I read about this game on Shacknews and was sceptic. I haven't played the first one and I'm not a huge fan of Xbox ports either. But I just realized this game has eaten up 3 days of my life. I play lots of game and usually don't find FPS's or hardcore RPG's entertaining for more than a few hours. And now - I haven't been this entertained in many, many, years. It's an action game but at the same time breaks the pace by introducing dialogs and the ability to impact some of the games story. It's like a movie where you're in charge. I love it! I've even purchased the soundtrack (which is awesome in itself). Anyone else like it as much? Any other games that you think are comparable?

I purchased Mass Effect from Steam recently, but I haven't really played it...I don't know, if might have been just a bad day, but I found the first few battles were really unsatisfying...I couldn't even tell what I was hitting. Is the whole game like that? Anyway, if I like it I'll probably get ME 2 as well, just when the price drops a bit :P

Quote: Original post by mikeman
I purchased Mass Effect from Steam recently, but I haven't really played it...I don't know, if might have been just a bad day, but I found the first few battles were really unsatisfying...I couldn't even tell what I was hitting. Is the whole game like that? Anyway, if I like it I'll probably get ME 2 as well, just when the price drops a bit :P

As I said, I haven't played the first one. From what I hear ME's combat isn't as good as ME2's, but that the RPG elements are pretty much the same.

I'm going to play it trough again soon with another class. The Paragon/Renegade (two different "moral") paths open up for some really cool replayability, too.
I find the combat in ME2 to be really satisfying, especially when you get some of the more powerful spells. Very diverse gameplay.

Basically, after the first few missions I got hooked. Before that the combat was a bit slow with the lame weapons.

I am anxiously awaiting spring break during which I plan to play through the entire game.

I really loved the first Mass Effect and am excited to see how the story continues.

Quote: Original post by SymLinked
From what I hear ME's combat isn't as good as ME2's, but that the RPG elements are pretty much the same.

I fund the combat in the original ME to be quite unsatisfying. By comparison, the combat in ME 2 is on a par with many 3rd-person shooters.

Quote: I'm going to play it trough again soon with another class. The Paragon/Renegade (two different "moral") paths open up for some really cool replayability, too.

Here I was a little disappointed. While I appreciate the increased accessibility of ME's dumbed-down RPG elements, it didn't offer the kind of variety of a traditional RPG.

Quote: Original post by nilkn
I am anxiously awaiting spring break during which I plan to play through the entire game.

If it is time you are worried about, don't be. I completed the game (including all optional side quests) in 15 hours, and I wasn't rushing or attempting a speed-run.

Quote: Original post by swiftcoder
If it is time you are worried about, don't be. I completed the game (including all optional side quests) in 15 hours, and I wasn't rushing or attempting a speed-run.

Eh? My first run took forty five hours...

Maybe spoilers.

The bad:
- Skipping dialog and accidental choices (how hard could it be to fix that...)
- Loading screens
- First half of insanity difficulty is unbalanced
- Controls can be annoying, duck/jump-over/run tends to get mixed up
- Dogs and similar mobs behave like rhino on ice
- The simplification of skill trees went just a notch too far

The good:
- Soundtrack rocks
- Even better voice acting - not that ME1 was bad
- Better framerates and much better feeling of controls (ME1 was sluggish)
- Very well rounded (actions vs story, gameplay, pacing, length of missions)
- Skills vs. guns are decently balanced (ME1 was a mess)
- Some not completely rehashed sci-fi elements for a game (via side missions, harem thingy for example, the missile strike abort decision)
- Almost no clipping issues
- AI went from rand() to actually not getting in the way too much

The rest:
- Why are there more Chronicles of Riddick references than in actual Riddick game? That Crematoria (whatever Tali's planet is) was nicely done.
- Why did Tali's mission remind me of Futurama - Where no fan has gone before, where they are put on trial in the middle of fight still going on
- "reach and flexibility", "Geth do not infiltrate", gathering resources on Uranus, joker vs. EDI antics, and similar... funny stuff.
- Cerberus: Hey, let's put 4 billion credits into this, let's hang the fate of the universe on them, but let's send them on missions with a total of 4 clips of ammo (apparently, some bean counter had to cut costs somewhere)
- Exploration is still kinda meh
- I liked the "Releasing control" scene, it put the button on the story for me
- Entire Suicide mission/post Omega-4 pacing was well done
- The story overall was much better than ME1, but it somehow felt less grandiose. I'd say there were too many characters and it felt less personal
- The intro with environmental sounds cutting out during spacewalk is an effect that should be exploited more frequently. In general, sound is handled quite effectively with slowdowns/volume pans, it adds a lot to general immersion.

Quote: Original post by swiftcoder
If it is time you are worried about, don't be. I completed the game (including all optional side quests) in 15 hours, and I wasn't rushing or attempting a speed-run.

The main reason I'm waiting is because I don't have my Xbox at college with me.

I'll be quite disappointed if it's that short. I spent around 40 hours on the first one.

Quote: Original post by nilkn

Quote: Original post by swiftcoder
If it is time you are worried about, don't be. I completed the game (including all optional side quests) in 15 hours, and I wasn't rushing or attempting a speed-run.

The main reason I'm waiting is because I don't have my Xbox at college with me.

I'll be quite disappointed if it's that short. I spent around 40 hours on the first one.

I spent about 30 hours, he probably just skipped though all the conversations...

I've played through both. IMHO, ME2 was good, but fell short of expectations. My bullet-point summary:

ME2 improvements over ME1:
*Better combat. Now the game actually lets you aim!
*Better voice acting. The first one had great VA, this one is even better!
*Better romance options. I hated both the romance options for male players in the first one; I much preferred the ones in ME2.
*No inventory mess - but that's a bad part too.
*Beautiful Graphics.

ME2 failures:
*Inventory! In the first game, you had fifty guns of each type to choose from. Now you have TWO?! That's on the order of the amount of guns you got in the original Doom. Inexcusable to dumb that part of the game so much; I agree that the inventory in ME1 was a mess, but this was taking it too far.
*Streamlined skills. Same as with the inventory, but less extreme. Fine, we don't need as many skill increments as the first one gave us, but 4 levels of 5 skills? C'mon!
*Too short. I wanted to see more! I wanted to leave Cerberus!
*Too few and not enough varied side quests. Apparently, everything in the galaxy has to do with one of three merc groups.
*Exploration and resources. The Mako was annoying, but the planet scan thingy is completely and utterly pointless. If there's a cheat for unlimited resources, there's absolutely no reason not to use it; planet scanning is boring, takes time and has no element of skill, risk or challenge. You just sit and click on a sphere.