Summary: I personally love this game, but I can understand where some could find flaws and I plan to go over both in detail.
Overall gameplay was a huge improvement from Mass Effect one. Cities have more of a city feel to them and firezones have the nice and welcome feel of a FPS with the added strategic benifit of the weapons/powers wheel that can give you a chance to catch your breath and plan out how you wantto dispatch your enemies. The improved cover system along with the ability to jump(and by jump i mean more like slide over) low terrain features/objects you can cover behind was a welcome addition that made the game more life-like and seamless, as it gave the maps a more realistic feel to them. The AI's are also a lot more "intellegent", such as having heavy hitters take more cover and melee units that move to outflank you.
Outside of battles, the game has a more RPG feel, where small decisions can have big consequences and talking to as many people as possible actually can benifit you. Your shipmates are a lot more human now that interaction can yield more sidequests and background stories, so now they don't really seem like just part of the background anymore. Also the improved relationship system for your party members was a very welcome addition and also made it so that your party members are so much more than other AI's that are just there to help. They have destinct personalities and stories that make them so much more human, so now you will actually be afraid to lose them, as they feel more like a family now. The upgrade system was a great idea, but the biggest downfal behind getting the required elements is that it can be quite annoying to retrieve them, especially since they really arn't that abundant in maps than they are on your scanner. The altered travese system is more lifelike now that you actually cruise around in your little ship, move using mass relays, and actually have to use fuel and stuff to get to galexies within a system.
The new setup for armor and weapons is both better and worse. This tim you don't collect hundreds and thousands of items and are forced to spend an hour getting rid of them. This time they give you very limited weapons and armor, as well as making the difference between weapons and armor less important. Weapons within each class of weapons (assult rifles, shotguns, pistols, etc) now play more to the players style. some assult rifles are burst and accurate, but hve a very limited ammo supply, where as one sniper rifle is a single shot bolt action with a lot of power, and the other is a more rapid firing and accurate version that has less power per shot. These are much better now that you don't need to change weapons every time you find one with a higher damage amount or such. I would prefer a few more of each type though. With only about three weapons in each class, save for heavy weapons which has near 7, you can feel very limited in terms of firepower, although it is muc better than the system used in Mass Effect 1. They just swung a bit to far to this other style. As for armor, there is very little difference. Most of the changes are aesthtics rather than actual defense or such. I like the more limited amounts so that we're not overwhelmed with different armors, but I think this would be a tad better if each different type of armor had a more noticeable difference (a 25% greater firepower bonus rathr than a 5% and maybe have some armors decrease some spects, like 100% defense increase with a 50% movement decrease and weapons decrease and such).
Could not have done better. Everything sounds as it should, and music is well placed and signals different emotions, as well as makes times of battle and distress more obvious. The music was as good as it gets, with very few other games putting such emphasis on it as Mass Effect. The music is distinct in every cinematic and battle and map, as well as giving the game a more movie and epic-like feel to it.
Overall this game is well made and features vast improvements from the original Mass Effect. The story is original and breath-taking, and it has the feel of an FPS and RPG. THe Ultimate Space Epic by far.
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Mass Effect 2 (PC) 
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