Bacon

The biggest complaint I have still is for the combat. ME2 just has way too much forced cover shooting. No RPG should have you hiding behind cover. Maybe I just picked the best class for ME1, but I never needed cover once I got barrier and even more so once I got explosive rounds. For a lot of ME2, I can play without cover, or only taking cover for an inconsequential amount of time. However there are many times I could not. I'm not sure how much cover you need for the other classes but Vanguard is best played while using as little cover as possible. If you are using cover you are just a poor-man's Soldier. Vanguard can restore 100% of its Shield every time you use charge. Charge has a six second or less cooldown. You can generally spam charge to stay alive and blast enemies to death with your shotgun. But when you can't, you are going to die. See, enemies love to attack from positions you can never charge to because they are out-of-bounds. You have to attack from long range behind cover if you want to live. You also can't charge an enemy who is through a doorway as you cannot charge into other rooms. You can only charge within your current arena. You are nearly forced to allow enemies to take defensive measures. There is also an issue of distance. If the game's built in targeting system can target them, you can't charge. I suppose it is fair to have a range limit, but it feels really bad when they a JUST out of range. There is then the instance in Legion's Loyalty mission where you have to play tower defense. If you didn't select to take the AR or Sniper training while on the Collector Ship, you are going to have a bad time with only SMG's and Pistol. I will never play a class with those limitations and thankfully vanguard starts with a shotgun. You can't even charge them as they ascend your tower either. You have to let them enter your tower if you want to charge. And then there is the final mission. All of your biotic abilities as a Vanguard are useless. You just pepper the boss with fire rounds until it dies, and the rest of the level leading up to the final boss isn't much better. Much of the cover you can't charge through. I once charged off the map and fell to my death. Charge is almost entirely useless on the biotic long walk. While fighting the collectors you must stay inside your bubble and most collectors will not enter the bubble. The only time you can use it is on the husks that charge you but the game's automatic targeting system would not allow me to target them properly. A husk could be right in front of me and yet I could not target it with charge. I played much of the game's final missions as a 2-bit Soldier and that really sucked. I hope some of this is fixed in ME3. I hope charge is more consistent. I know there is a cool combo with Charge and an ability called Nova that people love so I am looking forward to that. I am not looking forward to having less shields at the start however. I know I'll start at level 30 so I'll have some power, but I don't think your armor setup and upgrades carry over. I hope there are less instances of enemies being OOB and I hope I can charge through doorways or something.

For how much the final mission kinda sucks, BioWare still nailed the ending. Goddamn! I hate that this isn't my first time playing this series. Like, even now I feel so damn good about beating the game. I'm cheering for myself cuz of how good it feels to just win. I had recently heard from someone that it doesn't feel good for them to beat games anymore. And I kind of agreed. I mean, I could think of the last time it really felt great to beat a game, and where I wasn't left with complaints of some kind towards the ending. Not even GoWR pulled it off perfectly and beating Demon's souls was nothing special. Sure it felt good to beat them but not like games had before. Not like when I was a kid and I was literally shaking while running down Ganon's castle with Zelda cuz I had to do it. I couldn't die, that would be bad! These past 2 games have gotten close to that. It has been so long since I have played them after hearing about the endings to ME3 that it all feels nostalgic and fresh at the same time. It is a shame what happened with the ending in Mass Effect 3, but now I think I can enjoy the one specific ending. Removing the choice from my mind and deciding on my course from the get-go has really improved my opinion on finally beating ME3 for the first time. I haven't spent all this time to choose an ending, the ending is set in stone due to the choices I have made. Sure, I could choose, I will have to manually select the right color, but that's ok now. As far as I am concerned, the other endings aren't even real. Sorry Joker, EDI. It has to be done. There is no other way.

omg the excuse for the Normandy's invasion is so bad lol

I hate the way in which BioWare imported real faces into Mass Effect. While Shepard's Mark Vanderloo face was imported very well, Miranda's Yvonne Strahovski face looks plastered onto a RealDoll. Same with Jessica Chobot's face in ME3.

Geth were totally going to become sex bots if they never got a mind of their own.

