35 réponses à ce sujet

[Pupule]

I discovered Mass Effect 1 after buying and enjoying DA:O. Having also enjoyed playing KoTOR years ago, ME 1 became an instant no-brainer purchase. I ended up playing and replaying ME 1 (4 complete games, 3 partial games) daily throughout the month of December '09. I even had to compete with
my boyfriend for play time, as he loved it also.

Now we are both
3/4 thru ME 2 and we agree Bioware has greatly changed Mass Effect's
flavor.  While the game is awesome on many levels, I don't see myself
replaying it.  After viewing ME 2's media blitz prior to the games
release, I feared that Bioware had changed the games emphasis from RPG
to shooter in order to appeal to a broader audience.  Sadly, I found this fear realized. 

Here's the salient points that have made the game tedious for me, and subtracted any "fun factor".

• shooter
  bore, less lore.   I find myself shooting and shooting and shooting and looking for
  ammo, and not looking forward to any new plot revelations.
• conversation choices feel constrained:  I chose answers to mimic my feelings in ME 1, but for ME 2, I feel I have to make nice to all party members, as their loyalty equals success in the game.
• I
  feel like the Illusive man's lap dog; I hate having Miranda/Jacob as
  Cerberus cheerleaders, and the bossy shipboard AI even decides what
  knowledge I'm allowed to have.  Between these things and the required Illusive man briefings, I greatly miss the old days of accidental "disconnects" during Council remote briefings in ME 1.
• planet scanning is tedious and boring with a capitol B.  Sure the mako planet searches could get tedious also, but at least you could booster thrust off mountain sides and see how many flat spins you could do. And running over pirates and geth never got old.
• While I love the armor, I miss seeing my character's face.  There's no point to character customization when much of the game is spent looking at the same old helmet view of your character.
• Very little leveling, and very little loot.  I feel like I am just grinding and grinding for mandatory time sinks in an MMORPG.  However, having said that, I liked professions in the MMORPG I played for 3 years; but the reward needs to equal the time spent working.  You have to work to find the few researchable upgrades the game offers, and then planet scan like mad just to upgrade one thing. Often the upgrades apply to weapons your character can't even use.  Again, character customization feels greatly lacking.

I'm playing ME 2 as a Sentinel, and would love to try out several other classes.  But the thought alone of more planet scanning is about as appealing as a trip to the dentist.  I can't imagine you get automatic upgrades without this time consuming chore, so this game has no replay value for me.  Sadly, I wish the positives outweighed the negatives of my first play through; I'll finish the game shortly, but I really wish the experience had been more fun and not felt like work.

Even sadder is I know those of us who miss our Mass Effect 1 RPG versus the new Mass Effect 2 shooter matters not, as Bioware made money from all of us.  Ultimately however, if a ME 3 arrives on the market I don't plan on buying it unless I hear and read it's back to being a RPG.

[Snowraptor]

they took some of the most ****ing boring rpg crap out of the first, one, i on my third me1 playthrough never upgraded my guns and got ****** bored and felt the customization farr to repetative, so they make combat more interesting and added a heck of allot more cinematics, id say 50 50, people that prefer the repetative customization and nonstop annoyance of deleting every useless gun or armor or upgrade should avoid this game, if you want something interesting and epic and fun with newly cleaned mass effect game then play this, i thought they did me and others and the galaxy a favor in taking that boring crap out, but thats just my opinion, and i think im gonna do another playthrough, BOO YEAH!!!!!

[Snowraptor]

THE only thing i was dissapointed in this was that i have to wait for me 3

[screwoffreg]

Snowraptor wrote...

THE only thing i was dissapointed in this was that i have to wait for me 3

I agree.  We need to clone the staff that works on Mass Effect and get them to work double time, sharing day and night shifts, to complete this game in a reasonable time period.  Get to it!!!!

[The_mango55]

shooter
bore, less lore.   I find myself shooting and shooting and shooting and looking for
ammo, and not looking forward to any new plot revelations.

I don't remember very many new plot revelations in ME. It was mostly just driving around on what should be unpassable mountains. Also shooting and shooting and shooting but not looking for ammo.

conversation choices feel constrained:  I chose answers to mimic my
feelings in ME 1, but for ME 2, I feel I have to make nice to all party
members, as their loyalty equals success in the game.

You don't have to make nice with them, as long as you do their mission you can treat them like dirt and still have their loyalty as far as I know. If not, well maybe they die, what's the difference, you treated them like dirt anyway, you can't care that much about them.

