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[eternalnightmare13]

Next time save it for your ****ing blog no one ****ing reads - ****ER.

Payne by name wrote...

Mass Effect 2. My disappointed thoughts[/b]
 
First up, let me establish how great I thought Mass Effect was. Although Halo takes the crown as best gaming experience on any console, Mass Effect was always the best thing I’d played on the 360. I bought the two books, got the soundtrack album, the art books, the special edition of the 1st and even managed to lay my hands on the SE of Mass Effect 2.
 
I don’t say this to indicate that my opinion is gospel, far from it, but to at least justify that I am entitled to an opinion and aren’t some attention seeking troll. I’d like these comments to be read, hopefully by the developers in the hope that improvements can be made to the 3rd one.
 
If I offered and asked them to receive my praise on the 1st, then it seems only right I should do the same on the 2nd.
 
I also know that some or all of my points will have been raised before but I didn’t want to post my thoughts or even look at the forum until I’d completed the game. I put in about 50-60 hours but didn’t do it in all one go and thus why it’s taken some time for me to probably repeat what others have said before. To be honest many won’t even get this far in reading my ramble but you can’t grumble about a game unless you are prepared to detail what you actually thought of it.
 
Okay. I have to say that I was disappointed. The first game packed an emotional punch and a resonance that I felt long after the game. There were choices, there were selections and favourites and note worthy moments to discuss with friends and relatives, who I’d encouraged to take up the game.
 
The second, although it had a fabulous start, a good level of surface polish and an intriguing opening premise seemed desperate to try and improve but ultimately lost what it had in the first but then couldn’t attain in it’s attempts to copy other action focused titles.
 
Number of crew members
There were just too many crew members to assemble and find. With more characters there comes more dialogue but ultimately less for each respective character. When I first met Garrus, to see a friendly face (after Tali) from the 1st one, it felt really cool. He was always my right hand man in the first game and thus when the banter started in the de-briefing room after he came aboard, I was excited at the prospect at that level of further interaction between us.
 
Unfortunately, apart from the brilliant “reach and flexibility” story, we got little else magic. With so much content needed for the other characters, everything seemed to be spread thinly. Hence the most I learnt from Garrus is that he spent an inordinate amount of time “checking those calibrations”. I can’t help but feel that if the amount of characters had been halved, there would have been more room for content to develop them further.
 
When you can only ever take two with you at a time, you didn’t need an ultimate tally or 9 or 10. A further disadvantage of having so many team members is that the lions share of your time was spent recruiting them or completing their loyalty missions. You spend more time recruiting them and demonstrating loyalty that the actual core of the game.
 
In ME2, the loyalty missions (which were deemed as side quests in the first one) become part of the primary mission structure it seemed. Where as in the first you seemed to pick them up on the main journey of the story, here they were the story and hence things had an air of inevitability to them.
 
It’s all very well having loads of friends but until you start doing things with them and sharing experiences then you aren’t going to bond and thus more time was needed doing the missions that propelled the story forwards rather than forcibly bonding with your crew. It seems the lesson from the developers is “the more we chuck in, the happier everyone will be”.
 
You build an emotional connection to certain characters and the more they are fleshed the better it feels but with so many to choose from, you still ended up remaining with a core select and dismissing the others.
 
When it comes to characters, less definitely would have been more.
 
Game structure
You never feel like you are organically in charge of Shepherd, the missions or the crew. You select a planet, then it loads, you’re already on it, then before you know it, you’ve completed the mission and are back on the Normandy. Sometimes you don’t even realise you’ve triggered the return to the Normandy meaning your taste of these new worlds seems incredibly controlled. Like you don’t have the time or freedom to look round.
 
The mission where the collector ship has landed and has taken a lot of the colonists felt very rigid and structured. Sure you could see other areas but these were always behind crates etc meaning that you always felt very funnelled rather than having the time to look around. Always being pushed onto the next action scene.
 
I mean look at how restricted you are on the citadel. Illium was probably the closest that any planet came to the wonder of The Citadel or Feros.
 
