David Hingtgen

I think CoryHolmes may be talking about the big reveal I just got today. 'cuz I had never even suspected such a thing, and no one had even whispered a guess AFAIK. It's the first really big reveal of the game. BeyondTheGrave---the game is apparently very picky about profiles/consoles/HDD. If anything was changed at any point during the run or since that save was made, ME 2 probably won't accept it. (thus, I'm not sure my Paragon Shep will be accepted--I'll see later) PS---a full install takes 12.4 gigs. Which is quite a lot for us 20GB HDD users! (since only 13.7 or so are usable). I was clearing out Oblivion saves to make room (they're 17MB each)

It's got little fins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp0yd6no7B4...player_embedded

I might have to do an ultra-quick "female paragon" play of ME 1 to set up what I want to do. (casual+level 60=enemies die quick) PS---if someone comes across a pic of a FULLY Renegade Femshep, I'd like to see it. (I bet someone's got one already, but I dare not search for it, for I'm certain it'd be in a thread/forum just full of spoilers)

Armor options are still very limited, and I have every party member now. Anyways--I don't think I'm going to be able to see how max Renegade looks. Paragon seems to "counter" it. And it's almost impossible to avoid ALL Paragon points. Mainly, I got a big boost just from importing an ME 1 character, where it's quite easy to have a LOT of points in both categories. Anyways, I must have JUST gone over the threshold for one full "bar" of paragon points, as my FemShep now looks like she did a few hours ago. Thus, I think it's clear that's there's only a few distinct "stages", and that it's the sum of Renegade and Paragon. (thus, even if you maxed Renegade but had a lot of Paragon points, you wouldn't look very Renegade). Maybe I should have used my level 51 character--she was PURE renegade I think and thus wouldn't have had any Paragon points to start and I could probably have gotten so few it'd never "count". PS--I'd heard that starting from scratch is actually a fairly renegade story, with the council dying in ME 1. True?

It's faster, I'll say that. Anyways---I want Eclipse armor too. All the enemies have the cool-looking armor that I want.

Scan planets, you'll get 10x from them what you get on missions. And don't bother with anything other than a "big" hit on the scanner.

Yeah, there's a few VERY expensive things on Omega. Anyways---I still haven't found alternate gauntlets or shoulder armor yet. I'd like to have the Blue Sun's armor. It looks awesome---and the female version is almost a perfect hybrid of "typical" light/medium armor from ME 1. I just hit the next "stage" for "how a Renegade looks" and it took a surprising turn, and is much more obvious---to the point that I'm surprised there's no dialogue lines about it. (true, only KOTOR 2 even mentioned how your appearance can change when you're evil, and that wasn't even a Bioware game). I may go "all the way to see how it looks, but pay to fix it right before the last mission."

Yeah, ME 1 had a crouch toggle. Didn't use it much then, but now it'd be much appreciated.

I've heard it's possible, but VERY difficult. Like if you miss 1% of enemies/codex/sidequests through either of the runs it won't happen. A LOT of people (like me and probably you) end up at level 59 in run 2. Know what's REALLY annoying? Start your third run at 59, and just blow through plot as fast as possible. Ignore ALL sidequests, just acquire Liara as fast as you can. You'll be amazed (and irritated) at how much XP is heaped on you just for the beginning plot points (yet not given at the end for killing Geth Colossi). You can get like 200,000 pts in an hour, and have Liara in your party. Then the entire rest of the game is another 200,000 or so. I think someone calculated that 59 to 60 (or 58 to 60) was the same as going from 1 to 42.

Yeah, that's why I PM'd you when I saw you were getting close. Odds are there's not enough enemies left in the game to get it. And see my post above for what you'll get. (there may be more, but I haven't heard of anything)

Cam Clarke doesn't do the codex---that's Michael McConnohie(spelling?) PS---gah, total voice identification fail for me. Um, let's see, non-spoiler way to describe. "The artificial voice you hear the most" is quite famous to modern/recent sci-fi fans, but I totally didn't recognize it despite knowing that person was voicing someone in the game. I'll blame the fake echo/distortion effect. Spoiler version: PPS---gah, voice ident fail two for me. Fairly early game spoiler (generally the first planet you visit once you have a choice) ME 1 save initial bonuses list, as far as I've found out: Winning at level 40/50/60 will give you 2/3/5 levels to start out with. and 3/4/5 extra squad points. Having the rich achievement (AKA SPECTRE gear) gives you 100K credits to start with, and possibly the 5000 materials. Having a relationship with someone may/may not alter the opening scene.

