Please wait while loading the page. You need to enable javascript to show the content.

I have completed the game on insanity today. That difficulty level was much more enjoyable but it had a bunch of glitches. Glitches that never show up in normal difficulty shows up on the hardest difficulty in most games. Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2 had the least annoying glitches in the hardest difficulty as far as I can remember. Call of Duty 3 was the worst in my experience.

Some tips for playing the insanity difficulty:

I started with soldier class and had difficulty all through and got stuck at the collector ship moving platform. I was not able to get beyond that despite trying for hours. I went back to Normandy several times to switch squad members and retrain. Nothing helped. Then I noticed the message displayed at the bottom every time I died and the game was reloading “Sentinels are nearly indestructible. Their tech armor provides and additional layer of protection…”. So I abandoned that class and started over with Sentinel class. In the soldier class run, I had a hard time at Horizon with praetorian and was not looking forward to it.

With the help of tech armor, I was able to run around and finish it much easily. The key was not to use other powers when the enemy is near so that you can recharge the power armor when down. I also used the armor piercing ammo with tungsten rounds as my bonus power and kept shooting while running around. Thermal clips is not a problem in that place because it keeps spawning at few places.

On the Collector ship flying platforms, I had Miranda and Jack, both loyal as squad members. Jack had squad warp ammo. Not sure if that helped. I wish a squad mate had cryo ammo. I saw some videos where cryo ammo worked well. Praetorian was again just about running around that place. But needed to take care of the drones and husks first. That was the first place where I used a heavy weapon after Lazarus station. Then on it is just about keeping the distance and asking squad mates to not to rush. Give them cover way behind so that you can use their powers while running around. In the last husk rush I am not sure if I needed to fight or could have just run through them. What I did was to run all the way back and shoot them by climbing across a cover that they won’t cross. They go around to reach you and then you can jump to the other side and continue shooting.

Loyalty missions are much easier and shouldn’t miss on the upgrades they provide. I purchased all damage protections first, then biotic damages and then weapon damage upgrades. The last upgrades I purchased were tech because difficult missions all involved organics.

To get all members loyal and save all crew, recruit and complete all loyalty missions before going to derelict reaper. Talk to Legion as soon as you revive him. Talk again and he will tell you about his loyalty mission. The IFF shakedown will not occur if you go directly to his mission right after completing derelict reaper mission.

Derelict reaper was all about running back. As soon as you see the husks run back, warp and then throw. Heavy warp removes the armor in one hit and heavy throw disintegrates with one hit. When too many, shoot with armor piercing ammo and throw again. Just keep a good distance from Scions. They move slow and can be easily killed with multiple warp. Never had to use heavy weapon.

At the collector base I had Legion and Grunt as squad mates because of their shields. That was a good choice because I only died once and was at the final battle. Didn’t see a Harbinger at the back. All through that mission, the tactic was to kill the drones as soon as they land. Take out the barrier and the Grunt’s squad incendiary ammo took care of them. But don’t wait, just keep shooting so that Harbinger doesn’t get a chance to take over them. If he does, just send a combat drone and he is distracted, finish him off.

I emptied the heavy weapon on the reaper’s eye and kept shooting the eye. I pretty much ran out of ammo on all guns except that sub machine gun. Don’t forget to take care of harbingers that spawn near you. Also, on insanity, the reaper will come up on the sides as well. There is no safe spot. After it falls down, look for the arms. Run to the other side while watching for Harbinger. There will be a reasonably safe spot on the other side. Don’t use powers on the reaper unless there are no drones or Harbingers around or you will not able to get armor back up.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/08/exercise-ratings-for-games

I mean this part.

The problem lies elsewhere.

Sure, I waited until the price of this game came down to below $30. After watching the trailers and videos, I decided that it is not worth $60. It turns out I was right, at least for my liking. The whole thing feels like it was made to make quick buck. May be because unlike Microsoft Game Studios, EA may be more greedy.

There is not much of an exploration in ME2. In ME1, you could land on unexplored planets and just drive around. Not in this one.

Customizations are almost crap. Half of what I did in ME1 was customization. OK, it is dressing up. But I am pretty sure a lot of players enjoyed that. Even though they are only armors and the helmet.

There were a lot of different guns and armors in ME1. Me2, not so much. Not even half as much I think.

All these replaced with more missions? Not in my opinion.

There is one difference though. The worlds are more diverse than they were in ME1. ME1 worlds were monotonous. If you have seen one world, then you have seen most, mostly the building construction and people.

People still keep babbling the same thing for years. Sometimes silence is better than repetition.

Update: I have changed my mind a lot about this game. Read here.

I also got cheated by Cerberus network. When I clicked on on one downloadable item after logging on to Cerberus Network, it showed this download free. I clicked confirm download and Microsoft points were deducted. That wasn’t nice. I clicked on another and it showed free too. I waited for few seconds and then the Free changed to 560.

If you are like millions of gamers around the globe playing Modern Warfare 2 everyday, well may be less than millions, you tried to download and play the new map pack called stimulus package. But if you tried to get it at the advertised time, you are probably disappointed. It came late and when it came, it wasn’t good enough because patch wasn’t there yet. Then when the patch came, you realized that you have to play types that you don’t like to get to the type you love, or like. Smelled like Gears of War 2 map packs.

Based on my past experience with all these game companies, I decided to skip the stimulus package. I am glad I did.

The game has one of the worst match making in my opinion. That doesn’t mean it IS the worst match making. Lot of people like that fresh meat. Me not. I like to play with people of similar skills. I kind of think that games won’t be able to “detect” people who don’t care. The kind that keep rushing to the same spot and die over and over by a camper or a super skilled player.

I only play team death match express. I used to play the mercenary team death match but the intervals are insanely long. My preference is to start the next match right away saying “match begins in 15 seconds” instead of giving a 15 second interval, then match begin in 8 seconds and then once the game loads another 10 or so seconds. But, express is good enough.

Then there are maps that should never have been, like Derail and Karachi. Again, just my opinion. Call of Duty 2 originally had an option to exclude maps you didn’t like. I loved it and hated the patch that “fixed” it. The frequency at which favorite maps appear is like one in 100. Some days I don’t even see them even though I play 2+ hours.

Another strike against Stimulus Package is the inclusion of the one map I did not like, the overgrown. Crash was a reasonably good one.

Alright, I probably just gave away my play style. I don’t snipe. The only challenge in basic training I never finish is the ghillies in the mist. The total sniper kills out of ~25,000 kills I have right now is less than 10. One of the first challenges I finish is NBK. I love long shots using rifles without a scope.

In the past I have blogged about how Microsoft bungles major game releases on Xbox live. The service goes down with almost every big game release because it couldn’t handle the traffic. If it happens once or twice, I can completely understand. But if it is the same story every time, I will have to call it insanity courtesy of Einstein.

So, am I going to get the stimulus package? May be, but I would wait for things to sort out. I am reading blogs and conversations on the Internet about it. Make it worth that 1200 MS points. As long as I see those two playlists at the bottom, I may not buy it.