Sadist_Cain
12-01-11, 02:30
As requested
Be gentle... no, be brutal, I'm pondering submitting more professional formally done stuffs to future publishing at the moment with the assistance of my sis who worked there, pipe dream?
I'm aware I've forgone things like graphics, sounds, controls etc and this is done on a whim, albeit a 3 and a half hour long whim.
http://www.ripten.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/mass-effect-2-gttv.jpg
To start off with a quick summary of the company for those not in the know (moi), Bioware, responsible for a slew of top award winning RPGs, this is a gamehouse which at the moment, seems to have remained unphased by the dollar signs.
They're the team behind made Baldurs gate which won the award for 1998 Game of the year from IGN, Computer games magazine and others.
They're also responsible for the multi award winning RPG Star Wars - Knights of the old republic. (Bafta and game developers GOTY to name a couple)
The Sky Serpent Fantasy world of Dragon age is another one of their award winning titles though contested by some devout gamers of the genre, none-the-less a fine looking game.
Some of you may remember the MDK series? MDK2 is another of Bioware's creations.
So there's a good solid RPG foundation to start off with as a plus and the majority of games from these folks get rave reviews from numerous sources, they must be doing something right in the genre.
http://www.random-host.com/sites/random-host.com/files/pictures/bioware_games.png
Onto the game itself, I've never been an RPG nut, Fallout being the exception.
I always tend to find the ludicrous amount of different inventory items, power ups, potions, black magic, upgrades, armour, shoes and nail varnish to be a touch overwhelming.
it was the same case with ME2, Id spend ages racking up powers into the quick use bar (keys 1 through 8)
Then consequently getting spanked and irate when under pressure leading to button bashing, therefore wrong powers for the wrong kind of enemies, leaving their shields up, armour intact and me up shit creek without a paddle.
There's a shit load of power ups available, something in the region of 15 or so in use during any one mission, each one has its strengths and weaknesses against certain types of enemy and mixing powers together can yield epic results but I couldn't get that magic to happen in the beginning.
I liked the style and the storyline... Ok admittedly, the story hadn't started to pick up I liked Mirandas Ass, that kept me going :P it was just the combat I found to be lacking.
I found the key, albeit halfway through whilest still baffled by what all the fuss is about this rather Good game, was that by pressing shift the action pauses, initially I just thought this as a means to load my powers into the quick bar and take a breather (naturally cos Im daft).
Oh no, I can target enemies and set up attacks with the powers at my disposal although I cant move nor retarget my main weapon, a good thing imo, dosn't make it too easy.
http://www.unigamesity.com/wp-content/uploads//2010/01/mass-effect-vanguard.jpg
The class you choose at the beginning will strongly influence youre playing style Biotics are masters of the mind, soldiers are the gods of gunfire, and techies specialise in AI Hacking synthetic enemies and even created miniature battle drones to wreak havoc on the battlefield.
Now things started getting interesting :P
I encountered a blue suns merc, Shields, Armour and health of course, usually this would take me a few minutes or so of endless machine gun fire to weaken the shields whilest panicking to use a power (getting it wrong), then a change of guns and more hassle, you get the idea.
hold shift, hmmmm, I'll use mirandas Overload, that's good against shields... Oooo and if I incinerate him at the same time (due to the incinerate power travelling through the air slower than overload) that should eat through the armour too...
http://siliconsasquatch.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Mass-Effect-2-biotic-shockwave.jpg
once you start enhancing your abilities the biotic power of your character reaches levels a Jedi would be envious of
All the frustrations and bad voodoo vanished, the point where I'm usually cursing every religious diety known (even Epoch :O :P) was replaced by calm calculation, almost chess like.
It gave me the ability to look around and see whats going on in the sometimes cramped skirmish zones and plan my next move.
This chess like combat fits in very nicely with the "battle arena" style of fighting, after a game of chess needs a board.
A lotta folk seem to dislike this kind of sectioned off arena style combat as it restricts freedom but its plain to see it wasn't done on a whim, it's been carefully thought out and crafted to give the player the most exciting and challenging combat scenarios at given points.
