6 réponses à ce sujet

[Martanek]

Unfortunately, there are many things that I am quite dissapointed about in ME2.
And yes, like plenty of you, I feel that some of those changes are a step
backwards from ME1's gameplay. I really had high hopes for ME2 and I was pretty
excited when I finally got my hands on it. However, my excitement came off
unexpectedly quickly. In short, I will try to point out the most painful spots
that I think are relevant with ME2's gameplay. 

ATTENTION TO LAZY READERS:
A long column of text follows!


At first, I absolutely HATE having
to reload my guns this time. To me, it is simply focus-breaking, turns away from
the fluidity of combat action, not vice versa. I immediately googled for some
mod that fixed this and fortunately the ammo system works now in a similar way
ME did. Really, ME2's new ammo system is no improvement at all for me. It just
breaks, seriously breaks the gameplay's flow. What is fun about having to
collect ammo clips during a hard battle? ME2 obviously got mainstreamed with
this shooter mechanics. What works in a classic shooter may not work in the ME
universe IMO.

Secondly, I have such an impression that the new
ME has kind of shrunk the size of its explorable areas. Where has a map and its
radar dissapeared in many levels? Well, the only logical explanation is that ME2
now feels a lot more linear, nearly level-like. Again, another proof of ME2
going more a shooter way. This has something to do with the omission of the Mako
vehicle. Although exploring planets with the Mako was not perfect, it had a lot
of potential and I am convinced that such a vehicle would make for a much better
exploration (provided exploration is implemented adequately). Let us see how the
new Hammerhead will do in this regard. It is just that exploring new areas is
not so rewarding in ME2 in my experience. Suffice to say, take the newly
"reconstructed" Citadel for instance. It really feels almost claustrophobic, at
least in comparison with the original ME. Overall, the level design seems to be inferior to ME.

Thirdly, RPG elements
have been cut down severely for my taste. No inventory literally struck my eyes.
On top of that, there is no armor customization for your squad members so
Miranda, for example, shoots dressed in a kinky suit with high heels. What a
disaster for enemies when they only spot her... I have virtually no sensible
explanation for this and I was very upset having discovered the sad fact.

There is research, I admit. But it is too limited, too linear, too
simple, and cannot make up for the lack of a proper inventory in my view. I
totally agree that the ME inventory had its flaws, but again – there was a
potential for it to be reworked into something more acceptable, more RPG like,
less obtrusive. Instead, it was done away with, what a
pity.

Then, I do not like that shooting is no longer skill-based,
it is now only up to your shooting abilities how you fare in combat situations.
It sort of diminishes a feeling of your character's progression throughout the
game, the same applies to your powers. Unlike with ME, the character progression
in ME2 is not as rewarding in my experience. I do not have a proper "RPG
feeling" that my character improves itself as much in combat or outside of
combat (too little RPG variety adds to that impression). I thought that RPG
elements would be strenghtened instead of being removed or watered down. Simply
put, ME2's RPG department is very, very lame and improper to me. The whole game
apparently puts more emphasis on combat at the expense of RPG
elements.

Fourthly, I do not like what the new interface looks
now this time. It is a matter of taste, but for me things are not as clearly
arranged as in the original ME, which was not entirely O.K. with its interface,
either. Call me PC elitist, purist or whatever but when I play a PC game I
usually expect its interface to be PC environment-accommodated. Double-clicking and the use of more keys taken for
granted (I cannot assign keys to journal entry, codex, or team, in ME I could). Or remember what "shops" look like now. To be honest,
I expected something in a DA:O style, something closer to an RPG feeling, not as
blunt as this.

Fifthly, Shepard has obviously forgotten how to
crouch. Surely not a serious issue, but when the devs declared ME2 to be more
shooter-like I guess that we should have an option to be able to crouch. It
sometimes is useful when you want to move from one cover to another without
exposing yourself much.

Sixthly, I may be wrong about this, but
it seems to me that there is less party banter and fewer dialogue options in
ME2. I admit that it is possibly too premature to talk about this after some 15
hours of gameplay, it just appears to be a trend so far. Let's see if the
dialogues develop into something a little more sophisticated over the next
hours. I know that this contradicts the devs' statements that ME2 has a lot more
in-game texts so perhaps it is just my subjective impression.


Seventhly, more weapons and armour pieces,
please!

Finally, my overall impression with ME2 is that Bioware
has turned it from an RPG/ shooter hybrid into a shooter with a gentle flavour
of RPG content. That is exactly what I feared the most on previous ME forums before the game was released. Unfortunately, Bioware seemed to have fixed what ME objectively
lacked (e.g. better exploration, better combat in most respects, well-solved
loot compared to ME's inventory clutter, better A.I. of both opponents and your
party members...) at the expense of removing, merging, or toning down RPG
elements that would have made ME2 even better and that worked more or less well
in the first ME.

I thought that Bioware would correct some combat
mechanics and not very well implemented RPG elements equally but in the end we
see more streamlining, more simplification, more watered-down gameplay with
combat being highlighted. Do not get me wrong, apart from the aforementioned
criticism I have enjoyed ME2 a great deal and still have been having fun with
it, but it has simply turned out to be something slightly different than what I
actually looked forward to. As with most games, ME2 has a lot of strong points
and a number of weak points likewise. We need to be discerning when we get
swamped with all the PR and marketing boasts every time a highly anticipated
game is hitting the market.