This feeling of being bounced along is further compounded with the mission summary at the end. It felt so wrong. The game is meant to feel like your own story, your own journey but that felt like having a summation at the end of every chapter in a fictional book or having a ‘previously on’ moment that you get on so many series episodes.
 
The game is about your experiences, how you relate that with your crew and your growing stature. The mission summation is a heavy handed reminder that you are playing a game and have scored x amount of points.
 
The feeling of being pushed along on rails was demonstrated well when I started on Red Omega. I started to have a look around and try to take in the atmosphere in an un-hurried manner. I don’t dawdle but I like to get my bearings. Not wanting to miss anything I started by making my way round from the right. Without realising it, I ended up in the lifts and had started Mordin’s mission. Then with the confusing “Do you want to wait for Mordin or leave” (indicating to me that you’d either remain in the surgery or head off to investigate the rest of the space station”, I ended up back in the Normandy, flying off.
 
Whereas in the first you always felt you could control when and what you did and thoroughly investigate a location, here I became wary of ‘triggering; the return to ship and space section. And with the loading screens seemingly just as long, if not longer, than the first one, it’s something you didn’t want to do.
 
Scanning of the planets
Now I know many used to grumble about going down to the planet in a Mako but at least if made you feel there was a difference between space and a planet. You felt like you actually saw the universe a little more because you got to go planet side and visit different terrains and scenery.
 
Ok, it might have been simple driving around but you witnessed different vistas, you had a sense of freedom and took a greater involvement with the planets. You were more likely to read the description of a planet because you wanted to know what to expect when you touched down and who can forget some of the views you saw. Double moons, planets with rings or even trundling up the side of a hill on the moon and Earth coming into view.
 
In Mass Effect 2 every planet is just another scan. It was fun to fire off the probe at the beginning but after a time you realise it’s about exciting as metal detecting on a tidal river bank. Roll forward a couple of hours and seeing a cluster of planets fills you with dread. You don’t bother reading the planet info because it’s ultimately irrelevant and feel the scanning is just a burden to get your numbers up.
 
Granted, you don’t have to do it but then you feel you are missing out which makes you feel dis-enfranchised from the emotive connection to the story as well as not being able to upgrade. In the old game, you’d enter a new system, read up on the planets and there might be one or two to land on. In ME2, you enter a new system, see four planets and think we’ll there’s an hour or two of gameplay gone there.
 
Driving the Normandy round the space map
I know this is a small point but when it plays an integral role in the game is just feels silly and immature. One of the beauties of this game is that the creators have applied sensible logic. It’s got wonderful form and design married with practical function. Why then would Shepherd want to ‘vroom, vroom’ his toy spaceship around the screen like some four year old child at a fairground on of those remote controlled cars. In reality he’d just have a sensible cursor to move.
 
It seems a silly point but when you use it so much and it’s there at the beginning it feels totally misplaced.
 
Likewise, why would the captain be bothered with trivialities of buying the fuel. On one hand this game is taking RPG like elements of customisation and point gathering away to replace with predictable action yet then getting bogged down in the tedium of how much gas is in the tanks. What will we get in the 3rd one, how many toilet rolls to buy?
 
The reloading of the pistol
I know they wanted to make the action more fun but this became a real bug bear of mine. In ME1, especially when a vanguard you could get in a lengthy scrap with your foes. You could pace your shots with an endless steady stream or run in hard with a short lived flurry but understand that your gun would overheat.
 
Utilising future technologies and the ideas of the mass effect it seemed another great example of sensible logic. You never run out of ammo because you are just shearing off ‘slugs’ of metal from a clip. Having to endlessly reload and worry about the small size of the clip doesn’t make it more fun, just more frustrating. I know some will say it makes you think more strategic but to me it didn’t.
 
Instead of taking in the battlefield, the view, the nature of combat, you seem concerned with finding the next clip so you don’t run out and be forced to use another weapon that you might not like. It might be more realistic but one minute it seems we are, then next minute we aren’t. It’s like when Bungie decided to reduce the size of AR clip. It might have seemed a small change but you just didn’t have as much fun in the combat anymore. GOW managed to exploit this by having the Lancer come with a 60 round clip.
 