Slightly linear it is indeed but a bit of linearity can be a pleasant relief from a completely open sandbox environment, it works and works well.
Release shift, the sound of music "My shields are down!" at the same time my incinerate fireball is arcing beautifully through the air, I manage one shot on my target before the flaming doom envelopes him burning through steel, eliminating his armour from the equation.
Now unprotected, a quickfire of Jacobs force "pull" (ala Star Wars) sends the target helplessly floating in the air, luckily with his head right into my line of sight, *BANG* dead.
it was now that I saw perhaps this quite good game could be truly amazing, we shall see.
http://backfortwoseconds.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/mass_effect2_team.jpg?w=500&h=375
investing in your team is a worthwhile endeavour, its always nice to see that enemy within melee range getting blown off his feat by the ever faithful Garrus and his concussive shot.
Enough about combat, in short, Play it like an FPS and youll be dissappointed (as I initially did) play it like a cross between and RPG and an RTS, you'll be setting enemies on fire as you body slam them, pulling entire squads of enemies towards you and overloading all of their shields at once. A very satisfying feeling, the stressful moments will still be present but the bar is ten times higher and you don't feel too bad when you're overwhelming by a squad of armoured rhinos with shotguns (the species known as the "Krogan")
Storyline and dialogue is my other gripe with RPGs, there tends to be not a terribly large amount of middle ground, you're either on the good side or the bad. you can't be a lil bit of both.
More often than not I find myself having to be nice to stupid NPCs just to follow the storyline I want, at the sacrifice of being the character I want.
This isn't nearly as much of an issue with ME2 you can see this by the way theyve labelled the postive end "karma scale" as "Paragon" but more importantly the negative side is labelled "Renegade".
For example if theres the choice to save someone being held at gunpoint, being a renegade doesn't necessarily mean youll just kill them yourself (as one would expect), just the outcome will come in a different way and may in turn affect future interactions with that character or their, often far reaching, relations.
You aren't labelled as bad or evil, you're a rebel, a renegade, this is far better, I can be bad and still feel good about it.
The only qualm I had with this was that on my first playthrough I played quite balanced between the two, almost level in fact.
That playstyle was probably a throwback on the side of me that dosn't wanna miss out on good things by being bad and vice versa. the downside was that towards the end the special speech options for paladin and renegade respectively weren't available for me...
Understandable really, I got away with playing off both sides for so long, there'd be little point to having these special choices in dialogue if they weren't related to my karma in some way
What this means to the gameplay is that being a nice guy can yield results, yet being a badass will still get the job done.
Its only later on in the game past the point of no return/reload that you really start to feel the ramifications of your actions and your relationships with other characters become key in how the story will end, beyond the simplistics of who lives and dies.
Even though I havn't played the first you can certainly get a sense just how much history there is with the characters, you can still appreciate it.
Bioware has stated that if a player has played ME1, imports their character into ME2 and then into ME3 there will be over 1000 storyline variables that will affect the outcome of the final game... that a big number... it makes playing the game feel like you're truly writing the pages of your own book of destiny.
http://gamerlimit.com/files/2009/07/mass-effect2-540x299.jpg
ME2 does see the return of the Geth of ME1 though with a difference...
It's not just your relationships with the characters and their loyalty to you that will effect the game, your ship The Normandy, has several upgrades available to its shields, weaponry and so forth.
Some upgrades simply make playing the mini games a lil bit easier such as speeding up probing planets for minerals which are used in conjunction with the tech lab on the Normandy to upgrade the armour, powers, and weaponry of you and your crew.
Others are upgrades which can affect the course of the game, such as the "Thanix Cannon" 'Nuff said
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/033/5/a/SR2_Normandy_by_CKuhn.png
More about the Normandy... Oh the Normandy, you can shove your Enterprise, Give me the Normandy.
This is where the majority of character development occurs between you and your crew, fairly obvious...
It can be soap opera-ish at times with arguements breaking out here and there.
