And I friggin mean it.
 
Improvements in ME2 are these: Gameplay, Dialogues, Sidequests, Removal of generic loot and sidemissions like collecting badges and shit. Does anyone like that crap?
 
But the entire premise of the game is so much worse than the first one, that I simply cannot enjoy it as much as the first.
It starts of in an awesome way with the whole Normandy-sequence, but come on... Shep dies and gets revived... that's a load of crap.
 
Also, who thought loadingscenes were the better option compared to elevator-sequences?
They could improve the elevators instead, have your partybanter a bit more sociable, better radioreporting about what's going on. And not just reports on what the hell you just did, but about something entirely different going on, maybe some hints to sidequests etc. anything is better than loadingscreens.
 
Reporting to the council was one of my favorite things about the ME1, disconnecting them was a hoot. Talking to Martin Sheen however is just sad in comparison. Illusive Man, more like IlluZzzive Man.   Provoking him doesn't even result in any interesting replies.
 
The impact from the first game on the second was also a bit thin, I realise that they can't do too much, but to just remove all of the major elements of interaction from the first one just seems cheap. (Major elements being Kaidan, Ashley, Council, Anderson, Udina)
Just sad that your interaction with your 'loyal fan' had a bigger impact on your game than letting the entire Council die.
 
I still love both games, that's for sure. But I feel ME2, while being an more enjoyable game to play, removed too much of the soul of ME1 to surpass it.

I totally agree dude. While ME2 was a great game, it didn't have the same impact on me that ME1 did. Also the fact that I beat it in 12 hours was kind of a bummer.

Not enough in world interaction, in ME1 you could talk to your party members at any time, or just annoy random NPCs.
 
Also, they failed to top the first game's ending credits song. I still think ME2 is superior though, but not by a huge amount.

Don't forget the sometimes crippling frame rate and constant texture pop-in.
 
P.S. I love both Mass Effects dearly.

Different strokes for different folks. 

" Not enough in world interaction, in ME1 you could talk to your party members at any time, or just annoy random NPCs.  Also, they failed to top the first game's ending credits song. I still think ME2 is superior though, but not by a huge amount. "

Personally, I found ME2 to be better.
 
Elevators are loading screens, plain and simple, at least this way we can get some gameplay tips, some of which were actually useful rather than a tiny room you cant move around in, or god forbid the same static image of the Mass Relay staring at me (I must have lost a month of my life staring at that loading screen). While you could argue there are some places where elevators could allow for some character banter, the level design just doesn't allow for it. The only character banter we ever saw was on the Citadel, and that no longer has elevators at all.
 
 I never liked talking to the council honestly. That Turian bastard makes me want to kill him every time he opens his mouth. Its always the same, the asari and salarian try to persuade you that they cant do anything more, while the turian just yells at you no matter what you did. The illusive man however was a different story, he had a direction, he had a goal, and you could just see him pulling the strings. You were playing his game, like it or not. He was in control, and no matter what you said, he allways had the upper hand in the conversation. He wasnt a man, he was a force, and he was pushing you along and pulling your strings just like everyone else.
 
As for the human characters, im glad they scaled back. The humans are the least interesting characters of that game. Who cares if Aiden or Ashely is downplayed, I didnt like either of them! But at least almost every one of your other side quests from the first game DOES make a reappearance in some way...some show up on Illium to provide another side quest, while a majority of the others showed up in e-mail form...okay, I admit, that part can be improved, but considering this is the ONLY game to carry over save files on consoles, thats impressive as is.
 
I love Mass Effect, and I love the 2nd one even more. Im not gonna try and persuade you that your take on the story presented is wrong, im just saying I found alot of this stuff to be better, rather than worse.

yo dood you is rong

I still like mass effect, i've been playing it non stop, still mass effect 2 is still a very good game and is better in alot of ways. I didn't agree until my second play through since it adresses alot of problems ppl are having. I do like the story for the first game, it was simple and effective.

Lol hahahahahaha whooo!! ***wipes tears from eyes***

Mass Effect 2 is better and I can prove it in a single word.
 
Mako.

