Lynx7725

Scions are still a pain in the posterior with the Widow. It's just that now it's way more than equal footing... you can kill Scions before they even get into range, which is a nice thing. The nice thing is that now you don't really need to aim for the head to kill mooks. A real nice mess downrange, no matter where you hit. Soldiers have sniper rifle training, right? Then yeah, they could use the Widow. Personally I think the Soldier class powers doesn't quite fit well with Widow, but that powerful a gun goes down well anywhere. The other one to watch out for is the Boomstick with a Vanguard. From reputation, just as nasty as the Widow, but need to get real close and real careful with the ammo. Got to try it some day, but Vanguard isn't my favourite class. Oh yeah, my Adept playthrough. Going Renegade but it's a bit discomforting -- I'm not THAT badass. Just finished the Shadow Broker mission, and I have got to say, having 2 almost identical biotics in the final boss fight isn't optimal... the boss broke quite a lot of furniture, including the pillars. It was more than a bit annoying, verging on frustrating -- that one is hard for an Adept on any difficulty, since you don't really have a choice on the squadmates. Great going in, hard coming out.

Eh, mine took 2 shots and was still standing. Must've hit its skull... Anyhow, supposedly the interactive comic for the PS3 release will be DLC for all platform. Anyone got it yet?

Since you've already done it once... Note that my experiences are not on Insanity -- I'm sane, thank you. Infiltrators on Insanity should do ok, but it stresses more on precision marksmanship; Cloak can give you a bit of safety, but with so much more protection on enemies, you need every headshot. It largely depends on how you want the play the infiltrator. My style is to pick a good spot and just kill everything from there; some prefer to sneak around a bit. The evolved cloak power goes either way -- either high damage or extra sneaking. Think about how you want to play, and then build accordingly. Whichever the case, learn to hit the Y-button before you shoot. Cloaking gives you large bonuses to damage, so having that habit is good unless you need it to get away. I often neglect it... thankfully I have the habit of getting into cover first. Cloaking is good for other things besides damage bonuses. Most enemies really don't see you once you cloak; if you are taking a lot of fire, cloak and they would stop firing and refocus on your teammates. Cloak last roughly 6s or sometimes more, which is a lot under combat situation. You can hit a door, cloak (opening animation gives you some room), get in, let the cloak wear off, hack a Loki, and let the fun begin (did that before. ) You should remember you don't regen shields or health, nor can you use other powers while cloaked; shooting will decloak you shortly after the shot, so a good idea is to be in cover before shooting. The time dilation on sniping makes it easy to line up headshots, so investing in research and equipment that bounces headshot damage up can bring a LOT of grief to the enemy. The Kawa-somthing visor is a cheap 10% more damage on headshots and leaves the handsome mug to be seen, so I like it. Sniper upgrade is both easy to get enough early, and frustrating because you can only fully max out (6/6 with the SB DLC) after the "visit a ship" mission. Sniper rifles are quite interesting in that you can stack ammo powers on to them and inflict really horrendous damage. Depending on your veteran power choice, you can go with Incinerate, Cyro, Disrupter, AP, Shredder or Warp ammo. Personally, I go with Warp ammo because of the sheer versatility. I won't recommend Incinerate ammo as you already have an Incinerate biotic. I do miss Cyro, but Warp is just too useful to leave out. Speaking of which, the Infilitrator's main weakness is his inability to crowd control well. If you're the type to choose and manage your teammates heavily, then that isn't a problem; for me, I tend to let my teammates run all over the place, so I need crowd control personally. Evolving Incinerate to do area effect is the only thing I had and it's not quite enough. AI hacking isn't as useful in area effect since it's rather hard to hit multiple bots worth talking about.

Hey, I missed too with my first playthrough. Warmed up and just as the round banged off that stupid thing leaned back. Off sailed the round into the void....

To be honest, the terminator really added nothing more to the game other than a reason for me to expend the nuke gun. 2 hits and a Widow shot, FWIW. I don't think it was worth it -- might have been better to have a running battle with Collectors to the ship.

Not really. It's been explained that they did some of the recordings before the game finalized, and one of the key decisions was to keep the size of the game down to 2 CDs. Catering for all the possibilities when you have a cast of more than a dozen will have bloated the game up significantly. One of these days I want to do a Geth/ Mech mission as an Engineer with Tali and Legion. Maxed out AI Hacking and Drones -- those 'bots won't know what hit them.

