Zero Serenity said:
22 Hours In: I'm finding myself having fun "wasting time". I've explored most of the Milky Way and still hate the Mako, but have beefed myself up to a comfortable level 36 while barely touching the story missions. I don't find the characters engaging at all and I specifically wanna punch Ashley in the face. Shepard I'm enjoying a lot because of the range of options for responding to things. He feels fsr less binary and the lack of a binary good/evil meter and instead a meter for each does feel fun and fresh.
Your probably doing this the right way IMO. The story missions are more interesting and more atmospheric, but doing the sidequests first lets you unlock all your dialogue options and stuff, meaning you don't see an option that you'd really rather take in a conversation, but not be allowed to as you haven't invested enough into being Captain America or Dirty Harry.
And yeah, the characters in ME1 aren't too great [Saren is alright, Wrex is cool, but the rest are pretty bleh], but in ME2 that picks up a ton.
If you like the dialogue options, if/when you ever get to ME3 you'll find it highly disappointing, as most have been removed.
The time wasting does feel rather bland but tolerable. The problem I have is why in hell surveying minerals requires a simon says like game. (I suppose you could call them quick-time events)
Yeah, this doesn't get fixed all through the series. ME2 has the crappy planet scanning, and ME3 has fly around Reaper sirens cops and robbers style thing. Kinda crap, but it fills in the time when you don't feel like doing anything.
I'm not a fan of the thresher maws since it's a fight entirely in the Mako. It would be fine if you could lock onto the beast, but fights seem like such a delay on the fun bits.
You can get out of the Mako and fight it on foot. It just takes a lot longer to kill. So long as you keep moving, and don't get too close, you're fine. Plus you get more XP for killing it on foot, as with any enemy.
I did, somehow, pick up the ability to buy Specter gear which makes me think I'm a bit overpowered since the gunfights when from annoying to flying by faster than I can tell.
You unlock that when you become a spectre from memory, and you can get two sets: 1 from the C-Sec armoury, 1 from the Alliance Requisitions officer. Personally I'd wait a little before buying them: The level of the items you can buy changes as you level, so if you get to a higher level before buying them, you can get really good weapons, whilst if you buy them early you drop potentially the best weapons in the game down to marginally the best, if that compared to some other things.
As for combat, in ME1 its piss easy. Melee enemies are a bit of a bi***, thanks to their near 1 hit kill attacks, as are enemy biotics [Both of which you'll face en mass in the main mission set], but otherwise its pretty meh. Oh, and Krogan can be evil if you don't realise they get back up after you kill them and charge you. Try turning up the difficulty if you're finding it too easy though. Might help.
I have settled into Tali and Garrus as my team as it's basically Assault, Defense and Sniper with the technology bits for show. Again, as I said before, it does make fights go by rather quickly.
Hehehe, there are some truly evil combos you can do in ME1. I personally took Wrex over Garrus for the Biotics, but Kaiden and Liara together worked well - just disable everything en mass by lifting it, throwing it, stasising it or anything else.
I do think it's odd that I'm feeling the "it gets better later" vibe, considering FFXIII had that complaint, but this one seems to skirt by.
Yeah, its kinda odd like that. Every time I start a new playthrough "Ok, I am not wasting so much time with the sidequests this time, just a story run, then I'm done. I'm sick of these samey rooms and boring levels".
/me ends up doing every sidequest in the game before starting Feros or Noveria [Not actually possible, as some quests are unlocked after doing each, but as many as you can do].
Whelp, there goes that plan.