Ahh... I don't know yet. You see, ME1 had a lot of time for me to grow and for me to replay and realize that it was one of the best games I've ever played. I soon came to realize, maybe a few months after I was totally finished with Mass Effect 1, that it was my favorite game of all time. 
 
Now, I had the same feeling with ME2, but here is the difference. The characters in ME2 are stunning and so interesting. I didn't want the game to ever end because I wanted to keep on talking to Thane, I wanted to comfort Samara with her feelings of guilt, I wanted Miranda to tell me who her damn dad is! But alas it was a game and had to end :( But on the other hand, Mass Effect 1's awesome RPG system is what made me want to keep playing. Like, my Infiltrator was so overpowered and strong, yet the enemies in my second playthrough were still pretty challenging and it made for better gameplay. So while I'm still undecided, I've come to this conclusion... 
 
Mass Effect is the best game I've ever played, but Mass Effect 2 is the greatest experience I've had with a game. 
 
It's very hard to explain this in detail, but I did it the best I could. 
 
@StarFoxA said:

" Mass Effect 2 is better and I can prove it in a single word.  Mako. "

If anyone had said these things a month ago this would have been called a troll topic. It's funny how things go.

It's kinda hard to seperate the products.  I do think ME2 is better in pretty much every single way, but a lot of what made it so good for me - the carry over stuff - couldn't have been done in ME1 anyway.  It also wouldn't have been possible without the groundwork already laid in ME1.  So for me, it's hard to praise ME2 without giving some of the credit for that to ME1, and it's hard to blame ME1 for not having features it couldn't possibly have had.

Spoilers- 

I like ME a lot more interms of story and plot, the way they reveal the world to you, and the way you find out about the story through talking to npcs and different species: quest with the preaching Hanar reveals to you their roles in the universe, their culture and their relationships with other species and their general personality.
While ME2 just hand out all the info to you with not much elaboration, examples: the protheans are million years old and EDI somehow have the dna data to compare to. Shepard knowing Harbinger without much confrontations. 

It feels a bit unnatural to me at some point of the game, like no one really care about Legion when I activated him, I went to talk to Tali and she just speaks the same dialogues as she did, even seems to be fine when I take them both on a mission.

I don't think ME1 is a superior game, but ME2's focus is a bit different, while I like the improvements in ME2, I enjoy 1 a bit more as a whole, it was just plagued with a bunch of warehouses and driving mako. Taking what's good from ME1 and keeping 2's combat would make it really perfect in my book. Also cinematics are way better in 2, but it was the reason a lot of things feel a bit scripted: everyone just decided to leave Normandy at the same time.

ME1 felt way to broken for me to enjoy it at all. The combat was dreadful, I never cared about any of the party members besides Garrus (true in ME2 as well), the inventory system may as well have been broken, and the optional planets were so phoned in it made me sick. I'm not saying ME2 was a perfect game, but it was so much better than ME1. That's how I feel.

They're both terrible and the devs over at BioWare should be shat upon.
 
You can say I'm trolling, but that's just my honest opinion.

I liked the story in ME 1 better (the story in ME 2 was still great though). But as far as being a game goes, ME 2 was loads better. 
 
The ending song in ME 1 was amazing compared to ME 2 though. That was my biggest disappointment with ME 2, the lack of a great ending song.

I didn't think the story in ME2 was any worse than ME1. I felt both were just ... okay. I thought it stole a bit too heavily from recent sci-fi and didn't add quite enough new ideas. But as far as they went, the stories were great compared to other games, if not other sci-fi novels and movies and even TV shows. On the other hand, the gameplay in ME2 was so vastly superior to ME1 that it's difficult to compare them. I love both games, but I still think ME2 is far better.
 
Part of the problem is that some people prefer the getting-to-know-you stage of the story, where we first get to see the universe and how it's made up. But the second chapter is always about character development and plot. It doesn't always suit everyone, but it's part of the narrative structure. Perhaps they overdid it by bringing in too many new characters, rather than developing the first game's set. But I think ME2 did a great job of setting up the expected resolutions to problems we were first introduced to in ME1. Perhaps we could have gotten a bit more information (particularly about the Krogan conflicts) but we all know where the story is going. I think they did a great job.