Can't answer the romance question from personal experience, but the 'net says it doesn't matter what you do with Kelly. Apparently she doesn't count for that particular achievement. Finished my 2nd Playthrough, Paragon Infiltrator. End result: No one left behind. I got to admit, I feel a bit bad about the way I did the final missions. Now doing a Renegade Adept run. Having some difficulties adapting to it -- the biotics are fun to curve around cover but it takes a bit of jiggling to do right, and they don't have the take down power of the old sniper rifles. Still, it's quite fun to go through an entire level without having to look for refills -- didn't fire a shot. Let's see if I can get some of these big heroes dead at the end.

Yeah, Overlord and Firewalker are very... optional. I like them because they give me a bit more missions to add to the XP pool for an initial character, but they are not my favourite missions. Shadow Broker gets mentioned a lot because it's like a mini-ME game in its own rights. A linked set of story missions, up-to-standard voice acting, ME1 characters. It doesn't really change the plot story of ME2, it does make it a tiny bit easier in some aspects, which is why I tend to want to get it down as early as possible. It's more like ME2.5, bridging between ME2 and ME3. Frankly, IMO, the end result from SB is likely to be in ME3 whether or not the player did the DLC, so it's not really a plot story choice.

I bring Miranda around for a behind I can look at, and that huge bonus she tosses for all weapons in the squad... Overload is a bonus, but I really don't expect her to go toe-to-toe. There is however apparently a glitch in one of the missions, and there's a vid going around of an unkillable Miranda kicking Blue Suns around. Generally speaking the first SMG is pretty 'meh'. Not enough stopping power, not enough in a clip. I roundly detested it but had to make do with it since it is a long time before we get an upgrade for the SMG, and I badly needed a short-ranged weapon for my 'Filtrator. The Tempest is a good in-between, plenty of stopping power and a good-sized clip. The Locust -- the last of the three -- is reputed to be quite good but I never liked it, primarily because it doesn't fit well into my play style. Having said that, the Phalanx heavy pistol is a good stand in for an SMG especially if you are willing to pace your shooting. It's deadly accurate and a good dismantler. The lead designer has mentioned that she has gone through a whole level using the Phalanx to dismantle the LOKIs in them, and I believe her -- it's stopping power is quite remarkable, especially once maxed out. EDIT: Well, my progress on my second pass:

Well.. I find he clashes way too much with Arcangel in weaponry, and I prefer Arcangel's Overload and AP ammo. Having him in the Arcangel mission does give you access to some unique dialogue though. I'm also not too sure about his combat AI. He tends to disappear on me, being very aggressive.

Did Zaeed's loyalty mission today. Didn't get his loyalty, but.. that's fine. Also did the Wrecked Freighter assignment. Since it's an assignment, I won't bother too much with spoiler tags. Had been looking forward to this mission because I wanted to do it once by killing all the LOKIs. Went in with Tali and Miranda -- Tali for the Drone and AI hacking (in addition to my AI hacking), and Miranda for her weapon damage bonus. Turns out not great choices; Tali doesn't hack as often as can be done and I was a bit too busy to micro-manage her, while Miranda.. well, I actually shot her in the face accidentally (and "killed" her). I'm thinking Tali/ Grunt might be better, or Garrus/ Miranda for Overload love. But basically, AI hacking would allow you to complete the mission by killing all LOKIs. Hack one and it acts like an armed combat drone. I've seen multiple instances where the hacked and non-hacked LOKI simultaneous KO'ed each other. Maxed out AI hacking has a long enough duration that the cooldown isn't a factor, and if you picked the right spot you can suppress a spawn point and just spend the entire back portion of the game squatting against a rock and hacking. Definitely not 180 LOKIs, more like 60 to 80. Still a handful if you don't bring the right gear.