I'm either Miranda and Garrus or Garrus and Zaeed (cuz he is the only one with disruptor ammo). I don't tend to bring Jacob, Grunt, or Mordin cuz I have fire ammo and now reave for armor. Miranda has warp and overload + squad damage and Garrus has armor pricing rounds and overload. Jack is useless for me cuz I didn't save points for squad warp ammo and shields kill all of her biotic potential. Thane and Samara are good for taking out armor and biotic barriers but they lack overload and the bonus squad damage of Miranda.

People always talk shit about Jacob, but he is a pretty good character IMO. He is a friendly guy who actually feels like a regular human friend to Shepard.

Totally off that topic real quick, I am reminded of a huge reason I picked Vanguard in ME1 instead of Adept or other specific classes. I fuckin' hate light armor. It looks so ugly. You can't do that "wear any armor" bug with the quick load times now so there was no way in hell I was picking a class that was stuck with light armor.

I still got my crew. The IFF won't be deciphered right away if you have loyalty missions in your journal.

IDK, weird 2nd paragraph aside, the article didn't seem that bad.

I've saved Tali's mission until now, so I could take Legion. I just hope I didn't fuck up and should have saved two loyalty missions cuz I don't know how long it takes for Legion to give me his mission.

I wonder if there was any negative backlash over the Overlord DLC. Edit: like omg the guy won't stop saying "his autistic mind" lol

So I found out you can hot key most actions, even squad member's, but at this point I don't even need them and I just have them set to auto. It is hard to get a video where I don't miss shots on controller, even with a shotgun. Never realized how often I missed before until trying for some good footage. ME2 is a lot longer than I thought, but I also spent way too much time looking at the wiki for the optimal 1-run experience. I just want everything to be right going into ME3. With how ME3 ends, I don't really need to worry about making shit optimal in ME3 and I don't expect to use the wiki for it. All I know is that I need like 7k+ War Points and I'll get the ending I desire.

Well that's a bummer. Never played ME2 more than once and that was on FemShep. Wish it was a maleShep but nevermind that. Anyway, I've done Jack's and Miranda's Loyalty mission and passed the speech check, but then, suddenly, ROMANCE! I don't want to romance the characters in ME2. I'm just sticking with Liara for that true ending vibe in ME3 and because of the ME4 teaser. But the characters in ME2 really want to fuck Shepard and it makes me feel bad to say no. With Miranda you can kinda just stay neutral but it feels really off to pick the neutral options. Like Shepard goes from sounding like a close friend to a distant boss if you hold back. Jack's is even worse. Miranda never say's "hey, do you like me Shepard?" but Jack does. And at that point you can only pick Yes, Maybe but also yes, or No followed by a harsher denial. What really makes it bad is that when you say no, Shepard claims he is giving Jack what she wants. Like Shepard was interested but decided to say no anyway. Jack then just becomes bitter and basically fucks off for the rest of the game cuz and claims Shepard is just pissin' around. It's just a bummer that you can't keep that feeling of friendship you got right before the romance. Also, BioWare needs to layoff their human fetish like holy shit. As much as I like Jack's Romance Path, I'm just not going to pick it in a game with aliens unless there is a Harem route and fuck does ME need that. Shit would be great. Anyway, back to BioWare's human fetish, in pretty much all of their games, with all of these other races available, you can only bang human women who tend to be white as well. Kotor 1 - Bastila Mass Effect 1 - Ashley, Liara Mass Effect 2 - Miranda, Jack, Tali Mass Effect 3 - The above. Dragon Age 1 - Morrigan, Leliana Dragon Age 2 - Isabela, Merrill Dragon Age 3 - Cassandra, Josephine That's 9 humans and 3 non-humans for the Straight Male characters. I'm sure there is more for both sides in all the games, but I tried to pick ones with actual content in them. And the SWTOR makes this far, far more human sided.

Charge doesn't seem to doo all that much damage, but that video is how I play Vanguard now. The issues is that I didn't have many upgrades until act two. And like, in the video, there is a part where the guy is shooting a Scion with a pistol but I just kept charging and shotgunning because I could. I use the Geth Shotgun tho. I don't get why you'd use anything else. It is far better than the rest. Maybe I can get a good video of how I play later. One issue is that I am playing on Console. Like, my god, this would be so much better if I was on PC but it is "free" with PS+ so that's where I'm playing it. Not being able to hot key everything sucks all the dicks.