Generally it does feel like home, it's nice to go chat to Joker (voiced by Seth Green) in the cockpit, often finding him arguing with EDI, the ships AI.
Though not obligatory it can be a giggle to hear some of the wisecracks he comes out with, its prevalent that a lot of time went into the writing of all this dialogue to avoid making it feel gamey and wooden (a common problem with RPGs) the voice acting is exceptional, outstanding in parts.
http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Austin-Powers--Goldmember-seth-green-292232_700_466.jpg
If you can fly the Normandy then you can fly a chair... or should it be the other way around?
the true brilliance I enjoyed from this game was the sandbox feel, get on your galaxy map and go wherever. Wanna go to the citadel and buy some fish for your fish tank? all good (just remember to feed them, or condemn them to a toilety grave)
Go cause trouble over in the Cess Pit that is Omega.
Shopping in Illium for the Capacitive chest plate to boost your shields.
maybe go along with Jacob to discover the source of a mysterious transmission (one of several personal missions each of your crewmembers will require, some require fighting, others diplomacy).
Spend time trying to get in Mirandas knickers (I'm not that nerdy or pathetic, honest)
Or simply explore unchartered space, mine for minerals to enhance your team and help make the ultimate squad of badasses! you may discover a few anomalies along the way, oft unlocking chains of mini missions, typical of the genre yet still hugely entertaining in the Mass Effect universe.
What a Universe it is, you can certainly feel the Star Wars inspiration by reviewing the Codex, pages upon pages of facts and trivia about the world of Mass Effect. Cultish? Certainly, even I havn't bothered reading them all, a lil flick through is enough to immerse yourself into the game world a lil more.
Its nice to feel like these folks truly crafted a world to play in, not just a game to play on.
The epic will truly come once you pass through the Fabled Omega 4 relay...
Mass effect relays are present throughout the game, they're used to jump between galaxies by using antimatter to create massless corridors of space allowing almost instantaneous FTL travel between points, they were built by the Protheans a 50,000 year long extinct race whose technology has enabled countless other civilisations to traverse the heavens... (Codex ftw :P)
There's primary relays which is what you'll see from the start of the game and secondary ones which are discoverable by exploring new star systems, these will take you to new galaxies with richs to be plundered and anomalies to explore.
fear not, though the world is massive it's most certainly manageable and you wont find yourself lost on the highlands of geldor unable to return the prometheus ring to the shylark of the shire because you're 15 kingdoms away, it isn't too overwhelming, just big enough *insert "she said" joke here*
No one has yet returned from the Omega 4 relay, whilest playing happily in your sandbox the ultimate goal with the illusive man is to plot a course through the Omega 4 relay and see what all this malarky is about missing human colonies, hell naturally chime in from time to time with storyline essential missions towards this.
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/113/b/6/Omega_4_Relay_by_BlackSheep64.png
What lies beyond the mysterious rouge relay?
The above part is the obvious premise for the story, once through the relay the storyline takes off, I'm giving no more away because it is truly worth the surprise.
(Protip, give yourself 2 hours after going through the relay, the finale is much like a feature length film and shouldn't be spoiled by being chopped in half imo
Safe to say that the choices youve made whilest in your sandbox world (where choices don't tend to affect the outcome too much) will definately matter more on the other side... you'll be forced to make choices... hard choices on who is right to perform certain "duties", choosing the wrong one could have dire consequences for them, you, another member of your team or no one ...given that your character can be imported to ME3, just because your decisions didn't bring any consequence in ME2 dosn't necessarily mean there won't be ramifications in ME3...
It's worth noticing the first few levels on a beginners play through are exceptionally difficult this is because once you've completed the game, all your armour and weapons get carried over for your next try.
I thought this quite clever because it forces you to climb a learning curve on your first go to become accustomed to the gameplay style and then makes the game more balanced once you're experienced and fancy a harder difficulty, you still need to mine minerals and hunt down upgrades whilest on missions to increase the overall power of your squad but you will get a host of new toys and things to play with on the second run to prevent gameplay becoming stale.
