carmen_lj | i am the very model of a scientist salarian

I'm not sure how many hours of the last three days I've spent playing Mass Effect 2, but it's a bad, bad number.

It was my sister's fault. I was being very good and saving ME2 for an appropriate long weekend where I could happily waste entire days playing the game without any need for feeling guilty about the fact I was neglecting silly things like food and sleep, but then she visited and somehow conversation touched on how she had finished ME2 and then proceeded to tell me how her game ended and there was hand-flapping from self at such spoilery talk. As well as feeling slightly appalled that somehow she'd managed to finish such a vast RPG when her reaction to Dragon Age was giving up because she got lost in a tower.

(I thought at first it was the Tower of Ishal, so at least she'd given the game a decent shot, but no, it was the Mage's Tower, when she was playing a mage. And when there was a map in the corner of the screen, showing exactly where you were. Unlike ME2 which seems to think maps are for LOSERS so it merely has a pointy arrow sometimes, which I found a bit hrrm, anyway...)

So, yes, Mass Effect 2. It was quite good. Micheal Sheen was in it. Which was weird. (Not as weird as that time he was a Soul Hunter in Babylon 5, but, y'know.) Also, there were NO LIFTS. Oh, how hated those lifts and their stupid music and they got rid of the HORRID MICROMACHINE thing that you kept landing in too.

Instead there was SCANNING and MINING. Because obviously when you're trying to save the galaxy from vast and cold alien intelligences what you really want to spend time doing is scanning planets for minerals so you can mine them and then expand the number of mining probes your ship can hold so you can do even MOAR MINING. That is so much more fun than shooting bad guys with cool looking guns.

On the bright side, there was a truly epic mission that I loved, as it cunningly managed to evoke Alien-like terror as you and your team wander around a deserted vessel and very obviously Something Is Wrong but you're not entirely sure what and tension is BEAUTIFULLY MANAGED so it's all very exciting build-up to when you're actually going to be attacked rather than being bored at walking around empty corridors.

And then for the end mission, I particularly liked the button that said "Start Suicide Mission." OPTIMISM IS FOR LOSERS. I was a bit flaily at it mostly because - probably whilst looking for DA spoilers - I'd found out I could get everyone on the team killed. And I didn't want them to die, cause on first playthrough I'm a goodie, dammit! I want my happy ending! And there's a lot of me time been invested in those pixellated dudes; I don't want pixel blood all over them. As it turned out, no-one died, hurrah. Cause I am a tactical genius, I assume.

Oh, and there was a Scottish Engineer. He was great. There was Obligatory Mention of Haggis. But he did not mention the laws of physics, so I judge mildly. Also, much approval of alien dudes filking Gilbert and Sullivan.

Now there's all this extra content and shiny new missions, which obv are going to be left well alone and I'm going to have a nice proper meal and a good night's sleep and some fruit, like a proper person, yes. Good.