Mass Effect 2

[Jonny]

Who's playing or going to play it? I just recently fisnished it, i don't often finish games as i get too bored with them (like far cry 2).

[Miller]

DiscoDave and Blackhawk have been playing it a fair bit. ME2 is sort of on my "to get round to playing list"!!

[Kal-El]

farcry 2 was shite, it started so well with the cut scene and the malaria then it was boring.

I need to play mass effect 1 before I play the 2nd

[Jonny]

yeah, i must have played about 10 missions on farcry 2, incredibly slow story. I regret not playing the first before number two of Mass Effect. Just downloaded bioshock 2, thats next on my list so will be playing that when i can.

[MalReynolds]

Completed Mass Effect 2 recently as well. I was going to play through the first again, but was surprised how much i remembered references and such.

In all i was thoroughly impressed and enjoyed the experience. I played it like how i did the first game, i got exploration out of the way early, but unlike the first, the side missions were more fun to do. Also got every DLC with it, which added the new mission and the new team mate/team mate mission as well as weapons and armour. I stuck to the Blood Armour, which i got with Dragon Age because i had planned to before ME2 was even out. Was great getting each team mate loyal and discovering their pasts etc.

My only gripe was that on the PC combat was far too easy. I mostly used the Pistol and Head Shotted everything, which with FPS skills comes naturally. I put the difficulty to Hard and it just didn't offer much of a challenge. This made Weapon choice, Armour choice and Special Moves etc irrelevant, but the story drove me to complete it and i enjoyed that side of it alot.

There were other little nuances, like Team Mate AI being shit, the removal of most of the RPG elements and stuff like that, which stopped the game being a great, but overall i was impressed.

[Jonny]

Combat was very easy, and I did find ways of making it fun, by using only powers to kill enemies etc. I think i'll put number 1 on my download list while i play Bioshock 2.

[DiscoDave]

Just finished ME2 myself after ~23 hours of gaming.

ME2 is an extraordinary example of how how the industry can be more geared to a cinematic, but yet non linear experience. The fascinating thing about this game (wont go to in depth due to spoilers) is how your decisions and actions effect the entire game; this isn't just a binary choice, ie being good or bad, but small, sometimes pseudo-important decisions can drastically change the storyline.

It's been a long while since I've actually cared about characters in a game, and actually wanting, needing to build them up. I would highly recommend it, but obviously play the first game before you dive into the second. The fact you can import your save game from the first which notes important events and effects the second game is pretty cool, and the same goes for mass effect 3.

I do however have a few niggles - First and foremost the RPG elements have been simplified somewhat, a lot of people are pointing to the console crowd because of this, but I think quite a few people complained about it (console and pc gamers alike). Personally I loved the RPG elements in the first. Also the only class to possess rifles from the start is the solider (however you will come across a mission whereby you can specify an additional weapon specialisation.)

Best game since Half Life/Quake for me.

[Jonny]

I like how the decisions in ME2 will effect your ME3 game, i love games which tie in with each other

[Mat]

Not only is it a staggering technical achievement, but as Disco said, its a spectacular cinematic experience as well.

For me Bioware cement themselves as the best RPG developers around.

Roll on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

[Kal-El]

bioware are fucking epic like

[DiscoDave]

In addition, It's games like ME2 which really make you wonder where the industry is going. If we think about computer games, they're still in a very young medium say what, 40 years? The industry is jumping leaps and bounds. Some people just don't get what we get in return for playing games, you can read novels and watch movies but those experiences are are unidirectional, they're just relaying the story to you, whereas in some games they're investments of our time and thoughts, we contribute to the story and personalise it.

[Kal-El]

well, a book and a game light up different parts of the brain (ooooooooooooh yeaaaaa) but I would still prefer a really well written book since there is so much description and thought to feed the imagination, you make it your own. whereas with a game (or indeed a movie) you need to let the producers tell the story as well as they can with the tools they have, which usually means cutting huge swathes out and there is a little less imagination (on the end users behalf).

With a lot of games that are written and made to be games they really do rock, I saw the bioshock 2 trailer on tv and that looked fucking epic.

[MalReynolds]

I played Soldier, but like i said above, didn't feel any reason to use much more than the Pistol. Only when i ran out of ammo would i switch.

But i felt it was my duty to use the Singularity Generator at any given opportunity.