Oh we got a misunderstanding here :P

He is not a romance. I just like him, and felt like saying he's great! Shepard-Commander!

lol, what a relief. ^^

He's bad ass, probably the best sniper in the game.

I take back what I said about the AI, it's terrible. I just started my second play through, this time on Insanity. Your teammates don't scale appropriately to match the now harder opponents. Now they get murdered all the time and waste my Medi-Gel. Annoying as hell, especially against the regenerators Vorchak and Krogan.

Just finished it. The credits are still running. I had MY perfect ending. I guess all the choices you make determine who lives and who doesn't in the end. Thane died as the only character, dying as a hero is better than getting slowly killed by a disease. The ending far exceeded my expectations Except for the dumb end boss., and now I know why IGN wrote it's an incredibly personal experience, I really had to think about the choices I made, that alone was half of my enjoyment, really. The rest is just pure epicness.

Viginti, I had a very similar experience in that I couldn't get over how personal of an experience it was. Bioware really created something special with this game. I hope other devs are taking notes b/c if there is any game this gen I would love to see start a trend of copycats, it would be this style of game design.

Yeah i must agree, there have so many instances where my past actions have come back in the form of characters/missions and allies, got to say i'm loving it so much i'm trying to make it last as long as possible :), i'm searching for and checking out all the anomalies on the planets and doing the resultant missions first, also just bought a whole bunch of star maps, hope to find some more missions on them also.

Just had my first Message from the Ranchini queen on Ilium, sweet! don't know anymore than that at this point, so don't tell me. :)

how long has it been out, and people have finished it?

either it's really short or you have nothing else to do.

This is an RPG right? Maybe you can click through the dialog?

I was sick for a few days and didn't go into work. So that's why I finished my copy somewhat fast

The game takes more or less 20 hours to beat.

I don't even, wow, that's lame.

I try to do the anomaly missions also but the story and characters are so great, i can't pull myself away from it i have clocked 25hrs so far and i am just about mopping up all Dosiers and missions on Ilium then onto the Krogan Homeworld cant get enough of this game, even when i'm at work my mind is on the game, have not felt that way since ME1 and KOTOR. :D

Yeah, I bet that's what you told your boss, LOL! Sick for a few days.. riiiiiighht....

It's true! :p
It was pretty convenient I can't deny that, getting a cold the weekend after ME2 comes out.

Also don't listen plumb. Game took me 32 hrs. It probably also depends on your difficulty level and what you try to earn in the game. I started out on Hardcore and now I'm on Insanity which is taking a really really long time.

After having come a bit further in to the story i think i'm starting tow arm up to ME 2, though i still miss having the character management and stuff from ME1. I'd also almost rather have the shitty Mako driving sequences back rather than scanning planets but hell, i'm starting to like some of the characters a little and the shooting is passable though not great and the story is starting to pick up as well, giving me a reason to push on.

I played some ME1 again just to compare it to the sequel, and I don't miss any of these things. ME2 is effortless, nothing distracts you from the awesome cinematics and the combat. The world in ME2 is much more believable as a result. I can't go back to inventory management, tedious rides with the Mako (lots of them) and crippling combat. ME2 matured in every possible way.

Best. Game. Ever.

Instant classic for me, I see myself playing this game years from now. It's simply amazing.

I agree, and there's depth in alot of areas that ME1 didn't have. I Even got hooked on those incredibly boooooring planet scanning portions. I must be a masochist, but I get all excited when I get a big Blip on my scanner. Stupid scanning things....

Been playin a bit more, doin some of the side missions, cant believe how many i missed, didnt realise some of them were 3 or 4 mission chains rather than standalone missions. Also been gettin a decent amount of extra dialogue which is always worth puttin the extra time in for. Btw, after the game is over theres a button on your desk to call up whoever you had a relationship with into the captains quarters, easy to miss as its beside your personal terminal.

Also, been poking around for the next DLC info and hit across http://www.onelastcontinue.com/13034/mass-effect-2...

