I think the ME series has taken the first step in merging movies, books and games. I really, really hope the gaming industry will keep moving in this direction... and progressively abandon the "kill everything that moves" part, which I find rather boring to be honest.
Bioware hooked me with the twist in the KOTOR story, but I was wary of the ME games because the only shooter I'd ever played was
Ghost Recon. It took me quite a while to get used targeting on the XBox and I was glad that ME and ME2 were not totally games to "kill everything that moves", as poisonousteas said.
There were some great aspects to ME and ME2. I very much liked actually hearing Shepherd's voice during conversations... Revan's voice was absent from KOTOR and the Grey Warden's was very conspicuously absent from
Dragon Age. I found the Krogan amusing, the Asari interesting, the Turians annoying, the Quarians enigmatic, and I was thrilled that I was not forced to take on any Salarians or Volus in the first game. Though, I must admit, I highly enjoyed the Salarian in the second game... I just wish I could have convinced him to develop a Genophage for the Volus.
I found the minigame of Simon highly annoying. I saved before each minigame and found that I had more than enough money very quickly. I was thrilled they changed out Simon for Memory and a reverse version of the very first handheld electronic game, Mattel Auto Race. (I had Mattel Classic Football and my brother had Mattel Auto Race... and we played them until my father took them away because he could not stand the sounds anymore.) Just when I got the hang of handling the Mako, they took it out of ME2. Natch.
ME2 says you can port your original Shepherd over. This is not strictly correct. My Shepherd had a horrific scar. You remember the very first one of the scar collection... He was a War Hero after all. Anyway, that scar did not port... and for me, that was my Shepherd's most attractive feature to Ashley. Yes, I know Shepherd had more surgery than Steve Austin, but the scar was gone even before the Normandy.
The game did not have a "Luke, I am your father moment" nor a "Revan, I was your apprentice" moment, but the story still carried the game... and not the killing. "Luke, I am your father" was a big deal to me because I was only a kid and the internet did not exist.
Liara was good to go from her second conversation... I enjoyed cooling her engines. But I had a problem with her story... SPOILER ALERT... A certain someone was dead by the time Shepherd met Liara and Liara never said a thing about it... and that was weird.
Kaiden, we hardly knew ye.
Wrex.... It was a very near thing. But the character's name is Shepherd and he took care of his flock.
Garrus was the character with whom Shepherd can indulge in a bit of extra civil justice. Okay, I'll just call them vigilantes.
Tali the duck girl. Grow up already. I loved her bumbling excuses when I shut her down in ME2. But I think she should have gone ballistic when Legion joined the crew and not when he downloaded her fleet's schematics. And I blew the story there... I should not have talked her down... I should have encouraged her... but I was curious as to how Legion would play out.
Jack. What to say about Jack? I felt sorry for her. I wanted to help her. She'd only been used and abused her entire life and I wanted Shepherd to give her a chance to be a hero and find redemption. But somehow the conversation choice, "Jack, let's talk about us." was completely sexual in nature and destroyed my friendship with her. The last I saw of Jack, she was on her way to becoming Sarah Kerrigan's twin sister.
Jacob. I was so glad his conversations never went weird like Dragon Age's did with Zevran. Forget the Justicar, forget Thane, forget Jack, and even lovely Miranda, I knew I wanted Jacob at the last battle from the get go. After all of Miranda's baggage, Jack's crap, Solus' experiments, and Ashley's anger, Shepherd needed a fighter to take down the giant terminator. Admittedly, I was shocked that Jacob never made any excuses for his father.
At which point I must say that the writers for ME and ME2 must have serious issues with either their fathers or their children. Thane and Samara have problems with their children while Solus and Garrus both have problems with their former assistants, i.e. surrogate children. Though I never found if Kaiden had a problem with anyone, he is voiced by Raphel Sbarge who also voiced Carth Onassi in KOTOR... Carth had major problems with his son. Liara, Ash, Jacob, Tali, Miranda, Jacob and Grunt all have issues with one parent or another. And Jack's problem is that she never had a father.
Thane is an interesting character. Not very plausible, but interesting. I guess the writers get away with it by saying he is an alien with alien cultural mores.
Samara. A holy warrior without morals... and definitely the largest breasted Asari in the galaxy.
Morinth. I went back and just replayed the scene at Morinth's... that's the closest to "Luke, I am your father" that I found in the story.
Grunt was the character after Jacob that I knew I had to have for the final battle. I liked that he had a smaller hump and different head plates than Wrex. Both he and Wrex convinced me that the Genohage was the greatest medical discovery.... ever. Which leads me to...
Mordin Solus. I loved this guy. If you did not discover his singing talents, you must either replay the game or
click on this youtube link. If you never saw The Pirates of Penzance, then search some more on youtube something along the lines of modern major general.
I've spoken to two other people who've played ME and ME2 and I think I am in the minority of people who found that the Genophage was the humane solution to the Krogan problem. I loved that Solus was involved in secretly re-incubating the Krogan with and improved Genophage.
Legion. Um... he and the whole Geth civil split were major developments. I should have let Tali...
Ashley. Hmmmm. I, not Shepherd, was irate at her hostility in ME2. How could she do this? That was good story telling.
Miranda. On looks, she wins hands down. But she's soooo repressed.
But perhaps the best part of the story was doing the one mission with Joker. Excellent. Guiding the cripple through the apocalypse was great fun.
There were a few bugs. I've seen at leasts four places where Shepherd can wander right off the floor and up into the air. That was highly annoying. Save often. Also, my first final fight in ME2 bugged out by not allowing me to target, hit, damage, or destroy the final tube. I emptied every weapon into it, twice, to no avail after downing the first three in quick succession. On the second play through, which I had to do all the way from landing on the Collector Base, I defeated the final boss... but it was compounded by trying to make the story come out the same. (If you've finished, you'll know what I mean.)
I think a male Shepherd can romance... SPOILER ALERT... Liara, Ash, Jack, Miranda, Samara, Tali, Morinth, and Kelly. While this adds to the story, I'd like to see other romances in a story like this. What about Captain Anderson and the Consort? Or Samara and Thane? Joker and Kelly? Chief Navigator Pressly and Doctor Chakwas? Garrus and Liara? What if Jacob and Miranda were still a couple when Shepherd met them? I'd love to see that love triangle play out.
The tension between the Alliance military and the rest of Citadel Space gets personified nicely between Shepherd and the Council... both pre and post Sovereign.
One other nagging issue in ME2, I ended up with a lot more resources than I ever needed. I started by depleting every planet, but found I could have just stopped at moderate on most planets.
Also, just for fun, launch some probes into the Alliance home planets... It's childish, but humorous.
