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Saving the Galaxy, aka, Wintereenmas

Wow so this weekend flew by at FTL through a Mass Effect Relay.  Sarah had to head down to Richmond for an appointment so that left me and Andrew at home for Wintereenmas!  Add on to that the snow all day Saturday and that sets up the perfect conditions to sit on the couch with Food and drink close by and focus attentions on what needed to be done to save the Galaxy.   Andrew was armed with Bioshock 1 on the upstairs and I with Mass Effect 2 Downstairs, I believe we saw each other once or twice through the day.  I think the only real break we took was alternating taking the dog out, Shuffling off to Dinner at Hard Times Cafe (Through the snow), and then of course getting the dog to throw up because he got into the chocolate (Not my Fault!  He is just really Nosey!)

So Micro Review time!  I have spent a lot of time in ME2 so far and have no collected all but 1 of my crew and done their loyalty quests.  I have scanned probably about 1/3 of the systems to 100%, and am trying to finish up every side quest on my way out to the Omega 4 Relay.  I would like to speculate that I am maybe about 1/2 through the whole game.  So lets just run down the list of loves and hates:

Loves:
This is only a small small selection of things I love about this game

• The whole galaxy is yours to explore, and it's Beautiful.  I could spend hours just flying around and checking out all of the different Nebula's.
• The Seamless Conversation trees.  This was a great part of ME1 and continues to be awesome in 2
• Moral Choices out the Yin Yang! So many times I was faced with the choice of "Do I do what is Morally right, or Do what I need to keep my teem member happy so he performs well.
• In Depth Story. Any time a story makes you want to sit on the couch ALL DAY LONG means they did everything right.  Big time Movie directors and writers need to take a serious look at how games like ME do things.  The writing for a 20+ hour game ends up be 100 times better than your standard movie.
• Fun Mini Games. In Assassin's Creed 2, there were Subject 16 mini games that got a little frustrating.  Their length and complexity detracted from the rest of the game.  Thankfully ME2 didn't follow in that.  the Hacking and Bypass mini games are just right.  I can see that in the future they may start getting more complex but none of them seem like they would detract.

Hates (or maybe just Dislikes)

I wish I could say that there was no dislikes but there is always something.

• Too Much Choice. I know this seems like a silly thing to dislike but I ran into it in Assassin's Creed too.  When there is too much to do, you can easily loose focus on what needs to get done.  I know they are also trying to build the game so that there is some re-playability but with So many different team members, and only be able to take 2 of them at a time, I am missing out on interactions and dialogue that would be nice to see.
• Mining Mini game. Mining sucks.  Pretty much any game I have played that had mining in it, it's sucked.  It's a way to get the player to sit and waste time to get the resources they need to continue.  Very rarely do I see mining integrated into a fun system.  Mining in ME2 takes forever (even with the upgrade) and I ended up with Way too much of one Mineral and not enough of another.
• Glitches.  No game is without them unfortunately.  There was one point where I found myself walking through the geometry and out into a blank space. Had to reload.  Also the "Skip Conversation" button should never be tied to the "Select Conversation Tree"  Far too many times I went to skip a line of Dialogue because The Character speaks too slowly and I had read the subtitles faster and it selected the next default conversation piece.  Very annoying.

This is all very early speculation as I have not finished the game yet but it's all based on what I have seen so far.  There will be much more playing.  Of course I only have about 1 week left until Bioshock 2 comes out.  I think that will be another Upstairs game so Sarah can watch along.  This will also give Andrew the chance to play ME2 downstairs with the DLC on the downstairs system.  In the mean time, I need to get back and play!