My opinion of the original Mass Effect is that it was a good game, but the plot was a little too overcooked. There is a renegade alien who switches sides from The Alliance to the enemy, and is manipulated by an ancient race of sentient giant machines, The Reapers, to make an attempt to destroy all of organic life in the galaxy. That is as brief as I can possibly be. Mass Effect's gameplay is notable because it is really the first RPG that involves actual combat action, instead of "dice throw"-like fights. ME2 keeps up with a lot of the good and makes attempts to replace some of the bad.
Mass Effect 2 changes a few things up from the original, and in some instances they are good changes, in others they are a little peculiar. Let me break it down.
Item System
One major problem that I had with the first game was the inventory system. By the end of the game I was constantly overflowing, and needed to dump and sell, and drop items. This game abolishes all the need for inventory. When you acquire one new weapon, you acquire it to be used for your entire squad (at least the members who are trained in using that particular weapon). For most weapon types there are only 2 weapons, the base weapon that everyone starts with, and an upgraded version. Some particular characters have the option to upgrade a weapon to a third option, but this is few and far between. This is one example where Mass Effect 2 deviates from traditional RPG gameplay. This is inventory and item LITE, but all in all I think it added to the game. I didn't have to worry about dumping items and selling items, worrying about everyones load-out weaponry because it was relatively straight forward.
Ability System
I am used to Bioware Ability systems that have about 15-20 slots of upgrade, so to see 4 tiers in each ability was a little jarring, to say the least. Once you get into the game, it is actually a very elegant system. ME1 sported a maximum achieved level of 60 or 70. I played through the game once and got to about 55. ME2 sports a maximum achievable level of 30, so this is actually not that ridiculous when you think about it. The first tier costs 1 point, the 2nd tier costs, 2 points, the 3rd costs 3, and the 4th costs you 4. To max out a particular power costs you 10 points. Leveling up during levels 2 through 20 nets you 2 points (beyond that, you only earn 1 point), so considering you have about 5 or 6 powers to work through, the powers are quite exclusive. At the 4th tier you have the option to choose two different versions of a particular power. My opinion is to max only the "Agent" or "Officer" power, and save the other powers for later in the game when you know how you play, and know what you want to accomplish with your team.
Loyalty
This is one aspect of the game that is different from ME1, but is similar to Bioware's Knight of the Old Republic games. When you recruit a team member their loyalty is set to "Normal", and you need to talk to that team member, and then complete their loyalty mission to acquire their loyalty. This is a MINOR SPOILER, but certain team members clash with one another, and when you acquire both of their loyalties, there will be a blowup in the crew quarters that you will need to diffuse. Fail to diffuse the situation and you've lost one of their loyalties. Those conflicts are Miranda and Jack, and then Tali and Legion. Simple solution. Work up your Paragon-Renegade meters to go high before you complete all of their missions. Do Jack and Legions last. Unfortunately for me, I did Miranda's first, then did Jack's next and decided to lose Jack's Loyalty. To gain loyalty back you will need a FULL Paragon-Renegade meter, which is not easy to get unless you perform only one type of action during the game, which is gay. Another SPOILER, but this is a small one about the DLC character Zaeed. To acquire his loyalty you'll have to make a truly despicable choice. I didn't acquire his loyalty because I chose to do something heroic and Paragon-based, which left me no time to complete what he wanted me to do. If you want his loyalty (and the Xbox Live Gamerscore that goes with it) just make the heinous Renegade-based choice. *More on this later.
Combat
This is very similar to the first game, except there are some added tools utilized to command your team a little bit better. Also, combining powers such as Pull and Throw will cause different effects. Using the Throw power does damage, but will do about double when the target is already affected by the Pull power. Also, use Pull and Warp. Unfortunately, these combo powers usually only work on enemies that have no shields or barriers associated to them and you can take those enemies out with 2 or 3 shots to the head. You really need the bonus on shielded and barrier-protected enemies! I recommend acquiring Samara's loyalty ability, and then using the Advanced Training to acquire that ability when you are able to. It is a devastating attack that drains health from an enemy and does double damage over time to enemies with barriers or shields. Trust me.
