[quote name='Temporaryscars']Not true at all. It changed elements of the story. In my first game, I didn't kill Wrex, yet in this game, since I didn't have my save, he was dead. Had I used my save, he would have still been alive. Huhdur.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, and the difference between Wrex being alive and Wrex being dead was superficial. They just replaced him with his cousin or something. And the dialogue changed a bit, but no new gameplay was opened up and no existing gameplay was unaccessible because of your choices. Everything was superficial at best -- and the most "game changing" import was the council, where you got to go before them and hear a bunch of crap that didn't really matter either.
If killing Wrex didn't allow you to recruit Grunt or somehow gave you some extra non-superficial sidequests or gave you help during one of the fights, then an effect was had. Every "change" to the story was superficial and pretty much had ZERO actual impact to anything that really mattered.
Now Dragon Age, as much as I wasn't a fan of the game, did it right. Did you choose A or B -- 1 or 2... it matters because of who will stay in your party and who will leave, it matters because of who will show up in the giant scale final battle -- and it's not just superficial sprites. All of the allies you make come to support you and they're all different with different abilities and stats.
[quote name='Maklershed']There was more to it than that. There were certain characters you could talk to that would normally be NPCs if you didn't have a save from ME1. Most times it was just dialogue but sometimes they gave you stuff or activated side missions. Either way its kind of cool when you're walking through a space port and you hear "Hey Commander Shepherd! Remember me?!"[/QUOTE]
That's not really "more to it" from my perspective -- they're still superficial -- you *maybe* get some minor quest (like the dude Conrad or whatever in the one spaceport) or someone with a message. It doesn't change the game, it doesn't have an affect on the story. It's just like saying "oh yeah, and the hobbits got drunk one night while they were traveling to Rivendell".