ME2 is the best game this generation. The only negatives were the complete lack of loot. Give me guns just don't give me 500 ammo types as in the first game.

I found myself beating Mass Effect 1 multiple times with different characters, but with Mass Effect 2 I somewhat dreaded playing through it a second time on just one character. Not sure, because I found myself loving everything Mass Effect 2 had to offer, but mining planets for a second time is not what I call enjoyable.

I like both equally they both have their strengths and weaknesses but i must say I found the ending for ME 1 to be much,much better than the ending for ME 2, both in terms of story and what happens in the last levels.

" Mass Effect 2 is better and I can prove it in a single word.  Mako. "

Sounds like your problem with Mass Effect 2 is that it isn't Mass Effect 1. Mass Effect 2's combat and flow is so much better than the first Mass Effect that I can't honestly believe anyone who says they enjoyed the first one more. 
 
And I really liked the first Mass Effect. 
 
And for story gripes, I like to think of Mass Effect 2 as a cool sci-fi show. Firefly didn't have that great of an overarching story, but it had some explosive, varying, interesting episodes in a unique setting and world. 

" I totally agree dude. While ME2 was a great game, it didn't have the same impact on me that ME1 did. Also the fact that I beat it in 12 hours was kind of a bummer. "

ME2 was way to linear for me...

" Improvements in ME2 are these: Gameplay, Dialogues, Sidequests, Removal of generic loot and sidemissions like collecting badges and shit. Does anyone like that crap? "

ME2 is one of the greatest accomplishments in gaming history. ME1 is ok.

" @wolf_blitzer85 said:

" I totally agree dude. While ME2 was a great game, it didn't have the same impact on me that ME1 did. Also the fact that I beat it in 12 hours was kind of a bummer. "

Man it took me somewhere around 30 hours to beat it doing everything. While ME1 by the 3rd playthrough would take only 10 hours.  Again, I am in the same boat of loving both games, but I don't feel like the Story was great in ME1 or ME2, story telling was great! But the story we have heard before. So far it's your space trilogy plot arch. Was it done well? Hell yes! But it's more about the world that Bioware created that made both of these games so great. "

 There should be an age limit to getting a Giantbomb account since all I see are people whining and crying like the babies that they are.
 

Improvements in ME2 are these: Gameplay, Dialogues, Sidequests, Removal of generic loot and sidemissions like collecting badges and shit. Does anyone like that crap?

Also, who thought loadingscenes were the better option compared to elevator-sequences?

The impact from the first game on the second was also a bit thin, I realise that they can't do too much, but to just remove all of the major elements of interaction from the first one just seems cheap. (Major elements being Kaidan, Ashley, Council, Anderson, Udina)

Just sad that your interaction with your 'loyal fan' had a bigger impact on your game than letting the entire Council die.

I still love both games, that's for sure. But I feel ME2, while being an more enjoyable game to play, removed too much of the soul of ME1 to surpass it.

Again you are wrong. Did you visit Omega, or the Zachiria Wards? Those two places had more "soul" than the entire first game.
 
If you weren't too busy being an idiot, you would realize that everything in ME2 makes sense for a sequel.
 
You are exactly what is wrong with gamers these days. All you want is the same broken crap instead of actual improvements.

I agree that Mass Effect 1 is a superior product.

" I agree that Mass Effect 1 is a superior product. "

" @Slax said:

" @wolf_blitzer85 said:

" I totally agree dude. While ME2 was a great game, it didn't have the same impact on me that ME1 did. Also the fact that I beat it in 12 hours was kind of a bummer. "

Man it took me somewhere around 30 hours to beat it doing everything. While ME1 by the 3rd playthrough would take only 10 hours.  Again, I am in the same boat of loving both games, but I don't feel like the Story was great in ME1 or ME2, story telling was great! But the story we have heard before. So far it's your space trilogy plot arch. Was it done well? Hell yes! But it's more about the world that Bioware created that made both of these games so great. "

Lol yeah right. I have a file at 62 hours at the end of my second playthrough for ME1. I know you're just exaggerating, but still. You could still do a lot in ME1. "