Note: Article contains spoilers for Mass Effect and the Bringing Down the Sky “expansion”

Mass effect is one of my favourite games for the Xbox 360 and with the recent release of the presumably misleading teaser trailer for the sequel it seemed like a good time to go over what things from the original game I would like to see carried over and what improvements I would like to see.

The first thing is I want to continue as Commander Shepard and for the sidequests I did to matter, while it may be easier to do a KOTOR II and just mention the events of the first game in passing the talk from Bioware is that this will happen. However given some of the  slightly misleading talk from them in the lead up to the release of the original Mass Effect such as the events of the TV trailer not happening at all I am not taking this for granted.

The second thing is that I want some sense of urgency in your mission as in the original game you could fly around the galaxy looking for pointless resources and it did not impact the game in any way despite the urgency of Shepards mission. In the sequel I want there to be a time limit of sorts which can be disabled after you complete the game for the first time and perhaps only be able to complete a limited number of side quests before you have to continue the main mission. Ideally I would like to be given choices like that shown in the TV trailer for Mass Effect where you have to choose between helping civilians or continuing on your main quest.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Qr-iSO6ac[/youtube]

The next improvement is for the paragon and renegade choices to be less obviously good and evil but for you to be able to do the evil thing for a good reason. An example of this from the Bringing Down the Sky expansion would be that you could do the renegade choice of killing the terrorist but the reason for doing so is not revenge but rather not being able to take the risk that he would betray you.

Similarly I want there to be when appropriate a neutral choice of leaving the decision to someone else, so with the Rachni Queen you would leave her imprisoned and let the council deal with her, and with the Asari agent Shiala on Feros rather than just kill her or let her go you should be able to turn her over to the council for questioning once you have the information you need from her. If I have to make a major decision with widespread implications I want there to be a reason for me to do some immediately and not simply have to make a choice because those are the only options the game gives me. As Mass Effect 2 is likely to be set for the most part away from council space this may accomplish that.

The other improvement would be get rid of the unexplored worlds and replace them with a smaller number of worlds with a better plot, so instead of having 20 or so worlds with not much on them but a few mineral outcroppings and a pirate base, have 5 -10 set up like Bringing Down the Sky where there is a self contained sub plot. Also get rid of the pointless mineral and artifact collection quests, if there is going to be a galaxy wide scavenger hunt link it to the main plot in some way, either by giving us some additional information or an item we need for the plot to progress or at least give us a decent reward such as some of the best weapons and armour in the game and not just the “satisfaction” of completing the collection.

Finally as for the matter of Xbox 360 and PC exclusivity I dont really mind so long as it is released on the Xbox 360 first and the release isnt delayed due to having  to port it the Wii.