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.

i’m playing the first mass effect game now. i’ve been looking forward to playing this ever since finishing kotor1. i’d put kotor1 on my list of best games played ever. mass effect is actually my 3rd bioware game (not counting neverwinter nights because it’s not as dialog driven as other bioware games). the 2nd bioware game i played was jade empire…but i was overall disappointed from what i played of it. i remember it feeling unoriginal and predictable. i probably only played it an hour or two but i just couldn’t get immersed in it like i did kotor1. i should probably give it another try someday.

anyways, i’m really enjoying mass effect. the characters, story, universe, are all very engrossing. i’m reminded quite a bit of kotor1 which is a good thing. the combat is very interesting…i haven’t gotten quite used to it yet but i’m getting there. the only part that i momentarily hated was the exploration of the planets with the mako. i was getting so frustrated with driving that clunker and fighting battles with only the machine gun. i looked online to find out a lot of people dislike these segments, but also while doing these searches i found out the mako had a rocket launcher-ish weapon and a scope to zoom in. those two items greatly reduced my frustration level. nonetheless, i do feel like these segments don’t really add to the immersion of the game, but rather detract from it. the game immersion is really all about the story and continuing it. having that broken up by a action oriented driving sequence takes away from that. i see where they were going with these segments – adding some realism of not automatically ending up at the destination or having to walk to get there…or a little something to add variety. but ultimately i still feel they are unnecessary. although i’m starting not to mind them as much.

the only thing that annoys me at this point is the way the game handles the decryption skill. i mess up decrypting all the time and then suddenly don’t have enough omnigel to try again. when i do have a ton of omnigel i just spend it to manually bypass the device. unfortunately, at this part in the game having lots of omnigel is a rare occasion and i always end up feeling i’m missing out on something by not unlocking a container. i’ve heard that nothing key to the game experience would be in any of these containers, but it still bugs me…

areas of interest:
artemis tau system
macedon – sharjila = pirate stronghold
knossos – therum = liara’s whereabouts
sparta – edolus = thresser maw attack
(i gave up on this list as they’re way too many locations to list)

areas completely done with:
planet feros
maroon sea system
armstrong system
voyager system
exodus system
styx theta system
argos rho system
hawking eta system
gemini sigma – ming

update 8/10/2013:
played a lot of mass effect today. i’ve driven that damn mako on so many planets now. it’s definitely the most tedious part of the game. the good news is that all those side quests are optional. the bad news is that i’m a completionist freak so i must finish any side quest that i’m aware of. the side quests are mostly pretty weak. they seem like they were added as an after thought. i’ve noticed that a lot of the quests rehash scenarios used in previous bioware games (out of control religious zealots/cult, sickness/plague, infestation of strange creatures, mind control, etc.). the main story is driven by the main set of quests which is easily the best part of the game. i was surprised to find that mass effect 1 is actually a pretty short game. i think there’s only 8 or so main quests and i have 3.5 of them left. i guess they banked on people doing all the mindless busy work of side quests to make the game last longer (suckers like me). i’ve gotten a lot more used to the combat now and am much better at it. i use the assault rifle for long range (sometimes the sniper rifle) and the shotgun for close range. i don’t really use pistols anymore at all for shepard. i’ve found it’s very important to apply shield bonuses either through talents or armor upgrades (health regeneration as well). also make sure to routinely change out everyone’s weapons and armor as they can become obsolete fairly quickly.

update 8/17/13:
mass effect 1 finished! level 50 with nearly 43 hours of game time and 105 saves. if i hadn’t bothered with all the side quests i probably would have finished the game in 20 hours or so. there’s about to be a few SPOILERS listed here. there were two paths i went down in the game that i didn’t really mean to. one was that i meant to romance ashley but somehow destroyed the possibility of that by admitting to liara there was a connection between us (liara and shepard). so i ended up developing a romance with liara. i watched the youtube video of the ashley romance just to see what happened and maybe i dodged a bullet…lots of poetry reading and cheesiness. i chose for kaidan to die on virmire (although at the time i was hoping there was a way to save both squad members). for one i still thought i had a possibly of romance with ashley so i didn’t want her to die. secondly, i was never that intrigued by the kaidan character and knew i wasn’t going to miss him much. the other choice i didn’t intend to pursue was allowing the council to die at the end. i misinterpreted the choices presented and initially i figured i could easily go back to a previous save file and defeat saren again, but the more i thought about it i liked the outcome with the deaths of the council. not out of any desire to be super evil, but the council never listened to anything shepard said during the 20 times he handled business during the game. and i was always really patient and considerate with shepards dialog choices with the council until the very end. not only did they not listen but they actively interfered with shepard near the end…so they brought their deaths on themselves.

