I just finished my second playthrough of Mass Effect and now I'm excited to play Part 2 (coming out in 2010). Anybody else looking forward to the second Mass Effect game? Sure, the first game was a little glitchy, but I still really enjoyed it. Part of me thinks the game won't be as big of a hit as their anticipating.

www.goofromanotherdimension.com

I'm looking forward to Mass Effect 2 for sure.

I wanted to ask, did anyone else have CONSTANT and INFURIATING problems with the game crashing?

There were WAY too many times where the game would simply crash. Sometimes when you are so into the game and forget to quick save, a sudden and strategic crash can be the difference between sanity and insanity!

I tried to play a second play through maybe 3 months ago, but was so infuriated by the constant crashing, that I gave up 3/4's through the game.

ME2 better be more polished!

Mine never crashed. I've beaten it over a handful times. Half a dozen to be more exact. Liked the first DLC, but the second one felt like a rip off.

The first one was great, the popping textures bothered me, but I got use to it.

I hope Team Bioware does a better job this time. 360's Dragon Age didn't look nearly as good as the PS3 or PC(best version).

Their games are great, I just wished the console gamers got the same graphics as the pc users.

As for the new one? Hell yeah, I'm ready. I eat, sleep, shit, and bleed Bioware.

One time, someone asked me if God existed. I said, "Yes. And Bioware be thy name".

I don't like the cover of ME2, but the Limited Edition cover looks better. Plus, I like the fact that the LE has a free comic, bonus dvd, and gun.

Oh, and holy shit! Mass Effect 2 is going to be on two disks? Can that be? Only J-Rpgs are that big... empty, bland, and generic, but still... That's something a western rpg has done in sometime or at all.

I hope this one can out do the last... Hell, I hope it's better than Dragon Age. DAO has made me it's bitch since it came out. I can not put it down. I've completed only 2 play throughs and I'm on my third.

The first one was a major disappointment for me. I doubt the second will fix any of the issues I had with the first one. Plus I already hate most of the characters. They seem to be going for a more "extreme" lineup this time, which is ALWAYS a mistake. Beyond that, though, the first game really failed to adequately marry the RPG and shooter elements, had an incredibly cliche and predictable plot, was WAY too short for an RPG even with the poorly put together side quests and mostly barren extra worlds (could be beaten in 8-12 hours on the first play through), and pretty much played itself once you got about half way through (I don't think it was possible to lose a battle once I got about 5 hours in).

I really did love Mass Effect. The design, the ambition, the music (man, did I ever love that music - anything that can evoke 80's sci-fi films will usually get me in its grasp quickly). The fact that it was imperfect and had some execution hiccups endeared it to me all the more; I thought it was better that they'd tried and not quite succeeded than it would've been if they scaled things back. Usually, I don't think like that, but Mass Effect really spoke to me. Hell, I've even read (and enjoyed) the tie-in books.

Erad
I wanted to ask, did anyone else have CONSTANT and INFURIATING problems with the game crashing?

This is really one of the strangest things I've ever come across in my time playing video games. Whenever I've played through ME, I've not had an issue with the game, minus the texture pop-in (which is kind of lame, but I got used to it, like lasteffect). My girlfriend's started playing it recently, using the same console/controller/tv/speaker system/etc that I played it on, and it's freezing on her left and right. Maybe I have some kind of friendly BioWare guardian spirit or something, I don't know.

And, dimensionalgoo, why don't you think it'll be as successful? I get more and more excited every time I see something new about ME2, myself (then again, I went to go see Doomsday in the theater - and enjoyed it - so I'm a bad barometer for mass appeal)...

I had no problem with glitches or crashes. What platform were you guys playing on? My XBox 360 version was fine.

I have to agree, I loved Mass Effect once I got the hang of it. I played it through twice when it was first released and then put it away and forgot about it. In preparation for Mass Effect 2, I recently dug it out and played it through again. Even though I'd played it before, I was so impressed I promptly played it again (i.e. for the fourth time!)

So, yeah - Mass Effect 2 is very high on my 2010 wish list!

I played Mass Effect on the PC.