Very little leveling, and very little loot.  I feel like I am just
grinding and grinding for mandatory time sinks in an MMORPG.  However,
having said that, I liked professions in the MMORPG I played for 3
years; but the reward needs to equal the time spent working.  You have
to work to find the few researchable upgrades the game offers, and then
planet scan like mad just to upgrade one thing. Often the upgrades
apply to weapons your character can't even use.  Again, character
customization feels greatly lacking

How can you say it's griding when there's no loot and no kill-based XP? Those things are basically required for something to be considered "grinding."

[Lambs09]

Combat is pretty nuanced compared to the first game assuming you're playing on the harder difficulties because you have to juggle tech/biotics/ammo types across your squad depending on the target. Flanking and positioning in general were irrelevant in the first game.



Gameplay as a whole has a lot more variety - missions have different combat scenarios (stay out of the sun, protect the target, etc.) and there are some good missions that don't have any combat at all. It's refreshing, especially if you go back and try to play ME1.



If anything the game misses some of its "epic journey" feel because the game is broken down into short missions. The pacing is very tight and the writing is improved but that "Mission Complete" screen compartmentalizes your experiences into little stories instead of letting the game flow (ala Dragon Age).



I don't know if that's a bad thing per se but it is different.

[ThatDancingTurian]

As a person who gets BioWare games for the story and characters and not necessarily the fighting, none-the-less I couldn't disagree more with your assessment.

• This is the most important point: You -knew- getting into this that Mass Effect is not so much an RPG as an RPG/FPS hybrid. That's how it was in the first one, that's how it is in the second one, that's their whole platform. There shouldn't be any surprise about it. Still, as someone who does not enjoy FPS games normally, I actually found the fights to be really entertaining, far more so than the first game. If you don't share that opinion, play something else. There are a lot of nice RPGs out there.
• I agree with this point, I didn't like having only two options for a lot of convos and sometimes my Paragon Shepard felt reeeeeally Renegade regardless of what I chose. But by the end of the game I had made peace with the fact that Shepard has to toughen up. Sometimes it takes a tough stance to get things done. As long as the intentions are noble, it's still a Paragon option. Like pushing down that Volus to snap some sense into him. As for the playing nice, you don't -have- to. Just don't send them as point and -maybe- they'll survive. If not, then let them die. You didn't like them anyway.
• Again, I agree with this. Thankfully my Shep -finally- got the chance to tell TIM to shove it where the sun don't shine at the end, but it sure took long enough. As for EDI, I agree that was irritating. After all that happened in the first, my Shepard wouldn't be too keen on having an (illegal) AI in her ship. She would've tried to get someone to get rid of it.
• The scanning is tedious, but sometimes there has to be tedium to reap rewards. It would also be boring, and too quick, if you just pressed a button and magically got your materials. What's the point? Landing on planets on the first one was the most annoying, boring, time-consuming thing ever. And the 'flat spins' aren't so fun the four-hundredth time, especially if you weren't actually trying to do it. As for running over geth.. Boring.
• Then take off your helmet.
• Less leveling and loot reminds you of an MMO? Have you played an MMO? Looting and leveling is all those games are for. Furthermore, it's not 'less' loot, it's -no- loot. There is no inventory. And frankly, I didn't miss it. More story, less shuffling around useless armor and ammo upgrades.

Altogether, I think ME2 is a vastly superior game. It's different than the first, some might say too different. But different isn't bad, it's just different.

[ERJAK1]

My big 3 are:



Felt like leveling/upgrades meant nothing, never saw a significant impact one way or another even with fully evolved powers.



No female romance for femshep(Kelly/Liara don't count and Tali does just enough flirting that some good fanfics outta come out of it.)



Horribly negative portrayal of lesbian characters i.e

Morinth the psycho lesbian who kills with sex.

Nef, the innocent young artist whose life's going great until she develops terminal lesbianism that kills her in a matter of weeks.

Liara, completely untouchable and a bit of a B****

Kelly, meaningless fling, after all lesbian interest is just a phase right?



Lame Bioware, Lame.

[Duvel_Duvel]

Erjak1..

Liara has reason for acting like she does.. try doing her missions and ASK her about it.. she will tell you.. after knowing what she did for your character I am pretty sure you change your mind.

[Faerlyte]

For me personally, Mass Effect 2 has greater replay value than the first. I greatly enjoyed the original Mass Effect. I've only beaten it twice, though it looks like I'll have to make a third run due to having not recovered my gamer tag when I started a second character for my Mass Effect 2 carry over, but Mass Effect 2 has really fleshed out the Universe and given it a certain substance it didn't have before. I'm not sure quite how to explain it, but it just has an overall more polished feel.  

