There’s only 2 ammo types, HW and heat clips. If you deplete your sniper ammo, the first heat clip you find replenishes it.
Wait a minute… there’s only 2 clip types? I’m assuming HW=Heavy Weapons, (grenades, flame thrower, rockets and the like), so does this mean if I find clips beyond my max ammo with my current weapon I need to switch to an off weapon to replenish my ammo with those? Have I been passing up clips that could have useful?
I think he was referring to the pitifully low amount of sniper ammo you get from each clip.
Heh, yeah, that’s what I meant, that’s the ticket. 
Still, 1 or 2 ammo each for sniper is in fact pitifully small.
That’s only for the first sniper rifle, though. (The Mantis)
No, they’ll replenish the weapons that you aren’t currently using as well. If you can’t pick up ammo it means all of your weapons are fully loaded (except for the currently loaded clip).
[MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD - ONLY READ IF YOU’VE FINISHED THE GAME]
[Spoiler]Well, colour me torn.
On one hand, I want to call this a dramatic improval on the weak aspects of Mass Effect. The gameplay is far more engaging, the pacing is tighter, the new Paragon/Renegade actions work great to illustrate the divergence of being good or evil in actions, no longer just words. The story is still well-written, the voice acting is top notch and the graphics are occasionally jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
On the other hand . . . Really, Bioware? Planet scanning?
Letting that atrocity slide for the moment, there’s also a lot of other slaps in the face, especially for the big fans of Mass Effect 1. The inventory retardation has to be the biggest one. Instead of dozens upon dozens of guns, armors, weapon enchancers and attribute boosters, you now have exactly three guns per class of gun. The guns are explicitly predictable - weak gun with a high rate of fire, medium gun with a medium rate of fire and strong gun with slow rate of fire. Copy and paste to all gun classes.
And the armors are hardly even worth mentioning. What difference there is in stats and looks is negligible bordering on completely useless. And you can’t even change the armours on your allies. (While you get a second look for your allies once you’ve completed their loyalty quest, it doesn’t do anything to enchance their stats.)
Also, ammunition. While I can agree with the wish to make the players need to move about more, how about you just make maps that’d support being surrounded next time? Instead of forcing the player to scrounge for ammo in the middle of a firefight. Hell, it’d have been fine if it’d always been like this - but the first game explicitly techwanked a way of having infinite ammo.
Talking about maps, they’re fairly shit. They look absolutely great, but they’re only thinly veiled corridors linearly leading you down a predetermined route. Remember planet exploration in the first game? Yeah, no. This time, whenever you go on a planetary mission, you just get slapped down 40 feet from the entrance to whichever underground dungeon you’re going to pillage. And for some inexplicable reason, this moratorium on open areas extend to every other aspect of the game as well.
Remember the elevator in the first game? Apparently not happy with having the user go through merely one twenty-second load screen even in his own goddamn ship, there are now an additional two floors and corresponding loading screens.
Also, remember the Citadel? With the big, open and beautiful Presidium? Yeah, not any more. Now you’re strictly contained in a shopping mall and in one single room in the Presidium. Which has exactly one encounter throughout the entire game.
Also, remember the entire Spectre thing that was such a huge fuss in the first game? Yeah, doesn’t matter. Doesn’t come up in conversation more than once. In the entire damned game. Despite having become the first human Spectre and having jammed evidence of Reaper existence so far up the Council’s arse they’d rightly have robotic tentacles coming out of their nostrils, they still somehow manage to contrive to ignore it all.
Damnit. This game is pissing me off so much. It’s not that it isn’t good - it’s great, even stunning and stirring at times. It’s that it manages to make so many bad decisions. This is the best example of Sequilitis I can think of to date. So many on-the-paper good ideas they clearly couldn’t fit into the first game, not enough editorial. And then there’s the fact that you spend 25 hours recruiting a team for a mission which’ll take you about one and a half hours. Damnit.[/spoiler]
Same warning as Gukumatz, as this is a reply to his post:
[spoiler]I know you start off with praise, but I think you’re being overly harsh on some aspects and focusing on the negative aspects particularly. I loved the fact that I didn’t have to switch out different ammo types through a menu and could instead hit a hot key (my mouse button). The lack of different kinds of armor/weapons/amps/tools was fine with me as well. Don’t get me wrong, I love loot and inventories in general, but streamlining those aspects in ME2 made sense to me as I never had to break up action with menu management. Also, biotics/tech powers are much better implemented and useful (in ME1 I found that I only relied on Singularity), and better looking, to boot. The combat is so much more visceral and engaging in that way, and it’s far superior to the combat in ME1.
I agree on a couple of criticisms you made. I didn’t like the loading in the Normandy SR2; it was seriously annoying that every time I wanted to have a conversation with a party member I would have to take an elevator (outside of Mordin and Jacob, usually). Honestly, not sure if I missed out on some character development conversations because of avoiding the loading screens and just wanting to get back to the action (guess I’ll find out when I go through another playthrough). Also, the mini-games could be exceptionally annoying. I do miss having omni-gel to get through hacks/locks and wish they had found a way to implement that into the game. The scanning of planets was atrocious and a terrible time-sink, for sure, and I wish they had just lowered the research requirements where the amount found on missions was enough to pay for most (or all) upgrades.
