I can confirm that the New Game+ isn’t the issue. I have moved my character over from ME1. I even moved my save games over from a previous HDD but I did complete the game on the new HDD for that final save and have completed a New Game+ on it.
If you’re tempted, from Virmire, if that is the fourth plot world you’ve done, it only takes about an hour to get to the end. Just go to Ilos and you can literally run and drive past nearly every fight there. Use crowd control biotics to give yourself an easy time of it. The same is mostly true for the Citadel and the end fight takes a couple of mins.
Still, if you haven’t complete many sidequests then this isn’t worth the hassle as you’ll only be pulling in the major decisions you made and not all the minor ones from the sidequests.
I’d love to be playing, but apparently according to Future Shop, preordering a game actually means they’ll send you a notice that your order is delayed because it’s out of stock when the local stores have plenty of copies, except a day later it’s listed as in stock online, but there’s no indication that they’ve shipped yours yet…
(I would have gone with Amazon.ca, except they’re really slow to add listings for things like CEs, and FS had both Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 listed when Amazon didn’t. I’m still half-tempted to cancel and reorder through them now that they’re both listed there too.)
The thing I don’t like about the new skill tree is less that it’s smaller and shallower (although it is and I don’t like that), it’s that they moved from a system where I got to invest points every level to a system where I don’t. I really don’t care if the result winds up being the same. Having to hoard points and skip the primary bonus of levelling sucks. I always hate it when games do this, but it’s worse when they started with a perfectly acceptable system.
The direction on your introduction to Shepard is really good in the first game and they try to recreate that here a bit, but end up undermining themselves, imo. I’m someone who actually liked ME1 inspite of what I felt was a pretty bland setting. I’m not really partial to any of their conceptual work (though the music was great in the first game).
ME2 feels like they are trying too hard and end up being over dramatic and a lot the scenes are really digging deeply into the uncanny valley as they try to pull too much from the relatively stiff puppets they are using (especially on secondary characters in cinemas) .
It also feels bit, well abbreviated… but that gets spoilery.
one thing they haven’t fixed, Confirm button is still the same as Skip dialogue button!!!
Also I don’t like how most of the powers doesn’t work on shield/armor, which makes most of the power useless since enemies dies so fast when they only have health.
ok but how do the mechanics of it work? The game tells me to click it with left mouse, then what? How does it know which target I mean, and clicking on the target does nothing…
Can I just saw how much I love not having to drive that goddamn Mako everywhere. GOD how I hated away missions. That was easily the worst part of ME1.
Overall, I’m having a blast. I really don’t miss the inventory system, and while the skill tree might be a little watered down, I don’t really mind so much.
I like the characters enough in their own right, though I think that might be more because they’re prettier than anything else. I keep staring, mouth agape, at the gorgeous character models.
The one thing that does bother me about the characters, though, is how interchangeable they are. Back in ME1, I used to really think out who I wanted to bring with me where, and who’d be most useful in different situations. Here, it doesn’t really matter. I honestly don’t see much difference from character to character when we’re in the thick of things.
To be fair, though, that might be more the fault of the ease of combat than anything else. ME1 was tough as balls in certain areas. But ME2 is a cakewalk. Perhaps they dumbed it down to give it broader appeal, but it’s just too damn easy. My sniper rifle makes short work of baddies, and when I run out of bullets my handgun cleans up the rest. And the “Bosses” (and I use the term loosely) are a joke. The only way I can tell them from other mobs on the screen is by name; they all go down just as quickly.
So far, my impression is that ME2’s quality is actually pretty comparable to DA’s, despite having much less dev time. What I think ME2 achieves that is particularly remarkable is pacing. Seldom does any one element take so long that I get bored of it, whether it be dialogue, dungeons, or decryption. Except for mining, what were they thinking?
Space Hamster, I must keep you around for ME3 now.
On wall safes If you run out of attempts, number listed at the bottom, yes that is it.
On companions, I miss them too. Did anyone else who imported an ME1 save with a love interest notice the picture in the captain’s quarters yet?
So far I’m liking the changes, except for the skill tree it confuses me a little. If I fully upgrade a power does it become a new power to be upgraded or will there be more skills to choose from?
Pull should work by bringing up the skill menu, centering it on the target you wish to pull, then clicking on the power itself to tell the AI to use it. The game fires it at the target centered on when the skill is clicked, it get’s a little target box around the focus on the 360 not sure if the PC does the same notification.
So far I’m liking the changes, except for the skill tree it confuses me a little. If I fully upgrade a power does it become a new power to be upgraded or will there be more skills to choose from?
I don’t think so. I think you just get a choice of bonus that the final level gives.
You needed to do like 75% of all quests to get them, which means doing nearly all of the explore things and various quests. if you’re playing with liara, you need to do nearly 100% of everything due to getting her late.
I like it so far, definately has that epic, sweeping, cinematic feel that I loved so much from the first game. I really dig how they made a direct second chapter here and it’s fun to see my Shepard back in action. I also like that the shooting is tighter. I played the first game as basically a space shooter with an awesoome story, and that seems to have been improved for this game so I’m happy.
I do wish the upgrade tree was a bit deeper and I really don’t like the mission complete screens since all they do is remind me it’s a game. I also kinda miss the elevators since the loading screens pull me out of it as well and god are they ugly.
I think reviewers are maybe doing a bit of a GTA4 on this one (c’mon a 10?), but I think it really is true to the first game.
I have died a few times on Normal and I’m only like 8 hours in… but the last shooter I played even semi-seriously was Unreal Tournament 2004. I think at this point five years later I kind of suck at shooters now. I’m enjoying the heck out of the story, though.
