465 réponses à ce sujet

[ckriley]

While I strongly disagree with the OP, I applaud him/her for making such a well written post. It's not often you get someone on the forums that say they don't like something and then give a detailed reason about what specifically they didn't like. Posts like this actually help the developers and they like to see it. As opposed to someone just saying, "This sucks, BW fails!"



That being said, I do take issue with most of the things you said you didn't like. Most notably the game's portrayal of women and the darker elements of the game itself. The asari on Omega were no different than the asari in that club on the Citadel from the first game, who were half naked and dancing on poles. In fact, they used the same exact animations.



Aria, on the other hand, is essentially a mobster, and she tells you how she used a lot of the sexual tricks the asari are known for but try to downplay in order to get ahead. This was intentional. She was meant to be that way. Remember, this is someone you "don't want to bleep with."



In of my own reviews of ME2, I actually applauded BioWare for finally taking that M rating out for a spin. All of their games since KOTOR have been rated M and I could never understand why. DAO was bloody in some parts, and you could have an openly gay relationship, but aside from that it wasn't too bad.



In ME2, though, it's dark, it's edgy, and I feel like I'm playing a rated M game. Also, as others have pointed out in this thread, it seems your (OP) biggest gripe revolves around political correctness. All I can say to that is kind of what I said above, it's a rated M game.



As for the plot, I actually said in my own thread that the final suicidal mission didn't feel all that suicidal to me, and that the final mission in the first ME game felt much more epic. I also agree that doing all the loyalty quests felt more like sidequests to me. In fact, that's what I thought they were, and I couldn't understand why they were listed as missions and not assignments until I figured out that making all these new guys loyal to you was part of the main plot.



However, I thought the characters themselves were much more developed and three dimensional than the characters in the first game. I actually wanted to know more about them. I can't wait for ME3.

[Jarcander]

ME2 has a good, realistic atmosphere regardless of fantastic features. OP made valid points, but I disagree as well. We don't really want another Star Wars.



I vote for even more adult themes and revealing of the dark side of universe for ME3. I'm sure there will still be enough opportunities in it to nurture goodwill and rightfulness. Darker universe makes the moral choices challenging as well, which is a bonus for me at least.

[El-Destructo]

I think the fact that their presentation of a hopeless criminal-run space station and Jacob's deranged father's antics evoked such a overwhelming feeling of disgust from the OP, means that the designers did a good job, yes?

[Schneidend]

Rilke21 wrote...

Bahaha. Nothing is purely subjective. Every subjective mind is built up of every objective experience that has ever shaped it. You read one book, I read another, and poof! We think (and percieve) differently. Does that mean there's no such thing as a good book? Heck no!

Then there is not enough objectivity present to allow me to convince the OP that Mass Effect 2 is a great game, and vice verse. Does that satisfy you?


Moreover, reviewing the OP, I have to address this "sickening" business. Omega and Jacob's loyalty mission, were intended to evoke this reaction. Omega is a terrible place, and what Jacob's father did was unspeakable. Kind of the entire point. The game certainly doesn't convey that using women is a good thing, Jacob and Omega aren't condoned, and in fact the story provides us with a plethora of strong female characters to get this message across.

Modifié par Schneidend, 08 février 2010 - 09:29 .

[4lice4nn]

OrionUnas wrote...

there is no point in arguing with the femanist movment, no offence to you all, but you all got your head up your arses. At the end of the day, it's just a video game. Get over it.

On that note, I really wish bleeding hearts would die of their prolonged chronic disease.

What is a "femanist"?

BTW, saying people have their heads up their "arses" is a really great way to convey your point. People will definitely respect your opinion now.

[4lice4nn]

El-Destructo wrote...

I think the fact that their presentation of a hopeless criminal-run space station and Jacob's deranged father's antics evoked such a overwhelming feeling of disgust from the OP, means that the designers did a good job, yes?

This.

[Moonbox]

You can get annoyed all you like about people complaining about the story, but nobody cares. The story sucked. In fact, it was probably one of the most amateurish stories I've seen in the last couple of years. Ratchet and Clank had a better story than ME2, and that was pretty much a platformer.