There are plenty of things I could nitpick about that didn't work for me in ME2, but ultimately I was blown away. It's different from the first by quite a bit, but I like the overall feel, the game play, and the development of the story and characters better. Maybes that's because they made my favorite character completely awesome (Garrus) and the most fun to have in my party (which makes the rest of the experience that much more enjoyable). I thought the difficulty level was a notch higher too, and I liked that better because I actually had to be smart in every  battle. 

Nothing is ever perfect. I do like that we got to customize what our armor looks like, but I miss inventory items. I think there should be a happy medium between too much loot, and not having it at all. That being said, it didn't take dramatically away from the experience. If I could have stayed conscious I would never have put the game down once I popped it open the first time, so it was definitely enjoyable for me.

[ThatDancingTurian]

ERJAK1 wrote...

Horribly negative portrayal of lesbian characters i.e
Morinth the psycho lesbian who kills with sex.
Nef, the innocent young artist whose life's going great until she develops terminal lesbianism that kills her in a matter of weeks.
Liara, completely untouchable and a bit of a B****
Kelly, meaningless fling, after all lesbian interest is just a phase right?

Lame Bioware, Lame.

I don't know, I think in terms of realism it makes sense. They wanted to show the darker side of things, that includes relationships of all kinds. Let's face it, most BioWare F/F options are the things of male fanboy fantasy, they never seemed like real relationships to me. The fact that they didn't shy away from portraying a F/F relationship as anything but sunshine and pillow fights is more realistic.

The point of Morinth isn't that she's a lesbian at all. She doesn't have a gender preference. Heck, she doesn't even have a gender. They probably made Nef a female simply because it makes her seem so much more vulnerable. Could a male character pull that off as easily, given the stereotypes and misconceptions about men as victims? They wanted to give you further proof of how Morinth preys on people, how it's not just something she's born with, how much of a monster she is. Plus, they were proving how she changes people, given that Nef said she was never particularly attracted to women, but Morinth put her under a spell. She could probably change a gay man straight too, but that would be a needlessly complicated plot change. That said, I didn't really care for the Morinth plot, just because I thought it was boring.

Kelly goes both ways too. She's not so much a meaningless lesbian fling as a secretary stereotype. Pointless, but inoffensive (aside from the fact that it's such a shallow relationship).

And you don't mention the positive flirtations available to female characters from cameos and the like. Take Shiala for instance; a nice, virtuous side-character who makes a casual mention of being interested. I really liked her in the first, and wished she had been my Asari teammate instead of boring Liara.

[Dizzy473]

I'll say up front, I enjoyed both ME1 and ME2.



While the ME1 felt more "official" (the Alliance and Council backed you...kinda), ME2 felt like a desperate action to save the galaxy despite the powers that be resisting.



I found the story was much more character driven and the charcter sub-plots were well executed, some fantastically so. The characters seemed much more fleshed out and had some real substance. They said it would be a darker, grittier chapter and it was.



There are things from a gameplay perspective I would have preferred to be done a little differently but nothing that was earth shattering. The combat was much more intense and, for me, fun. I can see how some might not be over the moon about the combat changes but it fit the "desperate mission" feel to a tee.



The new Normandy was a huge step up. It felt like a working ship and the Joker/EDI hate love relationship was a nice touch of humour.



Overall I love the Mass Effect games for the story they tell. In my opinion ME2 delivered the story exceptionally well and the few niggles I have about the gameplay pale into insignificance.



All this is just my opinion and experience of course.

[DragonDefender]

The_mango55 wrote...

shooter
bore, less lore.   I find myself shooting and shooting and shooting and looking for
ammo, and not looking forward to any new plot revelations.

I don't remember very many new plot revelations in ME. It was mostly just driving around on what should be unpassable mountains. Also shooting and shooting and shooting but not looking for ammo.

conversation choices feel constrained:  I chose answers to mimic my
feelings in ME 1, but for ME 2, I feel I have to make nice to all party
members, as their loyalty equals success in the game.

You don't have to make nice with them, as long as you do their mission you can treat them like dirt and still have their loyalty as far as I know. If not, well maybe they die, what's the difference, you treated them like dirt anyway, you can't care that much about them.

Very little leveling, and very little loot.  I feel like I am just
grinding and grinding for mandatory time sinks in an MMORPG.  However,
having said that, I liked professions in the MMORPG I played for 3
years; but the reward needs to equal the time spent working.  You have
to work to find the few researchable upgrades the game offers, and then
planet scan like mad just to upgrade one thing. Often the upgrades
apply to weapons your character can't even use.  Again, character
customization feels greatly lacking

How can you say it's griding when there's no loot and no kill-based XP? Those things are basically required for something to be considered "grinding."