The developers also recommend if you havn't played ME1 and imported then to either do so or simply complete two runs on ME2 for similar bonuses in ME3.
http://terminalgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/wallpaper-23-mullins-1920x1200.jpg
To summarize this is an incredible game, tough to get to grips with at first but well worth putting the hours in.
the size of the universe is absolutely astonishing with all the different species, colonies and easy to follow politics all going on, the scale of which can keep even a hardcore Sci-fi geek entertained for weeks.
the story is of an outstanding calibre and intricately thought out, consider the 1000 storyline variables through the trilogy and you can appreciate that it was no mean feat to make all the plot lines fit together seamlessly regardless of the way you play.
If this hasn't got you tempted for the game you could try to read the series of Books instead, each one ties in with the events within the game and the first book "Mass Effect: Revalation" was published about a year before Mass Effect the game was released, which shows how much these chaps value story.
There are two other books in the series, "Mass Effect: ascension" A follow up to the first game and "Mass Effect: Retribution" a follow on from the second, should be good to keep the cravings away till ME3.
I don't even mind ME3 being delayed for nearly a year purely because I trust that year is not going to be wasted and will go towards making an incredible finale for an outstanding trilogy.
It is clear that this is set to be one of the greatest gaming series' of our time, fantasticly satisfying combat, an immersive and involving storyline, and quite ground breaking for the genre of Sci-fi and RPG games respectively
It is an experience not to be missed and one that'll have you eagerly awaiting more.
Fin.
P.S.
Bad bits: Only ones I cant think of... the power bar thing can bug up from time to time, clicking and dragging a power to a slot can highlight the wrong slot, wrong power, swap powers, frustrating but not too much of an issue once you figure out how to clean it off, drag all your powers off and reorganise them, frustrating yes but takes under a minute to fix.
you can get stuck in some parts which can be very annoying, requiring a reload or death whichever is your preference although I can count 3 times its happened to me in 50hrs of gameplay, so not too bad but still surprising how it slipped past the game testers and/or still hasn't been patched
Be gentle... no, be brutal, I'm pondering submitting more professional formally done stuffs to future publishing at the moment with the assistance of my sis who worked there, pipe dream?
I'm aware I've forgone things like graphics, sounds, controls etc and this is done on a whim, albeit a 3 and a half hour long whim.
http://www.ripten.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/mass-effect-2-gttv.jpg
To start off with a quick summary of the company for those not in the know (moi), Bioware, responsible for a slew of top award winning RPGs, this is a gamehouse which at the moment, seems to have remained unphased by the dollar signs.
They're the team behind made Baldurs gate which won the award for 1998 Game of the year from IGN, Computer games magazine and others.
They're also responsible for the multi award winning RPG Star Wars - Knights of the old republic. (Bafta and game developers GOTY to name a couple)
The Sky Serpent Fantasy world of Dragon age is another one of their award winning titles though contested by some devout gamers of the genre, none-the-less a fine looking game.
Some of you may remember the MDK series? MDK2 is another of Bioware's creations.
So there's a good solid RPG foundation to start off with as a plus and the majority of games from these folks get rave reviews from numerous sources, they must be doing something right in the genre.
http://www.random-host.com/sites/random-host.com/files/pictures/bioware_games.png
Onto the game itself, I've never been an RPG nut, Fallout being the exception.
I always tend to find the ludicrous amount of different inventory items, power ups, potions, black magic, upgrades, armour, shoes and nail varnish to be a touch overwhelming.
it was the same case with ME2, Id spend ages racking up powers into the quick use bar (keys 1 through 8)
Then consequently getting spanked and irate when under pressure leading to button bashing, therefore wrong powers for the wrong kind of enemies, leaving their shields up, armour intact and me up shit creek without a paddle.
There's a shit load of power ups available, something in the region of 15 or so in use during any one mission, each one has its strengths and weaknesses against certain types of enemy and mixing powers together can yield epic results but I couldn't get that magic to happen in the beginning.
