I've been playing this for roughly a week, and am perhaps a third the way through the main arc.

Thoughts: Importing a character from the previous game is a lot of fun, seeing where your various actions have repercussions on the existing story.. though of course we are talking mostly plug and play modules here: No deep repercussions.

Additional game play elements like real resource tracking (and not being fan-fucking-tastically wealthy beyond measure by halfway into the main arc...) makes some real challenges on top of the existing ones.

Combat is much more challenging than before it seems. The addition of heavy weapons and ammo tracking add a new dimension... but the implementation is spotty: You never have more than your starting ammo in a fight (sniper specs are HARD. ten rounds to last the fight? Seriously???)... but heavy weapon ammo is never retopped, but must be found (but you still have a cap on how much you can have at once... terrible mix!).

Research is a cool addition to the game, but not at the cost of found items, especially since you are 'money poor', and bad guys only drop ammo... which is both free, and necessary to make any mission end better than let 'npc party members win for you with thier endless ammo....

Resource gathering minigame is ASS. Oh god is it ass.  Of the thirty odd hours of game play I've spent 20 or so 'scanning planets' and dropping probes and I STILL can't make a new medbay for my ship!

Stripped down RPG aspect is ass:  XP is handed out in drips and drabs at the end of missions only or for completing mini=quests... you essentially 'ding' after each 'storyline' quest no matter what.  You have far less skills (and for that matter, options in gear), and you may wind up (WILL that is...) waiting out a couple of levels at a time to buy the back half of your skills.  


In short; If you liked the story elements of Mass Effect but found the character customization 'too hard' and disliked all that roaming around planets in a buggy, but liked the idea of space prospecting promised by scouting resource nodes?  THis game might just be for you.

As it stands: THe stripped down RPG angle and the dull as dishwater time waster of the 'exploration' thing make Mass Effect 2 merely playable rather than 'awesome'.  On the Xbox the loss of 'in game' benefits to various 'achievements' is a sorry loss.

THe Big Hit however is the loss of geography.  You can't just 'go places' like you could in the first, but they still make you walk all over the fucking map like a lost hound dog to be magically transported to 'mission areas' or just to go shopping. Ugh.

Yep pretty much.  

I borrowed it from a friend this weekend and played it for about 4 hrs. Man was that 4 hours of boredom. I don't know what it is, but I've completely lost any interest in Bioware's RPG formula games. They are all the friggen same.

You there - you know the new guy. You are the most important person in the universe you are going to do this mission for us. No shut-up you don't get a say in it, no we don't care if you are as pure as the fallen snow or rotten to the core, yeah you can be mean but ultimately you'll still do good things. Yes, fine cross your fingers behind your back and screw us in the end if you must. Blah, blah, blah random meaningless dialogue, fast forward to the action part, fight, shoot, fight, blah, blah BIG FIGHT, fast forward back to playing the universes whipping boy, blah, blah blah, fight etc...etc...etc...

This was the same formula they've been using since Baldur's gate. Despite their promises of evolving things and making you know - real choices - their games all still feel the same.  You just might get rewarded with a different cut scene. The only thing differentiating them now is their combat engines and how you can play dress up with your rag dolls.

So there I am playing ME2 and the whole story part of it was boring me to tears. Then the combat system comes up and it's not bad, pretty solid actually if it weren't for the fact that they only have 3 types of combats. You either get the jump on them, they get the jump on you or the boss fight. Anyway I fought my 'three' fights and said "hey this cover system is like Gears of War".  Which I also realized I'd much rather be playing right then and there. Ultimately the thing that I found best in ME2 was fighting and Gears of War does fighting way better.  So that's what I did and I was happy.

Where it gets a little more interesting is that GoW(1&2) tells a story, it's not as big a story as ME2 but there is still a story being told as you fight your way through the hordes of enemies. More importantly I'm not being overly crushed in the story.  It's a nice fast moving tale, a page burner if you will.

In ME2 you have to actively pursue the story where as in GoW the story unfolds naturally through the game, you aren't plagued with rambling dialogues or pointless missions just to add some filler.  I'm not suggesting in any sense that GoW is an RPG.  Make no mistake it's a 3rd person shooter.  However to suggest that there is no story being told is plain false.

For a story to work you need to care about the characters and be interested in what's going on, why they are doing what they are doing. I actually get that in Gears. I may not have any choice of the direction I'm heading in, but much like in a novel, I still want to flip that next page and see what happens. ME2 on the other hand I have no investment and it's just going through the motions. Much like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel where you just flip to various page numbers to see which one isn't the 'your dead page'.

Not sure really what I'm trying to say other then between the two games I prefer Gears of War over ME2.  It narrows down the core - kill things - experience and wraps it in a simple story.  Maybe that's the crux of it.   GoW is straight and to the point it's 13th Warrior vs LoTR.

I rather like ME2, I am miffed at the loss of my drop tank, and the roaming planets angle, but hey hovertank this month.


I wanted a longer game though.

I don't get why bioware are now all about the sex scenes. Is there anything more infantile than video game sex scenes?

umm sex scenes where they dont actually do anythign cept dry hump??(the second game is playing it safe after the crap fox news started last time).

Well... that was relatively random.  I can't speak to any actual scenes in ME2, but I can say that I think they opened up the freak options fairly wide in comparison.  My character started flirting with GARRUS for Bog's sake!

Garrus? You know the alien with the armor plated skin and freakish dimensions?   Not a 'sexah' alien by any measure.  Heck, I'm not 100% prepared to suggest we even really know 'his' gender for reals (despite the voice acting and conversations involving gender pronouns)... I can't recall seeing an obviously female tauren anywhere.

I'm all for keeping the crew loyal but there are directions I'm not prepared to go.   About the only thing worse than flirting with Garrus would be flirting with the Krogans...