Just finished the story.
1) The game felt the same as ME1. Don't get me wrong, if it's not broken don't fix it. But once you get over the novelty of the newer features it's still ME1 with a new story slapped on. For that reason I felt a bit cheated, especially due to the hype surrounding it.
2) Performance wise I was really dissapointed. The graphics aren't much on ME1 and I had 4-5 gameplay bugs during my time playing with characters/me being stuck in walls etc. I'm also sorry to see that spite max settings they still randomly hit you with some of the most ugly blocky texture mappings i've seen. They're obviously just lower resolution, but why not give us higher res?! The game isn't exactly demanding graphics wise, we could at least have something nice to look at.
3) The story. It was good, I liked the gathering people aspect and it all felt slightly new and what wasn't new was nicely refreshed. But I didn't really feel the collector story, I didn't feel involved. I don't know, we're supposed to be saving humanity and it just felt like it didn't really matter. Anyone else feel this? Regarding the whole 'illusive man' story too, I was gearing myself up for a really nice plot twist where he turns out to be AI or something and was just using us like pawns. I got to the end and (along with my mentality through playing) told him to go **** himself when he suggested saving their technology. I thought it would out him and he'd morph back into some badass machine and come after us. But he didn't, and that felt weird. Becuase personally it felt through the game as if it was obvious he and Cerberus were going to turn out to be massive ****s and screw us all over before getting our unyielding revenge on them.
1) Aye a few annoying bugs, I had to reload the crashed ship mission a few times as I kept slipping off the edge and dying.
2) It just looks a bit rushed, as you say. Like they got everything important finished, but didn't have time to get a lush high resolution pack out. But I'm impressed with how well ME/ME2 runs, and given the load times are excellent I give them the benefit of the doubt. And there are several times where the view takes my breath away.
3) Absolutely. I was hoping/expecting for a showdown with Martin Sheen at the end, and well other then a bit of shouting nothing happened. In fact, the final boss was rather underwhelming, and playing through on hardcore first time I found him ridiculously easy - a final boss I would expect to die a few times whilst picking my strategy at least, but I didn't. The whole collectors being Protheans having been enslaved was a nice touch and a nice twist, and it took me right back to the first game when I found that Prothean beacon, but not enough was made of Shephards mastery of Prothean tech in ME1. I'm sure that will be important in ME3.
And then there was the whole Cerberus side of things, that never really materialised, and too many loose ends with old friends cropping up but never really having anything happen, apart from Arkangel/Tali.
Regarding it feeling a bit too much like ME, well, I think it's supposed too. I know that in game you've been dead for 2 years, but that is game time, not "trilogy time". ME strikes me as being a bit like the Saw series of films (the first three anyway, and only then probably the first two as the rest where crap); by which I mean you only realise after you've seen a few that you're infact watching the same story again, from a different angle, and from a slightly different perspective - but the core of the story remains the same.
We need to step back a bit and see that this trilogy is actually the story, that we're being allowed to weave in and out of a storyline that spans a number of years in game, but in the end is our story to make. It's a unique perspective to put the gamer in, and I can't wait for the Reaper invasion because after stopping Soverign, after stopping the Collectors, I think it's time they stopped skulking in the shadows and come out into the sunlight where I can kick their ass.
.
.