The punch line is that ME is neither
perfect, nor a bad game, it has just become more mainstreamed to address a wider
range of audience. To me, the new Bioware game is overly overhyped, and
frankly, there are many reviewers who have succumbed to the aggressive
advertisement and have overrated ME2. Still, it is far better than most
mainstream production these days but this time I strongly sense EA's presence
behind it. I would not say that ME is better than ME2 or conversely, it just
goes in another direction. My final point and fear is that I am not sure if the
path the series has taken will suit "old good" Bioware fans who are more
RPG-inclined. I myself fall into this "old good Bioware fans" category and count
myself as I a "faithful" Bioware fan. I apologize for my text to be that long,
those are supposed to be my first thoughts after spending some time playing ME2. Inspiring comments welcome.

[Canez fan 1988]

cool story bro

[ztemplarz]

I agree. While I enjoyed ME2, it was by no means a masterpiece (in the sense of an RPG, rather than say, a computer sci fi game). in the original ME, shopkeepers would have updated, different inventories, whereas now they only seem to have a few specific set item "upgrades" that apply to ALL weapons/armors and they are expensive. In ME, I had several different versions of weapons that I kept in inventory because they had advantageous qualities dependent on the combat situations, and I enjoyed the fact that you could configure your weapons or armor to be appropriately suited to the type of mission you found yourself on. Now, it's all dependent on whether you found the right upgrades, and they are not nearly as useful as armor/ammo amplifiers. In the old game, you had to be careful with your team selection and character development, as not having someone skilled in tech or alternately biotics could sometimes come back to bite you, whereas now anyone can "hack" or "bypass". In principle I don't think that perhaps all the weapons specialization is necessary, but perhaps there should be some broad based general accuracy levels for specific classes- ie, being a combat oriented class automatically grants you a smaller reticle and increased accuracy, whereas being an adept gives you a larger one. Still based on your personal ability, but ALSO your class skills. I also disliked how in this one, your dialogue choices would REALLY take you off on a tangent, to the point where you would be a helpless prisoner of a minutes long cutscene with permanent ramifications (the Miranda Jack one in particular comes to mind, though there were several others). I also didn't like how it seemed that plot points seemed to be anchored to certain game events, where all of a sudden, everyone "wanted to talk to you". I would have liked something more similar to Dragon Age, where it is based off the favors you do, the actions you take, and what they experience while adventuring with you. I also dislike how seemingly every NPC "quest" ended up being a killing adventure- would it really have been that hard to make a few of them based of collecting information, or convincing someone to do something non-lethal? Overall a good game, but these are just a few of the shortcomings that immediately came to mind.

[cancausecancer]

I believe some of the sacrifices they made were for the consoles and some were because they are evolving the way games are played.



I preferred the original inventory and upgrade system. It added a great dimension to the game play.



The ME2 research system was a waste to me,

it was linear filler which I knew I had to do but felt no personal reward in it. I prefer the old one or having it left out completely.



They did a fantastic job with ME2 in general.

It was a great entertainment experience. In the future it looks like we'll be able to have a movie like Avatar except we're part of the movie and making decisions which affect the movie's outcome. It seems a next step in the evolution of game immersion.



I hope ME3 is more like an interactive movie with some game play added to it than a video game with cinematic cutshots added in. If you watch the credits at the end of it, they look like film credits without labels like grips, cinematographers , foley artists etc.

[StlAjax]

Something I would like to comment on, your main character had a fairly good inventory system. It was just split up and only available through certain outposts. The armor outpost in your room, which I really liked. (I wish they would have let you buy new clothes though for when you were aboard the Normandy.) And the weapon stations scattered through out the game, although the number of guns was sadly limited. The upgrade system was a lot better in my opinion. Well when compared to those stupid upgrades in the first one that you had to turn into gel every time you picked up more items. So frustrating. I believe that hey should keep this system but add in more items.

[Martanek]

I think that Bioware should combine those good RPG elements from the original ME (with proper corrections) and ME2 for ME3 which means having a classic inventory and an option to do research on the Normandy for various augmentations and upgrades, mixing the ammo system from the first ME with thermal clips from ME2 (weapons get normally overheated but you could control the process by applying thermal clips to cool them down at a desired moment), having an option to scan and exploit planets in ME2' style or explore them with a vehicle etc. There are many things I would have liked for ME2 to adopt from its predecessor, and I am convinced that if ME3 takes all the good traits from ME and all the good stuff from ME2 Bioware can never step in a wrong direction...

I would say that everything now depends on which group of fans Bioware would like to please with ME3. There is a lot of unused potential that ME offers and I truly wish the devs would pay attention to putting it to good use. I hope they bring that RPG feel back to ME3, which is sort of hard to find in ME2. Any other ideas, anyone?

[SL22]

Couldn't you have just posted this in the other thread? I'm really getting sick of these threads littering the front page.