General Gaming So I Replayed and Beat Mass Effect. It is flawed but still really great. TRILOGY COMPLETE! (and MEA too)

[Bacon]

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. 

[skillzdadirecta]

48 minutes ago, Bacon said:

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. 

Go with the credits. 

[Bacon]

47 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Go with the credits. 

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. 

[skillzdadirecta]

41 minutes ago, Bacon said:

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. 

If you want to make sure you see all of the content make sure you buy every star chart in the kiosks. Some missions you can't get unless you have those star charts.

[Bacon]

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. 

[gamer.tv]

So, I started Mass Effect and I had the same feeling that I did re-watching Donnie Darko for the first time in about 15 years. It’s more entertaining than it should be, some parts are vaguely shit…but not much of it. It also reminded me how brilliant this was and gaming in general around the mid to late 2000’s was. The fact that my first three games on the 360 were Gears 1, Bioshock and this was almost silly.

[best3444]

15 minutes ago, gamer.tv said:

So, I started Mass Effect and I had the same feeling that I did re-watching Donnie Darko for the first time in about 15 years. It’s more entertaining than it should be, some parts are vaguely shit…but not much of it. It also reminded me how brilliant this was and gaming in general around the mid to late 2000’s was. The fact that my first three games on the 360 were Gears 1, Bioshock and this was almost silly.

 

I fuckin love Donnie Darko. 

[skillzdadirecta]

On 12/18/2022 at 3:43 AM, Bacon said:

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. 

All of this is exactly right. I've replayed the game multiple times and have beaten the trilogy with each class more than once.Another thing folks miss about the classes from the first trilogy is that there are six classes, three "Pure" classes and three "hybrids". The three "pure classes are 

 

SOLDIER

ADEPT

ENGINEER

 

The three hybrid classes are 

VANGUARD

SENTINEL

INFILTRATOR

 

Soldier is the class MOST people played which is a shame as it is the least interesting way to play the game. Basically turns the game into an average third person shooter. Even so, you can use all of the guns in the game and with the various ammo powers, you can still pply status effects to enemies and will always have a counter to the various defenses enemies will display the further you get in the game. This is important on higher difficulties. Soldier is analogous to warriors in traditional RPGS.

 

Adept one of the most fun ways to play the game with all of the biotic abilites you have at your disposal, particularly in the first game. WIthout a global cooldown, you could combine abilities with hilarious results like using lift on an enemy then using push to send their weightless body out into the void of space. That never gets olds. Adept is the Mage of Mass effect.

 

Engineer is the tech class and is not as fully fleshed out as it should be in these games. Engineer is attempting to be this series analogue to a controller archtype in traditional RPGS? I'm not sure. It's the least played class I've used in my various playthroughs of the series.

 

Vanguard is a hybrid of adept and soldier, combining elements of both. Pretty fun way to play the game as @Bacon says, zipping around with your biotics then shotgunning fools in the face. My current playthrough is with a Vanguard. For some weird reason I always make my renegade vanguards look my stepfather

 

Sentinel is a combination of engineer and and adept and is also a pretty fun way to play the game combining the strengths of both classes with few of the weaknesses. 

 

Infiltrator is a combination of Soldier and engineer and is my personal favorite way to play the game especially in ME2. Love the rapid fire sinper rifle you get and using shield drain and camo will keep you alive on even the toughest difficulties.

 

@Bacon thanks for this topic. I have a current run on ME2 legendary edition that I need to finish and this topic has reminded me of that and inspired me to do so. I ronically enough alot of your thoughts about the way classes work are pretty much remedied in Andromeda. Andromeda SHOULD have been good and is probably the best game in the series from a gameplay standpoint but is the weakest when it comes to everything else.

 

 

 

[Bacon]

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. 

[skillzdadirecta]

45 minutes ago, Bacon said:

My bread 'n butter just doesn't work. The Praetorian just seems lame to me. Feels cheap. 

The problem I've found with Mass Effect 2 particularly with those bosses but with the over all game is that this is one of those game where you're TRULY limited by the controls. Shepard just isn't nimble enough sometimes to get out of the way of certain attacks and if you add to that that lame stumble animation you get sometimes when you're hit with a hard attack that takes control away from you, you end up dying because you just lost control of your character. That's one of my main critques of ME2 and I HATE it when games kind of base their difficulty around THEIR control scheme that they give you. Survival Horror games are notorious for this and two of the biggest examples I've played in recent times are RE Village and Evil Dead the game.  Those games' controls schemes are not adequate for what the games' throw at you by design.  It's a cheap way to add a challenge to shallow gameplay in my opinion. Thanks fully the ME series got better with that with ME3 and Andromeda which, in my opinion, is the best playing ME game to date.

[legend]

On 12/18/2022 at 6:43 AM, Bacon said:

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. 

 

 

FWIW, charge for vanguard is pretty great, but it requires a very aggressive play style and specing. There was video a long time ago I saw that really changed how I played it. Not sure this was the one because he seems to be using his gun far too often  but something like this:

 

 

I also played a ton of the ME2 multiplayer and really honed the vanguard charge build to the point that it was crazy OP and I reliably had the most damage output of anyone by a large margin.

 

I can't remember all the details of how to spec it right, but the crux of what you want to do is really get the cooldown fast and build things so that you get the shields/barrier when you charge. Then you just fly across the map as often as possible to keep your health up. It makes for a very intense experience and you tend to level the battle field really fast  

[Bacon]

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. 

