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Che Delilas posted:I love the game too but there are a lot of little things that drag it down, and most of them are fixable problems if the developer just gave half a poo poo. Not Sure about Unknown maybe it got patched but definitely in Enemy Within in the options before you start you can choose to reduce beginner VO. So that means none of Vahlen's "Be careful not to use explosives". Really helps. You should look into the development of teh game, the developer had 2 nervous breakdowns while trying to make the game http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/31/3928710/making-of-xcoms-jake-solomon-firaxis-sid-meier
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Jan 29, 2015 14:15
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Namarrgon posted:I figured they were more isolationist-oriented than straight up supremacist. "These aliens can exist or whatever but humanity's affairs should be governed by humans"-type. They were more "All affairs should be governed by humans"-type. Other races only existed to benefit humanity in the eyes of Cerberus.
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Jan 29, 2015 14:55
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Well one of the bigger letdowns of ME3's writing imo was the transformation of Cerberus into a vast evil superpower with truckloads of cannon fodder. Basically space COBRA  Before that, they kind of had tons of cells that probablyt ran the whole spectrum of pro-human-ness. They only reported to TIM himself, so he was the only one who really knew where the group as a whole fell (    )
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Jan 29, 2015 19:09
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Cerberus never had a specific characterization, instead just being whatever the writers wanted them to be at any given moment. In the first game, the end of their little quest chain has you and an Alliance Admiral discovering that they were a government-funded black-ops group that went rogue. This was pretty much entirely removed from their backstory in the later installments.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:59
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Kalos posted:Cerberus never had a specific characterization, instead just being whatever the writers wanted them to be at any given moment. In the first game, the end of their little quest chain has you and an Alliance Admiral discovering that they were a government-funded black-ops group that went rogue. This was pretty much entirely removed from their backstory in the later installments. BioWare might have run out of money on that storyline but it was pretty clear they were definitely transforming people with some hybridized Reaper/Thorian tech, even in the first game, which was essentially Illusive Man's end goal.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:18
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EmmyOk posted:Not Sure about Unknown maybe it got patched but definitely in Enemy Within in the options before you start you can choose to reduce beginner VO. So that means none of Vahlen's "Be careful not to use explosives". Really helps. You should look into the development of teh game, the developer had 2 nervous breakdowns while trying to make the game Yeah, the option is called "Reduce Beginner VO" and the examples I cited are specifically not affected by that. They also happen to be the longest clips. There's still no reason to steal your camera and controls, or at least no reason to hold onto them for the entire duration of the clip; point me at the thing of interest, start the audio, then let me get back to the game while you yammer in the background, if you must. They do it for the sake of the narrative, but this is a loving strategy game. After the first playthrough I want to skip the stuff that doesn't do anything for the gameplay, by and large.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:25
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Che Delilas posted:Yeah, the option is called "Reduce Beginner VO" and the examples I cited are specifically not affected by that. They also happen to be the longest clips. There's still no reason to steal your camera and controls, or at least no reason to hold onto them for the entire duration of the clip; point me at the thing of interest, start the audio, then let me get back to the game while you yammer in the background, if you must. I played 3 games of ironman last night and it barely affected me, I can't recall losing camera control. Even if they did there's only like one or tow of those clips with reduced vo
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Jan 29, 2015 22:28
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EmmyOk posted:I played 3 games of ironman last night and it barely affected me, I can't recall losing camera control. Even if they did there's only like one or tow of those clips with reduced vo They play each clip once per game, the first time you see each device intact, and I promise you it steals your camera control (on the PC anyway). Also it happens with every target extraction council mission; when you reveal the target they will say something every turn until you get near them. It "drags the game down," it doesn't ruin it.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:33
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Che Delilas posted:They play each clip once per game, the first time you see each device intact, and I promise you it steals your camera control (on the PC anyway). Also it happens with every target extraction council mission; when you reveal the target they will say something every turn until you get near them. I dunno it seems quite petty and infrequent. That said there are tiny things in games that infuriate me beyond all reason. Let's just agree that the trainyard map is loving bullshit
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Jan 29, 2015 22:35
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EmmyOk posted:http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/31/3928710/making-of-xcoms-jake-solomon-firaxis-sid-meier PYF thing dragging down gaming journals: I like polygon's articles, but I loving HATE their layout for a lot of articles. Tiny unreadable blue font on a black background, gigantic images interrupting the text, gifs in the body of the article that you can't stop seeing out of the corner of the eye when you're trying to read the goddamn text, sign me the gently caress up!