That said, although I do miss the open spaces, the time sink was the exploration in the Mako in ME1. The planets you explored were basically different texture maps on random mountainous terrain. Also, there is still a possibility that future DLC will add that feature, as I’ve heard that there will be a new vehicle (the Hammerhead) and so possibly more open spaces to explore. The dungeons were linear, for sure, but I seemed to have missed things even in the linearity of the dungeons (I only found 2 of certain weapons, instead of 3, such as the heavy pistol). But, I felt the firefights were much more intense, and the missions were much more engaging, especially the side quests. Those were atrocious in ME1, and they definitely addressed that positively in ME2.
The Spectre issue is interesting, but there weren’t many direct benefits to being a Spectre in ME1 (outside of some armor/weaponry), so I didn’t miss it much. I felt the push and pull of Cerberus bringing you back to life and yet still being a Spectre/Alliance Commander was a major undercurrent and contributed to having the Spectre aspect still part of the story. Though, I suppose this is only if you thought of it that way, as there was only one conversation about it.
The biggest issue I have with your breakdown (though, as I’ve said, I agree with parts of it) is the synopsis of the game where “you spend 25 hours recruiting a team for a mission which’ll take you about one and a half hours.” I agree the last mission wasn’t completely satisfying, and the last boss was rather weak, but there were several stages of the main mission that led up to that end mission that occurred as you built up your team. The fight on Horizon and the retrieval of the IFF were solid, and led up to a pretty sweet mission (though I wish you could of seen the mission from different points of view and that the boss didn’t look like a giant T-100).
After having played through the game in a pretty serious binge (and it seems you have as well) I’m thoroughly impressed. I think the characters, story (and the voice acting & visuals that make it come alive), and mechanics of the game are, overall, a significant improvement. I understand you disagree with some of the directions they’ve taken the mechanics, but it’s BioWare’s best, to date. [/spoiler]
Somehow, I’ve kept myself from reading the spoilers. Good for me (for once)!
All I wanted to chime in with is to say that the particle gun is SWEEEEET!
I haven’t been this immersed in a video game in a long time. They did an even better job at getting the atmosphere and cinematic feel right than they did with Dragon Age.
I really like the paragon/Renegade cutscene interruption options, even if I’m a little slow and miss them sometimes. Gotta have my mouse finger ready at all times 
about my only complain so far is the space bar. It’s not only confusing to have it do so many different things but to require it in order to take cover is also a bit clunky. I find myself running up to walls like a retard more often than not. But’s it’s a nit picky issue. I love this game, I know it’s ealry in the year, but this if Game of the friggin’ Year for me so far.
I’m kind of irritated with this too, though I think I finally have it figured out. Having just played through ME1 twice before this was released, I’m a lot more used to the spacebar stopping the action than the left shift stopping the action. This has caused my Shep more than a few problems (sorry you ol’ Paragon you). But I’m good with it now.
I miss having my combat scanner on all the time though. I don’t like surprises.
I’m surprised that I’m quite happy that the triangular reticle is gone. Gives combat a lot better feel. More like I’m shooting nasty aliens than shooting a red triangle.
Holy shit, is the game really that short?
So far, I’m loving the combat system, just in terms of the feel. I’m accustomed to the use of clips. I get confused about the space bar vs. the left shift key, but otherwise, I like the tactical options. Having your powers on a one-at-a-time basis seems like it’ll a great way to prevent biotics from mezzing everything in sight, though that was kind of fun in ME1.
I’m only a couple of hours into the game, and I’m already sick of listening to people awkwardly stumble out “The Elusive Man” in the middle of otherwise perfectly fluid dialogue. I want to say, “Yeah. Hey, can we just call him ‘Lou’? ‘Louie’? ‘Lucy’?” I mean, other games will have names like The Nameless One, or The Chosen One, but those terms tend to be used only in lines whose diction support the rhetorical register they require. Even those are often cut down to ‘Nameless’ or ‘Chosen’. I mean, they’ve got a whole staff of writers down there. Do none of them know that an epithet, especially one that doesn’t scan all that well, is for occasional use only? Yes, I realize that back when I turned out to be the “Dark Lord of the Sith” I dropped the title whenever I could, but mostly I assume people just called me “Revan”.
IIRC, my first playthrough took 32 hours, which puts it at about the same length as the first ME.
I finished my first playthrough in 27 hours and 12 minutes. All members recruited, all loyalty quests done, nearly all research and almost all weapons. And a handful of missions that popped up while I explored, as well.
Interesting. I know it’s a KoTOR style game and I did love ME 1, but for some reason I expected ME 2 to at least push 80-100 hours of gaming. My silly mistake I guess, it’s Bioware, not Bethesda. Ah well, definitely waiting to Ebay that sucker in a few months, thanks folks!
Can anyone point me to a reference website that breaks down and/or defines the story line and the characters for people like me that haven’t played ME1? Do I have to play it first to enjoy/understand ME2?
Having just read through the thread, I feel like I’m the only human and the rest of you are a bunch of Klingons or something!
The Mass Effect Wiki is incredible comprehensive. And unlike most video game wikia’s it’s not juvenile and full of useless speculation.
Sure. Generally, the growth of wikis has really helped the gaming scene. A quick google for “[insert game name here] wiki” will generally yield a good jumping off point.
Yeah, the game took me about 30 hours to complete, Finn. Though, I do plan on re-immersing myself in another playthrough after I finish my Renegade soldier playthrough in ME1, which will be a little bit, since I need to stop dreaming about dialogue wheels and finding cover behind crates before I decide to get back into the ME universe.