Agree.

Holy fuck to the end!! Did you see all thoes Reapers!!, ME3 is going to be EPIC!!!, bit pissed that because of one choice i made when Marinda and Jack were arguing, Jack died at the end :(

Best game i have played and enjoyed since KOTOR, just loved it, please annouce an expansion soon Bioware!!

This is a complaint I don't get at all, because frankly I don't see a lack thereof (at least in direct comparison with ME2). You can customise your armour just how you like it, with additional head gear and permutations. Sure it's not much, but I never felt it was a big deal in ME1.

At some point you become spectre and have access to the best weapons, which makes finding weapons by other manufacturers redundant. There are actually more weapons available in ME2 than in ME1 when you go through the upgrades and find new ones. It's kinda the same with the armour in the original, you'll find a single really good one (depending on what you play) in the game and stick with it, everything you might find afterwards is a waste.

Which leads me to the biggest upset in the whole game, the inventory system and all the junk upgrades that are forced on you. No matter what, you had to deal with that shit the entire game. It was a huge relief in ME2 that I didn't have to worry about it.

Trimming ME1 from all the excess weight was the right call by Bioware. The game is much more enjoyable because you're not bothered with that kind of work. And it also helped a great deal with the immersion, because it didn't require you to go to the pause menu every time you found something.

It's not so much about your personal armor so much as it's about your teammates armor. It's not just armor either, it's weapons and the skill trees as well. All of it is stripped or incredibly simplistic leaving little reward for accomplishing anything. Even the change from gaining XP from battles to simply completing a mission is taking away from it for me. Never in 1 did I receive the best there was until I was very close to the end. I also never really knew what the best was and was always searching for more.
Maybe ME1 was a bit too much for some people, but I like collecting and building and 2 failed that in a lot of ways. If I could have customized my players more, the connection with all of them would have benefited as would the connection with my own character.
I don't like how simplistic the skill trees are in this game. It takes away a lot of the fun of heading certain directions with your choices. If someone else plays my class they're going to use the exact abilities guaranteed.
All of this hurts how rewarding this game is in the end. All of this along with the medals hurts the replay as well. I have very little enthusiasm over playing this game again. In the first I was excited to try out other classes and BUILD another character from scratch. ME2, I'm basically all set after playing it once.

The weapon system as well as the upgrade system are spoon fed to you. It's to appeal to a broader audience. I go to a little monitor that does everything for me. When I'm out of resources I scan planets which is of no challenge to the player.
I go to a little monitor in my den to change my armor and only MY armor. I just watch as a little piece of me shifts slightly. That's exciting!
I could go on forever. I still love this game, but I'm very aware that ME1 was more addictive and offered more replay for all these reasons I am talking about.

To build on this. When on planets and I gained a level I used to go right into my menus with excitement over where to place those one or two points. I used to deliberate over them for quite some time in fact, same with when I gathered new armors/mods/weaps. These were all exciting things to see take affect.

The class differences are more pronounced than they are in ME1, especially the hybrids. I never felt the need to play other classes because they all were inferior to the Adept game play wise. Or you could say the other classes bored me to death. It's different in ME2, I'm eager to see how the Infiltrator plays, it just seems very interesting.

Also picking up another weapon proficiency and learning new abilities from your loyal team mates added a whole new level of customisation to ME2 that was only possible partially in NG+ in the original and never felt rewarding.

That said, the abilities are not the focus of the combat, it's the fluid game play. It's a lot less of showing your ability to spam your high powered talents (the main beef of your run of the mill RPG) on enemies and more of carefully planing what to do next, resulting in way more dynamic and interesting game play mechanics.

In many ways ME2 for me felt like the first real RPG I played in a long time, focusing on what role playing is all about at its core. What makes each play through different are the decisions you make and the way you talk to other people. Thanks to the excellent writing it's easy to get consumed by the universe Bioware created. In a certain sense it's like a new genre, never have a I played a game that had the best of both worlds, excellent game play and exceptionally good role playing elements.

That's why I kinda get baffled when someone prefers ME1 over ME2 (and a lot of people do). Maybe people wanted the sequel to be more like the first and were let down. I was on the opposite side of the fence and was pleasantly surprised by the changes.

OK so i'm loving the combat and the characters/story, but the locations are really blowing me away, this sci-fi heaven!!

I agree on many levels with Tinks. Its ok to trim some of the fat, but a lot of the meat was gouged out here too.

The abilities requiring more points per upgrade and offering only the same increase as the last was very crap. You could quite easily go 2 levels without being able to feel a benefit in your character at all. Which is worsened when you get into level 20+ and only get 1 skill point a level. 4 levels before you can upgrade anything!? Madness.

Also, the weapon pallet was atrociously small compared to the first. It was nice they added new models for the guns, but taking away practically ALL of the variations? Super lame. 2 choices of weapon (in most cases) does not make an interesting choice.

Also, the fact that you can't customise them at all is lame. The fact you can't customise your teammates armour's and such is also lame.