Characters
There are a lot of characters in the game, and a lot of team members. This almost gets to be too much. It just gets hard to keep track of all the characters and their story lines. My least favorite characters were probably Thane, Tali, and the DLC character Zaeed. I ended up using Miranda and Samara along with my Vanguard Commander Shepard for most of the game. At the end you will participate in a suicide mission and will need to make difficult decisions for your team. This was a great part in the game because for the most part you assemble yourself along with two team members to roll out. At this part you will have a 2nd team to command and a specialist that you'll need to protect. Choose wisely, and make sure they're loyal. There is an Xbox Live Achievement for "Against All Odds" which states that you CAN complete the suicide mission without losing a team member. SPOILER ALERT - I lost the one member (not Zaeed) that I didn't have loyal, as well as another member who WAS loyal. I finished the game only once, so I don't know the exact reasons, but it probably had to do with a decision made during the final mission that I lost my loyal team member.
Plot
This is getting a little long, and I need to start to end this, so let me get to the meat of the game. The story line. Martin Sheen plays as "The Illusive Man", a Cerberus agent who is akin to the X-Files Smoking Man. He does things to get you working for him and lets you know about some events that are probably driven by the first games behind-the-scenes antagonists, The Reapers. The plot is slow at times, but I must say that I enjoyed it. The first game I found myself drilling through conversations without reading and with the TV on mute because the SoundFX and dialogue volume was all out of whack. This game I actually listened to. The story is simple, and has a few major plot twists that essentially make up the plot. Plot twist one, at the very beginning, plot twist two, in the middle of the game, plot twist three, about 3/4 the way through the game, plot twist four, right at the end of the game. Beyond the twists, there isn't much story at all. I think that this actually HELPED the story. Unfortunately, the originals initial antagonist, the Spectre named Saren is so far unmatched. ME2 has no real anatagonist, just the asshole Illusive Man, and then the "Harbinger" who isn't a real character really. The team refers to him as though they've seen and met him, but they never do. You only see him through cut scenes. The plot gets points because it doesn't try too hard. Beyond that, nothing special.
Paragon-Renegade Alignment
As I said earlier, I'm used to Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic, so it is still odd to me that Bioware made a game where you can earn BOTH Paragon and Renegade points and it's all good. In KOTR, performing Dark Side actions made your alignment sway towards the dark side. Performing Renegade actions in the Mass Effect world increases that meter only, doing nothing to the Paragon meter. It is a little odd, but you can take advantage of both types of alignments if you need to. Playing both sides will not get you to the higher tiers that diffuse loyalty situations that may arise though...
Differences from ME1
This is where I'll list more that I haven't already mentioned. Remember the Mako from the first game? There were rumors about a "Hammerhead" for this game, not true. The only exploration you have is scanning every single inch of a planet very slowly. This part annoyed me. Next is the Experience Points. You get NONE from killing enemies, only from completing missions. Again, I think this evens out in the end because you don't have to worry about killing every single enemy on a planet for points, you just get the lump sum at the end. If you kill one enemy or 100, you get the same amount of points. Finally, the Citadel was your home base of operations in the first game, but when accessing the Citadel in this game you can only access the Zakera Ward which is three simple levels. Accessing the Presidium is prohibited except for Admiral Anderson (The Arbiter's) private room. Just a little weird. Also, this game introduces thermal clips in lieu of ME1's cool-down period. The difference is that in ME1 your weapon would overheat and you would not be able to fire your weapon for a little bit, and ME2 has thermal clips that, without which, you cannot fire your gun. They're essentially ammunition. No ammunition (thermal clips), no gun fire. Guns like the Vindicator assault rifle and the Carnifax hand cannon are low on ammo for the amount you want to use them. There will always be a high ammo option, so you can always switch to that, but it is slightly annoying.
Conclusions
That's all I got. Enjoyable game. Two discs, for some reason, some interesting DLC content so far (Normandy Site, and Zaeed). You can spend a lot of time on this game, so maybe you want to get on that, sooner rather than later....
Here are a few screen shots...
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