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Jan 29, 2015 22:49
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Irving posted:PYF thing dragging down gaming journals: Yeah it's awful, a lot of the time I assume it's still loading and about to reformat itself but nope. V interesting article though
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Jan 29, 2015 22:57
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I can't believe the Polygon that does those great behind-the-scenes article is the same Polygon that hired Ben Kuchera. Wasn't there some goon who acts like a parody version of Kuchera, if such a thing is possible. I forget his name.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:10
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A small thing in Dragon Age:Inquistion but for some reason the text you get when you complete a war room task is insanely hard to read. I am probably fifteen feet away from a high def, 65 inch tv and it is still almost impossible to read. The black text on the aged parchment they show every time is hardly legible.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:14
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Boofchicken posted:A small thing in Dragon Age:Inquistion but for some reason the text you get when you complete a war room task is insanely hard to read. I am probably fifteen feet away from a high def, 65 inch tv and it is still almost impossible to read. The black text on the aged parchment they show every time is hardly legible. So I decided to get back into Guild Wars 2, which is an Actually Good MMO that doesn't just mindlessly copy WoW, and for the most part the content is great. All super good. Highly recommended. But the dungeons. Well, firstly, dungeons tend to use a bunch of mechanics and traps that aren't used very much in the main game, besides some of the super secret (unless you look at a wiki) hidden open-world dungeons and jumping puzzles. But that's mostly OK - it's pretty much that way in a bunch of MMOs. Structured group PvE content is different from solo content. Alright. But the way dungeon rewards are organised, the main 'reward' for a dungeon (outside of the random loot and gold you get as you go through) is that running through it gets you dungeon tokens, which you trade in for dungeon-themed armor. This would be cool and fun if one run = one piece of armor, because each dungeon has at least three unique 'paths' that you can take through it, but instead it's closer to five runs = one piece of armor, which feels super masochistic. And since you need to do it so many times to succeed, this means that in a PUG of strangers, the One True Way to complete dungeons is to only equip gear that boosts your offensive stats, turning you into a glass cannon, only set your traits (think talent points) so that they boost your own offensive stats and those of your allies, and only set your skills/abilities to those that either do enormous damage, boost your offensive traits, or grant Aegis, which is a buff that blocks a single attack. This is all so that you can get through a dungeon as quickly as possible, and absolutely destroy any bosses before their gimmicks can bring down the party. If you aren't a 'berserker build' and you don't have some friends or guildmates to do a dungeon with you, no dungeon runs for you.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:49
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The thing dragging Guild Wars 2 down for me was the storyline. It's fairly interesting stuff, if a bit generic, but your character is the central hero. Then at some point this incredibly bland Mary Sue NPCs character comes in, becomes the commander of all the armies and the story switches to focusing entirely on him, and you basically do chores to help this guy you don't care about at in the slightest. He doesn't do much either since you're still the one doing all the work, but all the other NPCs praise him. It's kind of a silly thing to be annoyed at in an MMORPG but it ruined a perfectly serviceable story.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:59
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Strategic Tea posted:Well one of the bigger letdowns of ME3's writing imo was the transformation of Cerberus into a vast evil superpower with truckloads of cannon fodder. Basically space COBRA Pretty much nothing Cerberus did in ME3 made much sense either. For example, going after the data in the first act on the crucible. Cerberus obviously didn't go out and start making their own Crucible, and seemed to take no efforts in stealing the crucible while it was under construction/ being deployed. The endgame for Cerberus should have had them trying to steal the crucible, with the Illusive man being forced by his indoctrination to activate the self-destruct sequence instead of stealing it at the last minute. From there, renegadeing/paragonning him to death, and having him admit how much of a colossal failure he's been, or just shooting him. That would have been a much more fitting end for Cerberus.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:59
