I have been playing A LOT of Mass Effect 2 over the past week, almost to the point that my husband probably feels single. I remember Adam Sessler saying something similar back when he reviewed the game, and I now understand him completely.

Granted, the story has not won me over. I’m really not pleased with the majority of my team recruits. Last game, I had honorable warriors assisting me. Now I have a mercenary, a crazed criminal who is virtually naked save her tattoos, a lab creation, and a cold-blooded killer. I’m currently in the process of recruiting “The Assassin,” which makes me even less pleased. At least I have Garrus, Jacob, and Tali. I’ve even started to like Miranda. For me, as a Paragon player, it seems to go against my character to work for a questionable company as almost a mercenary and maintain a team of questionable characters. I suppose that is why they send you on these loyalty sidequests.

What’s keeping me playing is the gameplay. I really loved everything about the gameplay from the first Mass Effect, but this game has made everything smoother. The combat feels easier to control, the camera feels more responsive, my partymembers don’t stand in the middle of open fire and wonder why they die all the time, and the little mini-games aren’t as annoying. They’re still annoying, but they’re more tolerable.

And of all the weird things, by removing so much of the RPG-elements of the first game, I feel like I’m able to role play more with this game. Last game, even though I had a lot of things I could do to really form my character, it still felt like I was going down a tunnel for my character development. With the dialogue choices, the ability to perform Paragon/Renegade actions, and the decisions I can make to help others, I feel like I’m really crafting my character and her personality.

One more note about the story: I had a romance with Kaiden in the first game, and I genuinely liked his character (and the fact that he would actually take cover). It has been killing me that he wasn’t able to join my party and every guy I run across actively hits on me. As I am a loyal person, I really want to remain loyal to Kaiden. When I did finally run into him and he was so cold, it actually broke my heart for my character. I have hope, Kaiden, that we will reconcile and continue on with Mass Effect 3.

If this is not true, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

I know I’ve mentioned before how I’ve considered playing Dragon Age: Origins on the PC, and while I have enjoyed playing DAO on the Xbox, I’ve started to reconsider purchasing it for the PC. I realize this will be the third time I’ve bought the game. I realize that I would be starting completely over after I’ve already delved 20 hours into the Xbox version of the game.

However, I also know that if I play it on the PC, I’ll be able to full control my party like I need to. Sadly, I’ve had to turn down the difficulty to easy just to survive simple battles because I’m not able to efficiently send out orders to my party. It’s really sad when the guide says, “You should have no problems defeating them,” and I die several times in a row. I know what I need to tell my party to do. I just can’t do it quickly enough. They also have this nasty habit of getting distracted and doing other things. If I had the top-down view I know the PC-version affords, I’m sure I could manage my party’s tactics a lot better.

This is probably a case of “the grass is always greener,” although I keep getting told that the PC way is the way to go. Of course, these people are all PC-gamers and therefore, can’t be trusted. I may finish the game on the Xbox on the pathetic “Casual” setting and replay it on Steam. I can’t decide what is best, and my stomach turns at the thought of buying the game a third time. That’s future guide money!

So how many of you out there have played both? Which do you recommend? If you’ve played the console version all the way through, does it get easier to manage your party?

I wasn’t planning on finishing Mass Effect last night, but considering that the second to the last chapter pits you at a really climactic point in the story, I couldn’t stop. I probably should have, considering I wasn’t counting on the sheer difficulty of the final boss over everything else in the game (serves me right for not sidequesting more), but even though I finished at 2 a.m. and I’m exhausted today, it was so worth it.

I’ve said many times that Lost Odyssey is the best RPG I’ve ever played. I have to say that at about halfway through ME, though, that LO has lost that honor. LO is now the best turn-based JRPG I’ve ever played and ME is the best RPG I have ever played. I’ve been told I should hold off on bestowing such a title until after I’ve played Mass Effect 2, but that remains to be seen. I’ve heard that it isn’t as much of an RPG as it is a shooter, so the first game may hold onto that title yet.

I have to say that I’m pretty pissed at myself for not listening to my friends and getting into this game sooner, like when I first started to enjoy shooter-based games. Three friends in particular I have to hold my head low and tell them they were right, and I should listen to them more. I suppose this means I should actually get serious about Red Dead Redemption. That game has actually moved up in the backlog, but it’s firmly planted behind ME2. If it wasn’t 2 a.m., I would have popped that disc in immediately. I cannot wait to get that started tonight or tomorrow.

I am still contemplating playing the game again as my current Shepard to boost her levels and actually play some sidequests and maybe the DLC. I’m also really tempted to start a new career and play as a Renegade since I was a Paragon this time. However, I’ve also said that I would do that with inFamous, and well, I haven’t gotten further then the first couple of chapters for that playthrough. Guess I should hurry up on that since inFamous 2 is coming out in June.