Visually its improved and frame rate, and low and behold texture pop up has been fixed...so far, but game mechanics improved ? naa i personally disagree it has taken steps backwards.

Could not agree more, i have not had this much fun since Gears of War 2 :D

Go and play Fallout 1 and 2 and Baldur's Gate then come back and tell me what a good RPG is :P

The new Normandy is fricking amazing!!

I'm having a hard time with Miranda, the stuck up Bitch!! ;p

Heh, glad everyone is now realising that I wasn't lying when i said the RPG elements were tacked on. I still enjoy it, but it isn't what i expected, its pretty much half the game ME1 was, you still got the story and dialogue trees etc, but the RPG elements (or what i consider the appeal of RPG's, stats, levelling, obtaining gear....progression essentially) is all gone, and instead is a system that mimics traditional RPG elements. You get "upgrades" and you get "skills" but they make no difference to the way the game plays, it's utterly hollow and pointless.

Fair enough if people are happy with whats been served up, but you gotta admit, it feels more like gears lite in combat than the first ME.

Its still very much a great Action/RPG to me, reviews and sales are well deserved.

Part of me just feels like they didn't have the time to do the RPG elements right. Like they spent so much time making the game look great and play well with far less bugs than ME1, that they just simply ran out of time.
Maybe I am being too generous though.

Just fin another 4hrs, i am loving the combat!! so much more the ME1, story/coversation tree's/interups/graphics ect.. i'm loving also, but the fule system and mining i can see is going to get on my tits later on :)

There are threads on Biowares website already talking about RPG elements getting stripped though. What's nice is if you pre ordered you had to register at their website (for armor n such). I entered one of their threads on the topic and posted my opinion. Hopefully others do the same.

I dont mind the mining, its a nice little diversion for me, and yes the interups and conversations are great :)

Epic awesome Epic!!

The Archangel mission on Omega, kicked ass thought i'd lost you for a sec there Garuss buddy!, i'm really loving this game

I never felt the options of armor and upgrades were what made ME an RPG to me. The lack of in-game armor is a bit disappointing, but I'm not bothered by it too much. Anyway, the game is pretty much a step above the original in every other sense, and I haven't encountered one boring section so far.

I also have to say the graphics look pretty great. The first time I saw Grunt speak I though it was CG using in-game models. Great textures, nice improvements in the lighting and shadowing, great image quality.

Here's my female shep.


The collectors armor is also pretty badass.

OMG. Some dialogues are simply amazing :D Talk to Garrus after his loyality mission or check up on that Solarian doc once in a while until you get a dialog option when he starts to sing :D

Whoah please spoiler tag that type of info, i'd like to find things like that out myself.

@vspectra06: I agree everybit has been a blast so far.

Ok, so I'm currently 18 hours in, and these are my impressions so far:

The bad:

- Hub planets are small, retrained and very unconvincing. Characters are glorified statues. You can be gone for weeks and nobody has moved and is still repeating the same line of text. It's horrible. If you can't pull it off, then don't bother and work around the issue, is my advice to Bioware.
- RPG elements are...errmm....where are they?
- Conversations still feel awkward sometimes, but have it's moments.
- Biotic powers just don't seem all that attractive to me. They're there, but I hardly find myself compelled to use them.

The good:
+ The mission planets are incredible. The variety you'll find in these is unmatched, and the art is absolutely JAWDROPPINGLY awesome most of the time.
+ The performance is very solid. Hardly any hiccups and I've yet to see any pop-in. Besides Gears, it's the most polished UE3 game, in some area's even outperforms it. Great job Bioware!
+ Shooting and cover system is excellent. Not quite Gears quality, but almost. The shooting combat is genuinely fun and is part of the reason why I can't be bothered to use any biotics. Did run into a couple awkward moments when going in or out of cover, but hardly worth mentioning.
+ Characters are strong, when you meet certain characters in the game, you really feel that they matter. Plus, the Geth are still awesome enemies imo.
+ This universe Bioware created is amazing. All the species, the art, the tech everything is so fleshed out and has an incredible depth to it. Very impressive.

To me, this is finally a game I can really enjoy again. It's been a while that I've been WOW'ed so often in a single game. It's mainly due to the environments, I'm so glad Bioware understands that variety in environments is very important to keep momentum going and helps you wanting to come back for more. Very few games offer this kind of diversity, and it's the reason why I can't enjoy games all that often anymore these days.

The game as a whole feels more like an action game, rather than an RPG. I don't mind though, because to me the most enjoyable part of RPG's is the exploration of the environments, and being able to do so at your own pace. And ME2 let's me do exactly that. I really wish they'd incorporate Gears's 'active-reload' mechanic, that'd be perfect. It's an awesome addition to the combat gameplay and it's not like Bioware have been trying to hide they like Gears and "borrow" elements from it.

Haven't played it yet, has your squad's AI improved?

In short, no.

Gah! Oh well, wasn't a make or break thing for me during the first game so it shouldn't bother me at all in this one.

It doesn't really matter as you can force them to go to points individually now.

I started playing today. About 4 hours in and I like it a lot so far. The story didn't even pick up at this point and it's already better than ME1 for me thanks to the pleasant surprise that is the combat (very dynamic depending on how you play and how you use the environment to your advantage). Talking to the crew was lots of fun, too.

Biggest improvement by far however are the dialogues. I love how you can chat along and it never feels forced, that's what (in retrospective) I didn't like about ME1.

Man, get a little strategic, and the biotic powers are a lot of fun( I'm the vanguard)- The shockwave is sweet, and the rush, once I started using my brain, really makes the fighting dynamic. I think it's fantastic.
Whether you consider it a real RPG or not depends on what makes an RPG for you. For me it's the story, interaction, and decision making. Some people really like the Diablo collect-a-thons. Not liking game A or game B doesn't make you more impressive or smarter than anyone else. And I don't like people telling me the only reason I like a game is because I bought into the hype. Don't be douches...

I think they have... They seem to be more aggressive and use their powers a lot better this time around. They're still not perfect but they are certainly better

Tali is a beast in this one, as is the Krogan (worst name ever)
I'm liking the specific specialties they've given to each character this time around.

Continuing the thing about armor: All the armors are really cool when they wear their helmets. Unfortunately it seems the alternate appearances you get for your teammates doesn't change much of anything.

F*ck U EA Russia. We have no any collector's edition here for 360. cant wait my collectors edition from England.