

God dammit Fenrir now I can't not see it. It's a good thing she goes out of her way to be unlikable anyway.

So yeah, started ME2 as an adept. Amusing that the facial scar I picked for ME1 didn't carry over to the ME2 character model, but I guess it makes some odd sense. Shepard did acquire new ones, after all. I can't say I think much of my new employers, but it's okay because space Dirty Harry's got my back. Everyone really calls the Illusive Man "the Illusive Man," even the people who work for him? That's barely a word!

I have to wonder, has anyone shifted Shepard's gender between games, and if so does the game comment on this in any way?

Eh? As far as I can remember if you're loading from an ME1 save you don't have the option to change gender.  Maybe change the face, though I didn't because I was pretty happy with Cunnilingus Shepard's face to begin with.

[Sierra]

Huh. I saw it gave me the option to edit the face despite loading a character and just assumed that meant editing everything? Did not mess with it to find out, though.

[Fenrir]

Sorry Cid.
I noticed it right away! I somehow thought everyone else did!!


ZHP Crazy Grind:
There is a method to the grind. It's better

- Final boss' equipment stolen. Pretty hilarious how he's just a random goon underneath all his clothes.
- More 9999 levels by mass murdering , now the main character has a super uber (useless) jump in the main base.
- Some attack removed on the Shadowgram, some defense added, all speed removed. No more getting one shotted out of nowhere in the middle of a big dungeon by having a glass canon build. I'm pretty sure that speed has no point.
- Absorber (Maintains equipment durability if no damage is taken) found. I can now go in long stretches without losing any defensive equipment durability.

I now always equip a headgear with No Pain No Gain (50% reduction) + Energy Saver (50% reduction). They stack. I lose some attack power, but I can just stay in place and recover all my HPs all the time, and never worry about food again.

I swear I'm getting there! The build is pretty amazing right now, I think I just really need to synth shit.

[Sierra]

It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't have such an amazing ass.

Anyway, finished with Omega and returned to Citadel. Bought a space hamster, owned that snooty reporter, and discovered I am the core marketing demographic for Asari burial shrouds. Notably more amusing than my first visit to Citadel! The idle chatter is fun and it sounds remarkably like they put Doc Mitchell in charge of security. I guess I also talked to some politicians and recruited a ninja but pfft. Next time I am letting the evil robots eat you people. I have also recruited a Mordin and he is a source of smiles. "Flammable! Or inflammable! Can't recall. Doesn't matter."

Today's obligatory Star Trek reference: "It's green."

So are there like no female turians/salarians/krogans to be found anywhere or do they just look/sound alike so you don't actually know what gender anyone is? (Possibly this is in a codex entry but I am not in the habit of reading those. It has been my experience with other games that dump their lore in encyclopedias that such entries are rarely of any genuine interest to me.)

Every store on Citadel Station is my favorite store on Citadel Station. I'm sure this won't prove awkward later. Look it's not like anyone demanded an exclusivity contract.

[Grefter]

Considering the official status of Shep in like 75% of routes there, no one is going to be able to do much about it or believe the endorsement. 

Counsellor for Salarians is female.  You do see Female Krogans once you hit Tuchanka in 3.  I believe you see a female Turian sometime (??!??).

Mostly it is just efficiency of character models and VA unfortunately, but yes most alien interaction is massive sausage fest. 

Plot wise, Krogan's have an excuse for only encountering males (kind of obvious), Salarians there is no excuse for, but at least you see some.  Turians, no excuse really.  They are pretty clearly equal opportunity based on a specific conversation with Garrus in ME1 (She had speed, I had reach and strength), but you never really run into female Turians.

Asari, humans and Quarrians kind of fill in female quota in the series, it is noticeable and kind of unfortunate, but it would be far from the first time or the most majour time a business choice in keeping costs down impacts some of the integrity.  Budget is unfortunately a realistic concern in this artform after all.

She is honestly modelled after the VA (easy to find comparison images), but yeah there is definitely an MJ look in there.  Unreal Engine 3 making everything look a little plastic doesn't help.

[SnowFire]

Only one store was my Shepard's favorite store, darn it.  (Although inexplicably the game feeds you more Paragon points if you sell out even more.)

XO Tigh is in charge of security at the Citadel, more specifically.  (Yeah, same as Mitchell from a quick Google check.)