I don't know why the game crashed so much. I mean, PC games tend to crash due to compatibility and what not but with the regularity of this game on my system, something was NOT right!

Yeah, that would be Bioware. I can't think of a single game they've made since KotOR which didn't have stability and/or graphics issues.

isukun
a major disappointment for me.

What isn't.

Quite a bit, actually, it's just that it is getting more and more rare for developers to actually put out a really polished or fun game, these days. The only games I've really been able to get into lately are Muramasa: Demon's Blade, the Uncharted games, and Rock Band. Plus I keep going back to EDF 2017. I did start playing the more recent Persona games before the holiday, but so far I really only like the 4th one. I do play a lot of the downloadable games, as they tend to focus more on gameplay and less on hardware-breaking graphics routines.

Damnit, I love sequels almost as much as I hate them. Should I wait until Mass Effect 2, or should I just go ahead and get the first Mass Effect sometime when I planned to before the end of the year?

Acuturbo
Damnit, I love sequels almost as much as I hate them. Should I wait until Mass Effect 2, or should I just go ahead and get the first Mass Effect sometime when I planned to before the end of the year?

Based on the responses to this thread, I'd say go get the first one ('cos it's good and the sequel's bound to be delayed anyway!) but not for PC!

I'd say, if you must get the game, get the PC version. The graphics are superior and the game has less of the pop-in issues that the 360 version had. Plus you can get it for $10 from EA right now and get the Bring Down the Sky DLC for free if you're willing to go with the direct download version. I also find the control scheme for the PC to be superior. It definitely makes the game more playable, even if it doesn't fix ther majority of my core complaints about the game.

isukun
I'd say, if you must get the game, get the PC version. The graphics are superior and the game has less of the pop-in issues that the 360 version had. Plus you can get it for $10 from EA right now and get the Bring Down the Sky DLC for free if you're willing to go with the direct download version. I also find the control scheme for the PC to be superior. It definitely makes the game more playable, even if it doesn't fix ther majority of my core complaints about the game.

DAJB
Based on the responses to this thread, I'd say go get the first one ('cos it's good and the sequel's bound to be delayed anyway!) but not for PC!

I'll probably be getting it, then, for the PC. It sucks that Steam doesn't have the DLC. Here's to hoping it's still ten bucks when I get my last paycheck of the semester and get all my computer parts ordered.

While they don't technically offer it, the Bring Down the Sky DLC is free regardless of where you get it from and the installation process is the same whether you get it through Steam or through EA. I think the EA deal will continue through the release of the second game, though, whereas who knows when Steam will offer a discount again.

This might be egregious thread resurrection, but I didn't see a point in creating a new topic when something with some decent discussion had already been birthed, so, since it's out...

What do people think?

I didn't get to play it for too long last night (work + tax return + applying for a new job = about 2 hours of ME2), but I enjoyed the heck out of those 2 hours. It feels like they ironed out some of the shooting kinks, and I didn't see a texture pop-in. But, boy howdy, did I love that beginning. And the featuring of Martin Sheen's voice. I couldn't imagine hearing enough of his voice, ever.

I haven't amassed enough playtime to have a proper reaction; perhaps someone who hasn't slept since yesterday might have more to say.

A new predictable plot, removal of most of the RPG elements from the last game, rather than fix the things people complained about in the last game they simply removed those elements entirely (I think someone over at Bioware completely missed the boat on that one) or in some cases replaced them with something even more tedious and unimaginative.

Scanning planets is a bore, at least with the Mako you felt like you were doing something more productive than just swiping the cursor back and forth. People complained about how bland it was exploring barren worlds and infitrating the same three structures over and over again. The solution to that problem shouldn't be to remove planet exploration and replace it with something even more tedious and 100x simpler to program. Pure laziness. What makes it worse is now you have to do it with EVERY planet, not just the one in the system you can land on and it's a requirement if you want to upgrade anything in the game.

The only real improvement was with the hacking system. It's nice that you don't need to level up electronics and hacking to get into stuff and the hacking minigame is better, but some more variety would have been nice.

