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[Iakus]

Turin_4 wrote...

2 Collectors Potentially a truly intriguing, and scary, yet sad and
sympathetic villain. Totally wasted in facor of shooting mercs
constantly. The Big Reveal is pretty much an afterthought.

To an extent, I agree.  ME2 failed to capitalize on the full potential of the Collectors as intriguing and terrifying...but simultaneously dreadful and pitiable.  One thing that could have been done, for example, is to return to Ilos, recover more Prothean technology and culture.  And see what the Protheans actually were, versus what they actually are.  Get a real sense of what they've lost, or more accurately what's been stolen from them.  The reliance on mercs was a mistake: mercs should have played a big role in the game, because after all, a ****-ton of the military died out in ME1 so there would be a power-vaccuum, but not the near-exclusive role they DID play.

Exaactly.  The Collectors were a wasted opportunity to see the galaxy's past, compare it to the present, and show us what could be in store for the races in the near future. 

3 Shepard's death: Cheap, melodramatic, and heavy-handed use of the
Phased Linear Oscillating Transducer device to reset the game. What were
they thinking? Really, what were they thinking? Death is supposed to be a big deal.  Not an extended sabbatical for the hero!

*shrug*  Different strokes, I guess.  Didn't seem cheap or melodramatic to me, and it did seem like quite the bid deal.

It should have been a big deal, but was introduced, and promptly forgotten about.  Death needs to mean something.  Particularly death for as long as two years.  That has an impact on many levels: Medically, philosophically, legally, technologically, psychologically, religiously.  Saying "we can ressurect you even if you've been dead for years, suffered vacuum exposure, absolute sero temperatures, radiation exposure, and terminal velocity into the side of a planet.  It's just really really expensive" turns it all into, yes , a PLOT device. 

There's enough stuff to mine from ressurecting the "Savior of the Citadel" to make a game all of it's own.  How was it accomplished?  Are there any side-effects, physical or mental?  Is it really Shepard they brought back, or is it an AI with Shep's thoughts and emotions?  How can one tell?  Or is it a fusion of some kind, boith human and machine?  Or none of the above,  a new identity completely?  Even if it really was Shep, just how human is Shepard now?   These are questions that could really help a player shape his/her Shepard into a your own personal "Commander Shepard"

But all it's used for in the game is an excuse to keep Shep out of the way while two years go by.  An extended deep-space mission could have done the same.  Few people seem to really care that Shepard was "meat" and is now "not-meat"  No one asks (before LOTSB) how Shepard's handling this.  No one even asks "Did you see a light?" even though both Thane and Mordin are known to have religious interests.  No one wonders what kind of tech Cerberus must have researched/stolen/reverse-engineered to have accomplished this.  No one asks, and no one cares, when it should be a huge deal.

I think Smudboy put it best in his plot analysis: "If the hero of the galaxy comes back from the dead, that should mean something.  To everyone who knew them, and what they did.  For severel reasons.  Not just get disscounts at stores."

4) Squadmates. In a character-centric game, the characters don't
talk to each other and barely acknowledge each others existence. How
does that make sense?

I agree with that, though it's a criticism for all video-games, and one I think ME2 just goes with the genre, sadly.

True, However: 1)  Bioware has always been a cut above other game developers in this.  They have had group banter and companion personalities all the way back to the first Baldur's Gate game.  and 2) This game was supposed to be different, it was supposed to be charactger-centric.  As such, you'd expect more charactarization, Yet you see incredibly little in ME 2, save the personal missions. You take each character off the shelf, give that one a personality, then put them back on the shelf and move on to the next one.

6 Harbringer: This from the company that gave us Saverok, Jon
Irenicus, the Valsharess, Darths Revan and Malak, Sun Li, Saren
Arterius, and Logain Mac Tir gave us, that???

In this game, you also get the Illusive Man who I thought was pretty darn impressive. 

Unfortunately, I was less impressed.  Less by the Illusive Man as how limited you are in dealing with him.  You can't fling Cerberus' crimes back at him, canonly put up token resistence to his methods, you can't even bring up Akuze or Kahoku.  This may be part of the "kinder, gentler Cerberus" I also find annoying. I would have been far more impressed if TIM was presented as admitting to all the terrible things Cerberus does and is unapologetic about it, rather than all these cells "going rogue" 

Modifié par iakus, 27 septembre 2010 - 04:26 .

[Getorex]

Turin_4 wrote...