I'm only slightly ahead of the curve of you. I'm on my second run through, Paragon Infiltrator/ Assassin (odd sod I am... ) Currently at the tail end of loyalty missions, and gathering tech. Think I can hit the big one this weekend. That mission wasn't too bad at all. That mission is the one where you start to lose your fear of the Collectors, though you'll still have a respect for them, especially their Husk-type allies. Not too sure about this. TBH, the combat-heavy element here favours IMO the Soldier more, as he's quite more flexible than an Infiltrator. The 'filtrator is a point-target killer; he relies on his team-mates to do crowd control. The Soldier is really jack-of-all-trades and can cover himself quite well. Not sure if you noticed, but you can put different ammo powers on different gun at the same time -- your pistol can be Disruptor, while your assault rifle has Incinerate on it, and the SMG with Warp ammo. You just can't have two powers on the same gun. Personally dislike the Hammerhead. I don't like Hammerhead missions, but I'm a infantry crawler, I suppose. I would agree with Zaeed, because IMO he makes the final mission that much easier to pull off with most if not all of the team surviving. He's not very.. interesting. Kasumi though does add quite a solid story to the game, I think it's worth it. Not too sure about Shadow Broker though. I like the benefits it brings, about balanced right, but I don't like the arduous back-to-back crawl I had to go through. I sort of agree. A little bit less shooting might be good, especially if chara development takes its place. But I do like the combat, it's a different flavour from a lot of other FPS. The AI's decent, and you're rewarded quite for good tactical play. The emphasis and challenge of the missions are more to quickly end it rather than kill every mook. The ammo part, my feel is that they got it off by just a bit. 5% more clip per mission, or a better distribution, would slip into the sweet spot. I find myself scrambling for clips, and now I tend to go with the Viper for lower-end missions simply because I get more shots per clip than with the Widow. Hate the mining. The thing is that mining's totally uneven -- you need huge amounts of Platinum and a bit of the rest, but it's a bit hit and miss as to which planet's got what. And just strip mining actually makes your life more difficult -- you pay for those probes and you need credits more than you need those other elements. Thankfully the SB DLC does address that. Actually the number of powers feel good. You can mix and match teammates and coordinate through there. Meeting YMIRs? Double overload (Arcangel and Miranda) strips shields very fast. Geth? Bring AI hacking, hilarious to see Geth Destroyers about face to flame some poor Geth sod. Husks? Biotics and Cryo. It doesn't get too complicated and the AI does a decent job using its powers. You will hit 30 if you do every mission and I do mean every; I hit.. IIRC 28 on first playthrough and that's missing only a handful of non-core missions. You need to scrap together all those "explore a world and oh look an Anomaly!" missions. 30 is a problem on subsequent playthroughs, as there isn't much incentive to do all those sidequests any more. But on balance, since you max out a power every 5 levels, you'll max out a chara by 35, so it's a game-design/ balance issue. The problem I had with the cover is that it becomes predictable that combat is happening. Oh look, chest high stuff. You know the drill, run into it as fast as you can. Left trigger to pop up/ out to aim, right to shoot. 'Filtrators get an advantage here since they can cloak and do this more safely. I like it that once you're in, you get a bit of time to check out the combat and see who you need to kill first. At the same time, the AI is smart enough to flank you where the cover doesn't help. Overall, the cover system works quite well, since IMO few of the enemy has any accuracy worth jack -- but they sure are hosing the place down to get you.

Shadow Broker DLC was never meant to be standalone -- you need ME2 to access the content. If you're just interested in the DLC missions alone, you just need to recruit the first 4 characters and IIRC one any other mission. Then you just need to complete the first Reaper-related mission, and the DLC missions opens up. So basically no, you don't need to beat the whole game. But you would have the basis to finish the game by that time, so you might as well...

Uh. Looks like a flying pancake with a sausage stuck to the front.

Heh. Just redid Tali's recruitment mission on ME2. It gets ridiculously easy with AI hacking, might even be more so had I went with Improved AI Hacking rather than Area AI Hacking. Just pop head up, hack-a-geth, wait for the inevitable retaliation, repeat, and then finally take down the last one.

So second run through. Just picked up Jack the Nimble, and completed Horizon at the same time. Did I mention I hate Husks? Hate hate hate. Shadow Broker opens up at this point, I'll make it a point to do this one early, but without a maxed Widow I'm not so sure how fast it would be. Some spoilers:

Oh THAT big mission. The writing's loose enough to encompass both during and after. I always treated it as during, doesn't seem to break. But hindsight, she's great; it could work for after too. The assignment is one that .