While I don't really agree with what the OP said about the 'sickening' elements of the game, I 100% agree with her assessment of the game's story/plot. The writers introduced a brand new unnecessary threat to the galaxy seemingly just so that it could be destroyed and we could be left off pretty much in the exact same spot we ended after ME1. Nothing changed.



To all the fools claiming this game was about character development: That's so dumb I don't even know where to begin. They cheesily removed most of the entire cast of the last game just so that you could assemble a new cast of characters, almost all of whom had nothing to do with the main narrative.



Deciding that the Council would forget about the Reaper threat and pretend it didn't exist was a storytelling mess. Sovereign was a Geth ship? Oh come on. If the Geth had that level of technology they'd have taken over the galaxy already.



The way the writers for this game forced so much nonsense on us retarded. Everything about the plot was unnatural. Most of your 'team' had no good reason to join you, other than the contrived and balogna revelations the writers gave us. Thane was dying and wanted to do something good. *cough* convenient. Samara just liked doing 'good'. *eyes rolling*. Jack...wtf she had no reason.



The more I look back at this game the more I dislike it. ME3 won't be an automatic purchase for me, which is sad because ME1 was one of my favorite games ever.



Interestingly enough Dragon Age also had a terrible story. I'm not so sure BioWare has enough writing talent for more than one game at a time. Here's hoping ToR turns out alright.

[Karlojey]

Personally I think they're just setting up the story for ME3. Plus they did mention that they kinda improved the 'shooter' aspect of the game which sorta killed the RPG-ness of it.



Heh, BioWare can't please everyone. I still think they did their best on following-up ME1.

[Skilled Seeker]

I care Moonbox and also think the story was fantastic. You don't speak for everyone and your OPINION that the story sucks is not a FACT. Back to school son.

[boardnfool86]

Sucks for you dog... The gameplay is unquestionably better, and the story is not complete, it is clearly setting you up for ME3... You also get half or almost half your squad from ME1 back, and the LIs are not recruitable for a very obvious reason... so they are undoubtedly in ME3.

I don't know, I liked it and I like the possibilities it opens up for ME3... and why people can't buy into spending trillions to resurrect someone recently deceased is silly... its science fiction, nothing in it is plausible.

Ozymandias23 wrote...


I’ve just finished my first and what will be my only play though of Mass Effect 2 and I thought I’d share some thoughts. Be warned, this is a long one!

I play games for entertainment, for enjoyment.  Mass Effect 1 was a game I returned to time and time again for the sheer pleasure of playing it. In spite of its flaws, it was a lot of fun, had some fantastic characters, an uplifting story that was developed throughout the game and an outstanding final mission. Several parts always stood out for me. The speech the council gives as shepard is made a Spectre. Shepard’s speech to the crew as she takes control of the Normandy. The reveal on Virmire as Shepard finally has the chance to speak with Sovereign. Ilos, Vigil and fighting our way back to the Citadel for the race through the maintenance ducts to reach Saren in time.

The story was exceptional in my opinion. Each main mission introduced another key part of the plot, another clue revealing Saren’s motivations and driving the story forward. The story rose to a crescendo as Shepard and her
team mates went though the Mu Relay, fought their way through Ilos, discovered Vigil and risked everything to return to the Citadel for the final confrontation with Saren, his Geth and Sovereign. I remember the first time I
completed Mass Effect 1, sitting with tears in my eyes as the human fleet saved the destiny ascension.

Mass Effect 1 was not perfect but it had engaging, charismatic characters and an uplifting story that brought me back to it time and time again. From my perspective it was a game with a lot of class and rightly deserved the title of masterpiece in spite of its flaws.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for Mass Effect 2. I found it crass, tasteless and deeply unpleasant. Bioware seems to have forced every nasty thing they could think of into Mass Effect 2 and in doing so utterly destroyed the feel of the Mass Effect universe. Mass Effect 2 is not a sequel to Mass Effect 1. It is a spin off. The moments where I actually felt I was playing Mass Effect were all too brief.

The ‘story’ of Mass Effect 2 was unbelievably poor and I find it impossible to believe the same person wrote both games.

