Really, really enjoying this. I think I'm about halfway through. Everything is better than the original. The battle mechanics are more interesting. Going biotic is much more viable.. and the characters are universally more compelling. And I like the overall plot, too.

Not having to fuck with the Mako is nice.

Just started my 2nd playthrough, couldn't put it down the 1st time through.

the only big drag is the resource gathering... that could be more intuitive.. give you some feedback of what is actually on the planet

Also wished they'd have put in the poker game.. something to do with betting..

also resource trading IK need more element zero darn it!

There are a few planets with a bunch of element zero, but most don't have any at all. It was a pain the 1st play through, but on the plus side, on 2nd pass through, even if you use a new charactor and start at level 1, you still get 200k gold and 50k of each resource. No more worrying about element zero, I don't think I used 50k all game last time. Others will need some more, but that's a great jumpstart.

I want to play through without getting upgrades to see what happens, do I just implode on going into Omega 4 lol

This is how upgrades (and loyalty) affect the game:

Usually the planet descriptions will give you hints about e-zero.


I beat it once as a paragon engineer with no causalities. Maybe the next run I'll be a dick to everyone and get them all killed.

I beat it on Normal last night...
Full Normandy Upgrades, All Squad Loyal, Paragon, Male Shepard, Romance Tali



Going to do a New Game+ (since you carry all your upgrades and such over) and go to Insanity difficulty.

Leaders matter.

I did the Jack romance option. Love me some tats. But then the scene was just weird and creepy.

I played a full biotic. I'm going to replay as an engineer and go renegade.

Just played the Kasumi DLC and it was a fun mission. It's only about 45 min to complete, but she's a fun charactor to play with for the regular game too if you want to play another time. She's about as OP as Death Knights were when they were first released in WoW. I guess they have to bump up new chars to entice people to use them, but I'm done with the great challenge part, I'm just enjoying the different abilities.

I always planned on playing Mass Effect, but I never got around to it.

Now that ME2 is out, would I be missing out by not playing ME1 and just jumping into 2?

tyty

You can jump right into 2. They do alright in giving you the info you need to know to understand what important shit went down previously. You won't get some of the inside shit, but you won't have to deal with ME1s awful driving sequences and boring as fuck planet exploration either.

This is how you can get the exclusive Dr. Pepper downloadable content (2 items) for Mass Effect 2:

Go to http://www.drpepper.com/promotions/ea and enter in one of these codes:
CBEEAAA41NWH
CBEEAAAE4L9N
CBEEAAAFQG9J
CBEEAAAE98ZV

Then answer the 3 questions asking where you got the Dr. Pepper, what flavor, and what size.

Then register using fake information. This information does not matter.

Once you register, click the link circled in this screenshot:



You will then need to log into your existing EA account to claim your item(s). If you want both items, you will need to log out of the Dr. Pepper site and start over (registering a 2nd time when you get to that part, with fake information).

Here are the items:





This works for both the PC version and the Xbox 360 version of the game. You can even claim the items before you own the game since they are tied to your EA account (in case you plan on buying the game at a later date).

I thought ME1 was a great game and it can be played complete with doing very minimal planet driving (I just played through it again and total driving time was about 15-20 minutes for all missions combined). Just skip the driving required quests of finding minerals and badges, which admittedly were both very boring quests.

Besides that it was a great game and there are multiple instances of people you met and how you treated them affecting flavor scenes in ME2. There aren't too many that actually affect ME2 gameplay, but I thought they made ME2 feel more complete just by being there. There are a few that do potentially open new quest lines up in ME2 also, how you treat Conrad Verner for example.

Bottom line is ME2 can certainly be played stand alone, but if you think you may end up playing ME1 sometime anyway, doing them in order and transferring the charactor makes sense.


Neesha,
Thanks for the codes, I'm going to try that tonight.