Thoughts on Mass Effect 2

I have been waiting MONTHS for Mass Effect 2 to come out on the 360 and it’s finally here.  I’ve been playing as much as I can the past few days (damn thing called work always gets in the way), and I have not been disappointed so far.

WARNING: there may be some spoilers below if you haven’t started the game already!!

First I was so excited to be able to port my original Shepard over from the first Mass Effect.  My Shepard was a hot, sexy, bitchy badass with an awesome voice and I didn’t want to have the Mass Effect experience without her (she is so cool, I wish I could use her in all the RPGs I play).  Plus, it has definitely made Mass Effect 2 feel like a real sequel.  Too many times now I’ve had to create a whole new character for an RPG sequel, and it really just doesn’t feel like a full continuation of the story.  This really does.  You feel like all the events that tie the two games together really happened to your character.  Kudos to BioWare on that one.

I have also been relieved that some familiar faces are back to help Shepard out again in this installment.  Although I first thought Joker was long gone, he soon showed up again and I was happy that some comic relief would be around on the Normandy.  And who doesn’t like Anderson?  I’m admittedly not very far into the game because I have to explore and read every ounce of dialogue, but I’m hopeful we will see some other characters pop in and say hello.

I was also a huge fan of the Mass Effect soundtrack.  I’m glad that some of the music in Mass Effect 2 utilizes some of that original music, especially the Galaxy Map music.  It was also a nice touch to add a music player in Shepard’s quarters that you can use to flip through the original sountrack.  The actual sound effects seem pretty much the same, with the exception of the mass effect portal sound.  I used to like going through the portal just so I could hear the sound.  Now it sounds pretty weak.  Pretty damn weak, quiet sound for gunning through a space portal, but then again, would space have sound at all?  Yea, I know it’s just a video game.

The dialogue system is pretty much the same, but it does seem like more thought was put into conversations and how characters will react with one another based on the dialogue.  I have a nasty habit of getting impatient in the long conversations and hitting a button to skip through some of it, which usually causes me to automatically choose an option in the conversation tree without actually reading them.  I’ve already missed a few options in doing that. 

These are just a few of my thoughts for now.  I will probably add some more when I get further in the game.  All in all, I’m as excited to play this game as I was the first.  It seems like a good improvement in that it keeps what you loved about the original and adds some content to make you love it even more.

Anyone else been playing Mass Effect 2?  What are your thoughts so far?