This is pretty debatable. With the growing rise of devs doing a balancing act this gen of making their games easier, often too easy if you ask me, it brings a lot to question. Sure the game is more streamlined and focused, but there were good things about the micromanagement in 1. Instead of fixing odds and ends from the first, they decided to entirely scrap them all together. Ask yourself this: would you rather be scanning planets or traversing diverse planet surfaces on a well made Mako vehicle? Would you rather have your characters hold relatively the same appearance all game or would you rather have hundreds of cool armor? What is better having limited ammo or just weapons that simply overheat? Upgrade guns all at once in broad ways or upgrade individual guns?
Personally I think it walks a thin line much better than most games these days. Games like Prince Of Persia have gone way too far in coddling a gamer. This game however could be debated for a long time. For my own personal opinion, and this is if it is in the plans of the powers at be. They scrapped micromanagement to fix the core of the game that was very problematic. I hope now that it's been worked out that they'll bring back things from ME1 in a new refined way as well. Otherwise I can't help but see it as a revolution of 1 while amputating itself of features that made ME1 really addictive and fun. Unfortunately though if ME2 sells well, which it will, they'll ask themselves if it's worth the time and effort for 3.


Anyways, on another note. Is anyone else annoyed level 30 is the cap? I reached it in the very beginning of my second play through. Kinda deflates my enjoyment of beating it again.
Also what I said above wasn't a spoiler. Just sayn :p

Didnt think what i said was a spoiler either, thats why i didnt tag it, its just a button, it changes nothing and has no impact on anything.

Anyway, i completely agree with everything you said, i've said the same things often enough myself. It's a strange thing to love and hate a sequel for both improving upon and being a castrated version of its prequel at the same time.

Viginti: Mako drives are just replaced with tedious planet scanning, and even then i find driving the Mako was more fun. The combat feels more like a shooter and less like an RPG now, something that i personally don't appreciate that much and i find the environments to be more convincing in ME1, they all feel so confined and designed as opposed to actual places in ME2.

Agreed on that. I see a bunch of objects on the floor and I know I have to take cover for a battle is surely about to ensue. Levels aren't so much better as the believability of the atmosphere is.

But places like the Omega station, it just doesn't feel much like a space station, nor did many of the places i've seen so far. Every area just feels like it has a specific purpose for the main quest that takes place there rather than being a area inhabited by people, something i think ME1 did better. The citadel is also a pretty good example, since we have the wards, c-sec and the presidium in ME1 and they all feel connected unlike the few shops connected to a night club and a c-sec office with one guy in it in ME2, you know? The citadel doesn't feel like a big place at all in ME2, it's just a staircase with shops wedged in and it feels kind of boring tbh.

I won't change my mind on that. ME2 is not easier, it's effortless, that's a difference. I don't miss any of these things you mentioned. Mako rides are tedious, and combat in a Mako is just beyond bad. Also all the loot is a nightmare to manage, the amount of customisation is enough as it is in ME2. It never bothered me that much while playing ME1 for the first time, but after seeing the difference it makes it's just not convenient to bring any of these mechanics back for ME3. Having no reload completely destroys the combat for instance, I couldn't think of a good reason to keep the old overheating mechanics.

Playing through ME1 again after completing ME2 feels like grinding. Everything repeats itself, the backtracking is horrid and the world is less believable. I'm doing another run through with a new character cause I wasn't happy with the decisions I made in ME1 (didn't seem to carry that much weight, also a fault of the first game). Then I'll take my sweet time with ME2 and do all side missions this time.

Edit: Medigo: I strongly disagree. If anything the level design in ME1 is stupid, there is no structure, no reason to switch to a new spot, the combat as a whole is static, how it is doing ANYTHING better than ME2 is beyond me. I suggest you go back to ME1 and then we can talk.

The places you could visit aren't big, yes. But they are many, in ME1 you just had the clustered citadel which was a nightmare to navigate. In ME2 the places you visit are part of missions, purpose driven, as a result they're much better designed.

For me the pluses far outweigh the negatives, the game feels so much more improved and enjoyable, locations are amazing and the story/side missions are so cinematic and engrossing to play, the characters are also so much better and more fleshed out and thats coming from someone that loved the characters ME1, the combat is also way more smooth and fun to play, Mass Effect will never be a Dragon Age or Fallout as it was never designed to be, and that's what sets it apart for me, its has created its own Action/Shooter/RPG genre and a brilliant one at that!, and i for one wish for many many more.