I liked the style and the storyline... Ok admittedly, the story hadn't started to pick up I liked Mirandas Ass, that kept me going :P it was just the combat I found to be lacking.
I found the key, albeit halfway through whilest still baffled by what all the fuss is about this rather Good game, was that by pressing shift the action pauses, initially I just thought this as a means to load my powers into the quick bar and take a breather (naturally cos Im daft).
Oh no, I can target enemies and set up attacks with the powers at my disposal although I cant move nor retarget my main weapon, a good thing imo, dosn't make it too easy.
http://www.unigamesity.com/wp-content/uploads//2010/01/mass-effect-vanguard.jpg
The class you choose at the beginning will strongly influence youre playing style Biotics are masters of the mind, soldiers are the gods of gunfire, and techies specialise in AI Hacking synthetic enemies and even created miniature battle drones to wreak havoc on the battlefield.
Now things started getting interesting :P
I encountered a blue suns merc, Shields, Armour and health of course, usually this would take me a few minutes or so of endless machine gun fire to weaken the shields whilest panicking to use a power (getting it wrong), then a change of guns and more hassle, you get the idea.
hold shift, hmmmm, I'll use mirandas Overload, that's good against shields... Oooo and if I incinerate him at the same time (due to the incinerate power travelling through the air slower than overload) that should eat through the armour too...
http://siliconsasquatch.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Mass-Effect-2-biotic-shockwave.jpg
once you start enhancing your abilities the biotic power of your character reaches levels a Jedi would be envious of
All the frustrations and bad voodoo vanished, the point where I'm usually cursing every religious diety known (even Epoch :O :P) was replaced by calm calculation, almost chess like.
It gave me the ability to look around and see whats going on in the sometimes cramped skirmish zones and plan my next move.
This chess like combat fits in very nicely with the "battle arena" style of fighting, after a game of chess needs a board.
A lotta folk seem to dislike this kind of sectioned off arena style combat as it restricts freedom but its plain to see it wasn't done on a whim, it's been carefully thought out and crafted to give the player the most exciting and challenging combat scenarios at given points.
Slightly linear it is indeed but a bit of linearity can be a pleasant relief from a completely open sandbox environment, it works and works well.
Release shift, the sound of music "My shields are down!" at the same time my incinerate fireball is arcing beautifully through the air, I manage one shot on my target before the flaming doom envelopes him burning through steel, eliminating his armour from the equation.
Now unprotected, a quickfire of Jacobs force "pull" (ala Star Wars) sends the target helplessly floating in the air, luckily with his head right into my line of sight, *BANG* dead.
it was now that I saw perhaps this quite good game could be truly amazing, we shall see.
http://backfortwoseconds.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/mass_effect2_team.jpg?w=500&h=375
investing in your team is a worthwhile endeavour, its always nice to see that enemy within melee range getting blown off his feat by the ever faithful Garrus and his concussive shot.
Enough about combat, in short, Play it like an FPS and youll be dissappointed (as I initially did) play it like a cross between and RPG and an RTS, you'll be setting enemies on fire as you body slam them, pulling entire squads of enemies towards you and overloading all of their shields at once. A very satisfying feeling, the stressful moments will still be present but the bar is ten times higher and you don't feel too bad when you're overwhelming by a squad of armoured rhinos with shotguns (the species known as the "Krogan")
Storyline and dialogue is my other gripe with RPGs, there tends to be not a terribly large amount of middle ground, you're either on the good side or the bad. you can't be a lil bit of both.
More often than not I find myself having to be nice to stupid NPCs just to follow the storyline I want, at the sacrifice of being the character I want.
This isn't nearly as much of an issue with ME2 you can see this by the way theyve labelled the postive end "karma scale" as "Paragon" but more importantly the negative side is labelled "Renegade".
For example if theres the choice to save someone being held at gunpoint, being a renegade doesn't necessarily mean youll just kill them yourself (as one would expect), just the outcome will come in a different way and may in turn affect future interactions with that character or their, often far reaching, relations.