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Thoughtless posted:The thing dragging Guild Wars 2 down for me was the storyline. It's fairly interesting stuff, if a bit generic, but your character is the central hero. Then at some point this incredibly bland Mary Sue NPCs character comes in, becomes the commander of all the armies and the story switches to focusing entirely on him, and you basically do chores to help this guy you don't care about at in the slightest. He doesn't do much either since you're still the one doing all the work, but all the other NPCs praise him. This gets a bit better right towards the very end of the game where he starts accompanying you on missions and stuff, but the writers seemed to do a bad job of making it seem like your character was the one giving the orders to the NPCs that you meet. One mission had me, explicitly called the 'Commander' overseeing a guard team while the scout team went ahead. After there was no word back from the scout team, an NPC says "we've waited long enough, let's go". What, they couldn't at least have given that line to my character instead? The uneven 'personal story' does drag the game down a little bit. But as far as MMO stories go, at least there's some variation so it's not the same thing every time.
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Jan 30, 2015 01:02
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Thoughtless posted:The thing dragging Guild Wars 2 down for me was the storyline. It's fairly interesting stuff, if a bit generic, but your character is the central hero. Then at some point this incredibly bland Mary Sue NPCs character comes in, becomes the commander of all the armies and the story switches to focusing entirely on him, and you basically do chores to help this guy you don't care about at in the slightest. He doesn't do much either since you're still the one doing all the work, but all the other NPCs praise him. My friend I play with has had to listen to me bitching on Vent about this waaaay too much. I did all the work, why is that dude getting credit!?
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Jan 30, 2015 01:15
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Thoughtless posted:The thing dragging Guild Wars 2 down for me was the storyline. It's fairly interesting stuff, if a bit generic, but your character is the central hero. Then at some point this incredibly bland Mary Sue NPCs character comes in, becomes the commander of all the armies and the story switches to focusing entirely on him, and you basically do chores to help this guy you don't care about at in the slightest. He doesn't do much either since you're still the one doing all the work, but all the other NPCs praise him. Felt the same way about FFXIV. There's a group you join and the entire storyline is basically following around a woman who's a goddamn fashion disaster and her crew of merry gently caress ups through the world fixing everyone else's problems. They may call you the hero of light but every single cutscene is based around every other character getting story progression while yours makes a dumb face in the background. When I ask my friends who have done all the new content the storylines are usually explained "And then some poo poo happened and these two dudes probably touched dicks."
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Jan 30, 2015 01:59
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bewilderment posted:So I decided to get back into Guild Wars 2, which is an Actually Good MMO that doesn't just mindlessly copy WoW, and for the most part the content is great. All super good. Highly recommended. I pug dungeons constantly and I don't use zerks, nobody has given me poo poo, as long as you know what to do and where to stand nobody cares or can tell, only the ultra elitist spergs care about this poo poo and you can usually tell who they are in the LFG when they ask like achievement point limits or ping your gear or some stupid poo poo. Or just start your own group, they fill up fast, all of my pug groups say something nonsensical and stupid and it attracts a laid back crowd.
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Jan 30, 2015 02:46
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Something they never tell you in the modern Fallout games: Press E to drink water. Hold E to continuely drink water What. I beat both FO3 and NV and thought they were alright if not worth replaying and that would've been so useful to know. SirPhoebos posted:I somehow convinced myself that MoO3 was worth playing for two weeks. solid, like the other guy meant?
