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sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2010/02/mass-effect-is-better-than-mass-effect-2.html
When a really good sequel comes out, like say, Ghostbusters 2 , Speed 2, or Transformers 2, people often forget the original inspiration that made the series great.
In this case, the ground breaking excellence of Mass Effect
is getting lost in this swirl of unrestrained, hysterical gushing over
the sequel. These aren’t legitimate reviews we’re reading of Mass Effect 2; we are reading a tween girl’s review of a Jonas Brothers concert on her blog. In short, it’s embarrassing.
People have forgotten what made Mass Effect such a great game, but I’m here to remind you.
And no, it doesn’t involve mining.
The original entry in the series, while being partially a shooter, is
at its heart, a role playing game. This is almost completely erased in
the sequel. Old reliable aspects of RPGs, such as searching for loot,
are almost completely gone. Experience points are plentiful in ME,
and as such you level up more often, not just when some douche with a
cigarette decides the mission is over. Getting XP for each enemy killed
and for exploring everything for your codex (and more XP) was a
tremendous joy and for some unknown reason BioWare has deprived us of
this joy.
Speaking of which, BioWare seemed hell-bent on turning the Mass Effect
series into a balls-out shooter that dudes in frat houses could enjoy.
Thus, the combat system was both slowed downed and dumb downed. While
the actual fighting in ME does not flow as melodiously as in
the sequel, the thoughtful, slow combat system in the original game is
more strategic and less like other games we’ve already played. (*Cough*GearsofWar*Cough*)
In the original game, the ability to use multiple powers without
waiting for them to all recharge at once only added to this strategy.
In ME2, if you charge your barrier, you have to wait to use
pull, while in the first game you could use many powers in a row,
offsetting the combat weakness of the Adept and Engineer classes. Oh,
and did I mention that you could actually duck in the original game? That was useful.
Space travel in the original game also represents a better model than ME 2. In the premiere game, you just pick the area of the traverse you want to go to and BOOM you’re there. In ME 2,
you may have to stop at a fuel depot? Really? My multiquadrillion
credit space ship, run by the uber-powerful Cerberus Corporation needs
to pause at an interstellar truck stop every once in a while? Worst of
all is the cheesy, little version of the Normandy that you navigate
around. The Mako may be silly, but at least it’s not this miniature
craft from a random ‘80s game on the Atari 2600.
ME also had a manageable number of characters. In
fact, in a single play through, you could actually use each one of the
characters for a significant amount of time. ME2 simply has
too many characters that you will probably never use, and very few that
you’ll actually get to know. BioWare’s character development is
legendary and ME2 doesn’t do it justice with the misguided
mantra that “more is more.” There are too many characters, and the
player never has sufficient time to get to know any of them well enough.
Driving the Mako around, while ridiculous, is about 15 times more fun than Mining in ME2.
Don’t even try to disagree with that. You’re lying to me, you’re lying
to yourself, and you’re making your mother cry. Stop it. Mining in ME2 is a terrible, terrible idea and how it slipped past BioWare’s quality control will forever remain a mystery.
The Flagship of the series clearly has a better villain – Admit it:
Saren kicks the crap out of the Collectors. Sure, we all know the
Reapers are behind everything, but these bug people are your main
antagonist throughout the majority of the sequel. Saren had
personality. He was a dick, and you wanted to take him down. I’m
fairly confident that gamers did not have the same feeling toward the
Collectors. I know I didn’t. I didn’t really care. I just wanted to
finish the game and hopefully get it on with every possible female crew
member. (Thane is also very handsome.)
While in some ways ME 2 seems bigger, ME
feels more like an open world to explore. The Traverse in general seems
to open up with endless mission in the original, while the missions in ME 2 feel compartmentalized, linear and directed. Quite often in ME
when you fly into a new system, Admiral Hackett will call on you for an
extra mission. Again, this leads to the creation of a universe that
seems more open and massive. Even the dreaded elevators in the original
game not only serve to mask loading time, they also allow you to hear
announcements that were often directly entered into your codex for
additional side quests.
In ME2 you are on a clear path from the very beginning of
the game, and for those of us that enjoyed the open world RPG aspect of
the original, this is very disappointing. Even an area like the
Citadel, which was an amazing place to explore in the first game, has
become constricted and goal-oriented in the second game.
Defeating ME feels like a real accomplishment. Saren is
vanquished, you’ve proven the galaxy wrong about a human Spectre, and
the Reapers have been repelled for the time being. In stark contrast,
too much of ME 2 is building up to a payoff that never
comes. You spend the entire game hunting for the ridiculously large
team that you assemble for one final mission that takes about twenty
minutes. Twenty hours of going from planet to planet, finding allies
and gaining their loyalty, just for one relatively short mission?
ME, on the other hand, has three main missions (all of which
feel very important and unique), and one amazingly well constructed
sequence on Virmire involving a nuke and the loss of possibly two crew
members. Finally, the game leads you to Ilos and a game changing twist
that leaves you fighting for your survival (and the survival of all
living creatures) as the Citadel burns around you. It is epic in every
way that the ending to ME 2 wasn’t.
Finally, the level design and combat mechanic suffer from an extreme
case of “Cliffy B Syndrome,” that is to say, it’s too much like Gears of War.
Not only is the cover system strikingly similar, the landscape of every
area is deformed by an unnatural occurrence of chest-high barricades
behind which you can take cover. No fight is ever a surprise in ME 2.
Instead, you always know there’s a fight coming when you see a bunch of
random objects that look like they’re about the right height to crouch
behind.
The counter-argument here is simple and I’m not sure how to address it: Mass Effect 2
is almost uniformly more fun to play, especially during combat
situations. Admittedly, this is a pretty big deal. However, what
BioWare has taken out of the Mass Effect franchise should not be forgotten. I won’t forget it as I play through the original for the eighth time.
After E3 I feel as if Bioware is still virtually ignoring ME1 fans. ME3 looks like it's still gonna be another cliffy b Gears of Mass Effect with chest high cover strewn all about the levels, no open exploration, no real time EXP gathering, no real loot to be found and no real ME1 caliber RPG customization. It's all derived from ME2's awful mechanics that virtually stripped ME1 of every thing I loved so that the Frat boys will enjoy their shooter and the real RPG fans (you know, the ones that got bioware to where they are at today are left in the dust?) will be satisfied.
Please Bioware, make ME3 as deep and rewarding as ME1 was. ME3 is going to sell regardless of whether or not you play it safe. Give me something I can come back to for years and yet still find something new. I can't do that with ME2, but I'm still doing it with ME1.
(oh and if it's not too much to ask, make sure your lead composer makes a decent end credits song. I really don't feel like listening to MENU MUSIC after putting 40+ hours into what is supposed to be a sweeping space opera.)
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