37 hours and 54 minutes since the opening credits and 27 levels of experience later the final credits of Mass Effect 2 have played out. All that can be said about Mass Effect 2 is that it isn't just a game, it's an experience. It represents the best merger of narrative and game available today, beating the standard set by the original Mass Effect. It weaves the two together effortlessly and creates a story woven with conflict that you always feel the centre of, a major Grade A protagonist whose very choices are what the game is about. It's about fateful choices, all delivered in a package that weaves together film-like scenes while not forgetting it's a game. It truly is brilliant. If it doesn't get game of the year, despite being released so early, something pretty damned amazing will have had to have come along.

I now realise why you seem to exit the first disc very quickly in the play experience. When it happened, I worried the game was going to be very short, but after playing it all the way through you learn you go to the second disc because the first disc is full of the astounding final sequence. The epic assault of the massive enemy base by the heroic, space opera 'Magnificent Seven'. It is an exciting sequence, and a visual treat, while layering it with significant choices, excellent scenes in which you direct the 'script' and still, you guessed it, remaining a game. You take risks, people can die, including yourself, and I know I was excited about how it might play out. I know my heart was in my mouth when Shephard went diving across the collapsing platform to grab Miranda at the last minute, I really thought she was going to die. That would have been unfortunate, after our romantic encounter just before heading off on the suicide mission.

In short, they all survived but for one: Tali.

I have to say, the death of Tali was quite sad. It had an emotional impact. I feel I let Tali down, twice. She was one of the cast of the original Mass Effect and was consistently on my team as Tali and Liara added tech and biotics to my soldier skills. The trouble was, I just never got my Paragon or Renegade level to a high enough level to do right by her. I couldn't avoid a painful choice during her trial and neither could I keep both her and Legion's loyalty when they fell into conflict. As a result, she was exiled from her people and then I chose Legion over her meaning I lost her loyalty. Then she died in the final battle holding the line. There should have been another way. In another game, by another player, there probably was.

Despite not having the loyalty of Tali, Zaeed and Thane, only Tali died.

Is there any negatives to Mass Effect 2? Only two, and they are very minor. The process of scanning planets for minerals is a bit laborious, but you don't have to scan a lot of them to be able to upgrade the Normandy for the final battle and get a good core of upgrades. I think I spent less than 10% of my time actually scanning for minerals. Note this doesn't include zapping around the galaxy and orbiting planets to see if they have anomalies (missions), as this is much quicker and fun. The scanning for minerals is only an irritation in so much as the rest of the game is so fluid, and stripped of traditional RPG baggage, it is odd that they went with something like the mineral scanning. It's not that bad, as these elements go, it was a good way to do it, but it just feels bad next to the rest of the experience. In truth, there is an argument to say Mass Effect 3 need not included any RPG levelling or resource gathering activities and should focus on the action and story elements completely.

It could also be said that the story is better in the original Mass Effect. It has an epic story, which just has a bigger scale. This isn't to say the Mass Effect 2 story is bad, it isn't, but it's less epic, while still being big, and has a different focus. Mass Effect 2 is more like a mosaic of character studies explored through the personal missions and as you recruit your 'Magnificent Seven'. These individual pieces are good. It's also good how the conflicts are woven together and how this relates to your hero and the loyalty of others. It's also good how your choices in the original Mass Effect are woven in. It's just the combination of both the games makes you want the scale of the story in the original Mass Effect combined with the streamlined RPG aesthetic of Mass Effect 2. No doubt we'll get this in Mass Effect 3.

In the meantime, all I can do is hope they release some solid and sizeable downloadable content between now and whenever Mass Effect 3 comes out. Unless Bioware do something incredibly stupid, this trilogy of games is going to go down in gaming history.