irishScott

Take this game for what is, the ultimate sliding block puzzle collection. It's not just about re-building a picture, you have to arrange gears such they they play simple musical tones in the proper order at the proper rhythm, arrange pipe segments to route steam to multiple locations, and more often than not do both at once in a variety of 3D environments. There are planes with pipes and gear shafts running through the board, and you have to simultaneously arrange both sides (while only being able to view one side at a time) perfectly for the system to work. There are cylinders, cubes where each side affects the function of its adjacent side, and other innovative environments. There are also bronze, silver, and gold medal achievements for both time and number of moves to complete, which I found highly addicting. The animation and art are awesome, and the music is perfect, providing a nice contemplative atmosphere without being intrusive. So taken for what it is, this easily scores a 10 in my book. A lot of the criticism I see here seems to stem from the reviewer not liking sliding block puzzles or thinking that the puzzles in Cogs are too hard; which is like criticizing a su-do-ku puzzle for not being a crossword. If you enjoy visual puzzles of any variety, I'd say there's a good chance you'll enjoy Cogs.

So I've read a lot of the negative reviews, and frankly a lot of people are doing it wrong. 1. The story is fun. It's space opera at it's finest, sorry if you expected Issac Asimov and got let down. It sure as hell blows away other games the detractors seem eager to compare it to (ie: Gears of War), and is compelling enough to drive the game and make you care about the decisions you make, if you let it. Especially with some of the DLC. 2. The game-play is much less repetitive. Yes it's more linear than the original ME, but the missions actually have plots now. Instead of 10+ similar variations of "enemy x is in facility y on planet z, go kill everyone and report back" we now have characters, events, items lying around that affect your development in the game, and a sense of an overall, serious objective that ME-1 lacked on anything outside of the plot-driver missions. Not to mention many of ME-1's taunted "exploration missions" took place in the EXACT SAME STRUCTURE. Down to the barricade layout in some places. That doesn't even happen once in ME2. 3. The RPG elements have been slimmed down, and that suits me just fine. The ME-1 inventory was a nightmare. Having to micro everyone's weapons with 2 potential mods per weapon + armor + implants + stats, not to mention selling all of the old/useless equipment, all through an interface clunkier than this sentence, had me spending 10-20 minutes between missions adjusting equipment and numbers. Granted this gets better as the game went on and my squad started getting the top equipment, but it was still extremely annoying and greatly impacted the game's flow. The grind factor, while not all-encompassing like WoW, was considerable. In ME2 I get to look at 1 or 2 charts, slide some bars around, click some numbers, and I'm done. I can do it all in the span of a minute or two and get back to actually playing the game. Best part is this simplification doesn't take away from it's impact on the game. I found my ME-2 decisions to have even more weight than my ME-1 decisions. 4. The gunplay is fine. Sure it's not the next incarnation of the lightbulb, but it's fun and engaging on the right difficulty. Those of you complaining that the AI is crap, try playing through on Insanity. I'm halfway through a replay on that setting and I've got AI characters dodging my biotics and aggressively flanking/charging me. I've died more times than I can count. More than once an AI character has snuck up behind me when I've gotten lazy about checking the radar. As for one users complaint about characters repeating themselves, everything your party says has a meaning. They speak when they're using special attacks and when an enemy goes down. All useful information if you've played the game for more than 30 minutes. As for underpowered weapons, guess some people just don't like a challenge. It's a game, not a combat sim. I like enemies that are stronger than me, it makes me think and improvise as opposed to using virtually the same tactics over and over and over and over ala Gears of War. 5. The voice acting is excellent, the script is even better. Those of you who say it ****, you must not speak English. Sure it's not Oscar worthy but as previously stated, this is space opera. 6. The story is much more compelling. The lack of supposedly "random" missions from ME-1 means a deeper emphasis on plot and sub-plots. The characters are at least twice as deep as ME-1 and the missions far more individualized and unique. If you muidly suspend disbelief and let yourself get **** in, you come to care about the characters and your decisions. People who criticize the supposed plot holes and such are probably the same people who criticize Star Trek and Star Wars for the same. They're kinda missing the point. In any case, the Universe is even more fleshed out than ME-1 if you read the entries in the codex. If reading and learning about the Universe you're playing in isn't your thing, guess what? You don't have to read them. Just don't go **** about a plot you've only read the cliff notes on. As for cliche: It's actually not. I'd say people who complain about cliches are either over-analyzing the plot (which is highly refined space opera), or not exploring the sub-plots that flesh it out. And your decisions for ME1 do considerably affect the overall nature of the Universe. It's hard to tell on the first playthrough, but if you have two alternate save games with opposite paths you'll notice a considerable difference. 7. In conclusion, the main attraction of ME-2 is a story that's 2nd to no other comparable game, combined with solid if not groundbreaking gameplay. You basically get to act out a 5-star space opera with an awesome decision making/conversational tool and excellent script. Think acting out the new Star Trek remake with 20x the plot, 3x the action and creative control over plot points. That's ME-2.