Junior Adventurer's Guild: January - Mass Effect

[wndrbr]

I don't get why Bioware had to make them into stubborn morons despite the overwhelming evidence of Reapers existing. it wouldn't have been all that difficult to explain their inability to help you.

"Uh we believe you Shepard, but we can't help you since you're operating in Terminus systems, us going there may start a war. Plus we're broke after spending all of our resources on repairing the Citadel. So we're just going to reinstate you as a Spectre, and that'll be it. Have fun".

[logincrash]

you ever fart so stinky that it make you horl?

[Reichspepe]

Reading planet despriptions with the chill galaxy map music is the peak of comfiness.

[logincrash]

Finished an as-much-of-a-completionist-as-I-could playthrough. ****** up on Noveria by snitching on the jellyfish for smuggling, which locked me out of the corrupt corporate cops side quest for the Turian and out of the HR corpo coup with the lisping secretary *****. But did every other quest and explored every planet.
Did the most basic ***** full Paragon playthrough. Saving the Council left a bad taste in my mouth. Those ******* ingrates deserve to die.

completionist playthrough.jpg

Will try to do a full completionist playthrough of the remaster next. Not sure which class to take. On one hand, I'm sick of playing as Soldier, but on the other - I want to check out the differences in how all the weapons handle. I assume the spells (both tech and biotic) handle the same as the original?

[logincrash]

Also, @wndrbr, that James Bond music sting on Noveria does not appear anywhere else. It is indeed a weird anomaly that sticks out like a sore thumb.

[rusty_shackleford]

Did anyone play the LE edition with HDR on?

[Bertram_Tung]

you ever fart so stinky that it make you horl?

Imagine how much differently things would have played out if Humans made first contact with Fart-horlians instead of Turians.

[wndrbr]

Did anyone play the LE edition with HDR on?

I did, it actually got turned ON by default and i was unable to disable it. Looked fine, but way too bright.

[stormvermin]

Done.

► Show Spoiler

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Never got the tier 10 colossus light, that's only tier 9. Wrex got his tho. Did Pinnacle Station before going to Ilos and got some goodies there.
Had a good time. Game is a bit back loaded in terms of exposition and it takes a while to get going especially when you're trying to get side quests done before Virmire. I have a lot to kvetch about but I'll save it for tomorrow.

It was an honor to serve aboard the Normandy with everyone during this most cold winter.

[logincrash]

>only a single manual save in 32 hours of playtime
Madman.

[Bertram_Tung]

Shlomo played on Casual

[Bertram_Tung]

I nominate Shadowrun (Sega Genesis) for February JAG

[logincrash]

I nominate Shadowrun (Sega Genesis) for February JAG

I think this would be a better fit for the regular AG.
JAG games should be on PC and playing them should not involve having to **** with emulators. JAG is a more casual affair to foster community-building and stimulate discussion other than politics/culture war.

[Bertram_Tung]

I nominate Shadowrun (Sega Genesis) for February JAG

I think this would be a better fit for the regular AG.
JAG games should be on PC and playing them should not involve having to **** with emulators. JAG is a more casual affair to foster community-building and stimulate discussion other than politics/culture war.

Too bad for you.

[logincrash]

I nominate Shadowrun (Sega Genesis) for February JAG

I think this would be a better fit for the regular AG.
JAG games should be on PC and playing them should not involve having to **** with emulators. JAG is a more casual affair to foster community-building and stimulate discussion other than politics/culture war.

Too bad for you.

You can nominate whatever you want, we're playing Golf Story in February anyway.

[Finarfin]

Just remembered the bimbofied Ashley in ME3

There are mods that make her look like ME1 Ashley iirc. My racist waifu will not be bimbofied. Not in this house.

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... /mods/1209

[stormvermin]

Shlomo played on Casual

how rude, i played on normal

[Bertram_Tung]

Shlomo played on Casual

how rude, i played on normal

I believe you

[Oyster Sauce]

I nominate Shadowrun (Sega Genesis) for February JAG

Games must be newer than Fallout 1

[Bertram_Tung]

I nominate Shadowrun (Sega Genesis) for February JAG

Games must be newer than Fallout 1

Is that a fact?

[stormvermin]

► thoughts

These are likely basic ***** points as the game has been dissected every which way in the last 20 years. It's not a series I consider myself a fan of and I haven't participated in discourse so cut me some slack.

I liked the story or at least I liked the main beats of it. I think the game could have afforded to cull some of its side quests and add an additional story planet plus another lieutenant for Saren as the Eden Prime>Citadel>Liara/Feros/Noveria>Virmire>Ilos>confront Saren chain isn't all that much content and can probably be completed in a matter of hours as was pointed out earlier ITT, but what's done is done. The game did a good job of keeping the nature of the Reapers secretive enough that the expo dumps on Virmire and Ilos come off as genuinely intriguing. Regardless of where the games go, the setup was sufficient to draw me in. In the end, I saved the Council not because it was the right thing to do or the thing I wanted to do but because the loser Shepherd I cultivated up to that point would have sacrificed infinite humans for the state of Israel.

The best part of the game for me was Noveria. I wish they leaned into the corporate ******** a bit more, making getting into the hanger a more drawn out process, but it was already the most content dense story planet so I can see why it came out the way it did. What I didn't like about it was how seemingly arbitrary some of the objectives leading up to confronting the Matriarch was. There was an entry about sneaking through the back of some lab that disappeared after I waltzed into the lab with her in it and when I reloaded thinking I ****** something to sneak into the aforementioned area, the lab security was hostile so I reloaded again and just fought the Matriarch. Very weird, I have no idea what was going on.