Inventory as handled in ME1 was just silly. I'm not sure why anyone was 'dying' without it. What, items you largely never used but eventually had to press a button to convert to omni-gel many times when you killed something? Something you had to check everytime on the rare chance you got a useful mod, only to keep for the also rare times when that mod would be necessary-even on insanity runs? Making runs to the stores and requisition officer to sell things, getting some satisfaction as credits mounted...then mid-game realizing, "Hey, wait a second, I can't actually buy anything with this friggin' money!" Particularly if you were playing through again.

I had a problem having to pay MY requisition officer anything.  He's paid to do his job, he ain't freelance, and certainly not on MY ship and in a uniform.  I tell him what I want or need, he gets it.  That's the way it works.  I didn't see a Halliburten logo on his uniform.

[Darth Drago]

Just going to touch on this real quick...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

I think this is a bad topic, because it will make moderators direct critique to this thread with the excuse to tidy the forum. That ensures that no one has to read it, so anyone pro-BW is happy. I therefor urge people to start new threads instead of posting here so that the critique becomes visible.

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

AntiChri5 wrote...

Wow Water.......wow.
You do realise that that sort of thing only leads to people who have complaints being labeled "haters" and completely dismissed and ignored, right?

You do realize that this is already happening and every day practice, right? This thread is just a way to get rid of other opinions.

I have to agree with AngryFrozenWater on this. It is annoying to know that anyone who has any issues with the game and makes a separate topic about it will likely get it locked and redirected here. Heaven forbid those of us should be able to have our say on what we thought was wrong with the game in as specific as we can make them.

However, knowing that this has been the case since ME2 came out, it is far better to have a central active thread that we all can have our say in. They may try and keep our opinions muffled and isolated on this but as long as things remain as civil as the last thread, they cant silence us.

I do urge those that have specific gripes about Mass Effect 2 to make their own thread focusing on their opinions about it and if or when it gets locked send me a note with a link to it and I will add it to my “Reserved” comment spot (I thought ahead this time). This will work for any older topics anyone has started as well. I will warn you that it might take a few days to a week to get it added since I’m not here as often as I would like.


I will take this time to thank everyone who made the last thread a success with 411 fairly civil pages that lasted over 7 months. With that said, its not like any one from BioWare bothered to comment on anything that we said let alone that they even looked at anything we posted in it. At least we can say we tried, right.

Now with this thread in the Spoilers Forum we can really let loose the hounds without worrying about giving anything away.

I’ll be back in a bit with my opinion on a few things, some old, some new but all reedited to add spoilers of course. Starting with the downloadable content, what went right and what went wrong.

Modifié par Darth Drago, 27 septembre 2010 - 02:21 .

[Merlin 47]

Pluses for ME 2
- No more lugging around X ammount of weapons/armor/mods
- Combat was more challenging
- Characters were more in depth
- Art direction was much better
- Thermal Clips (no more "point-and-shoot" forever)
- No more Mako


Minuses for ME 2
- Story elements (see below)
- Character conversations
- Skill Tree


After playing ME 2, I really can't play ME 1 anymore.  If I do play it, it's because I want to import a different Shepard from ME 1 (basically, I'm playing a speed run - do as much as I can, in the shortest amount of time as possible). My biggest gripes come from the story, actually.  It was decent; as already said by others, a Saren/Sovereign hybrid as opposed to a baby Reaper, give me the Saren/Sovereign hybrid.  I liked the fight through the Collector base, though.  Never really cared fighing up the side of the Citadel, to be honest.

And why were Paragon players FORCED to work with Cerberus?  It made no sense!  If it was shown that the Alliance and the Council really weren't willing to work with you, then sure, maybe I could buy it.  But no, it was assumed right from the get-go that you were working with Cerberus.  And why will Garrus, Tali, Liara and Wrex automatically trust you, as well as Anderson, but not Ash (I can't speak for Kaiden, because I never saved him in any playthrough I did, so I don't know if he reacts any...nicer or not)?

The skill tree system; yeah....I agree with Revan312.  Immunity was removed, which was good, but just toss us a few more skill points and maybe a different skill or two for everyone, so at least there'd be some sort "customization" for squad members.  And speaking of squad members, why are we limited to so much conversation with them if we're not romancing them?  I said this in a different thread, but does Garrus' callibrations really need to devote that much time to them?  Serioiusly?

