Judith on 7/6/2010 at 06:53
Playing as a bad Mike I killed everybody and made everybody hate me, except for Steve. He was my handler for the last mission, and we both took the boat off the Graybox, it was a pretty hilarious scene :)
mothra on 7/6/2010 at 07:42
did you leave mina or rescue her ?
if you rescue her you can let her shoot scarlet (if you don't kill leiland) BUT whoever you sided with does not meet you at the boat (in my case SIS). And if Mina hates you you get the best dialogue in the whole game when you can decide to leave/rescue/argue with her.
I'm gonna reload moskau and piss off SIS as well. let's see if I can play the finale with no handler and no friends or the game just picks one.
Malf on 7/6/2010 at 08:07
@Judith:
Oh man, I have GOT to see that now.
Heck's my favourite character in the game.
The GOD. DAMNED. BEES.
Judith on 7/6/2010 at 08:49
Mothra - nope, somehow I always pick the wrong door (to the room with the turret) and the checkpoint is right behind them :/
Btw. I never got Mina to hate me, the worst rating I got was -2. Though her fighting with Sie over me in Moscow was pretty hilarious :).
I guess the easiest person to piss off is Madison, I loved the scene when she tried to crack my skull with a statue and then shocked me with my own gadget ;)
mothra on 7/6/2010 at 08:59
i got mina to -25 haahahahahaha. Just torture, watch Brayko kill Surkov and shoot all civilians. she gives me the: YOU ARE WORSE THAN ANYONE ELSE speech and "go away, don't rescue me" and you can leave her to die or blame her (for being the main reason you are rogue) and force her to help you against leiland.. And I love the Mike/Madison Bitch/Asshole liners in the safehouse.
Judith on 7/6/2010 at 10:16
-25?? O_0 Awesome. The worst rating I got was like -7. I didn't think about shooting civilians, I already felt guilty about all those executions, especially in case of Sis and Surkov (two shots in the knees, one in the head and a smug comment, ouch).
mothra on 7/6/2010 at 10:27
i watched brayko slice him up after I shot him 2 times. And you can taunt Albatross with Sis's death a few times turning him to Hate. But to be honest I don't think I can stomach Sis' death and Albatross pain another time. It is much worse than the scene in ME2 where you force the bartender to drink poison - which is the one that shoked me most with bad Shepard. And when Mina gives her morality speech (dynamically tuned to who you did what to) I was on the floor: BUT IT WAS ONLY A VIDEOGAME Mina, I'm not really like this. Bad Mike has some of the best dialogue imo. I like the good/stealth path more but bad Mike gets all the good lines (and best Sex with SIE) and even bigger dilemas to cope with. And pissing off Marburg is always a win.
Zygoptera on 8/6/2010 at 23:41
And... finished. Definitely my most enjoyed game since Stalker, and probably the most since Bloodlines if not SS2. Unfortunately me liking a game is usually a sign of impending commercial implosion. Ended up having a grand total of three significant bugs, one of which I suspect would be almost impossible to replicate (two CTDs, the two melee guards in Marburg's mansion disappeared on reload, turned invulnerable in the endgame after the "second chance" ability happened and put me into a boulder). Went Pistols, Sabotage, Tech with strong secondary toughness and upped stealth only at the end. Graphics and animations were fine. Saudi is definitely the weakest of the hubs though and could have used some work, especially as it was obvious given the state of things that 90% of reviewers would never make it past there.
Choices:Spared everyone up until the endgame, arrested Nasri, stopped the bomb in Rome, believed/ released Surkov then sided with G22 v Brayko and saved Albatross, stopped the assassination and learned Deng's secret. Had a positive relationship with everyone, boffed Madison, Scarlet, Mina. Turned down Leland, flipped Marburg, used Albatross as handler, freed Scarlet, knew her secret from Deng, saved Mina, killed Parker, executed Westridge and Leland. In retrospect I bet I could have got Scarlet to tell me her secret herself and saved Parker.
Unanswered questions: Does mentioning G22/ Sis to Leland have any consequences... I picked the Huh option rather than the Sis one and he then talked about SIE. I presume Madison can be saved? Is it ever outright stated that Albatross is Sis's father or is it just strongly implied by the locket- I missed one Albatross dossier section.
Things I would have liked: Ability to fight Marburg whether or not he'd been turned- corporate running dog needed to be put to sleep. Better in mission non linearity (not that I expected it, the console/UE3 combo is pretty deadly to large levels) and choice of approach. Ability to taunt Leland with Shaheed being alive- may have been an option I guess but I never saw an obvious choice for it.
Think I shall have to replay. Perhaps as a credulous recruit? Let the world burn anarchist? Shameless corporate shill? Socially inept combination of two of the above?
Jason Moyer on 9/6/2010 at 03:26
First playthrough I went stealth/pistols/sabotage as a freelancer trying to go with instinct as much as possible, and felt like I pretty much screwed the pooch at the end even though my choices were what felt right. Just finished my second as a Recruit/Spy (stealth/pistols/martial arts) and tried to keep everyone alive, while pissing off everyone but Albatross and the ladies, which had a much more satisfying ending I thought. Going to go do a veteran/aggressive/commando (or whatever the fighter class is in AP) run through next, then I might do another freelancer game while sticking to suave responses, then probably a runthrough trying to manipulate everyone into liking me. It's pretty amazing how a good 50% or more of the choices you make in dialog have lasting effects on the rest of the game. I also really like the intel gathering aspect, as it's both interesting (seriously, how many people read all of the codex shit in Bioware games?) and has a huge impact on the gameplay.
Anyway, this is a 9 out of 10 for me, minus 1 for the technical glitches, although, unlike KotoR II, it seems that the game was actually finished properly this time. Love the way it sums everything up at the end during the credits, too. So much good stuff happening in this game that I would love to see Bioware copy for Mass Effect 3, from the diverging/converging storylines to the perk system to the ambiguous moral system. I was skeptical when Obsidian said there was no good/bad in AP, just choices and consequences, but they really nailed the way conversations should be handled in cRPG's.
Zygoptera on 9/6/2010 at 03:57
There are a bunch of 'missing' levels, though they are genuinely cut rather than K2 style and I can't say I noticed any dangling.
Saudi missions 1, 2, 6* and ?interlude? mission 2; Taipei 5; Rome 9, 10, 12; Moscow 4, 6, 7; Endgame 4, 7 are missing judging from the file names and a numerical standpoint, though some seem to have been folded into other missions.
*this one actually does have some subtitle files for a mission in... a Halbech office in Milan it seems, with Parker or Mina as handler featuring such classic dialogue as "Duh duh duh dee duh duh duh duhnnn duh..." "What are you doing, Mike?" "I'm in an elevator." "Why are you humming?" "Speaker's broken." and "Chocolate Milk, this is Lunch Money." "What'd I tell you about codenames?"
Could be putative DLC, I suppose.
