I agree with you actually. The reason I didn't say required is because I think ME2 was be a great game on its own. Playing ME1 first however makes it exceptional.

Yep. Am I the only one who actually cheered when Archangel took off his/her helmet? Not playing the first game would leave the player completely in the dark during that moment.

Most of you know my disdain for most gaming experiences... Well, I finally played the game that satified my want for a cinematic gaming experience that completely immersed the character into the storyline.

In short, this game is fucking brilliant and has instantly catapulted into my top 5 RPGs of all time. It makes games like MGS4 look like a half-assed attempt to force the player into being interested in a setting and its characters. Not a knock on MGS4's gameplay, which is pretty outstanding, but on a story level, Mass Effect 2 decimates it.

I stopped the game about halfway through it (I bought the game 34 hours before beating it and logged 23 hours of gameplay during that time, that's how much the game sucked me in) and realized that NEVER in gaming had the cross-title repercussion been attempted, much less implemented so adeptly as in ME2. DO NOT play this game without having played the first installment beforehand. Right off the bat, you're reminded of all the jackassery you did in the first game and the second game starts off running from that point. There were dozens of points in the game where I met or did not meet characters I had helped and/or killed in the first game. It added an incredible depth to the game that I had never experienced before.

The characters... Ah, the characters. You get ten squadmates, each of which has a backstory on par or better than the best-developed characters from the first game. As you complete each character's loyalty mission, you find yourself becoming really attached to the character, which sets you up for some of the best gaming ever devised in the final mission of ME2. On top of that, you now KNOW that each decision you make has an impact on the next game. This is possibly the most important device created in the RPG genre in the past decade. Usually, if you want to be a bastard, you run around shooting everyone. Who cares, right? The game ends and you move on... not so in Mass Effect. You suddenly realize that a character may have an enormous impact on the third game, so you question how to react to each situation carefully and with a level head. This invests the player in a way that's never been done in gaming before and it launches this game into the RPG stratosphere. By the end, you're desperately trying to keep your favorite players alive because you want them to possibly impact your play in the third game. It offers the best form of forcing the player to make smart decisions that I've seen since Fallout 2.

The gameplay is adequate to good to very good. A few of the mini-games get on your nerves after awhile but since you're not really forced to do much of anything in the game, you can mostly ignore it if you choose. The battle system is vastly improved with it turning slightly more shooter-esque, which gives the player more ability to alter their strategy to fit their individual play style.

The last hour of the game is absolutely epic. You'll see the final mission coming and when you enter it, hold on to your ass because you're in for some of the best final mission gaming I've seen in a long time. It's about an hour long and is nearly non-stop with battles, fantastic cutscenes, and tough decision-making on your part. And the last boss is... well, find out for yourself. It's good. I mean really, really good.

Overall, I can't recommend this series enough. The first game was very good but its sequel will go down as one of the biggest revolutions in RPG gaming in quite some time. It's so good that right now, it may border on making my list of top 10 games of all time. This game is one of the first examples of just how differently this generation's console hardware can be used and how it can change the way we think about games. Kudos to BioWare for knocking this game out of the park. I've been slowly getting down on them over the past two years but come to find out, it's only because their Mass Effect team hadn't released anything. They once again proved themselves to be the best WRPG makers on the planet and, in my opinion, the best RPG guys on Earth, period.

One downside... I still want more choice than "good/bad". Hopefully this will be the next leap forward in the third game.

Darc, would you mind blacking out a few of the names? I'd hate to think those who are in the middle of ME2 would have their experience dampened by knowing who returns from the first game and in what capacity.