Well, how is it without saying anything spoilerish?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 9 being Mass Effect, it's about a 9.9.

Almost everything about the game is better. The only two little things I can see that I dislike are is the fact that ammo is now limited. I haven't got far enough into the game to see if there's an explanation for that, but it does irk me as infinite ammo was a pretty major codex point in ME1.

The other complaint is loading times so far.

However, every other aspect of the game is a 11 out of 10. Graphics, sound, story, combat.

I also must say that the care they took in concerns to ME1 is overwhelming. I imported a character from ME1, and there have been probably a dozen references to things I've done in ME1. Not generic ME1 stuff, but character-specific stuff in ME1.

Going even further than that, they've referenced optional missions I did in ME1.

Stuff like that so far is making the game awesome, IMO. If the game keeps up like this for however long it is, then it'll probably be my favorite game of the generation.

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And having said that, 2 hours in, the game is throwing a lot more concepts at you than ME1 did. I am unsure if this is because I imported my character, and it caused the game to skip some optional stuff, but the start of the game is a lot more insane than Normandy>Eden Prime.

Not too spoilerish, but the kinds of questions you'd want to ask within 5 minutes of ME2 are pretty much answered as soon as humanly possible like "Where the heck is my ME1 crew?" and "Where can I find them?".

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As for importing my ME1 character, you get the following bonuses (I used a level 60 paragon):

• Auto-level to level 5 (instead of 1)
• 100,000 extra credits
• New weaponry
• New armor (I believe).

Time to leave for the midnight launch here on the west coast. I think I will be to tired to play much tonight but I have tomorrow off and I plan to spend it on this game. Mass Effect is my favorite game of this generation and with the positive buzz I can't wait to get started.

If you liked ME1, you'll love ME2.

@mrstickball

Have you received, in the game, your ship and explored some planets? How did that feel compared to ME1?

Rhonin -

I will not spoil anything about the ship, but it is a LOT larger than the Normandy from ME1....Which is why I've spent the past 15 minutes on just the front of the ship, talking to people. Its got some wicked features and backstory.

As for the exploration part:

Its a lot different. Rather than simply hopping from relay to relay, its more intricate. If you played Star Control, you have a good idea whats involved. You physically fly your ship to planets to investigate them. When you get to the planet, you intiate a scanner mini-game. You hover over the planet looking for special areas that have raw materials. You can then launch probes to collect the material which can be used in research...I think.

Its very, very neat stuff. You have a limited amount of probes you can deploy. Also, you cannot hop from star system to star system inside a mass relay. You have to actually use fuel to fly from place to place. It costs credits as do the probes which add for a pretty neat economy element.

I also randomly found a mission on one of these planets. It warns you there is an 'anomly' and tells you that you must find it. When you do, you get to land on the planet for a side quest. The side quest I did was rather short, but pretty fun.

Also, it seems that (and I could be wrong) you get level ups by completing quests, and not killing baddies ala ME1. I am unsure if this is good or bad, but certainly different and neat.

Once I completed the task on this side-mission planet, I was promply debriefed from command and told what I earned by completing the mission.

One of my concerns with ME2 was that space exploration looked more tedious, it's understandable that exploring ten planets for resources would get boring pretty fast. Although on the bright side the landing sites look more varied, my main gripe with ME1 was the bases, which you entered on side missions, that were just 2 or 3 types and were copy-pasted.

I got a question about the Cerberus Network. So I saw the extra content DLC list when I started the game, and the only things available for me were the Blood Dragon Armor and Crash. Is that all I was suppose to see or do things like sporadically show up in it?

Do you know what bonuses you get for importing lower level characters? Because I have got to level 54, but that is not one of the characters I want to use

Since this is the launch day maybe they haven't released the DLC for the public on Cerberus Network. What is "Crash"? Also do the pre-order bonuses appear on the Cerberus Network?