[Nehan]

Si, senor.

[Oscar]

Garrus misses the elevators...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRf_bfVWQuw&NR=1

[Wrath of Dagon]

Sounds like they have some good humor and writing in the game, but the story is still monumentally idiotic.

[Anonxeuix]

What's wrong with the story? Nothing special, nothing 'epic', but far from 'monumentally idiotic'.

@Oscar: The games salesman on the Citadel was hilarious.

[Hector]

Far as I could see, the only things that were removed were weapon skills, which frankly made very little if any difference, and the inventory.  As to the removal of the inventory, who really gives a fuck?  There was hardly an inventory there in the first place.  If they'd had a decent inventory and removed it, I could understand, but they didn't really have a decent inventory, so it made no difference anyway.

ME2 is a much better game than ME1, in my opinion; the cover works much better and the combat is much more fun, while what little has been removed made so little difference in the first game that it might as well have not been there to begin with.

[Wrath of Dagon]

What's wrong with the story? Nothing special, nothing 'epic', but far from 'monumentally idiotic'.

(click to show/hide)

Giant incredibly complex and advanced artificial beings coming up with an extraordinarily complicated 50,000 year scheme just so that they can harvest DNA from different species, somehow wiping them out in the process? Wouldn't there be easier ways to collect samples of DNA? Shouldn't someone who can mess with black holes and exist in different dimensions be able to simulate/synthesize any DNA imaginable? Wouldn't it be simpler to just get the DNA from Bill Clinton? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Gregorus Prime]

[spoilers]They're supposed to be Lovecraftian beings with motivations "incomprehensible" to us mere mortals, but you can start to piece together something from the info Legion gives you about Nazara, AKA Sovereign. Many minds within a single massive body. The implication is that it's not just the DNA that's important. Perhaps with their crazy future technology they're using they have some way of creating an imprint of the mind to pair with the new body, something like that. I don't know.[/spoilers]

"Massively idiotic" is going a bit far, I'd say, especially when you don't have a complete picture of what's going on.  But I agree with you that the plot is not really Mass Effect's strong point. The setting and character interactions, on the other hand, are a major source of appeal for me. Unlike certain people who post long rants about not giving a shit about characters (in a game with an advertised premise of BUILD A TEAM FOR THE SUICIDE MISSION) I actually give a shit about these characters because I think the game does a pretty good job of making me care... in most cases, anyway. Jacob was easily the most boring character in the game, but I still found him more likable and interesting than Kaidan and Ashley. Zaeed's a bit of a throwaway as well, and again he at least has that baseline of "old merc with lots of war stories" to fall back on. It's a cliche to be sure, but it works.

[Wrath of Dagon]

It's hard to know how it's all going to be resolved, so I suppose it's possible it's all going to make sense in the end somehow. But meanwhile it's just looks like kiddie cartoon evil alien nonsense, that's all.

[Ellorien]

I haven't finished the game yet so just a few random thoughts:

Is this game fun? Hell yeah. Combat is a huge improvement compared to ME, I like it a lot. It does not feel like a mini-game at all   .
The story, as expected, is nonsensical: devoid of logic Hollywood action movie crap heavily spiced with sci-fi gibberish but who really cares about story in a cool shooter? A charismatic bad-ass hero is on a mission to assemble an ass-kicking party of the galaxy's toughest sons of the bitches - gotta love this. Never gets old.

They went overboard with melodrama though: too much emo stuff.
Still, NPC's personalities and dialogues are much, much better now, and voice-over is done very well. I really like the salarian professor (and his song, lol) and Garrus.

The paragon/renegade difference is probably deliberately blurred but some paragon options are awful. Why can't I play a good guy without becoming a pussified demagogue?

The mini-games suck as usual but they are so easy I don't mind them too much. However, it is mind-boggling that Commander Shepard makes a living hacking personal laptops.

I like some of the mini-missions you get by exploring the planets. For example, the one where you have to find your way through the wreckage - very atmospheric. Or the one you need to power up the robot - lol.

I think the worst thing in ME2 is bugs. Good grief, I am tired of all the glitches and I lost count of how many times the game crashed to desktop. Heck, one such crash even damaged my C-drive. The most bugged Bio game up to date, imo.
 

[One Wolf]

one such crash even damaged my C-drive.

Whoa, what do you mean by "damaged"?  That's pretty scary, I can't have that happen with my 240 programs and no backup.

[Oscar]

Really? I only had 2 crashes to desktop in over 30 hours, and about 3-4 glitches with bad collision, where my character starts floating in the air. Oh, and also, one conversation state that didn't got saved.

On the other hand, the game was extremely well optimized and runs great on my PC, even better than ME, while looking much better.

[Anonxeuix]

Woah, I had no bugs at all in 38 hours. Apart from a CTD every few hours.

And Mordin's song? Fucking hilarious.

EDIT: Song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=betH2ZlTNHo

[xantrius]

Haven't Finished it yet.

I greatly enjoyed, overall, the first Mass Effect back in the day, especially Liara T'Soni and just the overall setting. :humanity commits suicide 40 times: 

Last year I read Solaris by Stanisław Lem, and absolutely loved it. Thematically the book deals with anthropomorphism, and earth-centrism, while at the same time weaving these themes into human framework in beautiful , beautiful way; and absolutely adorable feat of imagination, I'm in love.

... o beloved anthropomorphism, which, a blasted Greek antique philosopher I can't remember the name of, made fun of by criticizing his Greek contemporary deities; their  anthropomorphistic characteristics; e.g. Zeus . By saying if triangles had deities then they too would be triangles. O look at that, an alien species! An Asari! How fascinating, someone took a human and splashed a bucket of blue paint on it! (hyperbole). bah, the way Mass Effects setting reeks of anthropomorphism and earth-centrism is just depressing.

But I'm still playing Mass Effect 2, although arguable only in order to kill time. Yeah I like to whine, it's my favourite drug of choice, I'm a very noble person like that.     

Mordin Solus is endearing though, my favourite character so far. So well I just have a ambivalent feel for the game, I hate some aspects, like the  bloody minigames; though I enjoyed the planet-scanning-one-for-minerals, the first two times or so; though haha, that was  due to where, mentally speaking, I was as person when I played it. And other aspects like Mordin I quite like(d), though I don't really love anything like I did with the first Mass Effect  

[Volourn]

(click to show/hide)

 Just did the Collector ship. Best partn of the game by far. Biggest dissapointment though is how you are forced to go there as soon as you ar ebugged about that message by The Piece of Shit Man. But, the Collector ship itself is all types of kewl even if the obvious 'trap' was an obvious trap.

[Gregorus Prime]

I've been playing on my Xbox, since that's what I played the first one on anyway and I didn't want my four year old computer (going on five now) giving me a crappy experience. So it would seem that, predictably, the Xbox version has much fewer bugs. I've had exactly one instance of the floating bug, and I was able to fix it just by walking back onto a ramp.

I sort of agree and disagree with Ellorien about the melodrama. I thought there were plenty of subtle bits, but the areas where they love to paint with broad strokes do tend to overpower everything else. Some of the convo interrupts are incredibly awesome, though, particularly the Renegade one on Mordin's loyalty mission, which has to be my personal favorite.