i imported my level 50 character from ME1 to ME2. i played several hours worth of ME2 this weekend. there’s about to be SPOILERS peppered throughout this. i was surprised (shocked is too strong) by the opening sequence. the normandy1 was what i thought of as “home” in ME1. i was happy to see the ship get replaced…for a few i was worried this game wasn’t going to allow you to choose the order of playing missions (due to lack of a ship). i really like the cerberus angle and the illusive man is pretty awesome thus far. jacob and miranda are good characters as well.

once the combat began i immediately noticed how much different it was from ME1. it feels like a completely different game really. at first i was thinking okay it’s different but not necessarily in a bad way. however, after playing several missions now i can firmly say that i believe the combat system in ME2 is inferior to ME1’s. the fatal flaw in it is that every single battle has to be fought from cover…so the whole game you’re always ducking behind barriers and bobbing and weaving to shoot enemies. i do think it’s a great dynamic and it’s well done, but to have to do every single battle like this is such a shame. i’m really hoping that this changes at some point in the game but i doubt it. also i chose to have shepard as a vanguard this time around and was kind of disappointed by the lame biotic abilities at this part of the game (also hoping this improves). right now i’m regretting not sticking with soldier and leaving the biotics to squad members. i’m also not a fan of the addition of limited ammunition. i’ve read that the developers felt this would add tension to the combat scenarios. i agree it does do that…what i don’t like is having to dumbly go around picking up replacement ammo cartridges. i felt the unlimited ammo w/ overheating was an excellent idea in ME1.

it’s nice that the mako is gone…however they kept the gathering resources concept. at least the resources actually do something this time around. probing planets for resources is easily the worst part of the game so far. and on top of that they’ve added the requirement to purchase fuel for moving around the galaxy map…why add such a mundane task to a game? i’m thoroughly convinced the developers just throw in this crap to extend the overall play time of the game. since these games end up being rather short (main quests wise). however, i’m definitely not complaining about the shortness of ME games though, since i can imagine how much work it must be to compose so many different dialog trees for various situations/squad members.

i really liked the citadel location in the first game…in ME2 it’s simply a shopping mall and fairly disappointing. the garrus/archangel recruit mission has been my favorite mission so far…it was really well done. the kasumi loyalty mission is also decent. i didn’t care so much for the grunt or tali recruit missions. the mordin recruit mission was okay (what’d i say before about every bioware game having a plague scenario in it?). the physical appearance of the vorcha disapppoints me because previously i felt there was some level of “realism” concerning the design of the alien races. why would an alien race end up looking exactly like a demonic hellspawn??

i liked the omega station but unfortunately there’s not much to do there after finishing the 2 main missions. hacking/decyption is done way better in this game however i still feel like it’s pointless to have to do this. i wish the game would randomly determine if i was successful in hacking/decrypting instead of me messing around with crap on the screen or hitting controller buttons in a certain order.

i’m not a fan of the forced missions such as horizon or the collector ship. i feel like that’s a very anti-RPG concept. one of the things i’ve always loved about RPG games is that you didn’t have to attempt difficult missions until you felt you were ready. ME2 simply decides for you. i imagine this was another change to add to the tension, but i dislike it.

i miss wrex and hope he makes an appearance in ME3. i have a gut feeling there is going to be some showdown moment with cerberus where shepard finds out they don’t have heroic intentions after all. then i imagine shepard will have to determine whether he is with cerberus or against them. if that does happen i’m not sure what i’d choose currently (of course i’d need to know the exact context).

update 9/7/2013:
i’m around level 26 in the game and there’s a max level of 30…so i’m in the final stretch. i’m mostly just finishing up scanning planets that i missed earlier which is horribly unfun. for most of the game i was harvesting resources until planets showed depleted then eventually i decided to harvest until planets were listed as poor. after realizing how many planets there actually are i was like fine…i’ll go to moderate, then good, then finally i just didn’t give a damn. i have 500k worth of the main 3 resources and nearly 100k of element zero. i don’t really have any needs for any of it at this point in the game. however, i am low on credits. there are 3 upgrades left to purchase which i need more credits for. what i advise first time players to do is just look up the planets that have element zero or missions attached and don’t bother scanning anything else. the missions discovered from scanning are usually bland and very brief. they are useful for gaining experience and credits however.

i was glad to see that wrex does make an appearance in the game. i really enjoyed the krogan homeworld segments. the collector ship mission seemed to start for me after i had recruited tali, thane, and samara. i wasn’t looking forward to this mission but it wasn’t too difficult. the hardest part was the first attack on the floating platforms. i lost both squad members twice within a very short amount of time. i ended up slowly and carefully taking out all the enemy targets myself. my weapon of choice has been the locust SMG. i chose to train my vanguard with assault rifles when given the choice. i’ve been using the vindicator battle rifle and i’m not sure if i like it. it’s clearly more powerful than the SMGs but i’m having trouble getting used to the burst firing. the first time i used the cain heavy weapon it completely blew my mind. that thing is a beast…

on DLC, i think it’s worthwhile to get the kasumi DLC. zaeed is so-so…i don’t think you’re missing much if you pass on the zaeed DLC. the firewalker and overlord DLCs both suck horribly. unless you get them for free i don’t recommend buying them. they are not really any fun to play. there’s some small interesting bits in overlord but again it’s not worth playing. at the end of overlord, i was so mad about having to trudge through it was i ready for some renegade actions to make someone pay. i wanted to kill both david and archer, but ended up messing up both choices. if i couldn’t kill david i wanted to give him to cerebus but i misunderstood the choices and sent him to a special needs school (argh). and for archer i think the option to do something to him comes up but it was listed as paragon so i chose not to. oh well. i have not played the shadow broker or arrival DLC packs yet because it’s recommended to play them after the suicide mission.

