Awkward
I wouldn’t know what to stay, either, though I am unsure if I would just try and hide. We may never know for sure what went on behind that door, but we can guess. More importantly, Aikida can guess, and she seems to have guessed that office supplies were getting it on like Donkey Kong. With barrels and hammers and everything.
I am working through Mass Effect 2 on insanity difficulty, and I will admit, this is the way to play it. It is hard, but not impossible. What makes it more rewarding is that each and every gunfight becomes a tactical situation. Squad selection choices are paramount, not just “who should get some face time?” Finishing each mission is a deep sigh of relief, not just another step towards the end of the game. I cannot recommend this enough.
Here are a few tips for your Insanity odyssey, if you’re interested:
- For the sake of your nerves, save your insanity playthrough until your 2nd or 3rd time. Knowing the fights ahead of time and having a feel for who does what is very, very valuable.
- Do not import your character from a previous ME2 playthrough, trust me on this. The game scales the enemies to your level, but removes all your researched upgrades when you start again. This means you’ll be fighting scaled level 25-30 enemies using crap guns and powers. If you start fresh, you’ll be a bit more even with the bad guys until you get those upgrades researched.
- Pick your class wisely. Adepts seemed weak in regular ME2, I’d imagine they’d be hard on insanity. Soldiers are tough, but not versatile. I’m not saying these are impossible picks, but you’re making it harder on yourself. I went with an infiltrator, and chose armor-piercing ammo (everything in insanity has armor or shields, or both) as my bonus power. Mixed with the cloaking power, disruptor ammo, incinerate and the M-98 rifle, and you have a character with a lot of options.
- Build your squad wisely, and and choose your mission team just as well. Cap some teammates with area of effect powers, and don’t be afraid to specialize others for very specific enemies. I set up Garrus with the AoE overload (to drain shields) and Tali with the AoE AI hacking, and use them exclusively for geth missions. I have Dr. Mordin (the very model of a scientist salarian) specced into heavy incinerate, mixed with my AoE incinerate, and Grunt’s incendiary ammo and regeneration, and this is my Husk/Scion team (Husks/scions are probably the most difficult challenges in the game, after Praetorians. Cloak + sniper shot to the scion head help a lot). Mix in Miranda and her +squad damage ability wherever else you can, and you will have an easier go of it. Legion and Garrus are very useful because of their versatility (sniper rifles/assault rifles), and you will find yourself using them a lot. I did.
- You will need to position your squad manually and probably use their powers manually as well.
- Choose weapons wisely, for you and NPCs. NPCs never run out of ammo, so I always have my snipers running with the default sniper rifle. It hits hard, and they don’t have to worry about the ten shot mag. There’s also a geth assault rifle on hard/insanity difficulty, but it works best on shields. Best to go back to the 5 round burst rifle on armored foes.
- Krogan are not as tough as you think, as long as you can burn through their armor fast (incinerate) and have a biotic with Pull. Pull them as soon as their armor is down, and shoot the floating pinata.
- The Cain isn’t as awesome on insanity difficulty as it is on other levels. I use the grenade launcher more, and the collector beam.
- Here are some of the tougher missions on insanity that you may want to plan ahead on; Rescuing Garrus (the shutters), Horizon (husks, scions, collectors and a praetorian, before you have any good weapons or upgrades. Hump pillars, and be glad you were an infiltrator if you went that way), Tali’s rescue (On the approach to the colossus. This takes a lot of patience and moving your squad along slowly to get into position. Great fun!), The reaper IFF (Lots of husks and scions. Bring Mordin, have incinerate maxed), and the suicide mission, obviously. Most other fights are doable once you get into the rhythm, and become kind of enjoyable.
- Research everything you can, even guns you personally do not use. You will need you NPC squaddies as tough as you, trust me. Yes, this means more mining. Suck it up.
- Any time you can use a Renegade moment to thin the herd a bit, do it. Be a bad ass, and even the odds, all at the same time. It helps.
- Enjoy your achievement.
The donation incentive has been modified, as I have added another wallpaper. If you had donated since the last (BFF!) incentive went up, you will receive the new one as well if you donated 10 bucks. As is, both are a package, and I think they’re a good one! The Kassie image turned out very nicely, I think.
More scissors on Monday. Enjoy your insanity playthroughs! (You can do it!)