Wasn't that big of a fan of the new 'clips' feature on the weapons. Removed what was interesting about the first one and really limited how much I could use a given weapon. It makes sense for 'heavy' weapons, but with the established lore, I'd much rather have the old guns back.... 'oh no! You've taken 10 shots of your sniper rifle! Sorry, you're out of ammo!'

I have other issues as well, the planet scanning is atrocious, I'd much rather have the Mako back, the number side quests were significantly reduced with significant increase in length or quality, getting experience only from completing quests is SOO lame when other non-rpgs (read: CoD, Gears of War, others) are going for much more complex performance based EXP rewards. How about a little EXP boost for my awesome headshot? NO!? :(

Also, if you don't have a range of saved games from ME1 to start ME2 with, you're fucked.

All that said, I liked most of the characters (some of your squad weren't developed enough at all though, like Legion) and the dialogue and choices etc are at new heights of awesome. I also like the way you played the game and your completion and such affected your squad directly at the end of the game.

At the minute I don't have that much of a desire to replay it, but I'm fairly busy so thats ok I guess. The thought of scanning another planet is almost bringing me to tears.

Hey DC, i loved the ending but in the same fist i hated it, i need ME3 now to ... you know.Fantastic :)

LOL!

DA.O got a massive expansion, ME.2 is meant to be getting the same love, so i hope to hear somdething on it before E3?

Yes, I miss having to turn useless items into Omni-Gel everything 5 minutes! /sarcasm

Dont forget omni gel was also prety fucking useless.

I finally got my damn 360 back today, I start ME2 probably tomorrow or hopefully today :D

Oh and it's def not the previous 360 that I had before, it's one that has a service date of November 29th, 2009, so fairly new, it seems :)

Very funny :)

Oops, I meant 'without a significant increase'

Honestly, everyones complaints are so bleeting trite.

NAh, I just wish it was more in depth is all. That little interaction was the only real gaping hole for me...

That Is EXACTLY how I feel. There is the same variation in armor in ME2 as in ME1. At least in 2 you can pick and choose the attributes. The looks can be pretty drastic as well. It only feels stripped down at first. After a while I realized It was basically the same without the hassle. It really removes the roadblocks for the real draw of Role-playing for me. I don't define role-playing as a hordefest. The inclusion of "ammo" also makes you pay more attention to where you are shooting. If they hadn't implemented area specific damage it wouldn't have worked...

The only two big gripes in ME1 that does not have some sort of equivalence in ME2 is the recycled "dungeons" and annoying inventory management. The inventory management should have been fixed, not just lopped off and the sidequests...well, i feel that while ME2 offers more diversity it lacks in quantity. Though i think i prefer the quality over quantity in this case the smaller number of sidequests is quite noticeable. Also i think the level cap is too low, i hit 30 without even trying, in ME1 you had to work to get to 50. Then again, you were pretty much overpowered at 45 :P

I agree that it's an improvement overall but they shouldn't have dumbed it down so much. Stuff like the inventory could be easily solved by making items stack and having a button for sorting items, for example. ME2 is more streamlined but that, at least for me, does not by any means have to mean better. If they keep up the pruning of features like this the next game will end up Heavy Rain in space.

I also played though ME1 to have a Shepard for ME2, so i'ts all fresh in my mind.

edit* oops, i just quoted something old it seems :P

I loved ME1 with all its faults, and i love ME2 even more, even though it has been streamlined to aid those that like more action and less micro management, btw i love to micro mgr my squad i spent hrs in DA.O doing just that, but i'm not upset with Bioware for stripping certain things out of ME2 as i feel the game as a whole has raised the bar in regards to quality Action/RPG's, noting out there touches the experience Mass Effect gives you.

Well i beat the game saturday, i ended up losing Thane and Jack in the suicide mission. Oddly enough, those are the two i didn't get loyalties from. Well, i had Jack's loyalties until that encounter with Jack and ........... Got to start as a Vanguard this weekend and save Thane and Jack this time:)

In my case it puts me to sleep. I have nodded off so many times while planet scanning that I make sure that I have chips or some kind of snack to chew to keep me awake.

I haven't lost anyone on the suicide mission yet, all my runs have been perfect. Then again I haven't mixed up any of the team combinations either, figure I just stick with what works. But I am working on a way for Zaeed (and no one else) to be killed during the run, I really want that jackass off my ship.

Now there are some things that are really turning out to be wicked strategies. For instance, Legion w/sniper rifle and Jack w/shotgun and shockwave is a murderously lethal combo. When I'm playing as a sentinel or adept there's nothing the Collectors have in their arsenal that can stop us. Scions and harbingers all fall within a few shots to us. Another great combo is Miranda and Jack, they also have very amusing cross chatter together. Kind of reminds me of the elevator rides of ME1

Legion with the Sniper and either Thane or Archangel using a sniper as well, Shephard as a Vanguard. Snipers pick em apart while I Charge in and stick a shotty to their face.

I'll have to try that, didn't think to combine two sharpshooters. I always try to balance the team out. I wish my squad mates could carry heavy weapons though.

Works awesome, especially if you AI hack before you Charge in.