The side content was almost entirely forgettable. It likely was due to 80% of it being drive Mako to one of four identical outposts/mines and kill the baddies. I probably should have ignored most of it but I have a habit of wanting to clear out my quest log. It's a shame they didn't make those interiors into modular tilesets. It would have gone a long way.

The companions are hit or miss. Most of the game I used Wrex and Liara and Wrex was a lot quippier than I remembered him being and in a bad way. Capeshit dialogue before capeshit became ubiquitous. I enjoyed most of the conversations on the Normandy, especially with Tali and the nature of the Quarians, though Garrus' lack of dialogue was conspicuous unless there was some trigger for him to open up that I never hit. Feels like he was forgotten. The companions with the most intriguing stories were Tali and Kaidan. I sacrificed Ashley to the atomic gods and didn't like Liara enough to pursue a romance.

Dunno how I feel about Shepherd himself. I don't think his character is particularly strong but that might just be a consequence of constraining his personality between reliable good goy marine and guy who gets the job done. Compared to another rpg with a set protag from the same period, The Witcher, Geralt is a much more fleshed out and nuanced character at least imo. I probably didn't do myself any favors by selecting the agreeable response nine times out of ten and could have afforded to be more pragmatic but I'd be surprised if it would have made a huge difference.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, tech abilities fall off even on normal. Overload spam was fun for a while but by the end, I was barely using it, only throwing out damping and decryptions while Wrex and Liara controlled the fights. Wish I just picked soldier or a biotic. Putting high explosive rounds on a sniper was a godsend, though I don't know how well that would work on higher difficulties.

What bugged me the most and I can almost forgive the game for as it was clearly a console game was the UI and how bogged down the inventory gets. It took me a while to figure out how to flag items as junk which was a huge relief but still busy work. I really wish that they went with a different gear system as the sheer deluge of items combined with the dinky inventory screen was exhausting to manage.

It's a game that's better than the sum of its parts. If I ever replay it, I'm not going to pay attention to side content.

[logincrash]

Udina looks like he's been huffing paint.

witness me.jpg

[logincrash]

There was an entry about sneaking through the back of some lab that disappeared after I waltzed into the lab with her in it and when I reloaded thinking I ****** something to sneak into the aforementioned area, the lab security was hostile so I reloaded again and just fought the Matriarch. Very weird, I have no idea what was going on.

Garrus' lack of dialogue was conspicuous unless there was some trigger for him to open up that I never hit. Feels like he was forgotten.

Noveria is one of the few places in Mass Effect that has branching paths. Both the spaceport and the labs have paths you can miss on a single playthrough.
The only other thing that sorta comes close is when you're on the Citadel for the first time and are chasing down the leads on Saren going rogue.

Yes, Garrus has surprisingly little dialogue. He has only a single short personal quest and will have one conversation per major mission. He sorta gets the similar treatment in ME2, with the infamous "calibrations" meme.

[Tweed]

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[logincrash]

The Wards of the Citadel looks like it's just a jpeg. It was a proper 3D model in the original.

do i look like i know hwhat a jaypeg is.jpg

---

EDIT: Disregard that. It was indeed a jpeg in the original too. But it was much darker, with the flying cars lighting up the scene, creating the illusion of depth. It's too desaturated and brightened up in the remaster.

[logincrash]

What the **** is this ****? Did they spend all the purple paint on Veilguard? Or am I bleeding out and all the color is fading?

[logincrash]

Okay, I've seen enough. I do not believe the improvements outweigh the changes for the worse. Aside from the massive graphical disparity (with the remaster being markedly worse than the original in the visuals department), there's a bunch of minor niggles that just seal the deal for me:
The squadmate AI is annoying and kept getting in my way, jumping in front of my rifle right as I was firing, making me hit them instead of the enemy.
Somebody's mentioned this before, but guns suddenly having different firing modes without it being indicated anywhere is a huge annoyance.
Can't toggle helmets for the squadmates for some reason, only for Shepard.
Can't skip the frogger minigame using Omni-gel.

I remain unconvinced that the remaster is worth it.

[Kolgrim]

One of the aesthetic differences in the remaster that bothered me was how they reworked the holograms specifically of the council. They just look weirder to me. Here's an example of what I mean. Left is the original, right is the remaster:

[logincrash]

One of the aesthetic differences in the remaster that bothered me was how they reworked the holograms specifically of the council. They just look weirder to me. Here's an example of what I mean. Left is the original, right is the remaster:

They're less readable and you can see the insides of their mouths and their entire eyeballs through the skin.
Saren's holo at the Council meeting looks even worse. Not only is he barely legible, his eyes just do not point in the direction of Shepard or the Council. It's very goofy.

[TheEmptyRoad]

Welp, I'm done for tonight. Hit a bit of a softlock bug and I'm sure it's a mod.

The Krogan Battlemaster cutscene and fight on Therum isn't happening right now. Just an empty room with the barrier shield still up.

Gonna look into fixing it tomorrow.

I have a hunch what mod it is, but I'm too tired to bother atm.

EDIT/Addendum: Found it, removed it. Problem solved, got back to the Normandy with BlueWaifu in tow. Going to bed now.