20 Hours of Mass Effect 2

Wow, 1am.... I cant feel my legs!

The mandate from EA was pretty well "make it more action and less RPG" from day one.

Page upon page of written details about anything and everything in the world drag me down like quicksand.

If you're talking about the Codex, you're broken. BROKEN I SAY

First off, I have been playing Borderlands for months. Second I'm talking about Mass Effect 1 because I have trouble buying a sequel when I haven't played enough of the previous game(s) in the series. Makes me doubt whether or not I'd play the sequel enough or possibly have outgrown that game series. Third, I'm on the 360 here. I rarely buy pc games any more...

I never finished Mass Effect so I went back and discovered that I was only 3 hours in (and it has been almost a year since I touched the save). So I started over with a new character because I couldn't remember enough of the plot/goals/etc...

I spent 30 minutes just customizing the look of my character. It was interesting and addictive. I probably didn't spend as much effort on the face the last time.

Anyhow. I started the game with my new character and got into the first action level. There really isn't enough guidance as you play. I would have appreciated a sort of tutorial. "you got your first armor/weapon upgrade. here is how you use it". I figured out the armor upgrades and such because the interface is pretty good, but I didn't really feel like I knew which weapon was equipped. And I didn't know which button to hit to switch weapons. I have the game manual and such so I could have checked, but I almost never look at those anymore.

So, I opened up chests and found goodies but I started to feel a little overwhelmed thinking about the stats and items for all my characters. Thank god I put the other guys on autolevel at least. Still, on items alone I felt like I had to really spend a lot more time than I was willing to spend to maximize my team's effectiveness. Or they will start dieing I guess as I proceed.

I ran across the locked rooms you need to decrypt. Again, tutorial would have been nice. The decryption "mini-game" is sort of a simon says thing, which I find immensely irritating! I would have rather seen it handled Deus Ex or Fallout 3 style. Or just a random chance to succeed based on how hard the lock is and how good your character is.

The auto-aiming started to bother me but I found I couldn't turn it off. Maybe I'm too used to Borderlands or Fallout 3. Also I don't like using energy weapons in games anymore. (besides doom's plasma and bfg of course) I hate the alien weapons in Halo 3, for example.

I think what I would prefer overall is an option to play it "halo-style". I would still choose the conversation paths but I wouldn't have to deal with so many equipment choices. Perhaps the weapons would be borderlands style and not much other equipment to deal with. Simplified. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the simplicity and fun of Borderlands. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for something that detailed. Perhaps I outgrew highly detailed RPG games. Maybe I don't want to deal with managing the whole team. Don't know. But I guess I won't be finishing Mass Effect 1 any time soon. I went back to Left 4 dead 2 and Borderlands.

Maybe I'll rent Mass Effect 2 some time but I have a feeling I wouldn't dig it.

I tried very hard to like the 1st game but just couldn't!!! I found it's gameplay to be very complicated to me. It drove me crazy when my team would stand in the way of flying bullets and not move away. I guess I just don't like squad base games enough to enjoy ME. Is it to hard to ask the computer to be competent enough to move away from flying bullets??

I don't know I tried, am I the only one that can't enjoy this game??

sigh...nomatter what I try I can't get the game to allow me to select the code in the hacking minigame.

Do I have to play Mass effect 1 before starting this game? Still have WiC, Crysis Warhead, Modernfare 1+2 on my list and I don't have much sparetime :(

My biggest complaint with the game is also that it feels too much like an action game. The world is sparsely populated with anything of interest, and it is very linear in the fact if you open the wrong door you just committed yourself to moving the story forward. Mining is dull and I personally loved the heck out of exploring planets to find an alien outpost to go kill enemies at for experience.

Perhaps my largest annoyance is the fact that killing enemies does not grant you experience. You get no reward whatsoever for combat which I feel is one of the most essential video game (RPG) characteristics. You get a "slight bit of ammo" that you will always receive, from every enemy until the end of the game. There is no random surprises and when you defeat a boss you don't retrieve any notable reward.

The sheer amount of space that is wasted with no npc's or items of note is really boggling. You are never rewarded for exploring after a fight, or any thing. Exploration is one of the most exciting things about modern day role playing games. Sorry if you disagree with my opinion - I was a very big fan of Mass Effect and I am enjoying ME 2 but there is a lot of short comings that ruin the replay value. I am having a lot of fun though and it is a really fantastic game.

Thank you BioWare!

