Editor's note: Turn and face the strange, Mass Effect fans. Cody has compiled a handy guide on how BioWare has updated the Mass Effect franchise in the latest game. No spoilers here -- unless you really don't want to know how planet scanning works in Mass Effect 2. -Brett

Change is good. It can shock us into better lives for ourselves, or make us contribute a bit more to the world. It can also shake the steady foundation of our beings, dissipating the confusion that clouds our thoughts on where to go or what to do next. Still, even when change brings new and interesting things into our lives, it's often met with extreme resistance. People don't like change, after all; it's a lot easier to just coast through life with everything as familiar and safe as possible. Things change though, for better or worse, so we have to face it and do what we can.

Overly dramatic opening aside, Mass Effect 2 hit store shelves a couple weeks ago, and with it comes changes -- many of which will cause some conflicting feelings among Mass Effect fans. As someone who enjoyed most of them, I thought I'd give my thoughts and let those who haven't gotten the chance to play the sequel yet know exactly what they should expect -- from my point of view, anyway. Here we go...

Leveling Up and Stats

Mass Effect: Leveling was a pretty simple process: kill things, get experience, gain levels, and spend your hard-earned stat points.

Mass Effect 2: The leveling process works the same way, though only your powers (biotics like Push or tech stuff like A.I. Hacking) can be upgraded by spending stat points from leveling up. Your specialty with specific weapon types and Paragon/Renegade progress are handled separately, the former being upgradable through mineral collection and the latter advancing as you perform "good" or "evil" actions. There's a little less going on here than in the first game, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Planet Scanning

Mass Effect: Scanning was an incredibly simple -- and somewhat boring -- affair. All you had to do was find yourself a planet, press a button, and you scanned the entire planet automatically.

Mass Effect 2: You must now manually scan each planet, moving a marker across its surface and waiting for a rumble in your controller. Once you feel said rumble and your mineral-detection chart is going off the map, you send off one of the few dozen probes at your disposal and collect whatever mineral is present. Because of the added depth and the need for minerals to upgrade your ship and equipment, this is one of the most addicting aspects of the game.

Hacking

Mass Effect: When you needed to hack something, you played a variation of Simon Says, pressing buttons as quickly as possible in a specific order. That or you were lazy like me and bought your way in with omni-gel.

Mass Effect 2: There are now two types of hacking: regular hacking, where you need to select identical bits of colored code while avoiding locked areas, and bypassing, where you need to connect small blue orbs to form matched pairs. As with scanning, the process feels a lot more involved this time around, and thus more entertaining.

Environments

Mass Effect: While some environments looked amazing, filled with tons of detail and effects, others felt sort of bland -- especially the uncharted worlds.

Mass Effect 2: Nearly every world is interesting to walk around in. The cities are especially eye-catching, from the technologically advanced vistas of Illium to the grimy underground of Omega. Even the uncharted worlds are more focused and interesting this time around -- probably due to BioWare's decision to ditch the Mako and the exploration aspects seen in the first game (though from what I understand, something similar will be added as DLC down the road).

Saving and Post-Game Adventures

Mass Effect: Saving your game was tedious, though I never really realized that until I played the sequel. Going back to it, I realized it takes way too long to save. I know I'm talking about a few seconds here, but still, it's definitely noticeable.

Mass Effect 2: As soon as you save your game, you're taken right back into the action, and the game gives you a small "Saving..." notification in the bottom left corner. No other intrusions. Also, unlike the first game -- and most games, for that matter -- you can continue playing the game after you've finished it and transfer the saves to a new character at any time. Few games let you experience the peace and happiness you've created after defeating the big baddie and watching the credits roll. It's a nice change of pace.

Conversation Animations

Mass Effect: The animations stunk, to put it bluntly. Every character had a weird "I'm going to turn my head slightly and walk away in the most awkward way possible" quality to their movement.

Mass Effect 2: BioWare put a huge effort into making everything seem more fluid and lifelike. Animations fit the conversation as well as the mood, creating unique interactions with each character. The entire game is more cinematic as well. That doesn't mean more cut-scenes, just a better use of them, as well as a cleaner look for the in-game stuff.

Going Grayscale

Mass Effect: You basically had three moral paths to walk your character down. On path one, you licked rainbows and rolled around with kittens. Path two found you on the entirely boring middle-ground with little-to-no emotion. Path three meant you had to kick puppies while they were trying to donate to charity.

Mass Effect 2: There is a subtler and less extreme approach to good and evil. Besides more morally ambiguous dialog choices, the game introduces "interruption" sequences, during which you can click the right or left triggers to perform Renegade or Paragon actions. Surprisingly, I felt content with doing both (I normally only play the "good guy"). No action seems too extreme in the game, save for the occasional flipping of fingers at your crew. But really, who would do that? Save your attitude for annoying civilians.

Armor and Customization

Mass Effect: You bought or found armor at various places throughout the galaxy. Same deal with weapons.

Mass Effect 2: You can no longer buy armor. Instead, you buy pieces of armor, like new helmets or chest plating, then put them together to create your own unique look. Besides mixing and matching parts, you can also choose the colors of your armor and even the shininess of it. Some people might miss the way things worked in the first game, but I like it this way.

Weapons and Ammo

Mass Effect: You had an unlimited amount of ammo. The only thing you had to worry about was your weapon overheating from too many shots fired too often.

Mass Effect 2: You're given a set amount of clips that keep your weapons from overheating. When you run out of clips, you can no longer fire your weapons. It's ammo, basically. This will more than likely bother a lot of Mass Effect fans, but I found it kind of nice. Like in the TV show Firefly, ammo makes the experience feel a bit more realistic -- I'll take bullets over plasma any day. Although I do miss the sci-fi-tastic PEW PEW PEW sounds.

Sex, Sex, and More Sex

Mass Effect: You had two romantic relationship options. After you got to know these prospective love interests, you bunked up and did the nasty (which got certain news networks all hot and bothered).

Mass Effect 2: You can pretty much have sex with anything that moves. Seriously. Even outside of the main love interests (of which there are many), several characters, some of which you might not even run into depending on your choices in the first game, will randomly come on to you, from asking you to "drop by sometime" to straight up kissing. Oh, and you can buy an alien porn mag all about tentacles. But all joking aside, the sexuality in Mass Effect 2 is approached with a lot more maturity than the first game, focusing on character, interaction, history, love, etc. -- not just having sex with blue ladies.

I'm sure I've missed a few of the other changes made in Mass Effect 2, but these are the ones I appreciated most. How about you? What changes have you liked so far? What changes have you hated? What changes did you want that BioWare didn't address in the sequel? Let me know in the comments.