Tag: BioWare

Mass Effect 2 Trophy Guide

Editorial Team

Mass Effect 2 Trophy Guide. Difficulty: ***  A third-person sci-fi action RPG and sequel to the 2007 title Mass Effect. The Platinum is both time consuming and challenging, as it requires a playthrough on Insanity mode.

Game Name Difficulty Trophies Developer Country Bronze Silver Gold Online DLC
Mass Effect 2 *** 55 BioWare Canada 46 6 2 0 4

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 is a sci-fi third-person RPG, and a sequel to the 2007 Mass Effect, which was not released on the PlayStation 3. Players select from six character classes, upgrading their skills and powers along the way, while selecting from a variety of weapons and armor, as well as make decisions which impact the story's outcome.

Taking place in the 22nd century, and beginning only a few weeks after the prequel, humanity is threatened by an insect-like species known as the Collectors. Commander Shephard must put together a diverse team in order to defeat the enemy in a suicide mission.

Mass Effect 2 was both a commercial and critical success, with an average rating of 95%, praised for its interesting characters and storyline, great visuals and music, and for its overall exciting experience.

The 3-star rating is for both time-consumption and challenge. You will need to finish the game on Insanity mode, which can be quite difficult and frustrating. On Casual mode, a full playthrough, with all the side-missions completed, could take between 35-45 hours. On Insanity, you can expect those hours to be higher. Yet the good news is, you can begin your game immediately on Insanity, if you wish.

Overall, expect anywhere between 40-80 hours to complete, depending on how many playthroughs you do.

Mass Effect 2, among other things, is all about making choices. And the first choice you will have to make, is which mode to begin your playthrough on. At some point, you will need to complete the game on Insanity, which is an option from the start. Doing this means collecting the platinum in one playthrough - so long as you unlocked all the missable trophies. However, Insanity is very challenging, and can be especially frustrating for someone not familiar with the Mass Effect series. So, the choice is yours. Either begin on Casual mode first, then do a second playthrough, or start right with Insanity.

As you play through the game, keep in mind that the point of no return is when you enter the Omega 4 Relay. Before doing this, make sure you've unlocked all the other trophies. This includes all the loyalty-related ones, and several others. A good rule of thumb is to save often in multiple slots, so you can always backtrack if you missed something. Be sure to check out the Mass Effect 2 trophy guide links under our Links tab to see what you still need and their requirements.

If you're a completionist who plans to finish the DLC, it should be noted that The Price of Revenge must be done before you travel through the Omega 4 Relay. However, the three trophies for the Arrival DLC can be unlocked anytime after.

IGN has a useful Walkthrough, here:
http://www.ign.com/wikis/mass-effect-2/Walkthrough

And a detailed wiki Walkthrough, here:
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_2_Guide

And Mahalo has a useful Walkthrough, here:
http://www.mahalo.com/mass-effect-2-walkthrough/

Olsen77 has a great Trophy Guide here, which includes the DLC:
http://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/mass-effect-2/guide/

And a detailed Trophy Guide here, by Gauss:
http://ps3trophies.com/forums/showwiki.php?title=PS3-Trophy-Guides:Mass-Effect-2-Trophy-Guide

Here's a great text-based Trophy Guide, by Gamer364:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/605239-mass-effect-2/faqs/61954

Jeff Belote has a useful Trophy Guide, here:
http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2011/01/21/mass-effect-2-trophy-guide-2/

This is a text-based Romance Guide, by Daniel Acaba:
http://www.ign.com/faqs/2010/mass-effect-2-886317-romance-guide-1073005

And a text-based End Game Guide, by Kaymon:
http://www.ign.com/faqs/2011/mass-effect-2-886317-end-game-guide-1183744

Finally, here's a basic Trophy List:
http://www.allps3trophies.com/retail-games/mass-effect-2-trophies.html

Dragon Age II Trophy Guide

Editorial Team

Dragon Age II Trophy Guide. Difficulty: ***  An action RPG and sequel to the 2009 Dragon Age: Origins. Time consuming with a few tricky Trophies that require some strategy, though overall doable for any average gamer.

Game Name Difficulty Trophies Developer Country Bronze Silver Gold Online DLC
Dragon Age II *** 51 BioWare Canada 34 15 1 0 15

Dragon Age II

A sequel to Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II is an RPG in which the player can select a character based on three classes, build up members in the party, and take on the forces of darkness.

The main character is Hawke, who has fled Lothering after its demise and taken refuge in the city of Kirkwall. Spanning across a decade, Hawke attempts to raise his family's status from refugee by assisting in several quests and a journey into the dark roads, act as a mediator for the Qunari people, and handle the heated disputes between mages and the Chantry.

Dragon Age II has received relatively high praise, with an average score of 85%.

For more information, check out our Dragon Age II Review.

While given the same 3-star rating as its predecessor, Dragon Age II is much easier to platinum than Origins. If you have a completed save on your PS3 for Dragon Age: Origins, you can load it into Dragon Age II, thereby acquiring the Epic trophy - and only requiring one full playthrough. The rest is simply mopping up trophies throughout the game.

The trophy Supplier can be a bit of a pain, as you need to locate EVERY variety of every crafting item - and they aren't as plentiful as they were in Origins. But by using the guides in our Links page, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

If you're in a rush to collect the platinum, make sure you upload a previous save from Dragon Age: Origins (if you have one) so as to unlock the Epic trophy at the end of the game. Pay special attention to collecting all crafting items and recipes along the way (see our guides and walkthroughs in the Links page for more information) as well as all the secret messages from the Band of Three for the Archeologist trophy, and all chapters for the Chantry Historian trophy. Also, while assuming a romantic relationship with one character (which will also earn you the Friend trophy) you must make sure at least 3 other characters like you, and keep one as a rival - or vice versa.