I think it was best summed up by others - ME 1 had a bit of a better story, but crappy gameplay.  ME 2 had the better gameplay, but a somewhat crappy story (depending on who you asked).

Modifié par Merlin 47, 27 septembre 2010 - 02:46 .

[Dr. Doom]

I want a blind fire mechanic, better inventory, customizable DLC armor, jet pack, side quests (I dont hate the Mako or the Hammerhead), Romance options for all squad mates, multiple simultaneous romance plot lines, and male homosexuality for ME3.

Better plot in general besides just recruiting Badasses.

Not too much to ask I think.

Modifié par Dr. Doom, 27 septembre 2010 - 03:28 .

[brgillespie]

411 pages of posts and you create another topic about it? What more remains to be said?

[Nightwriter]

ME2 did characters better. ME1 did story better. Way, way better. I think it all comes down to what's important or unimportant to you. Characters, or story?

I need both and can't go without either. So ME2 fell flat in a lot of ways.

[Terror_K]

With character it depends. ME2's characters were more larger than life and came across as a little superpowered and more like ideal stereotypes with a theme than real characters, but I can forgive that because you really were supposed to be gathering the best of the best. ME1's characters weren't as exciting, but I would never call them dull or boring. They were just more down to earth and more average, and as such they actually felt a little more real to me than ME2's. That's basically my take on characters in both games.

[Nightwriter]

My perception of ME2's story was totally screwed up by my having played ME1 first. I thought we were going to go in a certain direction and we didn't.

[Ragnarok521]

 -Compared to ME1  UNC side-quests, I found many of the ME2 UNC side-quests to be very unfufilling. In ME1 you almost always were given a chance to build on your Shepard's character or personality in some way by giving Shepard the option to talk his or her way out of a confrontation or how to react to the situation. This is gone in just about all of the ME2 UNC quests however, and makes them little more than little shooting galleries from point A to point B. Also squadmates in ME1 sometimes had a comment or two about what was happening, but in ME2 they usually just stand there blankly saying nothing the whole time.

-There was little done to actually make us feel more for the colonists that were abducted. Of course you'd feel bad for them for being hauled away by the Collectors, but it's just left at that. Horizon, and even Freedom's Progress were missed opportunities to add some emotional weight to them. Shepard could have found recordings left from a family about happy times or found a now abandoned children's room with toys scattered about. Imagine how much more motivated players would be to kick the Collector's extraterrestrial butts and bring those people back home.

-Speaking of the Collectors, they weren't really shown as much as they should have considering they're supposed to be the guys who you're putting all this work into defeating. The main enemies of the game might as well have just been mercenaries, as that's who you're fighting 90% of the time. In my opinion the lack of the Collectors' prominence would have been more tolerable if there was more of a variation of who you were fighting instead Merc Company Yellow, Merc Company Blue, and Merc Company Red.

-Planet scanning, a common complaint. At least the Mako gave us some great views. Bioware's on the right track though in my opinion as recent work has shown.

-Despite the main point of the game being to build a team to go on a suicide mission, there's little actual interaction between the teammates. Something that comes to mind on the subject is Knights of the Old Republic 2, where occasionally when you return to your ship, you'd see your crew interacting with one another, whether that be just getting to know each other, getting on each others' nerves, or getting ready to fight over you if they were love interests to the players' character.

-My beef with the walking animation for Shepard may just be me being nitpicky, but it just looks so unnatural, like Shepard's walking around with a stick up...you get my point.

-The "The Collectors are Protheans" deal had a lot of untapped potential. See previous posts from others since they did a good job of explaining this.

-Garrus needs more to talk about than just calibrations, that is all.

Aaaand...that's all I've got right now. I'll probably edit this later if anything else comes to mind, or just make another post.

Modifié par Ragnarok521, 27 septembre 2010 - 04:57 .

[Nightwriter]

Only in conversations you overheard between crewmen on the Normandy, I believe. And in EDI's dialogue at the end of the game about the Prothean Reaper failing.

[Whereto]

ME2 was a much better game though there is something that makes ME1 better. Maybe its the story, maybe that its was a new experience, maybe that it wasnt super high res textures or maybe its the fact that even though it was glitchy and annoying at times it had some of the best missions and characters of all time. You really do feel all alone, like mates on an adventure especially in Noveria(my fav mission) It just felt good.