Yeah, I think "voice actor guest appearance" is pretty much not a spoiler. It wasn't even mentioned who the character was. But in the future I guess we should spoiler those too in the future. Anyways, I wanted to mention more but the site went down: 3. Dialogue. It just rocks. If you liked DA:O banter etc, this is better. Truly LOL a lot of times. (well, if you're a renegade at least---some people REALLY hate you) Also, ScreamMan--where'd you hear that? I've already skipped some dialogue from "right before a fight I kept dying in". If anything dialogue goes slightly faster, since there seems to be a glitch where the last word or two is occasionally clipped by another character starting their line early.

Might as well start discussing positives: 1. Characters look better. If you import a Shep, they'll look better than they did. Might be just the hair, maybe they smoothed out some polygons, maybe the revamped the basic textures. But they look better. 2. Going Renegade is "visible". I won't describe/spoil any more than that, other than to say, a certain something I first thought was a graphical glitch, I think will become more prominent as my Femshep continues punching out reporters. And it's cool.

The helmet used to auto-remove for important dialogue if you had it equipped, so you could actually see Shep talking. Now it doesn't, it always stays on if you have it equipped. (I'm talking standard N7 armor---DLC armor always has it on period--which I also don't like---Shep would look very cool in Blood Dragon armor with the helmet off) So I'm playing without a helmet. PS---already a game update, but I didn't notice anything different. Only real issue/bug I've seen is that scrolling some text boxes with right-stick is IMPOSSIBLE to read all the lines--it just jumps from top to bottom, if the box is a certain size. (also, left-stick and d-pad is too slow to scroll through the codex)

I like ME 1 better, gameplay-wise. ME 2 blows it away for cinematics, but I much prefer the powers/armor/weapons style of the first. I think asides from Shepard, everyone is "locked" into their default armor/appearance. I liked altering my party's appearance and stats. Also, so far, every armor upgrade for Shep has sucked, appearance-wise. I want LESS bulky and sleeker armor, not even bigger and more angular. It already looks like heavy to start with, I want medium/light not "massive". (not as light as what Miranda's wearing, but what Femshep has now would practically be overkill for Ashley).

Bonuses seem to be pretty basic: Money, a few extra skill points, some basic materials/items, a free level or two. Unless level 60 is VERY different than the other bonuses, I seriously doubt it's at all worth it. Stop playing ME 1 and start ME 2. (I had level 59 and the game specifically said level 59 bonuses, so I figure I have ALMOST everything you can)

I saw the mass fleet gatherings at K7 and Earth in prep for the Klingon invasion, but ME 2 arrived before it happened, so I logged off. I took hundreds of screen caps during the beta---including kaio and me fighting off Romulans last night.

I was rammed by a Klingon Vor'cha, but I was at full health so it didn't do much. (also he was so close I don't think he had room/time to accelerate much) Now, being close to a Sovereign class when it blows---that'll take you with it! Apparently there is an admiral-level ability for "self-destruct"---and if it's more than a standard warp-core breach, it should be a heck of a boom.

I've got a spare Inferno armor code. Would like to trade for a Terminus armor code if possible.

I listed every achievement which is known for sure. Anything more than that is probably a spoiler. I'd bet money on the ally achievements counting for something though.

Plot points seem to give way more XP than any enemy. ::edit:: I just got my code for Inferno armor.

Same here---2 plays on same character, ended on 59. Level 60 WILL get a specific bonus in ME 2. AFAIK the bonuses are for levels 40, 50, and 60. And they are picky--you have to have won with the character. I started yet one more playthrough and just blew through to Therum, and got Liara in the party in barely over an hour and hit level 60, as the beginning of the game has a TON of plot XP points. But it would have taken hours and hours and hours of playing at the end of the previous playthrough to go from 59 to 60. So I got my level 60 achievement/gamer score, but it won't count for ME 2. I've heard of people starting at 54 and not making it to 60. I went from 51 to 59. (and that's with every XP bonus there is) Another known bonus in ME 2 is for the "rich" achievement--but that's easy to get before the end of the very first playthrough. I actually died less on Insanity than Hardcore. Either I got better, or Colossus armor made all the difference.

No new thread. And people better spoiler-proof EVERYTHING.

Don't hide your cables. Visible cables are a manly thing. A dozen or two black cables snaking across the wall to the back of a TV says "I don't care about feng-shui or some sense of wall-aesthetic, I care about image quality and direct connections". Heck, I have brightly-colored cables so I know where each one's going. (My PS3 cable is blue, X360 is green, etc)

Personally, I think tons of cables everywhere all going to a TV is a beautiful thing.