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Jan 30, 2015 09:48
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Alteisen posted:I pug dungeons constantly and I don't use zerks, nobody has given me poo poo, as long as you know what to do and where to stand nobody cares or can tell, only the ultra elitist spergs care about this poo poo and you can usually tell who they are in the LFG when they ask like achievement point limits or ping your gear or some stupid poo poo. But yeah Trahearne was poo poo and everyone hated him. gently caress off Trahearne.
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Jan 30, 2015 09:55
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Thoughtless posted:The thing dragging Guild Wars 2 down for me was the storyline. It's fairly interesting stuff, if a bit generic, but your character is the central hero. Then at some point this incredibly bland Mary Sue NPCs character comes in, becomes the commander of all the armies and the story switches to focusing entirely on him, and you basically do chores to help this guy you don't care about at in the slightest. He doesn't do much either since you're still the one doing all the work, but all the other NPCs praise him.
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Jan 30, 2015 10:18
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Austrian mook posted:Rising wasn't successful though, it's not like it got popular or anything. I think you played a different Rising than everyone else did. Gestalt Intellect posted:s now that I know somebody out their is masturbating over them. Get prepared to hate everything then!
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Jan 30, 2015 11:27
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CISscum posted:It wouldn't be so bad, if they didn't make Necromancer Tree Jesus the most boring NPC in the game, and Guild Wars 2 has a shitload of boring NPCs (and some interesting ones too, TBH). The killed off the one NPC I didn't find boring, uninteresting or disliked. RIP Tybalt
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Jan 30, 2015 21:15
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CISscum posted:It wouldn't be so bad, if they didn't make Necromancer Tree Jesus the most boring NPC in the game, and Guild Wars 2 has a shitload of boring NPCs (and some interesting ones too, TBH). I think they kept Trahearne's voice actor sedated to be honest.
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Jan 30, 2015 21:21
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grittyreboot posted:In Mass Effect 2 Shepard is forcibly recruited by Cerberus, an avowed human supremacist terrorist organization. The Illusive Man provides you with your own personal assistant, Kelly Chambers. Her reason for joining Cerberus is something along the lines of "Well, my sister runs a dog shelter, but that doesn't mean she hates cats." I feel like a more appropriate analogy would be "My sister thinks dogs should run everything and blows up cat shelters." In fact, all the Cerberus employees on the ship are portrayed as pretty decent people who think Cerberus is better than the Alliance just because they "get things done." She's using the whole "We don't hate black people, we're just proud of being white!" excuse closeted racists fall back on.
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Jan 31, 2015 03:38
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Screaming Idiot posted:She's using the whole "We don't hate black people, we're just proud of being white!" excuse closeted racists fall back on. Yeah, that bit just felt realistic for that exact reason. The leader of the KKK at one point used that excuse too.
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Jan 31, 2015 03:48
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Screaming Idiot posted:She's using the whole "We don't hate black people, we're just proud of being white!" excuse closeted racists fall back on. In a way, ME2 characterization takes a step back, insofar as everyone except Mordin are big badass archetypes with daddy issues.
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Jan 31, 2015 09:31
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Xander77 posted:In a way, ME2 characterization takes a step back, insofar as everyone except Mordin are big badass archetypes with daddy issues. I didn't think about this, but god drat, that is right. The only ones that didn't have 'daddy issues' were Legion (who is a robot), Garrus and Zaeed (who doesn't give a poo poo). For all the character the threw at your party, I didn't give a poo poo about anyone but those four, and that's why. At least Ashley was lovely in a way I could be invested in, and at least Kaiden wasn't some miscellaneous badass. That didn't mean I was invested in the choice to save one of them, but at least try tried different things, and so did the rest of your party in 1. If you don't care about the story of some badass space-hero with secret troubles out to save the galaxy, ME2 had poo poo-all for you. EDIT: Mass Effect 2 is an entire party of Wrex, only without all the good parts of a description like that. Cleretic has a new favorite as of 09:59 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 09:55
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Xander77 posted:People look back on Ashley's personality and sum it up as "space racist", but she's really an exceptionally accurate portrayal of someone who (for instance) votes Republican and is worried about the "demographic balance" but would never support the KKK (Terra Nova or whatever the actual space racists party is called) and/or might have actual black friends. Cerberus pretty much is the space KKK though, right?