If me3 can replicate that i will be amazing but if it doesnt and turns out like me2 except with some better features and plot it will be good

[Turin_4]

It should have been a big deal, but was introduced, and promptly
forgotten about.  Death needs to mean something.  Particularly death for
as long as two years.  That has an impact on many levels: Medically,
philosophically, legally, technologically, psychologically,
religiously.  Saying "we can ressurect you even if you've been dead for
years, suffered vacuum exposure, absolute sero temperatures, radiation
exposure, and terminal velocity into the side of a planet.  It's just
really really expensive" turns it all into, yes , a PLOT device.

Absolute zero temperatures?   It seemed like a big deal because of the people who were missing from Shepard's life and the crew who was gone, not because of the impact on Shepard's medical life personally.  The opening cutscenes conveyed, to me, quite well that this is The Future and in feats of incredible medical science, many of the issues simply don't matter much.  Religion?  When did that play much of a role in either ME1?  Philosophically?  Yes, they could have played that up a bit more, sure.  They could have done a lot of things.  It's a valid criticism.  Is it a game-breaking, "It's now a terrible plot-device," thing?  No, I don't think it is.

There's enough stuff to mine from ressurecting the "Savior of the
Citadel" to make a game all of it's own.  How was it accomplished?  Are
there any side-effects, physical or mental?  Is it really Shepard they
brought back, or is it an AI with Shep's thoughts and emotions?  How can
one tell?  Or is it a fusion of some kind, boith human and machine?  Or
none of the above,  a new identity completely?  Even if it really was
Shep, just how human is Shepard now?   These are questions that could
really help a player shape his/her Shepard into a your own personal
"Commander Shepard"

Yes, there are, but remember: video game.  You're demanding an incredible amount of nuance here from what has to also be an exploration game, a shooter game, and an other-character driven dialogue game.  You're really starting to stray into, IMO, "They didn't make the absolutely perfect infinitesimally detailed game they should have made game," criticisms here.  I'm reminded a bit of people complaining that Tom Bombadil didn't make it into the LotR movies.

But all it's used for in the game is an excuse to keep Shep out
of the way while two years go by.  An extended deep-space mission could
have done the same.  Few people seem to really care that Shepard was
"meat" and is now "not-meat"  No one asks (before LOTSB) how Shepard's
handling this.  No one even asks "Did you see a light?" even though both
Thane and Mordin are known to have religious interests.  No one wonders
what kind of tech Cerberus must have
researched/stolen/reverse-engineered to have accomplished this.  No one
asks, and no one cares, when it should be a huge deal.

This is a more reasonable criticism, I think.  The mechanics and some of the dirty deeds Cerberus must have done to accomplish the resurrection (what an interesting moral dilemma that poses) is something Shepard would naturally be interested in, a Paragon Shepard anyway.  Though I do think you're overstating Moridin's case a bit.  He's fascinated by religion, but not quite interested.

I think Smudboy put it best in his plot analysis: "If the hero of
the galaxy comes back from the dead, that should mean something.  To
everyone who knew them, and what they did.  For severel reasons.  Not
just get disscounts at stores."

Ah, smudboy.  How would that particular if-only be expressed in the game?  Visiting everyone you encountered in the first game and have them give iterations of, "OMG it's Shepard!"

True, However: 1)  Bioware has always been a cut above other game
developers in this.  They have had group banter and companion
personalities all the way back to the first Baldur's Gate game.  and 2)
This game was supposed to be different, it was supposed to be charactger-centric.  As such, you'd expect more
charactarization, Yet you see incredibly little in ME 2, save the
personal missions. You take each character off the shelf, give that one a
personality, then put them back on the shelf and move on to the next
one.

I think in this game they were still a cut above other game developers, but y'all are expecting them to be like, ******-sapiens above neanderthals above.  And I believe the game was character-centric.  Your the extent of your success in the game depends on how character-driven you decide Shepard is, but when you say you want more character interaction, what do you mean in practice?  For instance, when Shepard is talking with some random person somewhere and her two squad mates are with her...will they be interjecting random back chatter or something?  Even disagreeing or some such?  I mean, get specific with your criticism, or else it's just typical Internet complaining, seriously man.

Unfortunately, I was less impressed.  Less by the Illusive Man as
how limited you are in dealing with him.  You can't fling Cerberus'
crimes back at him, canonly put up token resistence to his methods, you
can't even bring up Akuze or Kahoku.  This may be part of the "kinder,
gentler Cerberus" I also find annoying. I would have been far more
impressed if TIM was presented as admitting to all the terrible things
Cerberus does and is unapologetic about it, rather than all these cells
"going rogue"

If I remember, you can put up quite blunt resistance to Cerberus, outside the Collector/Reaper missions.  You can forward Cerberus intel to the Alliance and, of course, ultimately keep the Collector base out of Cerberus hands.