You aren't labelled as bad or evil, you're a rebel, a renegade, this is far better, I can be bad and still feel good about it.
The only qualm I had with this was that on my first playthrough I played quite balanced between the two, almost level in fact.
That playstyle was probably a throwback on the side of me that dosn't wanna miss out on good things by being bad and vice versa. the downside was that towards the end the special speech options for paladin and renegade respectively weren't available for me...
Understandable really, I got away with playing off both sides for so long, there'd be little point to having these special choices in dialogue if they weren't related to my karma in some way
What this means to the gameplay is that being a nice guy can yield results, yet being a badass will still get the job done.
Its only later on in the game past the point of no return/reload that you really start to feel the ramifications of your actions and your relationships with other characters become key in how the story will end, beyond the simplistics of who lives and dies.
Even though I havn't played the first you can certainly get a sense just how much history there is with the characters, you can still appreciate it.
Bioware has stated that if a player has played ME1, imports their character into ME2 and then into ME3 there will be over 1000 storyline variables that will affect the outcome of the final game... that a big number... it makes playing the game feel like you're truly writing the pages of your own book of destiny.
http://gamerlimit.com/files/2009/07/mass-effect2-540x299.jpg
ME2 does see the return of the Geth of ME1 though with a difference...
It's not just your relationships with the characters and their loyalty to you that will effect the game, your ship The Normandy, has several upgrades available to its shields, weaponry and so forth.
Some upgrades simply make playing the mini games a lil bit easier such as speeding up probing planets for minerals which are used in conjunction with the tech lab on the Normandy to upgrade the armour, powers, and weaponry of you and your crew.
Others are upgrades which can affect the course of the game, such as the "Thanix Cannon" 'Nuff said
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/033/5/a/SR2_Normandy_by_CKuhn.png
More about the Normandy... Oh the Normandy, you can shove your Enterprise, Give me the Normandy.
This is where the majority of character development occurs between you and your crew, fairly obvious...
It can be soap opera-ish at times with arguements breaking out here and there.
Generally it does feel like home, it's nice to go chat to Joker (voiced by Seth Green) in the cockpit, often finding him arguing with EDI, the ships AI.
Though not obligatory it can be a giggle to hear some of the wisecracks he comes out with, its prevalent that a lot of time went into the writing of all this dialogue to avoid making it feel gamey and wooden (a common problem with RPGs) the voice acting is exceptional, outstanding in parts.
http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Austin-Powers--Goldmember-seth-green-292232_700_466.jpg
If you can fly the Normandy then you can fly a chair... or should it be the other way around?
the true brilliance I enjoyed from this game was the sandbox feel, get on your galaxy map and go wherever. Wanna go to the citadel and buy some fish for your fish tank? all good (just remember to feed them, or condemn them to a toilety grave)
Go cause trouble over in the Cess Pit that is Omega.
Shopping in Illium for the Capacitive chest plate to boost your shields.
maybe go along with Jacob to discover the source of a mysterious transmission (one of several personal missions each of your crewmembers will require, some require fighting, others diplomacy).
Spend time trying to get in Mirandas knickers (I'm not that nerdy or pathetic, honest)
Or simply explore unchartered space, mine for minerals to enhance your team and help make the ultimate squad of badasses! you may discover a few anomalies along the way, oft unlocking chains of mini missions, typical of the genre yet still hugely entertaining in the Mass Effect universe.
What a Universe it is, you can certainly feel the Star Wars inspiration by reviewing the Codex, pages upon pages of facts and trivia about the world of Mass Effect. Cultish? Certainly, even I havn't bothered reading them all, a lil flick through is enough to immerse yourself into the game world a lil more.
Its nice to feel like these folks truly crafted a world to play in, not just a game to play on.
The epic will truly come once you pass through the Fabled Omega 4 relay...