For whatever reason, they completely changed the control scheme on the PC version. I kind of miss being able to take cover simply by walking up to a wall and not having to hit a button for it. The menus are just awful and unintuitive. The way they look is obviously intended for the 360, but they don't work the way you'd expect on the PC. The arrows mean nothing and you end up going through more menus to complete simple tasks than you really need to. Plus you have pointless menu options like the "close file" option on the mission cleared screen.

There are a few other annoyances, as well. I've noticed new weapons when picked up automatically replace your equipped gun in that slot. You can't change your loadout mid battle, though, so you're stuck with it until you find a gun rack or go back to your ship. The menus for changing your equipment aren't the easiest to navigate on the PC. You need to click on the weapon class, and then click on the accept button at the bottom of the screen. The arrow keys do nothing, even though each button has an arrow up and down to indicate that you can moved between the choices. Sometimes a screen provides a back arrow, sometimes you just have to know to hit escape. There are no longer any hot keys for bringing up the upgrade screen or journal, you have to hit escape and then select them from the menu. Your ship doesn't stay docked anymore. If you leave an area and go back to your ship, you have to go back to the galaxy map and redock and watch the docking animation again every time you want to get on the ship and then off again. Since there are times I'd like to research upgrades while still going through an area, this is extremely annoying.

Bioware has also shown their typical half-assed programming here when it comes to errors and glitches. For whatever reason, it's really easy to get trapped in the game. You walk up to a cabinet, for instance, and Shepherd will pop up on top of the cabinet and your party will block you so you can't get back off. This happened to me five times in the first couple of hours. Text doesn't display properly and can show black bars behind it, which is a bit distracting. The installation required a reboot just to get the install to work. I've also seen people's heads disappear and other graphical errors in the game. Loading times are longer than the previous game. I also don't like that taking a hit removes you from cover. Importing your save file isn't as easy as it should be. The first game creates a standard directory for save files under your documents. The second one shouldn't need you to move those files to another directory. And if it does, Bioware should have made the config utility actualy work and not crash every time you tried to move it. I had to move the files manually and look up online where I could find the old saves and where they needed to go.

There is practically no inventory system. You can get new weapons and change your loadout on the ship, but you won't be picking up new weapons, armor, and upgrades as drops from enemies and you can't reequip when in the field. Also, when you pick your loadout on the ship, there are no stats for the guns, just vague text descriptions. Enemies only drop ammo, now, and all guns use ammo. This wouldn't be so bad if every area didn't boil down to "walk to next intersection, defeat swarm or enemies, rinse, repeat" or if there was a way to restock on ammo other than picking up the canisters dropped by enemies. The heat system from the previous game is completely gone, once you run out of ammo, you automatically switch to another gun. The game is essentially just a shooter, now, with some minor RPG elements.

You can get some armor pieces to upgrade your personal armor, which you can only equip in your cabin, but your squad never gets new armor. There really isn't much in the way of managing your squad mates. They each have a handful of skills, each with four ranks, and you can change their weapon loadout. They added some customization options for the look of your armor, but kind of ruin it by making the different armor pieces offer minor stat boosts. You never have to level up your skill with a gun. It is just assumed that everyone is a master with their assigned gun types and you cannot equip anything that isn't within those assigned types (unlike the last game where everyone could equip any type of gun, but might not be as skilled at using the guns they couldn't level up in).

It was hard to tell on the 360 version where they masked the loading times with elevator rides, but going from place to place was a lot quicker on the PC version. They put in these fancy loading screens, but still have no progress bar. In addition to not having the hotkeys for the journal and squad menus anymore, they've also made it so that most areas no longer have a map. You just get a radar and if you hit the map button, it pops up an arrow of where you are supposed to go. How did sensor technology downgrade over the past two years? They also removed the ability to quickly swap out your guns with the function keys. It's kind of sad that a third party was able to make a better port of a Bioware game than Bioware could.

I also have to wonder why with Dragon Age: Origins you could get your DLC and install it through the program menu and with Mass Effect 2, you have to go to the EA web site, log in, find the page that lists the DLC, make sure you pick the right one, then download it and install it outside of the program? If they could do it in the program with Dragon Age, what makes Mass Effect 2 so different?