[Getorex]

Turin_4 wrote...

It should have been a big deal, but was introduced, and promptly
forgotten about.  Death needs to mean something.  Particularly death for
as long as two years.  That has an impact on many levels: Medically,
philosophically, legally, technologically, psychologically,
religiously.  Saying "we can ressurect you even if you've been dead for
years, suffered vacuum exposure, absolute sero temperatures, radiation
exposure, and terminal velocity into the side of a planet.  It's just
really really expensive" turns it all into, yes , a PLOT device.

Absolute zero temperatures?   It seemed like a big deal because of the people who were missing from Shepard's life and the crew who was gone, not because of the impact on Shepard's medical life personally.  The opening cutscenes conveyed, to me, quite well that this is The Future and in feats of incredible medical science, many of the issues simply don't matter much.  Religion?  When did that play much of a role in either ME1?  Philosophically?  Yes, they could have played that up a bit more, sure.  They could have done a lot of things.  It's a valid criticism.  Is it a game-breaking, "It's now a terrible plot-device," thing?  No, I don't think it is.

There's enough stuff to mine from ressurecting the "Savior of the
Citadel" to make a game all of it's own.  How was it accomplished?  Are
there any side-effects, physical or mental?  Is it really Shepard they
brought back, or is it an AI with Shep's thoughts and emotions?  How can
one tell?  Or is it a fusion of some kind, boith human and machine?  Or
none of the above,  a new identity completely?  Even if it really was
Shep, just how human is Shepard now?   These are questions that could
really help a player shape his/her Shepard into a your own personal
"Commander Shepard"

Yes, there are, but remember: video game.  You're demanding an incredible amount of nuance here from what has to also be an exploration game, a shooter game, and an other-character driven dialogue game.  You're really starting to stray into, IMO, "They didn't make the absolutely perfect infinitesimally detailed game they should have made game," criticisms here.  I'm reminded a bit of people complaining that Tom Bombadil didn't make it into the LotR movies.

The resurrection thing struck a slightly discordant gong with me.  If you can resurrect someone who was dessicated and largely burned to a cinder (not just mostly dead, but like TOTALLY dead) then there's no worries about losing squadmates.  Mordin (who I kept losing in the suicide mission until I got Kasumi) didn't need to be buried at space, he could have simply been put in the cooler and resurrected back home.  He is in MUCH better shape than Shepard was when he was resurrected so it should be a piece of cake (he was just MOSTLY dead).  Kaiden from ME1?  Hell, if you can find any cellular debris from his body at all, you can resurrect him from his death (TOTALLY dead, like Shap in ME2 - also, anyone who's a real guy doesn't gets that babe Ash killed, even if you found her somewhat annoying - she was a hottie and her butt was infinitely superior to the hairy butt of Kaiden's). 

Perhaps they could have had Shepard kidnapped/snagged alive by Cerberus with Cerb making everyone believe he had died so they would all move on.  Then there's no near-magical resurrection from dessicated cinders.  Cerb could then have, against Shep's will, held him and ultimately forced him to see the danger of the missing colonists (the Council seems to poo-poo/ignore this afterall) as something greater than otherwise believed.  THEN Shep could have been forced to reluctantly work with Cerb after being released and trying (and failing) to get the Council involved.  All the rest ("You work for Cerberus now?!" could have ensued as per ME2).  Ah well, that's neither here nor there. 

I agree with the consensus (in THIS thread) that there were some lost opportunities for interesting story points, case in point: The Protheans being Collectors really is a Big Deal and deserved much more than a "Well, that's a shame. Let's go".  The Protheans are near-mythic greats in the ME universe.  Their sudden disappearance a mystery.  The revelation that they didn't quite disappear should be quite big.