the story got a little odd near the end, but overall i liked it. i feel like there’s a lot left unexplained but that’s probably where the sequels come in. ultimately, i really enjoyed mass effect 1 i can’t say i feel like it’s up to the gold standard of kotor1. kotor1’s main story just felt tighter and better thought out. kotor1 was also the first game of this type that i played so i’m of course always going to remember it the most fondest.

if i were ever to play mass effect 1 again from the beginning (which i doubt i will…at least not for a really long time) i wouldn’t bother with the stupid resource gathering side quests nor the artifact gathering. i’d stick to the main quests and any side quests that actually sounded interesting. i know i’ve ranted on the side quests already, but they’re such a bore. even the non-resource ones you end up basically exploring the same research labs, mines, ships, and fortresses x 10. i know it must be a super pain to design that many levels with such detail, but i wish they could have thrown in just a few more for variety’s sake. the recycling of enemies for side quests was ridiculous as well. like why am i seeing rachni and thorian creepers all over the galaxy…aren’t these extinct or exceptionally rare races? (i feel like only 1 side quest explained this in a convincing manner). definitely the side quests are the weakest part of the game. even so, i ended up doing every single side quest that i came across.

the decryption stuff i complained about before isn’t that bad (it’s still stupid though). later in the game i just used omnigel to manually bypass everything. you get tons of the stuff from converting old equipment into omnigel. it makes more sense to convert items to omnigel than it does to sell them. i had over 3 million credits by the end of the game and with nothing really to do with it. you can always buy equipment but it seems like found equipment is generally better than what you can purchase from a shop (except for a maybe a few items).

some things i learned from my first playthrough is that early on you want to keep investing talent points for shepard in charm and intimidate to open up dialog options. also give shepard points in the sniper rifle talent as well as any health regeneration talents. the sniper rifle is almost entirely unusable without talent points. it’s also useful to get your tech squad members to hard level with the electronics and decryption talents. for squad members i always tried to team up a group that had at least one biotic and one tech member. my usual combos were ashley and kaidan, wrex and tali, liara and garrus.

update 8/18/2013:
to completely finish out mass effect 1 today i checked out the DLC bring down the sky. it turns out you should really do the DLC mission prior to finishing the game. i’m really disappointed in how bioware set this up. you only have two choices either to load up a save where you still have control of the normandy or start the game over. for me to do this right i’d have to play through ilos all over again…forget that. and i’m definitely not starting the game over so i just loaded a random save and went to the new DLC location solely to check out the content of the DLC. the DLC is basically another lame side quest type of thing. the only redeeming quality of the DLC is that you get introduced to the batarians and the final showdown with the batarian terrorist leader is interesting. if you don’t play this DLC you aren’t missing much. still, i wish i had known to install it earlier in the game. i purposely chose not to because i know some addons/expansions change the overall experience of the game and figured i could get to it after finishing the game…oh well. there’s another DLC package called pinnacle station that i’m not bothering with it since it seems to have bad reviews and doesn’t really add anything to the game. and finally i’m reading through all the codex entries for ultimate completeness.

on the topic of DLC, since i ran into this dilemma in mass effect 1 i’ve thoroughly researched the DLC for mass effect 2. it appears that you can play the DLC in any order in mass effect 2 from what i’ve read. however, for the story to fully make sense you should evidently play some before and some after the game’s final mission. so i’m going to install kasumi, overlord, and cerberus network DLC early on and wait until later to install lair of the shadow broker and arrival. by the way, what a rip that the DLC isn’t included on the platinum hit version of mass effect 2. and what’s up with having additional squad members in the DLC content? seems messed up to me…

some final thoughts on mass effect 1…near the end i started to use the pistol again just to mess around and i actually liked it quite a bit. at the level i was it was pretty powerful and it seems to be the most accurate weapon in the game. it wasn’t much use against enemies with heavy defense but worked fine on average enemies. the only enemies that could give me trouble at the end were the geth prime and the krogan warlords (and of course turrets). i didn’t have to worry about average enemies much anymore unless there were tons of them. after watching videos of biotic gameplay i kind of wish i had started shepard off as a biotic class because it looks awesome…maybe in mass effect 2. i’ve come to really respect the combat engine in ME1 it’s superbly done. overall, ME1 is the most engaging game i’ve played in a while and i consider it a must-play type of game. from my various complaints about the game it might seem at times like i don’t like it but that’s not really it. i like the game a lot and am just frustrated by elements that i believe take away from the game’s greatness.