I also have to wonder why Bioware suddenly decided that they couldn't coast on their own success with this game and needed to "borrow" characters and ideas from Star Trek every step of the way.

PhilWrede
This might be egregious thread resurrection, but I didn't see a point in creating a new topic when something with some decent discussion had already been birthed, so, since it's out...

What do people think?

I didn't get to play it for too long last night (work + tax return + applying for a new job = about 2 hours of ME2), but I enjoyed the heck out of those 2 hours. It feels like they ironed out some of the shooting kinks, and I didn't see a texture pop-in. But, boy howdy, did I love that beginning. And the featuring of Martin Sheen's voice. I couldn't imagine hearing enough of his voice, ever.

I haven't amassed enough playtime to have a proper reaction; perhaps someone who hasn't slept since yesterday might have more to say.

It's not released here in the UK until tomorrow, so I'm going to have to withhold judgement for the time being. However, the early reviews I've seen, seem to suggest that Bioware have addressed pretty much everything that anyone complained about in ME and, as a result, ME2 is even better than the original. Same high standard of graphics, excellent voice acting, interesting characters with real depth to their backstories, vastly improved combat system and no MAKO exploration.

I have to say I'll be running out early tomorrow to get my copy!

isukun

That's certainly a lot more than I had to say.

I can absolutely see where you're coming from on a lot of what you say (scanning planets, weapon inventory, simplifying character leveling), but being a rather dedicated console gamer myself (in case I've not mentioned this before, I switched to Mac a few years ago and never really played many computer games anyway, minus Neverwinter, StarCraft, Homeworld, and X-Wing/TIE Fighter, so it's just as much by design as it is by desire), I've been fortunate in avoiding any of the computer-based issues. My charmed experience with Mass Effect bugs (not experiencing any of them, that is to say) continued during my playthrough yesterday; perhaps a section of my lifetime good luck pool is getting spent on precisely this? *knockonwood*

It is kind of odd that they'd move so far towards the "shooter" aspect for ME2 rather than the RPG elements that, you know, BioWare's built itself on. It's more like Gears with a dialogue ring than the first one ever was, but I don't really think I'm taking issue with that, at least not yet. I still get the story, the conversations, the characterization (which, so far, I don't think are as strong as they were in Dragon Age. Maybe that's residual bitterness from their taking the characters I liked in the first game away from me, or maybe that's just because I flat-out loved the characters in ME1, I can't say for sure), and that's always been what I've taken away from a BioWare game.

Right now, I guess it's not precisely the game I was expecting. But, I'm still enjoying the bejeezus out of it.

Well, I have got it for the xbox so I suspect that a number of Isukun's complaints are not going to apply to me.

I'm not very far in the game yet unfortunately (I have just been let loose with a couple of missions to go for) so I haven't run into any inventory/weapons management, upgrading, planet scanning, etc.

The beginning of the game has me really excited though. Mass Effect 1 had a great story and it looks like 2 will also. I hate the Australian lady but I can ditch her when I get more squad members. I actually felt personally bereaved for the destruction of a certain something which I had come to love in the first game, and got warm fuzzies when the same problem was rectified later. I'm already drawn into the characters and story and it's only been about 2 hours.

The combat more or less feels the same, I haven't really done much with it yet but I tend to just finish with the combat quickly so I can get on with the story. I'm not sure I like the changes to some of the interface yet (I preferred the old health/shield bars, and your squadmates' icons look like they are stuck onto your character's on-screen ass) But I do like how you can send them to separate places.

I'm a bit confused by the space travel though, something about fuel and I don't know... no fuel was needed in the last game, and you didn't need to pick up ammo, so I'm not sure why you need ammo when 2 years ago the technology enabled 'unlimited' ammo. They say something about needing to dump clips because of overheating, but I preferred the old system when you just had to control yourself a bit to keep your gun from locking up- not the worry of running out completely and having to mess with pickups. Isukun's comment about automatically equipping pickup weapons worries me, because I really hate that kind of thing.