There seemed to be no narrative structure to the game. The plot, such as it was, was utterly contrived, unconvincing and frankly embarrassingly bad in places.  I have never played a Bioware game that had such a weak, threadbare story, such stilted dialogue or borrowed so heavily from other sources such as Babylon 5, Star Trek, and Terminator etc. The final battle was absurd. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t played the entire game; all I will say is that a cameo from Governor Schwarzenegger would not have been out of place. It was ridiculous and utterly inferior to the end game of Mass Effect 1 in every possible way.

Having Shepard die, be rebuilt and be upgraded throughout the game with more and more synthetic parts was pointless and only served as a flimsy attempt to force the player to accept working with Cerberus. It didn’t work on any level in my opinion. The two year gap was a transparent excuse to off load the original squad mates whose personalities did not fit into the type of game Bioware wanted to make. This might have worked better if they had been replaced by characters with equal charisma. They were not, in my opinion, with the only exception being Legion and EDI.

Once Shepard was alive again and the Collectors had been identified as the enemy the ‘plot’ then took on the appearance of a grocery list. Gather specialists, do loyalty missions, gather minerals to upgrade the Normandy and then do the final mission. Personally I found it slow moving and monotonous and frankly I was bored. There were too many new squad mates and it made it difficult to feel any attachment to any of them, even if I had found their personalities appealing, which I didn’t. And whilst the new Normandy was beautiful, I had the overwhelming urge to off load the crew and fumigate the ship.

Though out this period of the game, there was little or no story progression.  The conversations with the squad mates seemed designed to railroad the player into embarking on a new romance. After one conversation with Jacob the flirting and innuendo began, and I could find no dialogue option that simply said I’m not interested. Shepard’s lines were also delivered in a forced flirty tone over which the player was given no control, not one option for her to speak in a normal tone of voice.  As for the crew, even the NPCs, speak to them at all and you had to listen to crass, lewd, suggestive comments. Wander though the bar on Illium and it was the same, crass, tasteless remarks and of course sexual innuendo. Perhaps that is titillating if you’re 15, however as an adult with
a life it became incredibly tedious incredibly quickly. Mass Effect 1 didn’t need to resort to this sort of thing to garner sales.

I also found the portrayal of women in Mass Effect 2 offensive at times. On Omega the Asari seemed to have been assigned the role of strippers, pole dancers and prostitutes. There seemed to be a recurring theme that
suggested women were play things, to be used and abused when opportunity permitted. This theme carried through to Jacob’s loyalty mission, a mission that I found disturbing on an emotional level and absolutely sickening.

In that mission we were presented with a scenario where a ship had crash landed, the captain had separated out the female crew members and placed them in a camp. He then gave these women to his officers to be used
as play things. The idea was horrific. Perhaps Bioware feel that the suggestion of rape is suitable content for their ‘dark and edgy’ video game but I don’t.  It was uncalled for and I found it sickening and disturbing. For me it evoked parallels with some of the atrocities carried out in ‘camps’ across Europe during World War 2.

This feeling continued into Subject Zero’s loyalty mission where we’re provided with a story about the abuse of children. Children bought or stolen, ripped away from home and family, transported to a facility in crates, half starved and experimented upon, injected with substances to see what effect it would have. The parallels with history are hard to ignore. The children of Bullenhuser Damm, brought from Auschwitz to Neuengamme for experimentation.  Is this really suitable for inclusion in something that is supposed to be a source of entertainment?

I remember watching the E3 reveal trailer and Derek Watts, the art director, talking about how nasty ME2 was in parts and asking his colleagues ‘have we gone too far?’.  Well my answer would be yes, you did.

Samara’s loyalty mission was another that I took issue with, though for very different reasons.  We’re presented with her daughter, Morinth, a sexual predator, whose victims are killed by engaging in sex with her. We’re instructed to go to the apartment where her last victim Nef, a young girl, lived with her mother. The mother
allows us into Nef’s room where we listen to her video diary in order to find the password to allow us into the club where Morinth stalks her victims. The diary entries chart Nef’s first meeting with Morinth and mentions the beginning of an attraction between them. In one of the diary entries Nef comments that Morinth is a girl, that she’s attracted to a girl and asks ‘am I a freak?’

Why would this make her a freak? Why? Intentional or not, there is a suggestion there of homophobia.

