Pacifien wrote...
I actually think that's an oversimplification of the issue. Mass Effect 1 never had the elements of a hardcore RPG. There is so very little lost of its already weak RPG roots in the transition to Mass Effect 2 that it confounds me as to what it's missing that irks people so.
I probably shouldn't have used the word "hardcore there"; as you say, ME1 was also RPG-lite. What I'm trying to get at is that one side wants it to become more RPG and the other wants it to become less RPG.
I think everyone was happy with the improved shooting, but many people did not like the removal of an inventory system and weapon customization options. These are features of RPG games, and instead of fixing them so that they were better than they were in ME1 (they were pretty bad) after complaints, they just removed them entirely.
Mass Effect 2, on the flip side, is hardly a heavy shooter game. No really, is anyone who played Halo Reach putting Mass Effect 2 in the same league?
Woah, slow down there, tiger. Halo Reach is a dinosaur of a game, trapped in shooter design from 2004, just like Halo ODST and Halo 3. Mass Effect 2 is a significantly better game.
In what sense of the word is Mass Effect 2 "hardly a heavy shooter"? Do you mean there isn't much shooting? That's obviously wrong, you spend as much or more time shooting as in combat, the campaign has perhaps 12-14 hours of combat in its 25 hour run-time. There are only two differences from a regular Cover Shooter like Gears of War, and that is you level up and can deploy some abilities. But that does NOT mean it is "not a shooter", the abilities just act like grenades or gadgets or suit-powers or what have you from other games.
Arguing that ME2 is not a shooter because a fair part of the game isn't shooting is like saying Uncharted 2 isn't a shooter because there is platforming sections to break up the gunplay. It's absolutely a shooter. It's an RPG also, but a very light one.
I don't play shooters and I don't play Mass Effect casually. And I'm probably deemed by those reading this thread as being on the side of a Mass Effect 2 apologist. But there was much that needed improving in Mass Effect 1 and, while I don't feel that Mass Effect 2 necessarily achieved what I wanted in that regard, I find there was much in the design of Mass Effect 2 that is done well. I enjoyed the game. I play Mass Effect 2 in a manner that I never played Mass Effect 1. And I still play and enjoy Mass Effect 1. There are elements from both games that I feel are necessary for an improved third game.
My feelings on Mass Effect 2 are that it was three steps forward, one step back. It is a significantly better game overall, but that is not to say that ME1 didn't do some things better, or that ME2 is perfect or anything like that.
That said, I can't play ME1 at all. The combat is abysmal.
It's the people who I feel don't do that where it's so very tempting to get dismissive towards them. Then I start wondering is the person trying to be constructive here or do they just like to see their words on the screen.
I don't think any criticism, however poorly thought out is actually intended to be destructive. When someone says "LACK OF INVENTORY SUCKS ME2 IS AWFUL", they're saying that they want an inventory system back. Yeah, they're kind of dicks, but it's very rare to find genuinely destructive criticism (of the "this is terrible Bioware should die in a fire variety).