i do enjoy videogames. i grew up with pac man, dig dug, centipede, and i remember when Nintendo took console gaming by storm to compete with Atari. but generally speaking, PC games can be made to look, sound, and immerse better, by the ability to open the computer and upgrade the videogame related parts.
there are a lot of game to play these days, each one offering a timewastefulfunexperience. theres only so much time in a persons life, and i choose witch games i want to sink hours into, carefully. and then i tend to stick with a select few games, and try to get really skilled at them, rather than divide literally, my brain talent-points development, on dozens of games.
mass effect is one of those games. Lair of the Shadow Broker is probably the most fun in the entire series of ME 1,2 and 3 and I consider all three to be spectacularly fun, with no particular favorite.
to summarize across all three games, you can choose to play either a soldier with soldier skills and weapons expertise, an engineer who uses technology, a biotic adept, who is basically a Dark Force Jedi, a sentinel, who is kinda little bit of all three, and uses biotics, technology, and weapons. there is the sniper/infiltrator, (pretty obvious, a sniper rifle and a cloaking device) and the Vanguard, who is a soldier/biotic.
the first time i did an ME 2 playthrough, which pits Commander Shepard as an agent of Cerberus, working beyond Earth Alliance Systems, to deal with a race of biotic bugs that are stealing/kinapping/analprobing human colonists beyond the reach of Earth Military, i played as a Sentinel. and all I did was blitz through like playing a tank class in a swordsandsorcery online game. the Sentinel uses a shield to absorb damage, and can pop the shield, to stun multiple enemies, and shoot/biotic them while they are stunned. i was a newb right.
then i reread the Vanguard class, and realized the Biotic Barrier and Biotic Charge (witch insta-restores your shield and insta-stuns whomever you hit as you warp across the room instantly) were tailored to the way i was playing the Sentinel. i started a new playthrough before beating the game as a Sentinel, and fell in love as i became a biotic god. i didnt even need a team. using my predictive timing, and my relaxed CNS, i just flowed like an armored angel of death, jumping from one group of enemies, to another. stun with my Biotic Charge, fire a blast with my shotgun using cryo rounds which slows the enemies movement speed, and brittles them, making them able to be smashed into flying ice cubes, which is the best sound in the game combatwisr/ammowsr
depending on the range, i may fire the shotgun, freeze the enemy, and then jumpwarp dodgecharge right into the mob, exploding him in ice chunks. or, i may jump across the room, Stun the enemy with my Biotic Charge, and as he is stunned, fire the shotgun at the guy standing next to him, applying the cryo-effect, so hes moving in half-time, and reels from the shotgun power. then i melee-strike the mob that i stunned with the charge, with my elbow/riflebutt, staggering/stunning him again! then Warpcharge, into a third enemy, stunning him, turn and pivot to the guy i cryo ammod without killing him, and shoot him again, or shoot the guy i melee attacked. then BioticCharge again. blowing up the first guy, turn and melee elbowstun the guy i cryo-ammod to keep him stunned, turn and shoot the third guy, reapplying the cryo slow effect, and when my charge comes back up, blink into one or the other of them, finishing them off with a Charge(stun)shoot(freezes)riflebutt(stuns and explodes frozen targets neardeath).
and that is how i found my calling as a vanguard in mass effect. i have played all the other classes, and the only other class i care to play in nononlinestoryline mode, is the Biotic Adept, which is basically Liara-lite. Most of her abilities, but no weaponskills really, and i play the same way, i just run, instead blinkwarpjump, and i blow everything up with Dark Energy combo explosions and damage over times, and precise shooting with my little pistol, instead of melee everyone around me as i come out of Biotic Charge, a slight change in aggressive movement. i blow them all up with Dark Energy, then move through them, rather than jump into them at pointblankrange and go all gunkata on them.
after i leveled up my ME 2 Vanguard and beat the Collectors, i played original Mass Effect all the way through, to get the story on all the team mates, and prior history, and once i rescued Liara, the Asari scientist and biotic and daughter of an Asari Matriarch who also leads the Asari Commandos, we have a game romance and she becomes my gf, Shes a biotic goddess disguised as a scientist. her abilities in Mass Effect 1 are unbelievably overpowered. if you pick her as a squadmate to do missions with, everything becomes easy, (and funny) if you are tactical with her abilities. and the convos with her are super fun, in ME1 and ME3,
i use all the squadmates, but rarely Samara, the Asari Justicar, or Jack, the biotic child experiment locked away in a Cerberus Institution, because as a Biotic myself, either Adept or Vanguard, I tend to user her AIscripted biotic powers far better than she does. (both shes). in Mass Effect1 i roll with Liara and the Krogan Battlemaster, Wrex, and we all have biotics, in ME2, I roll with the mercenary Zaeed, and or Miranda usually, and then rotate my other team mate. In ME3, i went right back to my girlfriend Liara for everything, every mission, and rotated my other squaddie, but often took the Prothean for his weapons and biotics.
however, in Mass Effect 2 final mission to beat the Collectors at their Deep Space Base you are forced to take a biotic squadmate at one point, to protect you from swarms of thousands of seeking bio-robo-bugs that bite you to put you in stasis, and can literally take a hold of you, swarmwisr, and fly off with you for processing.
you need someone to protect the entire team with a shield, and Samara, is a protector. right? thats what she does. Jack, on the other hand, is an emotgothsuicidegirl. Her body says Punk Butch or something…and she has serious anger issues and cynicism. but her eyes and her sensitive Biotic Powers say….hmmm.
she hates just about everyone, which is understandable. you recruit her by breaking her out of a Mercenary Slam run by Turians. Shes in a slam because she kills mercenaries and causes mayhem with her biotics. shes in her own confinement cell, and when they uncryo her, she berzerks and starts destroying everyone and everything trying to escape. she was picked up by Cerberus as a little girl because of her biotics, and sent to a special “school” where they did experiments on her brain, and with chemicals and implants, and then ran a Hunger-Games Gladiator Arena to pit-fight biotic teens with attitude problems against each other. understandably shes not well socialised.
i pick Jack as my Shield Maiden. The only other option was the weak biotic Miranda, who is like a ValleyGirl/DaddysLittleGirl special genetic genius agentgirl. Miranda and Jack are alike with totally opposite childhoods. Jack fought in lab-arenas, Miranda was sent to the best schools. They hate each other in the game. Or, picking Samara, who I already noted, spend her lifesactivism putting the smackdown on badpeople with her Biotics.
Jack works under me, Commander Shepard, and a masterbiotic. I know how to use DarkForce in that game like a boss. I decide how best to use her abilities. In every scripted cutscene, shes is lighting up someone or something with a biotic attack. everyone knows shes a biotic wrecking ball. so i have her use her advanced and hardwon combat abilities, to act like an Asari, a female who is born with great Biotic Power, and I have her work like an Asari C0mmando, by channeling all that Rage, into a Biotic Shield Barrier to protect not only herself, but the rest of us. in fact, the missions passes or fails whether or not she keeps that shield up. so, i make her do something good with her Dark Biotics, use them defensively to benefit everyone, and let her “prove herself” to the rest of crew. if you are going to use biotics and be on my team, you get trained and deployed like an Asari.
Plastic Girl V3.0 