Anyway, unless something is majorly broken or the plot gets very stupid, I will most likely love this game. I intend to play it as much over the weekend as possible. :3

OK, I'm really happy with just about everything in this game. The upgrading seems a little clunky, but I'm actually relieved not to have thousands of weapons to constantly be managing. The only horrible thing is the planet scanning. Of all the things they could have done to replace the tedious planet exploring from the first game, they choose one even more slow and boring.

I am overjoyed that Garrus is in this game, he was by far my favorite ME1 character and I don't care if any of the others come back as long as I have him on my team. :kitty: He is right, girls like scars.

Garrus spoilers:

Kelly (ship psych): I like Garrus, but sometimes I want to just give him a big hug and tell him it will be all right.
Me/Shepard: (barely glancing at dialoge options before seizing upon:) I know just what you mean
Kelly: Awwww you two would make such a cute couple!
Me playing game: THAT IS WHAT I ALWAYS THOUGHT! OK, she said that, Garrus has GOT to be a romance-able character in this game. I now have an entirely different criteria for 'winning!' *runs downstairs to see if she can mack on Garrus yet, simultaneously wondering if there would be some kind of alien biological research involved or what* I've never been so excited at the prospect of half-lizard turtleface guy videogame romance...

My roommate has the 360 version. Apparently scannig planets is even worse on the 360. On the PC, the cursor at least adheres to the speed at which you move the mouse, making thigs a little faster than on the 360 where it just moves at an unbearably slow pace, even with the upgrade. I can scan planets in easily half the time he can and I still find it really tedious. Too bad it's kind of required in this game and not just a side mission like in the original.

I'm also seeing some really nonsensical handling of character abilities and weapons. At one point in the game I can research a Krogan shotgun for Grunt. Apparently only he can use it, but later on I can pick up the exact same type of shotgun at a particular point in the game and suddenly I can use it too. If I have the gun in my armory already, why can't I use it until I pick it up off the ground? Also, why can't I use it if I don't pick it up off the ground? What is significant about the gun lying in the dirt? Also you get a choice of three guns to pick up, an assault rifle, a shotgun, and a sniper rifle. If they're all just laying in a pile on the floor and they are all different weapon classes, why can't I just pick up all of them? Also, why is it that the class that is supposed to be the master of weapons is the only class that can't equip SMGs? How does it make any sense that I can use handguns and assault rifles, but not a class of gun that is somewhere in-between the two, especially when all of the other classes which aren't weapons experts can use it?

Another thing bugs me about the ammo, too. Most guns use the same ammo pickups. If they were just heat sinks as many people were saying, it doesn't make much sense to record them as how many shots you have left. It also doesn't make any sense to get a certain number of shots and then throw the unit away or that you can redistribute unused shots to your overall shot pool, heat sinks really don't work that way. They are treated like clips of ammo.

Plus, with most guns (apart from heavy weapons) using the same type of ammo, why can it not be redistributed between your weapons of different classes? If they all use the same type of heat sink, wouldn't it make sense that they should all take from the same ammo pool or record them as heat sinks and each one offers a different number of shots to each gun type in your inventory? Why shoudl I have to switch to an assault rifle if I run out of shots with my sniper rifle rather than just use my assault rifle ammo and keep using the sniper rifle?

isukun
God, I hate this game.

While your complaints have many merits, I think you're focusing way to hard on the flaws it has. It may not be perfect but so far I've enjoyed it immensely.

Scanning planets is definitely a boring thing to do (I bought the X-Box version btw). As soon as I heard there was a speed upgrade, it was the first thing I got. Thankfully though, if you're dedicated enough to scan enough planets thoroughly in the first few systems, you'll end up with a big enough of a stockpile of resources that you don't need to worry about the upgrading requirements any more. I often glance through the rich planets to maintain the stockpile I currently have but I'm starting to realize that it's not really that necessary. While I agree that they should have made mineral hunting more fun, I always found it kinda stupid to check an entire planet for mineral deposits by driving around for few square miles on it. I had a similar grief with Imperium Galactica where I was only allowed a small lot of land to build my cities, even though I supposedly had an entire planet to work with for each one (and don't get me started about the fact that I couldn't build buildings on certain spots because there was a tree in the way).