Lack of customisation for your look
Ok, I know Bioware wanted to dial down the various point connotations and outfits but did you have to take away the ability to have you or your crew wearing the helmets?
 
When we are on the Normandy or safely wandering round the Citadel then seeing all the eye/mouth magic is great but on a mission I want my crew to look badass. When playing ME1, I always had Garrus and Wrex with their helmets on and they looked so cool.
 
On the collector ship mission, you automatically get their helmets but the rest of the time no chance. I wouldn’t mind but when in the armour section it says that having the helmet on gives you 10% more shields it’s basically adding the sensible element to the ‘look’ element as well.
 
Needless to say I like to have my full face helmet on to compliment the hard arse look but again I can only set this when on the Normandy. Why can’t I take it on and off during a mission, as you would do, and do the same with my team members. When I met Liara she passionately kissed the outside of my cold metal helmet.
 
The music
I’m sorry but it was nowhere near as good as the first one. I’m quite adept at noticing soundtracks, whether in films or games. I own a fair chunk and this one had very little that was memorable, apart from maybe that first one when the game loads up.
 
The first soundtrack was out of this world. So many different themes, so evocative of that late 70’s sci fi vibe. It really was something else. Even to the point that when I played the OST album to a recent newbie to ME, who’d only put in like 10 hours he still was beaming like a cat when each different tune would come on and he could relate a scene or an emotion to a piece of music.
 
Vigil for me stands as inspirational a piece of music for Mass Effect, as the Gregorian chant is for Halo but there was nothing similar to this. We didn’t even get a similar belter to that of Faunts M4 Pt II that we got over the final credits. I don’t know if it was laziness or there was just nothing left in the bank.
 
Sacrificing story for action. Mood for boom, boom
I can’t help but feel like the game was prepared to sacrifice the strengths of story telling and mood generation through sweeping vistas and a haunting, evocative score by pandering or attempting to impress those with short attention spans or who only want action.
 
If I wanted a full on action game I’d play Halo, COD or GOW. Why does ME2 feel it has to directly compete. When it tries to, it suffers in the comparison but has then lost the forgiving consideration that story outweighs the shooting. So the first one was clunky, it didn’t matter when the reason for what you was doing was more important that how you were doing it.
 
Adopting the reload, employing a cover system so every battle is telegraphed by the sudden appearance of cover behind boxes or using the screen blurring when you are getting wounded.
 
The proliferation of weapons removes the need for multiple play throughs. When I played ME1, I was a vanguard who got very proficient at the pistol. It was the weapon I excelled at and I made sure that my two squad mates always had the firepower of an AR with them. It made me think, well maybe I’ll play it again as a soldier someday.
 
In ME2 though, with a considerably weakened pistol and an annoyingly small clip when I’m given the AR that becomes my weapon of choice and once again the game and gameplay is affected by too much choice.
 
Not the same level of ‘stop dead’ decisions
I’m sorry but there weren’t really that many stop dead, think about it for a moment decisions to make, only really the one at the end about the Collector base. Unfortunately though the developers have revealed their hand and for all the talk that your decisions in the first would have such a big bearing, you realise that in reality they don’t.
 
Whether the council lived or died is of little real consequence and hence when you are presented with the dilemma of destroying the collectors base, you know that it is something that will be addressed/corrected in maybe two lines of a conversation and that’s it.
 
I really feel for all those that played ME1 multiple times to have all the different saved versions of exterminating or not the Rachni, Ashley dying, Kaiden dying, Wrex dying, letting the council live or letting the council die because they must have discovered that it was all ultimately pointless.
 
When you consider how ME1 ended and for all the intervening time thinking have I made the right decision and it barely affected the new story, one just feels so short changed. When your mind is playing “well by letting the council live, humans and the alien races can work together in better harmony against the forthcoming threat” you realised that, that level of thinking was pointless.
 