That all said, it IS a game, the game engine DOES have limitations, the designers DO have constraints (hardware, software, time, and economic) that they must work within.  Sure, they may have benefited the story and its unfolding if they had gone all Babylon 5 with it first:  Babs 5 didn't begin filming before the ENTIRE story arc had been thorougly mapped out.  Straczynski, the creator, had mapped out the entire story and knew precisely when the series would end and how.  THEN filming began and the story unfolded according to the map with room for side stories that never conflicted with the main story arc to fill in the episodes (consider them side missions and DLC equivalents).  Game designers and producers would REALLY have to be dedicated to a particular game to go to this extent - but they can't know if the game will click and support itself until they get it out there so they can't necessarily expend all the money/effort to do a complete prelim job on a full story beforehand.  I give Bioware credit for what they've done and understand that it is difficult and, by nature, has to be somewhat ad-hoc.  They simply cannot make the game all things to all people.  The game engine isn't up to the task, nor are the other factors involved with the entire enterprise. 

[smudboy]

Getorex wrote...
That all said, it IS a game, the game engine DOES have limitations, the designers DO have constraints (hardware, software, time, and economic) that they must work within.  Sure, they may have benefited the story and its unfolding if they had gone all Babylon 5 with it first:  Babs 5 didn't begin filming before the ENTIRE story arc had been thorougly mapped out.  Straczynski, the creator, had mapped out the entire story and knew precisely when the series would end and how.  THEN filming began and the story unfolded according to the map with room for side stories that never conflicted with the main story arc to fill in the episodes (consider them side missions and DLC equivalents).  Game designers and producers would REALLY have to be dedicated to a particular game to go to this extent - but they can't know if the game will click and support itself until they get it out there so they can't necessarily expend all the money/effort to do a complete prelim job on a full story beforehand.  I give Bioware credit for what they've done and understand that it is difficult and, by nature, has to be somewhat ad-hoc.  They simply cannot make the game all things to all people.  The game engine isn't up to the task, nor are the other factors involved with the entire enterprise. 

I do not recall writers being limited by their imagination, only their knowledge of reality and being able to mesh those two together properly.

Mad props to Babylon 5 reference.  Some people just don't understand good writing, or how absolutely unbelievable the Shepard resurrection scene is, because "it's a game" or "it's science fiction" or some completely nonsensical bias they have.

It is a not a massive act of effort to write a sentence, and to have a voice actor say that sentence, that clarifies wtf is going on.  The problem with resurrection is you might need a few more sentences to explain it.  Or pay a modeler to create a Lazarus Machine or something.

[achwas]

AntiChri5 wrote...

And i hope we keep the Inventory on the ship, not as a magical invisible pocket into an alternate dimension that can stop time so we can change into a different hardsuit and change the barrel of a gun.

second that

Anyway, to be frank about it, I hardly ever use any variations in my weapon set-up, especially in the "heavy" department. Up until  Horizon, I pick/stay with the GL, after that the Partcile Beam. everything else is just fluff and "fun-use-only". Most of the heavy weapons were.... useless anyway. Cain 920-M ? Far too complicated and slow to use, Arc Thrower.. lol, the DLC Flamethrower was nice but its range rendered it uselss and the Cryogun... meh... never mind the great missile launcher which keeps shooting ammunition of at target's i never intended to shoot, instead of that YMIR mech chewing through my squad.... as for changing my armour in mid-mission ? No freaking way....

So what would I actually need/want an inventory for, nevermind the lack of realism, even in an space opera Sci-fi game ???

Keep the interface the way it is, it's just nigh perfect - the only glitch I felt is the fact that you cannot really pick a different weapon directly through hotkeys - you need either the "shift" menu or scroll through them... sucky, but only a minor oversight.


Everything else.... I liked the character selection, tactical squad-choice restrictions and the involved loyalty missions - more so than in ME-1 with its limited cast (of which I strongly detested two... out of six)  , but could have lived with less people on my squad, say eight or nine total, including the DLC.
For variation, something like the Samara loyalty choice would have been a better tool - recruit char A or her substitute Char B...
Several of the companions were pretty redundant anyway in the first place - Samara (never actually used her except as the biotic shield in the suicide run), Grunt (sorry to say, your powers are just a tad too limited  ), Zaeed (who is fun, but strictly second fiddle to Garrus, the IMHO all around best choice as a soldier ) and especially Jacob (who had his sole moment of Glory on the final mission as the escort for the crew). Once the Kasumi DLC arrived, Tali became highly redundant too.

Some more storyline missions that were not loyalty missions would have been desirable. Frankly, the ME-2 story is Prologue ---> Horizon -----> Collector ship ---- Reaper vessel -----> Finale. And that's supposed to be all ? IMHO, it was just enough to to become totally embarassing....