[Bacon]

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.  

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I replayed it when the Legendary edition came out last year. I very much liked the updates to the game. Both visually and gameplay. The time before when I replayed ME I did not look upon the shooting mechanics as fondly. 
 

I’ve never been as hard on male Shep’s ME1 voice work as others. ME1 was definitely the low point for him though. A little bit of head cannon, but I often attributed is in his new responsibilities he fell into his “soldier role” as a way to cope with everyone’s expectations of him and gravity of the situation. In ME he seemed to treat everyone like he was their supervisor, their commanding officer. Which did make romance kind of weird, I’ll admit. But then in ME2 it was like he had grown a bit more rogue-ish. He talked to friends like they were friends. Maybe it was a “life’s too short, so I’m not gonna bottle myself up” kind of thing having died. Yeah yeah yeah. I’m giving it all too much credit. 
 

But I think this was why in ME1 we felt the support characters had more impact and relevance to the story and missions than they did. We all got absorbed into the story. Shepard became an extension of us and the game, for its time, felt immersive enough that it felt like our own personal sci-fi adventure story. 
 

ME1 helped raise the bar for story telling in an RPG, and in gaming in general. Gaming has since tried to surpass that bar even more. You see that with games that came after, including ME2 and 3. So it’s natural going back to the game, especially 10-15 years later, that you will feel it hasn’t aged as well as your memory of it. Sometimes we may even judge it a bit harsher because of those memories, vs a person who plays it for the first time today. 
 

ME1 was a game that was very rare at the time and still is. The care and time put into world building is something so few games attempt. Their worlds feel like they have no history, it’s all feels surface level. I loved just listening to and reading Codex entries to get a better understanding of the Galaxy, its history, and politics. This to me was what was lacking more than anything else in Andromeda. You can patch polish, but not world building and lore. I was hoping we’d get more in DLC or a sequel, but alas…

[Bacon]

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. 

[Bacon]

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 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

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 

Back then? Probably not... there would be today though.

 

3 hours ago, Bacon said:

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. 

 

 

Yeah I beat ME2 at LEAST 6 times, once I finish the legendary edition that will be the 7th or 8th, I forget which one was the optimal run. I know on ONE of my playthroughs Shepard died at the end of the suicide mission because too may of my squadmates died leading up to the mission 

 

Make sure you don't take too long going on the suicide mission after you crew has been snatched or you won't be able to save them. Also make sure you invest in as many upgrades for your crew and ship before going on the suicide mission to ensure survivabilty. And if you haven't already, do all of the loyalty missions.

[Bacon]

2 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Make sure you don't take too long going on the suicide mission after you crew has been snatched or you won't be able to save them. Also make sure you invest in as many upgrades for your crew and ship before going on the suicide mission to ensure survivabilty. And if you haven't already, do all of the loyalty missions.

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. 

[skillzdadirecta]

10 minutes ago, Bacon said:

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 made that same mistake... has your crew been kidnapped yet? I think you have one, maybe two missions that you can do before launching the suicide mission to get them back safely. You MAY have to go immediately as soon as you're able. I forget. I know on my current playthrough I'm pretty sure I fucked up because I had like three loyalty missions to do after they got kidnapped. My crew is toast pretty much

[Bacon]

3 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I made that same mistake... has your crew been kidnapped yet? I think you have one, maybe two missions that you can do before launching the suicide mission to get them back safely. You MAY have to go immediately as soon as you're able. I forget. I know on my current playthrough I'm pretty sure I fucked up because I had like three loyalty missions to do after they got kidnapped. My crew is toast pretty much

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

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

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

hmmm it got deciphered with me and I still had a couple to do. Samara and Legion's I think. You should be good to go as long as they haven't been snatched.

[Bacon]

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. 

[Bacon]

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. 

[skillzdadirecta]

31 minutes ago, Bacon said:

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. 

Jacob was ok... my go to squad on most of my Playthroughs was Shepard, Miranda and Grunt. I always found myself defaulting to that squad even though I spent good chunks of time on my playthroughs with all of the characters.

[Bacon]

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.  

[johnny]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

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. 

he sucks. and if you romance him as a femshep he cheats on you lmao 

[Bacon]

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

[best3444]

All I know is Miranda got dat ass. 

[Bacon]

3 minutes ago, best3444 said:

All I know is Miranda got dat ass. 

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. 

[best3444]

13 minutes ago, Bacon said:

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. 

 

I honestly kinda forget. I just remember initially playing it way back and that stood out. 

[Bacon]

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

[Bacon]

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. 

[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. 

[Bacon]

1. Omg wtf me3 feels so fuckin weird

 

2. The arrival dlc is great because I got to explode 300k batarians

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

In ME1 I played Vanguard because it was the closest thing to a Jedi in the game, just with a gun. 
 

I tried Vanguard in ME2, but didn’t care for it. It was completely different, and I don’t really care for that style of gameplay in most shooters. When I played on Insanity and got to the mid point collector ship Ingot completely stuck. My teammates were always dead in seconds and any charge I made would result in instant death before I could make another. So I restarted the game (20 hours in) and picked an Infiltrator. Sooooo much better. Plus the upgrades Sniper Rifle to the Widow was like having a heavy weapon. It destroys armor. And the invisibility is a great “get out of jail free” card. 
 

in ME3 I kept the Infiltrator. It was still really good.