on romances, i am pursuing miranda because she seems like the best option. i had a casual “encounter” with the jack character. jack’s really an annoyance to put up with i wish i was a full on renegade so i could handle her more appropriately. i have a strong friendship with kelly. currently on the paragon/renegade meters i’m like 4/5 paragon and 3/5 renegade.

my thoughts on the potential siding w/ cerberus stuff…i’m still considering my move. in the first game the council abandoned shepard. in ME2, even with a new council, they still abandon shepard and even worse so does the alliance (it seems). it almost seems like cerberus is all that shepard has left. i feel like i’ll side with cerberus unless i really dislike the illusive man’s true motives for going after the collectors.

good loyalty missions:
grunt (i actually like the grunt character after this mission)
samara
tali
thane (at least the detective portions of it…trailing the target wasn’t that fun)

okay loyalty missions:
zaeed
mordin
garrus

bad loyalty missions:
jacob
miranda
jack

update 9/8/2013:
i finished the main set of missions in mass effect 2 today. this would include all of the DLC minus shadow broker & arrival. final play time was about 58 hours and i had 127 saves. i wasn’t really trying to finish the game today, but once you finish up the reaper IFF mission the events just keep unfolding. i complained that the background info for the reapers wasn’t fully fleshed out in ME1, but that’s clearly because they didn’t want to ruin the mystery so early in the trilogy. i’m glad that the geth aren’t just mindlessly evil followers of the reapers. legion is a pretty awesome character. thane is probably my overall favorite in this game.

i chose to do to the program rewrites on the heretic geth…not out of mercy but because i think more geth in an all out war against the reapers would be useful. i didn’t lose anyone in the suicide mission (i’d hope not after i spent forever preparing). the cerberus decision came up during the climax of the game. i had to choose to go against the illusive man. which is a shame cause i kind of wanted to stay affiliated with cerberus. but i viewed his decision to spare the collector base as way too dangerous. the reapers clearly have technology way beyond all the other races and it’s simply too dangerous to keep around.

anyways, another good mass effect game i’m looking forward to finishing out the last 2 DLC packs.

update 9/14/13:
this last week i finished out the remaining DLC packs for shadow broker and arrival. my total completion time is around 64 hours. i think both DLC packs are worth playing but they should both be priced at $5 each. there’s no way shadow broker is worth the $10…there’s not nearly enough new material to warrant that. what’s worse is that shadow broker seems to be fairly buggy. i had the xbox freeze up completely during one of the cutscenes, the audio kept cutting out during the car chase, and during another cutscene feron appeared to be invisible. so i’m not too happy that EA/bioware is charging top dollar for a minor DLC pack and not even feeling like it’s worthwhile to fix the bugs in it.

i didn’t see it as a must to play shadow broker after completing the game at least not story-wise. shadow broker is pretty difficult though so it makes sense to wait until level 30 to play it. also i’m not sure if it was so difficult because it adapted to me being level 30 or if it’s just always that difficult. the enemies in shadow broker move very fast and their shots are well aimed and deliver a lot of damage. at this point in the game i had pretty much all the armor, health, and shield upgrades and i was getting into near death situations often. the shadow broker DLC is fairly combat heavy too. overall, i thought the reveal of the shadow broker was rather disappointing. i liked the idea of the shadow broker being some rare alien race but not one that’s a weird looking hulk-like creature.

i think it was a nice touch that liara knew about your romance in the game. i ended up reconciling with liara and at least keeping some type of romance alive between her and shepard.

the arrival DLC was okay, the best parts of it involve the extra info you gain about the impending reaper invasion. it was also pretty cool being responsible for wiping out an entire star system.

some final thoughts on ME2…
i take back what i said about the assault rifle it’s actually very good. you just have to use it halo 2 battle rifle style with precision shots. it does however have a low ammo capacity.

i got shepard stuck on parts of the map at least twice during ME2. once i was stuck on top of a chair but was eventually able to wiggle free after about 10 minutes. another time i got stuck on some stairs and no matter what i did could not get free. i ended up having to load a save file. glitches like these are unfortunate. i think i got stuck on something in ME1 once but i was able to get free much easier.

i hate the screen going red when you’re injured. hate it…i do appreciate that ME2 auto-saves fairly often. in ME1 i would get too cocky and keep playing for a long while without saving and then die and have to play a decent portion of the mission over again.

on items i’m glad you don’t have to talk to people to buy items now and can instead use kiosks…much quicker. in ME1 i believe they went a bit overboard with the shear amount of items, but i do miss the level of equipment customization there was in ME1. in ME2 the customization is reduced to almost nothing. i think a pared down version of what was in ME1 would have been great.

Comments are closed.