it comes out on the 26th................. Tueaday/tommorow....So YAY!

Three more days here... Bloody EU.

Or will Impulse enable it worldwide?

That's actually good. It means I won't fail my three exams that are on the 27th and 28th.

It was. Review copies went out last week.

You may want to take a look at Bioware's Jade Empire then, one of the available character choices is in fact a huge, bald, fat guy, though given he's supposed to be a martial arts artist the 'bald' part is more by choice rather than anything else. And there's also Oblivion as well, where you can create your own character and make him look pretty much however you want him to (I'll admit it, mine *was* a 'grizzled fighter' but it took me a long time to make him look like that instead of 'average weakling dude').

As for the topic at hand, I already preordered it... on Steam, as I'm from South America. Oh well, still two days 'til it's released, which gives me enough time to reformat my computer, configure everything by hand, reinstall all my games and apps then start preloading the game for when it's finally unlocked. Fun times, huh?

Got Mass Effect 2 today and........Brits, you'll hate me for this, but it is single-handedly the most fun shooter I've ever played, a vast improvement over the original Mass Effect. The Story is engrossing, the combat moreso. Don't even get me started about the quotes ("Gravity? Phhff!" lol) and character depth. To all who read this and have a soul, buy this, you won't regret it.

Oh, one more thing: Questions Answered! (NO SPOILERS!)

1- it's a third person action adventure/ Combat game

2-The Nuke launcher = r0x0r5,  the heavy weapons Kick royal levels of ass ("Say goodbye to yourself!")

3-The level of character development is astounding, and you'll meet all the good ol' gand from ME1, Ashleigh and Wrex and you'll evilgasm every moment of it.

4.Your choices DO matter, ALOT. Stressing the ALOT. Moreso than the original.

5.People have been bitching about how they added ammo in the form of "Thermal Clips" into the main weapons. Don't take it to hard, it makes it more tactical and you'll hardly notice anyway.

6.The weapons in the game, i an odd way, sound better and feel better when you shoot, not like the percussion drum- guns in the first one.

7. The voice acting and level design are without equal, Martin Sheen does a great job with the Illusive Man

8. In general, the game kicks ass.

So yeah, have fun on Mass Effect! (not mocking!)

ME2 has awesome combat, fun missions, intresting characters. However, it has some minigames you have to play, like the one where you scan for resources so you can upgrade your gear, that are amusing the first couple of times, but after you have spent 8 hours on them you want to rip your hair out in rage. A few other incredibly annoying things as well.

On the whole, very fun game, but those few annoyances really keep it from being great.

I picked up ME2 about a week ago, currently on my second playthrough. Without specifically hunting down sidequests, you can expect to thoroughly complete the first run through in ~20 hours or so. Unlike Dragon Age: Origins though, I seem to be finding quite a bit of replayability due to the game's combat mechanics which are more FPS-like than standard RPG. And there is the fact that most dialog can be skipped by hitting the space bar.

On successive playthroughs, you are able to start with your weapons and levels from your previous game, so starting a second or third playthrough comes without too much sacrifice aside from the non-skippable cinematic before the character creation screens.