Ultimately I loved Mass Effect 1 and I want to genuinely thank Bioware for producing such a fantastic game that gave me many hours of enjoyment.  As for Mass Effect 2, it has been a disappointment on almost every level.  Its tone, the story quality, the squad mates, all vastly inferior to Mass Effect 1 in my opinion. I’m afraid it has killed this IP for me and I truly regret my decision to purchase it.

[aksoileau]

OP's name is Ozymandias...which is from Watchmen... Which is extremely graphic and disturbing. It contains rape, murdering pregnant women, tons of blood, language, etc. So why the double standard?

[a_packofninjas]

The first part of your arguement made alot of sense, then you started to ramble about political correctness of rape, woman, children etc. Then, I just lost you.

[cronshaw8]

I wonder if the OP had the same problems w/ movies like Schindler's List, or The Accused. Rape and torture in those movies. There is a huge difference between portraying something and condoning it. You would have a hard time arguing the game condones any of the negative things the OP mentioned. But apparently that is too fine a distinction for this person to grasp. Either that or their psyche is so fragile they have to avoid any unpleasant images. Either way, sad.

[Conway044]

Moonbox wrote...
-snip-

To all the fools claiming this game was about character development: That's so dumb I don't even know where to begin. They cheesily removed most of the entire cast of the last game just so that you could assemble a new cast of characters, almost all of whom had nothing to do with the main narrative.

Deciding that the Council would forget about the Reaper threat and pretend it didn't exist was a storytelling mess. Sovereign was a Geth ship? Oh come on. If the Geth had that level of technology they'd have taken over the galaxy already. 

They removed 2 companions from the first game, Liara and Ashley/Kaidan.  Wrex is dead in some ME 1 saves,  so he can't return as a companion and Ashley or Kaidan is dead as well.

The council never believed in the Reaper threat.  Anderson is the only person who really belived, the coucil thought it was a Geth legend that Saren was using to manipulate them. 

[Conway044]

aksoileau wrote...

OP's name is Ozymandias...which is from Watchmen... Which is extremely graphic and disturbing. It contains rape, murdering pregnant women, tons of blood, language, etc. So why the double standard?

Ozymandias is a very famous sonnet by Shelley and another name for Ramesses the Great.  So it is very possible that the OP is simply educated rather than a hypocritical comic book fan.

[R0ck3t33r]

Despite ME2's critical and commercial success, I'm really surprised by the amount of hate I'm seeing on this board.

BioWare - in case anyone's reading this, I want to come forth as one of those on the board that absolutely loved the game. I had no problems with the plot. None. There are some puzzlements and unanswered questions, sure, but I have faith that they will be answered in ME3.

As for the "structure" of the game - recruitment and loyalty missions punctuated by "plot points" - I think it was a wonderful departure from the first game. Let's face it - the plot is fundamentally simpler than that of ME1. And I don't have a problem with that! We don't need a dozen story missions that attempt to overcomplicate it. Given the simplicity of the mission, we get a staggering amount of variety during the recruitment and loyalty missions.

And yet, despite the "simplicity" of the story (let's call it minimalism), we still get a good handful of answers to questions the first game posed, as well as some horrifying implications for the future of the franchise (the larva!). Speaking of which, I not only enjoyed the game's finale - I found it to be an incredibly chilling moment that stayed with me for some time after I finished the game.

This is a fantastic game. It's got all the plot we need for us to navigate around this dark universe and interact with (and recruit) its denizens.

And complaining about the game's dark moments? Really? Honestly, I wish there were more games like ME2 that approached horrifying decisions with this kind of MATURITY. Shepard gets to make quite a few difficult decisions - we are given freedom to do what we want - but it is never tasteless or gratuitous - unless, perhaps, you CHOOSE it to be so. It's kind of hilarious that you were so quick to pick up an M-Rated game, and are surprised that it contains mature themes. That's the kind of mistake that ignorant soccer moms make - not seasoned gamers.

I'll say it again: I absolutely loved this game. The only thing I really miss is looting, which I hope will make a return in ME3, but other than that, I thought it was masterful.

Modifié par R0ck3t33r, 10 février 2010 - 05:25 .