One of the best games I've played this year. More polished. More action-oriented, certainly. The mining can be a drag. But hot-damn, what an amazing effort. I really, sincerely, feel entertained. There's a distinction between being entertained and occupying your time with a pleasant diversion with games, in my opinion. Halflife, for example, is a pinnacle of entertainment. I can count on my hand the the amount of times that has happened.

A lot of people's concerns are legit, but frankly I really don't mind the change. The pacing is amazing. "Action-RPG" in the purest sense.

Bravo BioWare, bravo.

Poor Liara =( I guess things change dramatically in two years.

Jeeze, this review is pretty harsh. If you are going to talk so negatively about a game, at least try to balance it with some of the good if it does indeed deserve it, and i'm pretty sure this one deserves it. There was a little bit in there, but as a whole, this is pretty brutal for someone like me who was looking forward to playing it, but still hasn't got it, and reading something like this will actually stick with me as I play it, but yet.......I always do anyways hahaha.

I must be both old and in the minority, as the RPG elements are what draw me to Bioware RPGs. I could care less about the combat, and would skip it if I could. With the removal of experience and the addition of limited ammunition, it feels completely pointless, like they've tacked on a twitch-shooter.

I'm not happy with the combat changes and the removal of most of the RPG complexity. I think it's a huge step backward. I'd have wanted the combat to take on a more tactical, less twitchy tone.

That having been said, the actual RPG parts are very well done, as I'd expect from Bioware. Dialogue is excellent. Voice acting is excellent. Production values are excellent. The conversation system is still awesome. I like the addition of the Paragon/Renegade "interruptions". I like that there have been, even early on, many opportunities to use Charm/Intimidate-based options.

I do think there's a huge lack of party interactions. Dragon Age nailed this. ME2 party members are mostly silent while on missions. While understandable for some characters, others who are *extremely* chatty in-between missions seem uncharacteristically silent during them.

I'm really hoping the combat doesn't become a huge problem for me. In the first, it felt like a slog between the good parts - in this, it's basically a chore.

Bioware took everything remotely unique from the first game (not having to worry about ammo, rewarding combat, in-depth character builds), which I've completed 3 or 4 times (between PC and 360) and threw it away. They then played through Gears of War, which I hated so bad I traded it in at EB for $20 a few days after receiving it as a gift, and decided to copy that.

The 'character' screen is a complete disappointment, they dumbed it down so much I'm not even sure if you could really call it an RPG any more. It's like some sort of dialog driven Gears of War clone, and in my opinion at least, that's not a good thing.

The RPG elements hold it back? So it would be better if it was more like a generic third person shooter? Pretty sure I disagree with that...

Awesome game. Amazing graphics! I don't mind the mining mini-game -- it's a nice reprieve from the stress of fighting, and reading the description of the planets you're about to mine gives your mind something to ponder as you mindlessly plop down probes. There are a lot of mini-games in this game -- it's like 10 different games in one -- but they balance it perfectly so that you're not doing any one task for too long, unless you choose to (I shot probes into planets for 3 hours today).

Ran into a strange bug: when you gain your teammate's loyalty, it gives you the option to acquire a rank of a new special skill (through the upgrade system) -- but when you choose it to see what skills are available, there's no way to back out of it if you already have the skill, so it makes you buy it again! And to make things worse, to get those skills you need to use the rarest of resources in the game.

My advice: SAVE OFTEN! Hit that F5 button before and after upgrades, before and after hacks, and before and after every fight. My F5 button is showing noticeable wear, but it's worth it to avoid the rage-quit.

I find it less open world than ME in the fact with the ending mission stats screen (and whisked back to the ship, even if you have other incomplete missions on that planet.)

The first Mass Effect was a *huge* disappointment for me after all the hype I heard about it I just couldn't get into it. I felt like the game was confused about whether it was an RPG (with horribly long conversations like Dragon Age) or an action game. It seems like with the sequel its more made up its mind as an action game with RPG elements. I'll probably pick it up on PC when the price drops a bit like I did Dragon Age. The planet scanning stuff just sound horrible but I doubt its enough to hurt what otherwise looks quite good.

Not a particularly good review, you're finding fault with an action-RPG for having both Action and RPG elements?

I like flying around and scanning planets... despite that being the boringest part of the game... Im weird.

but they seriously need to have fixed the sensitivity options: low, medium, fast.

wtf?

To me, it seems you've enjoyed it for it's merits and are ready to be done with it. I've played games like that.

I can't wait for tomorrow afternoon when UPS delivers my PC copy :(

EA Store is kind of lame for not doing release day shipping. First and last time I'll use them.