    Oh come on man I love both Mass Effect games, with that being said the whole planet scan thing for upgrades is about as fun as sticking a fork in my. If Bioware had taken that to a less tedious level then it would have been as fun as sticking a fork in someone else's eye.

[Gilead26]

I think you just have to take ME2 and the series in general for what it is. It's focused on engaging shooting gameplay and an epic story that you create. It's not really about customizing your character in every respect.



If you want that experience I direct your attention to Dragon Age or Oblivion or Fallout 3 which are all great games in their own right (I think I've put about 300 hours into oblivion over the years.

[Gaudion]

My only refute: I had fun.

[Faerlyte]

You know, the planet scan thing wasn't as tedious to me as driving around on the most infuriating terrain layouts ever in the Mako while searching for things to scan and not having anything to indicate whether you've explored this system or not (which was a nice addition to ME2)...BUT...I liked the concept of exploring planets in the mako.

I think the areas of exploration need to be improved. Something could be done to make the planet exploration in the mako viable and interesting.

Scanning is just boring - less time consuming possibly (unless you plan on depleting every single planet), but still boring.

Modifié par Faerlyte, 30 janvier 2010 - 01:18 .

[Ch40sFox]

I found it annoying that I could not take off the damn helmet with DLC armor.... yea its cool for a few seconds..... but character customization, and facial expressions are really key in this game.... and the helmet, takes away from it...



I.....HATE....HELMETS...

[ran22147]

just needs more quests in my opinion

[p0mt3]

First of all, let me just state the obvious: this thread title is an oxymoron.



As to the point brought up by the topic starter . . . sounds to me like they have never played anything except RPGs their entire video game lives, and therefore find aspects that most varied gamers loved to be 'boring'. Why is it boring? Because it doesn't involve constant level up, management of inventory or bland combat? Let's take on your opinions one by one and see where you and I differ:



Point 1: You say the combat in this game is boring. In comparison to what, may I ask? Because if you're comparing the combat to the first game, you can't honestly be saying that ME 1 had a better combat system, could you? Sluggish camera controls, no point-specific damage, poor aiming, and an irritating-as-hell 'cool-down' system for the incredibly bland, limited selection of guns? ME 2 clearly has the better design in the aspect. It may not be to your liking, but this series always aspired to be a shooter/RPG. Now with this game, they finally succeeded at having the right balance.



Point 2: 'Making nice' has nothing to do with this. You either treat your crew the way you think they should be treated, or you go against your instincts and kiss their ass all the time. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to answer, honestly. It's just being true to yourself and what you actually feel. A crew member's loyalty to you isn't based on how nice you are; it's about gaining their trust, despite personal differences. That's why the loyalty missions exist in the first place. Otherwise, why would you need them if you could just make them disloyal by being an ass?

Also, I think you're way off base when you say the dialogue options are constrained; on the contrary, I felt even more freed up to make a much larger impact on my game because of the clearly more diverse dialogue options available to me. Again, if you do not see that, I really don't know what to say. Except that you're wrong.



Point 3: Okay, this point seems to be mainly a story-based complaint. You don't like the way things played out for Shepard, then don't play the game. There are plenty of opportunities to tell Illusive Man exactly what you think of him, and you can even defy him completely by the game's end. You're not his 'lapdog' by any stretch of the imagination; you simply work with him out of a need to fight for the greater good. And as for Jacob and Miranda being Cerberus ''cheerleaders'', I've never heard anything more absurd in my life. Jacob openly admits right off the bat that he and Cerberus don't see eye-to-eye on many issues, and a loyal Miranda even backs you up if you decided to destroy the ship at the end of the game. How are either of those actions 'cheerleading' for Cerberus?



Point 4: Okay, this point I actually agree with. Scanning the planets had to be the worst 'change' made to the exploration feature from a pure fun standpoint, however i have to say they succeeded at what they aimed to do, which is get me to actually CARE about exploring. I made sure I had all the needed upgrades to my ship by the time I went through the Omega 4 relay, and that wouldn't have happened had they not put so emphasis on this aspect. So I'm torn on this. While I completely agree with you that it's boring, it is certainly NOT 'pointless', and it does pay off by the end. So you do it for a reason, and the game ultimately rewards you. It raises the stakes a bit and gets you more active in things other than just fighting all the time.



