Yeah, I forgot to mention I like giving XP bonuses for when character role play well or do awesome things.  I don't really require actual role playing in my games since I can't role play (even though I at least try since I am the GM). 

I think the group somehow knows when I forget my list of generic names.  I'm terrible at making up names on the spot and they know this.  That's why one of the main NPC's in the world is named High Priest Teabob (can't believe I forgot to give him a name when I was making him :-p) and other important NPC's are mixtures of the players first and last name XD.

You are both quite wrong. Twesterms original statement that an RPG is not a Role Playing Game is much more accurate. While the name is the same, what constitutes an RPG in gaming is some sort of leveling system, some sort of stat distribution/ability customization, and some degree of exploration (although LOL @ FFXIII trying to lose that), and twesterm is wrong because Mass Effect has all of these. "Gear" is not a requirement of an RPG in gaming.

As for your friends giving the standard toolish argument "Rawr JRPGs aren't like pen and paper and thus suck ass," this is a rather ridiculous argument for multiple reasons. First, not all JRPGs are inherintly linear. Dragon Quest for example, built its entire franchise name on having a massive overworld and tons of freedom in character progression, and very few games give you as much control over the "role" of your character and his life as Persona 3/4. Similarly, WRPGs in no way match the pen & paper conventions either. What GM makes an RPG with no plot at all (Oblivion) and super-powered rats (Oblivion) and lets you spend all your time in houses stealing worthless silverware (Oblivion) and never bothered to take the time to actually add some fuckign content into the massive open world (Oblivion)?

Neither JRPGs or WRPGs are role playing games. That doesn't mean they haven't established their place in gaming as a genre. If you want to argue that Mass Effect 2 is more of a role playing experience than the others, that's fine. I'm with you there. If you want to use it as a chance to call all other gaming RPGs crappy, you've lost me.

You're misunderstanding me, Naz. There are SOME JRPGs that I have a hard time calling "RPG". Most I consider to be an RPG, though very different than your typical WRPG. Either way, I don't really care whether people call them RPGs. It's not a debate I'm particularly interested in participating in.

And don't get me started on Oblivion. It's probably the most mistunderstood "ooooh, it's the closest to a pen-and-paper experience") game out there. As you said, there's NOTHING THERE. That's not how anyone role-plays. It's a bloody mess, frankly. If your idea of a good time is wandering aimlessly and killing wolves, more power to you. I don't consider that role-playing because there is no direction whatsoever provided by the game (DM).

Earlier, I compared ME2 to a good module and I'm sticking to that. I think the game does a better job of making the player feel as if they're completely immersed in a kick-ass module without hampering the timing (other than those load screens, ugh) by bogging down the player with leveling, loot, and inventory screens. And that, to me, absolutely defines a true "role-playing" experience. There is direction offered by the game (GM/DM) but so many options are available to the player that the experience truly becomes your own.

I'm not calling other RPG games crappy, in fact I only entered this argument (albeit in another thread) because someone else was so narrow-minded that they honestly believed that ME2 WASN'T a role-playing game because it streamlined so many things found in other games and took a different approach to the genre.

I'm just saying the things that generally make an RPG an RPG nowadays, Mass Effect 2 gets rid of tries to make as invisible as possible.  It still has all those things, but it tries its hardest to hide these things or make them absolutely as simple as possible.

Even exploration, is has cut that down A LOT.  I like the loading screens, they're nice and fun to look at since there's a variety, but they actually make the game feel really linear and make the world feel so small and contained.  It's funny because I hated the elevators in Mass Effect so much but they did make the place feel connected and large.  Now, in Mass Effect 2 I go back to the Citadel and it just feels so small.  I get one room in Presidium and another set of wards.  They aren't in any way at all connected and the Citadel went from this massive place to just another level.  I don't even get the fun character interactions.

This also makes the game feel so much more linear (not is linear, feels linear) because the game only allows me into these spots when it wants me in those spots and it shuttles me straight there.  Don't get me wrong, big thumbs up to losing meaningless travel time, but in the same time it sucks that the world feels so disconnected.

Whatever the case, I'm 20-ish hours into Mass Effect 2 and it's fantastic (my gamertag doesn't reflect that since my 360 has been unplugged since I was using that cord for something lese >_>).  The only thing, I feel, it didn't improve from the first is that closed off feeling and minor HUD complaints.

HUD is signifficantly better on PC (in both games). I also didn't feel like there was less exploration, because there were more cities and more to do in them, unlike ME1 which literally had nothing but the Citadel for non-linear environments.

I know at least one thing console owners have better-- the planet scanning mini game.  haha!

I know one guy that *loves* resource scanning and has it down to a science and he's playing it on the console.  It's easy for him because he just holds a direction on the analog stick and goes.  One of the guys I know playing it on PC despises scanning planets because doing it with your mouse is such a pain in the ass apparently.

And yeah, it's odd that there's more in Mass Effect 2 but the world just feels so much smaller to me.  Even removing the Mako (I hated that damn vehicle, or more specifically, shooting with it) made those planets feel smaller.

As for the HUD, I don't have a big problem with the text size like some people (know someone else that is playing it on the standard TV, sucks to be him), I mainly hate the indicator that you're looking at something important.  I'll see the little icon pop up saying there's some refined element zero or whatever somewhere and it takes me five minutes to find it because I can't see the little box around it.  I don't think they could have done a better job at hiding that.

The best example of the failings of that thing is trying to find the dog tags at the Normandy crash site.  Ugh.  I got down to one left and I spent 30 minutes looking for that thing.  I knew it was somewhere close because it would occassionally pop up and tell me it was near, I just couldn't see where it was.

I like going on youtube and see what different things happen in other peoples games The possibilities are insane!



Also.... This is speculation for what might happen in game 3 if shepard dies:

Joker becomes the main character in ME3. Don't believe me? Watch the ending where everyone dies.. I think I might do that on purpose because I like joker a hell of a lot more than shepard, joker is awesome!

Resource scanning takes about 3-4 times as long on 360. PC version I can whipe a planet clean in 2 minutes or less with the upgraded resource scanner, cause you can move it at whatever speed your mouse moves, while spinning the planet with WASD. Your friends with the PC version just suck.

Yeah, resource scanning is a pain in the ass, but you can always do quick scans through the planet, but hold it for 1/4 a second then release and repeat. Made it go alot faster, but still a slow pain in the ass.

I think the main reason they removed a lot of the exploration elements was to make it more fun when doing multiple playthroughs. I got through the first game 4 times but navigating somewhere like the citadel or a planet surface became a bit of a slog at times. I get the feeling  ME2 will last me even longer than ME1. It's a stunning improvement over the first game.