While still talking about the scanning feature, here's a helpful tip that I discovered (for X-Box users). In order to combine thoroughness and speed, I divided the planets into three sections, north, south and the equator. Start with the equator and move the scanner to the right side of the planet. Now, tilt the scanner up and down and to the right while simultaneously pressing the spin planet stick to the right as well. Pushing both the scanner and the tilt planet sticks to the right will make the planet spin much faster, thus completing the circle more quickly. Don't worry about not covering every inch of every planet. Like I said before, it didn't take that many planets for me to reach a 100k+ on every resource (with the exception of element zero but that's not a problem since you don't seem to need that much of it anyways). Once the equator is done with and I liked the stuff that I found (the planet has allot of platinum and/or is one of the few planets that actually contain element zero are good ones), I often check out the northern and the southern hemisphere as well. Otherwise I ignore them and move on. I completely ignore poor planets and focus mostly on scanning the rich ones. Don't bother sending a probe on small spikes. You don't get that much from them and you'll run out of probes faster that way (which cost money).

All right. Enough talk about the stuff I find boring. Let's talk about the stuff I like.

Personally, the thing I enjoy the most in this game is the atmosphere. Is the story predictable? Yeah, it really is. Bioware made it quite clear that they were creating a trilogy out of this game and it's following the standard "dark middle chapter" approach. Are the new characters one sided and kinda cheesy to boot. You bet your sweet ass they are. We have the perfect soldier who was grown in a tank and is now trying to figure out if he's more then just a living weapon, the bad ass bitch with a nasty attitude, the religious zealot who pledges herself to your cause and lets not forget the mysterious and deadly assassin who prays for the fallen. These are characters you've seen time and again but for some reason, it doesn't bother me. I actually enjoy having these silly characters around. Few of them hang around in the engineering section of the ship and it quickly became my favorite place to visit. "Heh. To the point". "They really liked that moon". Listening on to the conversations that the engineers have over there is also kinda funny. There's just something about those Scottish engineers and their jokes that really get to me.

I'm kinda impressed how much the new game remembers about all the stuff my old character did in the old game (I had no problems incorporating my ME1 character, btw). I was only expecting the basic stuff would affect the new game like who died, what you did at the end of the first game, if you were an asshole or not. I was pleasantly surprised that it was much deeper then that. I'm constantly running into characters that recognize me from the old game and remember exactly what I did and how I did it. On top of that, I get almost constantly spammed with e-mails regarding similar subjects. This stuff really helps pull me into this game, make me identify that this is a continuation of ME1 and that the stuff I did there really did matter. This only makes me wonder about the repercussions that my current actions will have on the next installment.

While moving between floors of the ship is still a little annoying, it's so much better now then that sluggish elevator from the first. I actually strongly suspect that they did that thing that they did at the beginning to get rid of that. Unfortunately, while the elevator may be gone, the ship now has 4 different areas that prompts a loading screen as you move between them (and your personal room being one of them, which is really annoying since I need to constantly revisit it to feed my blasted fish (yeah, you have fish now and you need to feed them between every mission or they'll die)). Moving around settlements and cities is way more streamlined (no more elevators \o/ ) and you're no longer subjected to constant elevator rides with boring music and forced fed news. However, if you're the type that likes to listen to the news, you're now free to listen to them on your own terms as it's now being blasted in hallways where you can stop to listen.

Speaking of those slow elevators. There was a funny cut scene during one mission where the team walks into a ME1 like elevator with its standard music which I instantly recognized. A frustrated character walked to the control interface and hacked it to stop the music and make it go faster. I also liked when I bumped into Conrad Verner where he was trying to behave like a player character. Listening to the things he said made you really thing how stupid RPG games can sound like. "I just walk about asking random people if they need any help. It's surprising how many of them actually do need one. Oh, and I also search through boxes for extra creds". It can't be said that Bioware is unwilling to make fun of themselves.

skoolmunkee
OK, I'm really happy with just about everything in this game.... I am overjoyed that Garrus is in this game, he was by far my favorite ME1 character and I don't care if any of the others come back as long as I have him on my team.