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Jan 31, 2015 14:03
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The Moon Monster posted:Cerberus pretty much is the space KKK though, right? Ashley Williams has nothing to do with Cerberus, and is extremely distressed to learn that Shepard has fallen in with them in ME2.
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Jan 31, 2015 16:20
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Just picked up mass effect 2 for three bucks. Ashley hot, Miranda hot, tali hot. Goodbye.
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Jan 31, 2015 16:24
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The Moon Monster posted:Cerberus pretty much is the space KKK though, right? Cerberus is space Neo Nazi paramilitiry group. Terra Firma was space KKK.
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Jan 31, 2015 16:25
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This is a weird one, but the little thing dragging Fable III down for me is the fact it puts me to sleep. I'm not being a smart-rear end. I'm being quite literal. I've never played the original Fable, but I picked up Fable 2 and really enjoyed it. So, when Fable 3 came out I snapped it up ASAP. I've still never finished it. My wife has though. But it's weird, I like the game. I enjoy playing Fable 3. But after half an hour to an hour of playing, my eyes are heavy and on several occasions I've straight up just fallen asleep on the couch, mid gameplay. It's a serious problem. I know it sounds weird, but I swear it's true. I can't explain it. It's never happened with any other game, ever, before or since. It just seems that Fable 3 is, to me specifically, the perfect insomnia cure. Literally! Just to make it perfectly clear, once and for all: I honestly think Fable 3 is a good game, and fun to play. I just can't play it for longer than an hour without straight up passing the gently caress out as if I've not slept in 3 days and spent the day running around the block.
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Jan 31, 2015 16:36
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Cleretic posted:The only ones that didn't have 'daddy issues' were Legion (who is a robot), Garrus
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Jan 31, 2015 16:56
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DStecks posted:Ashley Williams has nothing to do with Cerberus, and is extremely distressed to learn that Shepard has fallen in with them in ME2. This is true, but she still had troubles when Shepard asked why she still believed in god and stuff. She still sounded pretty Neo Con in that discussion. Not as far as Cerberus, but still definitely fit the mold. The thing dragging down Dragon Age: Inquisition for me is really minor, but its the lack of the ability to find out how tough an area is until you get your rear end beat over and over again. I try to run away and they still just range attack you down. It is frustrating at times. THe game is a ton of fun otherwise, I'm just momentarily frustrated that the "Journey has Ended" because some respawning scrubs ended up being way higher than the last pack I just took down.
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Jan 31, 2015 17:19
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DStecks posted:Ashley Williams has nothing to do with Cerberus, and is extremely distressed to learn that Shepard has fallen in with them in ME2. Oh right, I was confusing her and Miranda.
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Jan 31, 2015 17:27
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Oh man this thread gave me the itch to play Mass Effect again, I was pretty burned out on it a few months back. I'm doing an insanity run with a manshep this time and my goodness, combat is incredibly boring on insanity mode. I'm a vanguard with singularity as my bonus power, so I just do singularity>marksman>adrenaline burst>repeat and it takes like 2 minutes of just stun locking and holding down the trigger to kill anything. And God forbid a lone enemy can shoot rockets, because one direct hit will kill you instantly. ME2 was much better(mainly because of checkpoints), and I know people hated on Mass Effect 3(I enjoyed it when it first came out and still enjoy it today), but as far as combat goes, it was the best, because it seemed the least monotonous. Lots of biotic and tech explosions(vanguards can explode basically everyone constantly).
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Jan 31, 2015 18:25
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I really never though Ashley was a space racist, though there's some lovely writing with the dog comparaison. I don't see a problem in a soldier objecting when a space somali warlord, a foreign ship technician, a guy we were at war with ten years ago and the daughter of a major politician are being allowed to poke around a top secret cutting edge warship 
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Jan 31, 2015 19:00
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