Because of this you know that any decisions made in the 2nd aren’t going to hugely affect the third. When you consider that ME made such a big thing of the different branching and how you could affect the story, there has been considerably less in the 2nd, to the point where they’ve allowed themselves to be thoroughly usurped by Heavy Rain.
 
The ending
I’m sorry but what a cop out. There certainly wasn’t the same kind of feeling that existed when I heard the full story behind the reapers, the keepers and the hidden relay. Turning up to see the Citadel being destroyed and under attack was truly incredible. The ending in this one, with the suicide mission being having built up so long was although entertaining as coming to the end of something might be, certainly wasn’t edge of the seat stuff.
 
No one died apart from Mordin (and I played it through first time on the one below insanity), though woefully this wasn’t fully explained how, just a shot of his body and him no longer in the roster. There were plenty of rally calls but little emotional impact. You’re in a system that no one has seen, fighting a fabricated dumbed down version of the Reapers because the developers don’t want to reveal them until the 3rd one.
 
And why would the Reapers want to create a human looking ship? It’s well known that they look down at all sentient life, what purpose would it be having a ship to look human? Why not have it shaped like a doughnut or a banana. It was just another example of lazy story telling.
 
“we don’t want anything too big because we want to double dip the punters wallets, so let’s give them a human shaped reaper to shock them. That’ll work”.
 
This none moreso demonstrated than with that final shot of all the reaper ships heading towards the star system. They clearly had some ideas but thought if we can hoodwink the fans with repetitive action and quicktime events they won’t realise that the Reaper/end of the universe story hasn’t really advanced at all.
 
The makers tried to claim that this was The Empire Strikes Back but at least things were revealed in that film. Darth being Luke’s father, the Empire on the ascendancy, the rebellion having taken a massive blow. At least that left you pumped for ‘”oh god, everything has gone to hell”. If ME2 was meant to be the dark one, I rue what the 3rd will be.
 
In summary
To me it’s like the game was play tested but not emotionally play tested. In the rush to seduce the COD fanboys no one took the time to stop and listen to the amazing, emotive music and think “what will people be actually feeling”.
 
You want to return to a sequel to see new things but also to catch up. ME2 was on two discs as opposed to the one of ME1, so you assumed everything would be massive. How disappointing then that the Citadel was Access no areas, that Illium although great to look at wasn’t a snitch on the level of involvement of Feros or Virmire and that all we seemed to get was an endless stream of monotonous planets to scan.
 
When you consider that even if the makers hadn’t wanted to have you battling the reapers how you could have been going round trying to drum up galactic support for the forthcoming war. The loyalty missions could then have been for the respective council members with trips to their homeworld to boot. This would have played into the necessity and continuity of you being Shepherd to galvanise forces but also could/would have played into your decision to let the council live or die or what you did with the Rachni.
 
At least also you would have finished the 2nd primed and ready to go for the huge bust up with the reapers with your actions directly affecting how many races, ships etc you went into battle with.
 
Such a wasted opportunity, such a disappointment compared to the first one and a real feeling that your core audience was discarded in favour of the inconsistent vagaries of the shooter audience.

[Onyx Jaguar]

Jonathan Shepard wrote...

Greenhelm wrote...

I've read books shorter than this...you REALLY hate this game. I know the game has flaws but you are looking WAY too much into this.

No, OP pretty much got everything right. Mass Effect definitely had better feeling than its sequel.

Your opinion, I strongly disagree.

[Jonathan Shepard]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Jonathan Shepard wrote...

Greenhelm wrote...

I've read books shorter than this...you REALLY hate this game. I know the game has flaws but you are looking WAY too much into this.

No, OP pretty much got everything right. Mass Effect definitely had better feeling than its sequel.

Your opinion, I strongly disagree.

Really? It was a great game, but I really feel like it didn't come from the same place... then again maybe it's like The Empire Strikes Back-- you need the third part to see how it really fits in. But I still feel like it went nowhere compared to the first...

[GuardianAngel470]

I read the whole post and disagreed with most of it, but since the OP isn't likely to infringe on my right to enjoy this game then he is entitled to his opinion.