Seconded, thirded, and even fourthed.

I have to post here to say that I am fantastically happy with this game. It does have a few flaws but they are far, FAR outweighed by the things I like. I'm sure I haven't even done half of the quests (I haven't done any planet exploring or mining, though I intend to, whenever I'm bored...) and I've spent a long time on it. The atmosphere is great, all but one or two of the characters are enjoyable, the callbacks to ME1 are fun, and there is a lot more mission/environment variety. Combat is better (I dont even like combat games) and it seems like there is always something different or interesting about to happen. The overall plot may be predictable but it's a fun ride.

I also like how the Paragon choices are less goody-two shoes than the first game. They aren't all about finding an agreement, doing the 'right' thing, or saying the same thing in a nicer way. She chews people out, knocks them out for their own good, etc. She just feels like even more of a badass galactic saviour takin care of business in this game. It makes being a Paragon more interesting than in ME1. I really like the occasional Paragon/Renegade interrupts you can do. Most of the time I just click them to see what they do (and then might reload the most recent save if I have one). Cutting someone off with a punch to the face is great.


Garrus comes with me on every mission. I liked him in the first game, but he was kind of figuring himself out at that point and would just sort of agree with whatever Shepard said and did. After 2 years he's become a battle-hardened badass who respects shepard immensely, but isn't afraid to disagree with her or do things that shepard thinks are wrong. He owns his decisions and doesn't have regrets (well, just the one). At the same time he's retained an endearing sort of social awkwardness, he's got some of the funniest lines in the game (which is saying something, as this is a very funny game), and has one of the more interesting backstories (nothing about his dad at least) and emotionally complex and filled-out characters.

I don't know if it's partially because I 'knew' him from ME1, but I just feel like Garrus is really well-written. I care about him as a character, I'm interested in him and his plotlines because he is Garrus and not because he's an interesting character, and it's been a long time since a video game did anything like that for me. Also apparently, after the first romance conversation, turns out he's kinda dirty :kitty: I love that dinosaur-lookin guy!

I like most of the other characters to some degree, but Mordin is usually my second teammate unless there is something specific I need in the mission (like a biotic) that he can't do. Mordin is probably the one who presents the most complex good/evil explorations in the game, talking to him is usually either hilarious (he's probably the funniest) or a frustrating puzzle of right and wrong. In many games it is quite easy to figure out what should be the good choice or the bad, but ME2's complex backstory and characters make that difficult sometimes. Sometimes killing a guy really DOES feel like the right thing to do. Sometimes there's not a clear right choice.

I'm sure I haven't even done half of the quests (I haven't done any planet exploring or mining, though I intend to, whenever I'm bored...)

There's not much to find. There's only about 17 anomaly worlds and some of those you either explore as part of the main storyline or are downloaded (and some are just worthless "collect the items" quests where you don't actually fight anything). I wouldn't put off planet scanning. It's easily the most tedious thing in the series (much worse than the Mako) and you DON'T want to do it all at once. Plus you're going to want to get whatever upgrades you can before the endgame. Much like the first game, this one kind of ends right when you think you're about halfway through. It wouldn't be so bad if the storyline didn't feel like filler.

and there is a lot more mission/environment variety

Really. I'm almost to the end and I've found the opposite to be true. Sure the environments look different, but they way you play through them is almost exactly the same in every mission. Move to next place with lots of cover, fight a group of enemies, rinse, repeat, until you get to a miniboss, then go back to the ship. Sure, the side quests were pretty repetitive in the first game, but I found the main missions offered a lot more variety in the first game.

I have been doing some mining stuff, just depleting the worlds in the mass relay systems as I visit them. I haven't really gone to any of the side worlds yet and I am doing okay on upgrades, all the ship ones and maybe 60% of the others. I'm going to have to check a wiki to find out the best places to find element zero though, I am falling behind on those. I imported a level 59 character so that helped with not having to mine so much right away.