As a solution, some more missions working directly for Cerberus and TIM finding further data on the Collector/Reaper connection, slowly building the horrible realization of its nature would have been... more awesome and giving a stronger sense of the things at stake ? Some more moral conflict for paragon Shepards to lock horns over with TIM or renegade Shepards to chafe being kept under a yoke by the missions requirements.

The loyalty missions, however entertaining in themselves, were just very short and mostly unrelated novellas and distracted from the main plot - since very little in them actually affected the main story arc, except for the game-mechanic:  "loyalty". 
Yes they had nice backstory. Yes, some of them sprang directly from ME-1. Nevertheless, a few less characters, if more than in ME-1 would have been ok, and sorry, Tali's story for example would have been quite ok if it had occured off-screen.

If so many characters (10/12 with DLC) had to be involved, it should have been more of a balancing act to keep all of them happy, or even involve some choice whether to keep Garrus (a straight heroic vigilante) or Jack ( a straight villain, if a useful and possibly tragic one ). I never could honestly picture them coexisting in the same room.. Something similar for Grunt (all instinct and violence) and Thane (spirtual and anti-violence), nevermind Samara (uptight) and Jack (wildly unrestrained) .
A more evolved loyalty system like the one in Dragon Age: Origins would have been more challenging/entertaining and better overall. Oh, and not being focred to recruit Legion almost near the end of the story arc would have been vastly appreciated - he is a wonderful character and added an entirely new aspect to the universe, after the Geth being the cannon-fodder bad guys of ME-1.

All of the above is griping and criticism on a very high threshold of happiness though - personally I see ME-2 score 93% out of 100%, compared to like 85% for Me-1, many of whose weaknesses were eliminated.

In resumee :
- Tune the "squad-building" aspect down some for ME-3. Add more beef to the main-plot in comparison.
- Do not penalize the "I have missed ME-1" crowd as much as in ME-2.  I actually dug up and bit-for-bit restored an  old ME-1 save from a crashed hard-drive, when I saw the amount of stuff I missed out on with a "brand-new" character modeled on my ME-1 toon.
- More plot for ME-3, even if cutscene material gets re-used. I can live with dialogued exposition in the briefing room or the Normandy's bridge if it  actually pertains to the story.


PS please install an armour" selection interface somewhere near the main bridge, say, in  the armoury instead of the captain's cabin (which is an elevator's ride - in both directions ) away. The weapons' locker in the armoury I could have lived without - since it pops up anyway at the beginning of each mission. Taking a five minute trip to my cabin and back to integrate some purchased piece of armour... aggravating !

Modifié par achwas, 27 septembre 2010 - 02:49 .

[Getorex]

achwas wrote...

AntiChri5 wrote...

And i hope we keep the Inventory on the ship, not as a magical invisible pocket into an alternate dimension that can stop time so we can change into a different hardsuit and change the barrel of a gun.

second that

Anyway, to be frank about it, I hardly ever use any variations in my weapon set-up, especially in the "heavy" department. Up horizon, I pick the GL, after that the Partcile Beam. everything else is just fluff and "fun-use-only". Most of the heavy weapons were.... useless anyway. Cain 920 ? too complicated and slow to use, Arc Thrower.. lol, the DLC Flamethrower was nice but its range rendered it uselss and the Cryogun... meh... chaninging my armour in mid-mission ? No freaking way....

Hey!  Don't diss the Arc Thrower.  That weapon will nail a whole bunch of people in one blow. 

Dislike the Cain.  Slow and one-off only.  Once you shoot your wad, you might as well be allowed to drop that thing as dead weight.

I LOVE the new Mattock.  An AR the way ARs were meant to be made (semiauto biotch!  no spray-and-pray crap).

[Shirosaki17]

Even Babylon 5 had little plot holes due to actors leaving. I don't think the story ended up anywhere close to what it originally would have been.

The resurrection thing struck a slightly discordant gong with me. If you can resurrect someone who was dessicated and largely burned to a cinder (not just mostly dead, but like TOTALLY dead) then there's no worries about losing squadmates. Mordin (who I kept losing in the suicide mission until I got Kasumi) didn't need to be buried at space, he could have simply been put in the cooler and resurrected back home. He is in MUCH better shape than Shepard was when he was resurrected so it should be a piece of cake (he was just MOSTLY dead). Kaiden from ME1? Hell, if you can find any cellular debris from his body at all, you can resurrect him from his death (TOTALLY dead, like Shap in ME2 - also, anyone who's a real guy doesn't gets that babe Ash killed, even if you found her somewhat annoying - she was a hottie and her butt was infinitely superior to the hairy butt of Kaiden's).