If you've managed to collect all those necessary trophies during your first playthrough, then all you will need is Mass Exodus (which is simply playing the intro with all three classes - Mage, Warrior and Rogue) and either Mercenary or Nefarious (depending on who you sided with in your last playthrough) and either Arcane Defender or Mage Hunter (depending again, on decisions earlier). Once all that's done, the platinum's yours!

MyCheats has a great Walkthrough:
http://mycheats.1up.com/view/superguide/3174274/dragon_age_2/xbox_360

A great Walkthrough was created by CJ Miozzi, posted here:
http://gamefront.com/dragon-age-2-walkthrough'>http://gamefront.com/dragon-age-2-walkthrough'>http://gamefront.com/dragon-age-2-walkthrough

GameFuzion has another video-based Walkthrough:
http://www.gamerfuzion.com/blogs/dragon-age-2-walkthrough-xbox-360-ps3-pc-strategy-guide/

Asuka has put together an excellent Trophy Guide:
http://www.ps3trophies.com/forums/showwiki.php?title=Dragon-Age-2-Trophy-Guide

Yet another video-based Walkthrough, posted by Dragos Pirvu:
http://www.geeksailor.com/dragon-age-2-walkthrough-guide-videos/

Another Trophy Guide, posted on Ripten, which includes several videos:
http://www.ripten.com/2011/03/18/da2-achievement-guide-mauler/

And Josh has posted a great list of "locatable items" here:
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2011/03/04/dragon-age-2-achievements-and-trophies-guide-xbox-360-ps3.htm

Lastly, here's a basic Trophy List:
http://gamefront.com/dragon-age-2-trophies

Dragon Age II Review

Editorial Team

8/10 Banzai!s

The Game:

Developed by Bioware, the same Canucks who brought the Mass Effect series and Kights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age II is – naturally – a sequel to their successful 2009 Dragon Age: Origins, a third-person RPG filled with magic and mayhem.

Taking place during the events of Origins, Hawke and his family flee Ferelden during the blight, seeking refuge in the city of Kirkwall. Beginning as a refugee living in the slums, Hawke spends the next several years climbing the social ranks through found wealth, becoming champion of Kirkwall, and must save the city from a coming civil war. The story of Dragon Age II is told by Varric Tethras, a dwarf and friend of Hawke who can be, at times, an unreliable narrator.

Much of the gameplay and battle system is the same as its predecessor, with a few minor improvements. Players can chose the sex of Hawke, as well as the same three classes from Origins. However, this time around, Hawke is a real character with a real voice- more in the style of Shepherd in Mass Effect, with some face and hair alterations available.

 

What I Liked:

The graphics – which were criticized in Origins – are a vast improvement. Nothing that would blow you away, but easier on the eyes. Also, in my experience playing the game three times over, I never experienced any glitches or game freezes, which I encountered – though only a few – in Origins.

I also preferred playing a real character – Hawke – rather than creating my own. It’s fun to make a character who looks like me, goatee and all, but he ends up looking like a doll during the course of the game who never speaks, nodding his head and waving his hands like he wants to say something, but can’t. It’s nice being able to hear what Hawke has to say.

The characters, overall, wre more interesting than those in Origins. Among them, you’ve got the wise-cracking dwarf (who is also narrating the story) a female elf who’s both young and naive but bent on following the dark path of blood magic, a sexy rogue sailor, a mage who spends his time curing the sick while trying to contain a spirit living in his body. And yes, you can have sex with most of these people.

I also found the side-quests more interesting. In Origins, you might encounter someone saying, “Help, spiders have kidnapped my daughter!” So you go fight some spiders, rescue the daughter, the end. Quite linear, at times. But the quests in Dragon Age II offer a few more twists, and sometimes difficult decisions to make.

 

What I Didn’t Like:

The overall story was interesting, but pales in comparison to the epic tale of Origins. To be fair, it’s quite difficult to top such an adventure: the darkspawn have returned, their evil growing while the land’s powers are at conflict with one another, and ending in a huge climactic battle. Perhaps the scale of that story cannot be topped, only repeated. Rather than being redundant, Bioware decided to create a different kind of story which takes place within one city. I give kudos to the developers for that, but still can’t help but feel the first game was far more epic.

I still find it confusing on following-up on certain side-quests, as I did with Origins. Normally you “agree” to any quest you can find. Then you look at your map, and find a million markers. Since it takes time to load between areas, I found myself doing all that needs to be done until moving to the next location – which means being in the middle of one quest, then doing three more and forgetting the storyline of the previous one. It would be nice if you could “select” the quest you wish to do, then have only that marker show up on your map, much like Oblivion or Fallout 3.

 

Overall:

While not as good as the first, Dragon Age II is still a great game for anyone who was a fan of Origins. Though both games and received a 3-star rating for difficulty on our Game Database, Dragon Age II is an easier platinum, mainly because there’s no Traveler trophy – that one was a real doozey for some people! However, the Supplier trophy, in which you need to find every variety of crafting resource, may frustrate some – some make multiple saves.

And like a prologue, Dragon Age II sets itself up for part 3, as there are many questions not fully answered byt he end of the game. Why was Varric ordered to tell this story? What exactly was the relic they found? What is the Chantry doing? Guess we’ll have to wait to find out.

 

written by Damon Finos