Point 5: is the only point I find myself agreeing with you 100% on. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I realized I couldn't customize my other armor in the same fashion I could my standrad N7 Armor. It would have been nice if you could choose to take the helmet off of the BDA, CA, TA, etc. I often felt discouraged from using them whenever I did a mission simply because I wanted to see my character 'act', but with the better armor I had no choice but to cover the face up. So yes, you and I are on exactly the same page as far as that is concerned.



Point 6: Again, this opinion has me questioning your mental health? Lacking customization? No looting? Where are you from, man? Lack of inventory means anything you pick up on the field instantly get applied to your character. Enemies drop ammo all the time, you still find health packs for you allies, research files (which help you with this upgrade system you claim doesn't exist), etc. And even guns are dropped on the field that you can scan and reproduce for yourself. None of that worked on the first game, so again, this is a step up, not a step down.

As for the customization and upgrades, not only do you have an entire slew of options for you and your allies in terms of weaponry, armor, biotic and tech, but you can also make upgrades to your ship that will help you in the game's finale. there was so much available to me, that I barely scratched the surface of what I could upgrade on my first playthrough. Did you just not investigate ANYTHING while you explored the massive world of ME 2? Because to me that seems like all kinds of customization is available.



So, for the most part, I think you're off your rocker, with a couple of exceptions. I'm very sorry you thought this 'great game' was also 'no fun to play'. That contradictory viewpoint is hopefully nor shared by many others, which means most people who played this game will love it and look forward to the final installment. I have issues with this game, too, but they are minor. I certainly don't think any aspect of the gameplay itself is lacking in any way. It is much better than its predecessor, and I hope BioWare continues to go in this direction for ME 3.

[GraciousCat]

Call me crazy, but I didn't mind the planet scanning as much as everyone else seemed to, sure I didn't find it fun per se, but I didn't find it to be mind numbingly boring either

[Latharion]

The_mango55 wrote...

I don't remember very many new plot revelations in ME. It was mostly just driving around on what should be unpassable mountains. Also shooting and shooting and shooting but not looking for ammo.

Actually, this was very well explained within the game.  The mass effect guns fire off tiny bits from a metal block, accelerated via tiny element zero cores.  I actually enjoyed NOT having to worry about ammunition, and found it refreshing that in the future, ammunition limits had been eliminated!  That and it meant less programming for the coders (and less hassle for players).  Oh well.  What's there to do.  It isn't a show stopper that they changed it, it was just kind of sad.

[Elessie]

I definitely had fun but the game was a bit disappointing to me as well. I spent 40 hours preparing for a mission that lasted 40 minutes. It just didn't feel like I accomplished that much during the game. Sure, there were side-quests where you could save people but the most you usually got was an email afterward saying thanks. Just made it seem so distant and unreal.



I could live with the planet scanning if you didn't have to hold the right mouse button down the entire time. That's actually physically painful for me (I have problems with my right wrist). If I want to play through a second time I might have to tape the button down or something for the scanning.

[agrue]

ME2 is awesome, but at the same time clearly not Bioware's best work with regard to many RPG aspects like customization & depth of exploration.

[p0mt3]

agrue wrote...

ME2 is awesome, but at the same time clearly not Bioware's best work with regard to many RPG aspects like customization & depth of exploration.

Would you say it's the best story they've written yet, though?

Because I would . . . 

[CmdrFenix83]

Alright, having just finished the game myself about half an hour ago, I'll go ahead and give me own, personal review that most people won't care about or read.



Pros:



The opening, ending, the colony, the derelict reaper, the collector trap. All of them felt great and really adrenaline pumping in both the combat and the cinematics. Combat was much more than strolling down the hall and spraying bullets while laughing that nothing hurts you(Collosus armor was OP). The new Normandy was sweet, and all of the interactions contained within were enjoyable and fun to explore. Tali's romance was adorable.



Cons: Scanning planets. Who thought this was a good idea? Why am I doing this crap manually when EDI could do it all much faster and more efficiently than I could? I mean really, could that have made this any more boring? I actually began to physically associate scanning with being half asleep, and then every new planet, I would be fighting to stay awake. Ridiculous.



Another downside were the sidequests. Why are they even in the game other than the handful of upgrade unlocks you can get? The rewards are so small that it wasn't worth scanning across the whole galaxy for them. The handling of them was better than the first game in terms of gameplay, but in ME1 the majority of your credits and experience came from these missions, here they just seem like a waste of time.



Overall, I still love the game, and will continue to play through it with all of my other characters. However, I think overall, the first game just came together and played better overall.