[Schurge]

Cry me a river OP. I am sorry that there was actual evil in this game to destroy...

As for asari being playthings? The whole point of Omega is that it is a sinfull and depraved place... if that offended you than stop playing games. Asari were supposed to appear used and abused on Omega.

Jacob's loyalty quest was supposed to disgust you. I was raised to respect women and I felt as close as you can get to rage from a video game as I traveled through that devil's playground... I felt no pity for Jacob's father as I left him to die... and that is exactly the responce Bioware was going for.

Morinth = homophobia? Really? Go back to reading 'The Advocate' and thinking that everything that doesn't make you mainstream is homophobic. The fact that you had to kill her had absolutely nothing to do with her bisexuality. Nothing. If anything, Mass Effect is pro-homosexual (Liara loving Sheperd even if Sheperd is female, in a romantic way appears to be a major plot point). She was a 'freak' because of her 'disablity' every asari is arguably bisexual (before they met other races they only had each other).

Modifié par Schurge, 10 février 2010 - 05:43 .

[sage_viper]

 I absolutely agree with you, OP. The game was rather dry. And as far as people saying the books answer everything... Not everybody reads the books. A game should be a standalone story. It can refer back to things in books, but it shouldn't require them.

In all honesty, they could have done a LOT better with ME2 than they did. Even the whole structure of the game... including side quests, was just awful. I'm not going to say its the best game ever just because it says "Mass Effect" on the box. In its entirety, it seems like a rather linear, half-assed campaign. 

And taking my poorly-constructed post (I'm literally sick and tired) back to the side quests... Every single one is a short, 5-minute walk in the park with guns. The basic structure is this: You land, take out a "welcoming party," fight through some halls, turn something off, then you're out. Thats it.

Its not THAT fun, sad to say. I had high expectations for this game, and it just kind of fell on its face. 15GB for nothing, I guess. This game definitely doesn't seem that big.

Edit: I agree with MOST of what the OP said, not all. Mostly the criticism of the main quest.

Modifié par sage_viper, 10 février 2010 - 05:44 .

[ODST 3]

This thread is sickening. Too bad you didn't enjoy the game. Play MGS4 or something else pretentious.

[ODST 3]

sage_viper wrote...

 I absolutely agree with you, OP. The game was rather dry. And as far as people saying the books answer everything... Not everybody reads the books. A game should be a standalone story. It can refer back to things in books, but it shouldn't require them.

I only read Revelation which had nothing to do with ME 2 and it didn't bother me at all. Books are hardly required.

[Ender_118]

I can't understand how you became so inconsolably offended on behalf of homosexuals by Nef's diary entry. Sense the tone, for goodness sake. Even as she says the words 'Am I a freak?' you can tell from her voice, she is excited, not depressed. No one called her a freak, or implied that she was. You keep talking about context; well in the context of a diary entry, she is only musing to herself. It's a girl who clearly believed herself to be heterosexual prior to her encounter with Morinth, and is now trying to understand her sudden attraction to a female /of another species/. It's a question which most homosexuals ask before learning to accept themselves. If the precise wording has offended you, then I can only offer this advice: get over it. It's a teenage girl (with confidence issues based on her feeling like everyone was staring at her when she entered the VIP section of the club) speaking of herself.
There is absolutely nothing homophobic there at all.

If your argument is really that a general lack of homosexual relationships is a sign of widespread homophobia throughout the industry, then the same logic could be applied to everyone and everything. If I don't know any gay people, I must hate gay people. If none of my friends are african or asian, I must be a racist. Bioware is well within its rights to decide the sexuality of the characters it designs. If they decide one is going to have blue skin, green eyes, tentacles on her head and speak english, and you accept all those things, then they can fairly decide that that person is strictly heterosexual, or not, without it being some sort of socio-political statement or trend.
Beside's, you are flat wrong to claim that there are no lesbian relationships throughout ME2. On Illium alone there are multiple 'pure bloods,' with pureblood children of their own aswell who are quite outspoken about it, they are in no way portrayed as being ashamed and the prejudice they experience has nothing to do with sexuality as you seem to imply, but as liara explained in ME1, because it is generally felt that having a same-race mate allows the asari genetics to stagnate. Brings nothing new to the table as it were.

