In addition to the adjustments mentioned above, Shepard gets accustomed to the new shooting system. There are no aliens, and everyone is wearing white-and-black uniforms with a six-sided yellow icon on them. Someone has sabotaged the place, and the automated security mechs which are supposed to be defending everyone are, instead, murdering them. A Voice with an Internet Connection, a woman, tells them to hustle up, grab a gun and some armor: apparently, the. Shepard, potentially edited from the first game, awakens on an operating table. They can equip shotguns in addition to their Pistol & SMG. Vanguards get Charge, a biotic bodyslam that refills your shields.They also get a bonus passive which causes automatic Bullet Time when aiming a Sniper Rifle, which they can use in addition to the standard Pistol & SMG loadout. Sentinels get Tech Armor, increasing your shield values and providing a Herd-Hitting Attack when overwhelmed.Engineers get Combat Drone, which summons a Hard Light Hologram to draw fire and stun anything that gets close to it.Adepts retain Singularity, the Unrealistic Black Hole which yoinks enemies towards it and causes them to revolve helplessly in orbit around it for a short time - the best crowd-control spell in the game, period.The only class to not equip SMGs, they instead retain the arsenal from the first game. Soldiers get Adrenaline Rush, which boosts shooting damage and provides a short Bullet Time effect.That being said, there is now significantly less overlap in terms of classes having the same skills, and each class now has a Signature Move for an active skill: Player Party characters have only two active skills, a passive, and a third skill that needs to be unlocked somehow. The entire character class system has been simplified: each player class only has five active skills and a single passive.(Also, without Downloadable Content, there's only two types of each gun to choose between.) That said, Shepard also gets access to 'Heavy Weapons' which are intended to handle crowds. Classes have always been divided between Combat and Support, but the three Support classes - Adept, Sentinel and Engineer - are hit the worst as they are restricted to only pistols (the starting pistol does Cherry Tapping at best) and SMGs (the starting SMG is suitable for A-Team Firing at best), a major downgrade from the first game where sharpshooting was within reach of every class (and, indeed, was arguably the point of the game's shooting mechanics). (Liara, the straight-up Squishy Wizard, couldn't learn to use any of them well!) The second game adds 'submachine guns' to the list of weapon types, but now restricts all characters, including Shepard, to a Limited Loadout. In the first game, every character could use every type of weapon - Punch-Packing Pistol, Shotguns Are Just Better, assault rifle and Sniper Rifle - but could only learn to use some of them well.It is worth noting that Mass Effect 2 is an Actionized Sequel and a number of things have been streamlined. The player is allowed to confirm or change Shepard's appearance and character class. The commander plummets towards a nearby planet, suffocating. Shepard, floating in space, feels shrapnel piercing their hardsuit. Shepard tosses him into an Escape Pod and hits the button, just as the cruiser fires one last shot that destroys the Normandy for good. Shepard, meanwhile, heads up to the bridge, where Joker is still trying to keep the crippled ship moving. The Virmire Survivor (either Kaidan or Ashley, the Mutually Exclusive Party Members who cannot both live through the first game) runs to Shepard belowdecks the commander is activating a distress beacon, and declares the Abandon Ship, charging the Virmire Survivor with getting everyone else off. Navigator Pressly is slain immediately (via a case of the old Explosive Instrumentation), and more casualties follow. While investigating, the Normandy becomes the victim of a surprise attack from an unknown cruiser with powerful weapons just one shot cripples the ship. Officially, the Reapers - a Badass Army of Eldritch Abominations bent on waging a Robot War on the entire Milky Way Galaxy - are nothing but a rumor, even though Shepard verifiably slew one during the Final Battle of the previous game instead, it was just a massive geth incursion, and Shepard is out here to put a stop to it. The Normandy SR-1 is on the hunt for the geth.

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