Mass effect relays are present throughout the game, they're used to jump between galaxies by using antimatter to create massless corridors of space allowing almost instantaneous FTL travel between points, they were built by the Protheans a 50,000 year long extinct race whose technology has enabled countless other civilisations to traverse the heavens... (Codex ftw :P)
There's primary relays which is what you'll see from the start of the game and secondary ones which are discoverable by exploring new star systems, these will take you to new galaxies with richs to be plundered and anomalies to explore.
fear not, though the world is massive it's most certainly manageable and you wont find yourself lost on the highlands of geldor unable to return the prometheus ring to the shylark of the shire because you're 15 kingdoms away, it isn't too overwhelming, just big enough *insert "she said" joke here*
No one has yet returned from the Omega 4 relay, whilest playing happily in your sandbox the ultimate goal with the illusive man is to plot a course through the Omega 4 relay and see what all this malarky is about missing human colonies, hell naturally chime in from time to time with storyline essential missions towards this.
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/113/b/6/Omega_4_Relay_by_BlackSheep64.png
What lies beyond the mysterious rouge relay?
The above part is the obvious premise for the story, once through the relay the storyline takes off, I'm giving no more away because it is truly worth the surprise.
(Protip, give yourself 2 hours after going through the relay, the finale is much like a feature length film and shouldn't be spoiled by being chopped in half imo
Safe to say that the choices youve made whilest in your sandbox world (where choices don't tend to affect the outcome too much) will definately matter more on the other side... you'll be forced to make choices... hard choices on who is right to perform certain "duties", choosing the wrong one could have dire consequences for them, you, another member of your team or no one ...given that your character can be imported to ME3, just because your decisions didn't bring any consequence in ME2 dosn't necessarily mean there won't be ramifications in ME3...
It's worth noticing the first few levels on a beginners play through are exceptionally difficult this is because once you've completed the game, all your armour and weapons get carried over for your next try.
I thought this quite clever because it forces you to climb a learning curve on your first go to become accustomed to the gameplay style and then makes the game more balanced once you're experienced and fancy a harder difficulty, you still need to mine minerals and hunt down upgrades whilest on missions to increase the overall power of your squad but you will get a host of new toys and things to play with on the second run to prevent gameplay becoming stale.
The developers also recommend if you havn't played ME1 and imported then to either do so or simply complete two runs on ME2 for similar bonuses in ME3.
http://terminalgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/wallpaper-23-mullins-1920x1200.jpg
To summarize this is an incredible game, tough to get to grips with at first but well worth putting the hours in.
the size of the universe is absolutely astonishing with all the different species, colonies and easy to follow politics all going on, the scale of which can keep even a hardcore Sci-fi geek entertained for weeks.
the story is of an outstanding calibre and intricately thought out, consider the 1000 storyline variables through the trilogy and you can appreciate that it was no mean feat to make all the plot lines fit together seamlessly regardless of the way you play.
If this hasn't got you tempted for the game you could try to read the series of Books instead, each one ties in with the events within the game and the first book "Mass Effect: Revalation" was published about a year before Mass Effect the game was released, which shows how much these chaps value story.
There are two other books in the series, "Mass Effect: ascension" A follow up to the first game and "Mass Effect: Retribution" a follow on from the second, should be good to keep the cravings away till ME3.
I don't even mind ME3 being delayed for nearly a year purely because I trust that year is not going to be wasted and will go towards making an incredible finale for an outstanding trilogy.
It is clear that this is set to be one of the greatest gaming series' of our time, fantasticly satisfying combat, an immersive and involving storyline, and quite ground breaking for the genre of Sci-fi and RPG games respectively
It is an experience not to be missed and one that'll have you eagerly awaiting more.
Fin.
P.S.
Bad bits: Only ones I cant think of... the power bar thing can bug up from time to time, clicking and dragging a power to a slot can highlight the wrong slot, wrong power, swap powers, frustrating but not too much of an issue once you figure out how to clean it off, drag all your powers off and reorganise them, frustrating yes but takes under a minute to fix.
you can get stuck in some parts which can be very annoying, requiring a reload or death whichever is your preference although I can count 3 times its happened to me in 50hrs of gameplay, so not too bad but still surprising how it slipped past the game testers and/or still hasn't been patched