I don't have the patience to address the rest of your complaints and most won't have the patience to read it, but as alot of other people have already mentioned, most of the other 'sickening story elements,' you mentioned were engineered to draw that exact emotional responce from the player. Which it clearly did. You only need to grow some skin instead of being offended on behalf of every party, who can, by the way, take care of themselves.

I can't dispute your general dislike of the story arc, if you find something uninspired that is, unfortunately, your problem, because many of us, who are not infact young teenage degenerates who bought the game for it's sexual content, love this game. We like the characters, the plot, and the promise of more to come in ME3. To each his own, in that respect.

Modifié par Ender_118, 10 février 2010 - 06:35 .

[Darth Drago]

I have to agree with a lot of what the OP mentioned.

You look at ME1 and then ME2 and they are completely different in style. It would be like if George Lucas gave Quentin Tarantino the green light to make a Star Wars film. Oh wait but in ME2 they cut out any little nudity you glimpsed at in ME1’s love scene.

Sure the Terminus Systems where it seems most of the game takes place is not a nice place to visit. So it was kind of interesting to see the darker side of the galaxy. But it shouldn’t be as dark on all the planets you visit.

I didn’t mind the swearing but it seemed out of place when in the first game there was none. The sexual innuendo you can overhear in conversations was interesting but I felt was a bit much at times when you can go from one such conversation to another like on Illium. As for the stuff in the Afterlife Club I have no issues with what was there since I consider it fitting for such a location.

The plot issues, now we have a whole other issue. As a whole they are not good.

-The whole final boss looking like a Terminator was very weak and didn’t make sense at all. If the Reapers are made in the image of a species that they will harvest and considering how many harvested humans were guess at to finish the Terminator, ho wis it that there are hundreds (at a low guess) of what most likely are Reaper ships with a Prothean design? It would take billions (again a low guess) of Protheans to make up one of them. Where there that many Protheans in existence to make that many ships? Yet if this is true whay don’t they look like Protheans?

-The whole “Let all get into the shuttle to conveniently leave the ship on its own.” idea was one of the stupidest things I’ve seen in a game yet. Are you telling me that you can fit 14 people -Shepard and 13 companions (including the yet to be released one) and their gear in that one shuttle? When I got to this point I didn’t even have a main mission to go on. Wouldn’t have made more sense to have the Collectors attack after you chose your normal squad especially since you don’t need anyone once you get to the Collector ship and rescue those that where captured. If you stalled on this then not only do your crewmates get dissolved but maybe even a few companions.

-I thought that the ending spot where Joker was standing in the airlock shooting at Collectors was a bad idea as well. “Um, excuse me we have less than 10 minutes before this place blows and my pilot is standing in the door instead of at the controls of the ship.” Yep great idea. I have a pilot who I didn’t even know can use assault rifles and who cant walk that fast risking everyone’s lives because he needs some payback. A better choice would have been to have the companion who you used the most or your love interest there and if they died or are in your current squad then the next most used one.

-The suicide mission was a joke. From what I can tell the only way your companions will die is if you didn’t get the ship upgrades, do their loyalty mission of just didn’t hit that switch in time. The switch and upgrades are forgiven the loyalty quests are not. Your telling me that just because I don’t do their “special” quest that they are weaker than when I recruited them? Is this the best BioWare can do? Where is the Virmire like moments where you had to choose who may die? I expected to see something like that in here. Maybe a loyal companion would even volunteer to sacrifice themselves to save another but nope, no creativity on something that was so hyped as a suicide mission.

-The romance subplot is just bland as hell. Its all dialog while they are on the ship. No flirtatious moments off world, no near kisses or encounters and certainly no spark. It’s the James T. Kirk syndrome. Some dialog and then its off to get laid. The intimate moment is also a let down (nudity aside) there is no dialog after just a fade to black and back to work. Even if you talk to your love interest after you get nothing.

[Slice Of Bryce]

I actually find you trying to paralell all of the dark story sub-plots with events that took place during the Holocaust, insulting. To compare a mission on a video game with the torture and death of prisoners at Auschwitz is no way comparable in scale. Please refrain from doing this anymore