Okay, 38 hours and something in, and I've beaten Mass Effect 2.
I managed to read a few reviews before going in, both from users and magazines - all of them were basically drooling over the game with some useful tidbits thrown in. With that, I went in with the following preconception: Mass Effect 2 is basically a shooter with a strong dialog element.
And, well - that's basically what it was, if you want to be cynical enough. But it's enough of an RPG to be treated as such.
And oh yeah, I played the PC version. Since there's no separate thread on that side, I figured I'd post this here, since it's still the same game.
POSITIVES
+ Combat in the first Mass Effect was a bloody bore, even on the higher difficulties. Not so much here - the combat system is essentially a light version of any cover-based TPS. Works well enough, and the importance of cover adds a skill element to the game, so you can actually (gasp) die during fights. The limited ammo, while a little inconsistent with ME1, forces you to use different weapons, so it's ok. Personally, I would've kept the overheating with the ammo, but that's just me.
And honestly, I'm fine with removing XP from enemy kills.
+ Like in ME1, the voice acting is pretty damn good, and Martin Sheen does actually do far more in this game than Patrick Stewart or Liam Neeson ever did for Bethesda. Old favorites have their own voice actors back, including the Shepards, and the new ones do a good job with their designated characters.
Unlike ME1, however, this game focuses almost solely on your team. Indeed, you spend most of the game recruiting people for your inevitable (not-so-)suicidal mission. Most of the characters are interesting enough and besides some cliches and archetypes, they tend to grow on you. There are definitely some flaws and overused tropes here, and I'd still find it a loooong stretch to say these are the best written Bioware characters ever, but they're definitely solid, and none of them raised any urges involving an airlock or a sun, like Ashley and Carthdan from the first game.
Just for the record, Shepard him/herself contends for the spot of the most ridiculously overblown Mary Sue I've ever seen in a videogame. And that's saying something.
+ Thank GOD they got rid of the Mako rides.
+ Minigames. The replacements for the ME1 hacking minigames are far better than the first iterations: More relevant to the task at hand, much less dependant on pure luck, and more interesting to actually play than the maze-thingy from the first one. Even the planet roaming and scanning components weren't that bad - largely because they reminded me of Star Control 2. But hey - if you're going to copy something, might as well copy from the best.
+ Sidequests and the final story mission.
Variety! Design! Different floorplans! Something not entirely pointless! My God, they actually put effort into the sidequests of this game!
Yeah, they're far better than last time.
Most of the main storyline missions are pretty bleh, but the final mission is pretty damn good and definitely different from the other outings - and your relationships with your characters actually matter here, since your decisions up to, and during, the mission determine who lives or dies. And the chance of losing everyone is something I'm definitely going to try on my following playthrus.
+ While I still think the dialogue wheel is still somewhat under- and misused, it's nevertheless a solid mechanic - and the new interruption options make an already working system even better, especially since these aren't constrained by your alignment (more on that later). Not to mention, some of the Renegade options are just plain awesome - not that the Paragon options are that bad either.
NEUTRALS
= Most people seem to think the inventory was removed, when it really wasn't - just reduced to a weapon select screen and a few counters. While I didn't miss all the wonderfully bland items from ME1, like Volkov 7 or Agent X, I wouldn't have minded some additional choices regarding gear and customization - especially with weapons. Ok, you can revamp your own armor, but the feature seemed like an afterthought, since the game wasn't exactly swimming in armor parts.
= Research and resource use. Ok, you need secondary resources to upgrade your stuff - fine. You need to scan planets to find these resources, fair enough. But could someone explain to me, why there's nobody in the entire universe who could trade credits for resources and vice versa? Or why do I need to strip mine eight planets worth of Iridium just so my SMG's can fire faster? I don't have to buy my own guns, but why the hell do I need to buy my own fuel, when I have a staff of dozens who could do it for me?
NEGATIVES
- Level-up system.
This seems to be a step back, even from the first game. Having less levels and more meaningful choices regarding your abilities is all fine and good - if the character classes and abilities weren't completely unbalanced. Ranging from being completely broken (Assassin cloak, Infiltrator class) to completely useless (Neural Shock, Shredder Ammo), the abilities are distributed so randomly among the support characters and main classes that it'll probably take at least a few resets before you figure out what abilities work and what don't. As a result, any Infiltrator will have a much easier time that any Vanguard, and Miranda will probably never leave your team.
- Tying diplomacy to your alignment.
Honestly, why? This choice basically forces you to play either all-out good or all-out bad, and completely cutting off the chance of developing both choices and using them whenever appropriate. Yeah, the interruptions are still open to anyone, which mitigates this somewhat, but a better option would've been just to leave both paths as separate skills you could develop at will, independent of your alignment.
I'm not going to even mention the nonexistent neutral path, since that's been Biowares standard procedure for a long while now.
- Lots of little things, including:
* The silly final fight
* Removing quick keys that were present in ME1 (honestly, what the hell?)
* Removing free ducking and grenades
* Not being able to revisit dialogue trees, especially irritating with party members
* No individual ability cooldown, which doesn't really make sense IMO
* Having powers being arbitrarily blocked by shields and armor
* Seems to be somewhat buggy and unstable, will hopefully be fixed in future patches
* Both the enemy and friendly AI are still retarded
- Design of most fights.
Honestly - if you put that much effort into revamping the combat and weapons, why the hell would you still make most of the fights bland cover drills with spawnpoints and boring mooks? Most of the fights go like this: Go behind boxes, shoot someone, hump the box for a few seconds to regain your life, shoot someone else, occasionally switch weapons or use an ability, lather, rinse, repeat. And when you've seen one Eclipse Vanguard, you've seen them all. All 573 of them.
Since Bioware is so bent on epicness with the Mass Effect series, why not cut down on the number of fights, and design each one as a separate experience? Why not make the fights so unique, varied and exciting, that you'd want to reload saves just so you could replay the fights all over again?
- The plot. If not for the team members and their loyalty missions, Mass Effect 2 would've fallen flat on its face. Even with them, it feels like a side story instead of a direct sequel to one of the biggest WRPGs ever. The plot is derivative, short, dull and all around pointless. Hell, it even ends on just about the same cliffhanger ME1 did. Not to mention, Bioware has written themselves into a corner concerning the party losses and the final mission - either they put it a lot of extra work making these choices have significant impact on ME3, or just flat out ignore most of them and make ME2 seem redundant.
OVERALL
It's a step up from ME1, and a good game as well. While it certainly has its issues, and is far from the perfect RPG some people seem to think it is, I'd say it stands up well for itself. Worth a try for any WRPG fan who's not allergic to shooters, and also to shooter fans who'd like to expand their horizons a bit. For me, Mask of the Betrayer is still the best WRPG of the gen - good try, though.
If you want a score, I'd give ME2 about 84-86 / 100, while ME1 was 80 / 100.
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Damn, this was a long post.