Fuckin' reminds me of this Huel ad I kept on seeing comparing a generic blue box mac to its mac with one of those red X's and green checkmarks meme tables, and it listed vegan as being a checkmark. Bitch, that's a downside.

Off topic, but I tried that thing where you put the real cheese in the boxed mac n cheese. I was hoping there would be a bigger taste difference but there wasn't. However, the added texture is great. Shit was super creamy and cheesy and it was a big improvement.

This is something that is an issue in all games, but man, vanguard feels much better after a whole lot of upgrades in ME2. In ME1, it was kind of the same, but you can get really great mods pretty quickly which solve many issues. Whereas in ME2 everything is dumped in Act 2 and even then it still takes a bit to get all of the upgrades. Like, if I could have had all the shield upgrades before finishing Act 1 or at least 3/5 upgrades, if would have felt much better. I know I am playing in Insanity and all, but still. I feel like that was something games sucked at but have gotten better at over the years. Hard modes just weren't fun. They forced you into playing safe instead of encouraging you to be more aggressive. Now, it is pretty much far better for me to be as aggressive as I can be. Hiding behind cover has killed me more than using charge now that I have the upgrades to my shotgun and shields. The only enemy that sucks to fight now are the Praetorian bosses. My bread 'n butter just doesn't work. The Praetorian just seems lame to me. Feels cheap.

Can't say I'm a fan of ducks.

The New Ye Times

I've been rewatching part of NeverKnowsBest's video on Mass Effect and there is something I felt he missed, but it still mostly correct, and ME2 then makes a reason why. He points out there is no reason for a class. Why not have skill trees instead where you can pick guns, tech, and biotics. Then he goes on to ask why are classes represented with certain weapons. Why can you be a sniper focused Vanguard instead of a Shotgunning one? And that is a fair point. ME2 then doubles down on that and takes away the weapons that don't rep you chosen class, but you may acquire one later. But what he didn't understand is that the reason for that shotgun representation in Mass Effect 1. The goal what to put you into a specific playstyle. They wanted you to run across the battlefield with barrier up and become a close combat fighter. Your biotics where there to stun and weaken your enemies to prevent harm to yourself and to make it so you could kill even faster. ME2 then forces the intended playstyles on players. You no longer have access to all of your weapons. Unless you are a Soldier, you will always lack at least 1 weapon from the original game. I mostly disagree with the stronger focus on classes but that is because they took away how I play vanguard. You are still expected to charge across the battlefield, hence the charge skill, but insanity is much more cruel and you can't really be the menace you once were because of all the shields. Most of the time, if you charge in, ya gonna die. Heavy Charge does restore your shields, but that will vanish faster that you obtained it. Pull is locked behind 3 requirements and even then you can't pull unless enemy shields are down. There is no Barrier skill on this class anymore. Sure, you can get it from a squad member, but you can't use other biotic abilities due to all abilities sharing the same cooldown. You would have to wait up to 12 seconds max before you could use something else and Barrier in this game is only as strong as your shield. Barrier as a bonus power is mostly for Soldiers.

That's probably what I'll do. If this decision mattered at all for me3 it would be far easier to make. While it is most often the choice I would make, I am mostly just picking choices that have the most carry over into me3. Will this character appear in me3? Yes? OK, no killing them. No? Oh, fantastic! Time to blast'em with my shotgun! I just want to see all the content in one go any usually making a BIG renegade decision mean less content in ME3. At least I can be racist to Batarians without consequence! I mean, I did let that one go, but only because if I killed him there would be less shit in ME3.

Man, I am having such a hard time deciding between credits and an AR upgrade in ME2. In Zaeed's Loyalty mission you get the AR upgrade (10% damage) for being a bad boy and an extra 30K for being a good boy. Credits might serve me better, but I am also going to select AR training on the collector ship mission. Hardest choice I've had to make in both games.

Yer off the hook this time...