Sunday, December 26, 2010

Mass Effect 2 Insanity


My Commander Shepard is a badass, and not just because he saved the galaxy on Insanity Difficulty, but also because he "romanced" Miranda. In the engine room.

As I understand it, all romances in Mass Effect 2 happen in your quarters except for Miranda's. With her, you bunk right on the floor of the engine room, or as Kasumi puts it: "Oh Shepard. The engine room! Really? Right there where Tali works?"

Yeah, Shepard has an entire small deck as his personal quarters with a lavish bed and lounge area. Miranda has the only other official private quarters on the ship, and while not as large as Shepard's, it also features a large bed and "living room" area. So what does Shepard and Miranda do? Bunk on the engine room floor (where Tali works), an area of the ship that conveniently has windows from every other deck looking in on it.

Now that takes balls.

Oh, and I saved the galaxy on Insanity Difficulty.

In typical playing-a-BioWare-game fashion, I took a break after making it about a third of the way through and came back to the game in force a few weeks later. The end result was an epic 55 hour experience. I completed all Cerberus Network add-ons and DLC (save for "Lair of the Shadow Broker," which I don't own) and every single Mission and Assignment was knocked off. All items were researched save for the Surgical Unit, and the only items remaining in stores were a few N7 Armour pieces I didn't need. Every fish, model ship, and the Space Hamster now reside in my personal quarters.

My Commander John Shepard was a balance between Paragon and Renegade, being ruthless to get things done but compassionate to his crew and people in need. I played as a Solider, my first time playing the class in the franchise, and I primarily relied on Miranda and Grunt throughout the whole game, using Zaeed before I recruited Grunt. Though I completed all the Loyalty missions, I failed to gain Zaeed's loyalty, but at least all my squad members survived the suicide mission, and I rescued all lost crew members as well.

On Insanity, Adrenaline with Sniper Rifle head shots was a huge help, and you really needed to manage your Squad, directing them where to take cover and who to focus on. I also used Fortification as my bonus Skill, which proved helpful in a pinch and when moving from cover to cover. Overall though, I didn't find Insanity that insane. There were certainly several challenging parts that required proper use of the 3 P's, but overall it was far simpler than Mass Effect on Insanity, which I was unable to complete.

Now that I've conquered Mass Effect 2 on Insanity, a few things I'd like to see changed in the upcoming sequel:

- Remove that annoying stun disorientation. When you get smacked good, you're often left disoriented and trying to "shake it off," while all the while getting shot up and dying. This caused a lot of profanity on my part, and when I want to slam into cover, I want to slam into cover. And for those of you thinking disorientation adds more realism, we're talking about a hero who was brought back after dying from asphyxiation and burning up in re-entry. Reality's kinda outta the airlock at that point.

- Bring back Medi-Gel. I don't mean Unity for your Squad, I mean actually using Medi-Gel to manage your own Health. The regenerating healing model simply doesn't feel right, and while I like the revised lack-of-an-inventory system introduced in Mass Effect 2, I miss properly managing my own health.

That's about it really. They implement the above, and in my opinion, BioWare will have the perfect action RPG. They're story telling and most certainly their character development is top notch, and Mass Effect 2 is an excellent experience that no one should miss, on any difficulty.

Oh, and Mordin thought I was hitting on him. No joke.

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