I can't tell which *cough* mission you are referring to, but on my first playthrough I went on the Shadow Broker mission soon after Illum became available. It was useful, especially since I needed some spare cash. EDIT: Just to be clearer, I didn't hear or see anything that's too out of the ordinary. One of the achievements that is from this DLC actually made sense in the context of the overall ME2 story. Then again, I was playing a non-canon Shepherd, so YMMV. You do need to know that this DLC has a slight clash with one of the original ME2 assignments, but it's a small assignment anyway.. And yeah, I hope Bioware is releasing something between now and ME3. I'm doing my second Infiltrator run, and intend to do an Adept run (The Biotic Bimbo anyone? ) but there's no way ME2 reruns will last me till ME3 comes out.

Having said that, the Shadow Broker mission is worth playing as early in the game as possible. The rewards for completing the mission is quite good, and having its effect earlier paves the way a bit. Heard a rumour that Bioware intends to release more DLCs to bridge between ME2 and ME3. Anyone heard similar?

A "gather the fleet" game would be possible, but it seems to be out of place. Shepard has usually been about commando action, not full blown military... most of the time he had to buy his own gun. As for ME3 taking place on Earth... well, seems like Shepard ticked them off fierce. And really, when a Reaper fleet is loose in the galaxy, it really doesn't matter whether it's Earth or Illum or Tuchanka, everyone's getting crapped upon. Maybe a "Road to Earth" kind of approach. Start from the Citadel, then fight your way to Earth, only to turn around and head back to the Citadel as the Reapers return there... I'm on my 2nd runthrough of ME2. Truth to be told, with less combat and more RPG, the game is probably not as replayable. I find myself skipping a lot of the RPG dialog option and going to the combat for replayability. I think the ME2 balance between action and RPG is about right.. just spare me two things, the mining and the vehicle exploration (which unfortunately both seems to be back in ME3). Oh yeah. You guys think Reapers are bad? Every system Shep has pass through was left depleted of resources. Reapers might kill everyone outright, but Shepard leaves them to rot and starve by stripmining everything from a planet...

I didn't play with a Soldier on my first pass, I did the Infiltrator route. I think it's a no, as a maxed sniper can evolve the basic cloaking into some serious snipe bonuses. The ability to scope out from far away with time-dilation makes a maxed sniper VERY good at killing mini-bosses and stripping bosses. That's not to say the Soldier won't be effective with a sniper rifle, I understand a maxed Soldier with its key class skill selected would still make a pretty mess with it... but I suspect a Soldier would make a prettier mess with an assault rifle/ LMG. EDIT: To note, the skill changes from ME1 and 2 appears significant by your question. The skill with weapons is more tied to the class and one in-game choice. Once you unlocks the ability to use a weapon there's really not much skill increases, just tech increases. I stuck with the Infilitrator class and choice all the way, so it got pretty messy quick (for the enemy), but always did suffered from an inability to crowd control, which the Soldier would be able to do better IMO.

Sez you. I hate husks. Hate hate hate hate hate. I found ME2 bosses easier to deal with than the mooks. Mostly because I use the stealth class, which meant I stack damage upon damage with cloak and warp ammo. That I focussed quickly to unlock Assassin Cloak meant I was able to deal with big bosses very quickly, but had poorer ability against mooks. Generally speaking I found earlier combat in ME2 challenging, since nothing in the arsenal save for heavy weapons had one-shot take down ability (even with cloak -- warp ammo had to wait till Jack unlocked it). Once the Widow became available though, it became so obscene that I switched to Tempest SMG as my main weapon, and started lugging the Cain. Never found the uber handgun great, but that's just me (and my Widow. ). It was very useful in the "shoot tubes" scenario though. Actually there was a difference in ME2 between a starting sniper and a maxed out sniper -- the "slowdown" time span while scoped in is very much lengthened when you max out the sniper skills. This makes it much easier to snipe moving enemies, especially for headshots which stacks even more damage.

Yeah, but just before the splitting, it'll look like 2 F16 stacked on top of each other? Ewww. F16, to me is usually functional. It's a point-defense aircraft, but over the years it just kept getting bigger and bigger. It's quite an amazing aircraft, you got to admit... outlasted most of its compatriots.

Don't mind the '16, but that tail base just seems to grow bigger every time I see a new variant...

Just bought ME2 recently and ran through my first play. Bothered to go through Firewalker and Overlord, mainly to level before the "point of no return" missions. Good grief I hate the Hammerhead missions. Give me a good infantry crawl any day (with my Widow in hand! ) over a Hammerhead mission.