A nuke would have instantly incinerated the squadmate that died on Virmire to ash. Shepard's body was more or less intact even though it went through an atmosphere. I mean you can see his armor in LotSB and find his helmet in the Normandy mission. If those didn't burn up then it's basically implying that the armor protected his body. I'm sure it doesn't make sense for the armor or body to survive actually entering an atmosphere, but that's how they wrote it. And that's the best idea they could come up with to start a new game and give you a chance to choose a new class and start at lvl 1 again I guess. Wondering what they will do for ME3. I'm guessing they are going to give you the option of changing classes and you will probably start at lvl 1 again.

Modifié par Shirosaki17, 27 septembre 2010 - 02:31 .

[achwas]

Hey!  Don't diss the Arc Thrower.  That weapon will nail a whole bunch of people in one blow. 

Dislike the Cain.  Slow and one-off only.  Once you shoot your wad, you might as well be allowed to drop that thing as dead weight.

I LOVE the new Mattock.  An AR the way ARs were meant to be made (semiauto biotch!  no spray-and-pray crap).

I do agree, fully. but AoE effect weapons are less useful in most of the game, and absolutely second rate to shockwave.  The cain... I actually restored more times from quicksaves learning to use it, than actually firing it in anger on missions. Maximum suckage has never been more accurately been  named than 920-M^^

As for the "Mattock" - that weapon is just insanely powerful, even if not used on a soldier. A "heavy weapon" in disguise

[Getorex]

Shirosaki17 wrote...

Even Babylon 5 had little plot holes due to actors leaving. I don't think the story ended up anywhere close to what it originally would have been.

The resurrection thing struck a slightly discordant gong with me. If you can resurrect someone who was dessicated and largely burned to a cinder (not just mostly dead, but like TOTALLY dead) then there's no worries about losing squadmates. Mordin (who I kept losing in the suicide mission until I got Kasumi) didn't need to be buried at space, he could have simply been put in the cooler and resurrected back home. He is in MUCH better shape than Shepard was when he was resurrected so it should be a piece of cake (he was just MOSTLY dead). Kaiden from ME1? Hell, if you can find any cellular debris from his body at all, you can resurrect him from his death (TOTALLY dead, like Shap in ME2 - also, anyone who's a real guy doesn't gets that babe Ash killed, even if you found her somewhat annoying - she was a hottie and her butt was infinitely superior to the hairy butt of Kaiden's).

A nuke would have instantly incinerated the squadmate that died on Virmire to ash. Shepard's body was more or less intact even though it went through an atmosphere. I mean you can see his armor in LotSB and find his helmet in the Normandy mission. If those didn't burn up then it's basically implying that the armor protected his body. I'm sure it doesn't make sense for the armor or body to survive actually entering an atmosphere, but that's how they wrote it. And that's the best idea they could come up with to start a new game and give you a chance to choose a new class and start at lvl 1 again I guess. Wondering what they will do for ME3. I'm guessing they are going to give you the option of changing classes and you will probably start at lvl 1 again.

Well, in truth a nuke doesn't mean automatic vaporization.  That only applies in/near the actual fireball.  Outside, you are incinerated.  Further away you get the blast effect AND incineration.  Further away still you get blast effect.  Unless Kaiden was IN the fireball zone, he would not have vaporized...but that's neither here nor there and nitnoidy.  I would sincerely hope that ME3 doesn't reboot you to lvl 1.  ME2 didn't really do that to you either IF you imported your game from ME1.  WIth import, you start out in a better position than a cold noob starting out in ME2.  The same should go with ME3.  I agree that they probably did the death/incineration thing to simply give you a chance to reset your class - but it was also because they compromised by making ME2 virtually standalone from ME1 for the sake of noobs.  I really hope they do NOT do this for ME3.  No one who is STARTING with ME3 should be catered to.  They can at least play ME2.  Better yet, PLAY ME1 DAMNIT!

It would do a great deal to f*ck up the ME3 experience if they cater to noobs and dilettantes who start at the end.  They aren't worth catering to since it would totally jack up the millions who have been there all along.  Lowest common denominator isn't always a good thing.

Modifié par Getorex, 27 septembre 2010 - 02:44 .