I do know about doing everything including upgrades before the IFF mission, I'm trying not to spoiler myself but that seems to be the "you'll thank me" kind of spoiler rather than the ruining kind, so okay. I've been told by the Illusive man to go retreive an IFF whatsit and that I should 'be prepared' so I'm not going to do that one until I've completed everything else. It's the only one the game didn't force me to do immediately, so I'm guessng that one's the beginning of the end-game. Although I'm still missing a character, I'm sure he'll show up eventually. Or maybe he's downloadable like Zaeed.

I haven't played any of the planet-discovery missions yet so they could be boring as you say. I'm not a huge fan of combat games so I'm quite happy to do more or less the same 'thing' in a lot of missions, gameplay-wise, because it's still a challenge for me. The whole mechanic of ME1 and ME2 was "go in, kill stuff, activate something and leave", just the ones in ME2 are a lot more satisfying because of environments, different characters' stories, more cutscenes, etc.

I would also reccommend saving before going into the last part of the game so you have a save game you can go back to when you screw up. If you're not relying on walkthroughs or spoilers, you're probably going to want to do that part more than once. There is another character, but you don't find them until after you start the last mission. It makes it kind of annoying since there is a particular event which stops you from doing other side quests during that mission, but you're going to want to do the character's loyalty mission. Just keep in mind, once you start the IFF mission and get the last character, you can do their loyalty mission without consequences, but do anything else and you won't be so lucky. You want to make sure you do all of the loyalty missions before going after the IFF, as well.

Yup, my policy is going to be "exhaust the game before doing the IFF mission". I only have a couple loyalty ones left and then whatever I find when I go poking around on planets.

I'll be sure and make a lot of saves. :] I'm guessing they gave me so many squadmates so they can start killing them off, which is always exciting. I am at least hoping they have more use later, like sending them out in squads or something, since I only ever use two or three of them and it was kind of disappointing in ME1 to see that they didn't have a role in the game unless I picked them for my team. I've done a lot of work to get this bunch together and it would be annoying to see the same thing happen. (Whatever it is, don't tell me!)

I like how much conversation people have on the ship (I obsessively talk to people after missions, though no one is saying much now). The little e-mails are great too. Little additions to the content like that really pull you into the world. :] I miss elevator conversations though. The secondary teammates just don't react to each other much, unless there's a conversation trigger.

Garrus's romance conversations kind of make me nervous... they are cute and awkward, but in order to convince him, you have to pick the ones on the 'bad' side of the scale. Everyone else uses the 'good' side. It's like he doesn't want to but I'm pressuring him into it. :[ I am worried ME3 will come out and if I have a romance with Garrus he is going to dump me and stop being my BFF. :( Maybe I will keep a save before it's too late... just in case.

Just finished the game and got through the final mission with a 100% success rate at first try. I'm not dropping any names or events in this post so it should be spoiler free.

I guess the reason behind my arousing success was the fact that I completed all the loyalty missions as well as I fully upgraded Normandy before launching the mission. Whenever I had to pick a specific person to do specific tasks, they always came through. I always picked the individuals I figured were best suited for those tasks and it seemed to work out. I don't know if picking some other characters would change the results or not but I guess I'll figure that out, once I try the final mission again.

P.S. I ran through the game with an imported ME1 character who should be renamed as Paragon McParagon and played this game with the intent of being as big of a goody two shoes as possible (I've got my ME1 bastard on standby for the second playthrough). For the strangest reason though, it was hard as hell for me to pick the paragon ending during the final mission. I ended up picking the renegade ending although I plan on replaying the last mission again with the same character so that I own a "good ending" import with that character as well.

isukun
At one point in the game I can research a Krogan shotgun for Grunt. Apparently only he can use it, but later on I can pick up the exact same type of shotgun at a particular point in the game and suddenly I can use it too. If I have the gun in my armory already, why can't I use it until I pick it up off the ground?

That's not true. I got through the mission you were talking about where I got to pick up a gun and I chose the shotgun. The gun that Grunt gets is a heavy shotgun that does much more damage then the standard gun. The shotguns that are available for Shepard (and the rest of the crew that can wield that gun type) can only use the standard shotgun or (once it's been unlocked) the assault version, which has a faster fire rate. The heavy shotgun is exclusive to Grunt.