I beat Mass Effect 2 this past weekend. I could spend a lot of time talking about the great branching storyline or fantastic production values, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be saying anything that hasn't already been said in some kind of metacritic review snippet. Overall it is a streamlined and more shooter focused version of the first game, making it more accessible and less of a "chore" to get through. Even the most boring of parts weren't that boring. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoyed the first one and was looking for something less bloated.

Instead, I'd like to take some time to focus on the "choose your adventure" parts. Namely, the dialogue and paragon/renegade action parts of the game. You can skip dialogue by pressing the X button. If you press the X button during a dialogue tree, you also choose the default option. Sometimes they present this dialogue tree while someone is still talking. I, more often than I liked, ended up pressing X to skip the dialogue and ended up choosing the default dialogue option on accident. This made me miss some some dialogue paths I would have liked to have explored.

This was probably my only main gripe with the game and it wasn't really that big of a deal. I got my money's worth, that's for sure.

The actual paragon/renegade options aren't as poorly presented. I just chose to do a drawing about the paragon/renegade actions because it was funnier. You don't actually punch a little girl, but you get the option to punch a reporter in the mouth. Don't pass that moment up.