That said, my main grievance with his post is at the start of his post. The very first video game I played through fully on a console or otherwise was Halo. I loved it, and it started my interest in shooters. Unfortunately, Halo is a very flat experience. A jack-of-all-trades kind of game, in the sense that it is master of none. It's story was epic and it created an interesting universe that has spawned several good original books, but on it's own it was very flat. You play as the last of your kind (cliche) in a fight for the survival of humanity (also cliche) with a kickass sidekick AI. That's it. All of the characters were flat, especially the MC. Johnson and Cortana were probably the most interesting people in the whole trilogy.



The shooter mechanics were the most dumbed down of any shooter I have ever played, immediately eclipsed by Rainbow Six Vegas and GoW. No cover system, no customization system, no squad system. Just a handful of admittedly fun guns and 2 grenade types. The melee in that game was ridiculously strong, unique to be sure, and probably Halo's only real strong point.



The music was good, I have most of the three soundtracks, but none of those tracks give me as much spine-tingling pleasure as the Last 8 tracks of the ME2 OST.

[Juunana]

I read your post.  As someone that really loved ME2, I'll respond point by point to your issues.

[quote]Payne by name wrote...
First up, let me establish how great I thought Mass Effect was. Although Halo takes the crown as best gaming experience on any console, Mass Effect was always the best thing I’d played on the 360. I bought the two books, got the soundtrack album, the art books, the special edition of the 1st and even managed to lay my hands on the SE of Mass Effect 2.
 
I don’t say this to indicate that my opinion is gospel, far from it, but to at least justify that I am entitled to an opinion and aren’t some attention seeking troll. I’d like these comments to be read, hopefully by the developers in the hope that improvements can be made to the 3rd one.
 
If I offered and asked them to receive my praise on the 1st, then it seems only right I should do the same on the 2nd.[/quote] I understand.  Everyone's entitled to their opinion.  Thanks for not being as combative and "MY OPINION IS LAW, BOW TO ME BIOWARE" as some people here.

[quote]Number of crew members[/quote]
I, personally, really enjoyed all of the characters you get to join your team (with the exception of Jacob who I found to be extremely bland).  I was thrilled that Garrus and Tali made a return, and I also really started to like a lot of the new ME2 characters as well.

Would I have liked to see more interaction with Garrus?  Sure.  But ME2 gave us something that ME1 didn't - an entire mission done for Garrus, something directly involving his past and something he cares about deeply.  It shows the state of mind he's in after the events on Omega, and you can choose to help point him towards a sort of non-violent redemption, or you can help him take his vengeance.  You say we got little beyond the "reach and flexibility" story, but seeing Garrus and how he reacts to things on his loyalty mission was, I thought, great development.

ME2 is, as you can see from all the commercials, largely about "assembling your team."  That's clearly the direction Bioware took this game.  I suppose it's a matter of taste on whether or not that worked for you.  Meeting the characters that join your party is always one of the highlights for me in Bioware (or Obsidian/Black Isle) games, and this one delivered in spades.  I loved that each character had a recruitment mission focused on them, as well as a loyalty mission focused on them.  I thought that served to develop the characters really well.  You may prefer that they take some of the emphasis away from that and focus more on the Reaper/Collector thing; that's fine, I'm guessing that's what 3 will be.  But I thought ME2 set the stage very nicely for ME3, giving you a team of characters that you have now gotten to know quite well.

And if your complaint is that you didn't get to spend enough time with each character over the course of the game and so they should have put in fewer...well, isn't that a decent reason to play through the game again?

[quote]Game structure[/quote]
This is, to me, a minor issue.  While, yes, it wouldn't be bad if it always put you back in the station/city you were in after a mission rather than back on the ship, it would be ideal.  But didn't that already happen on nearly every mission?  On the ones that it didn't, I expect it would have just been you running back through all the same areas you just cleared, that are now empty, until you got back to the shuttle or whatever.  Thinking of things like Jack's missions.
 
[quote]Scanning of the planets[/quote]
The Mako was fun at first.  But for me, it got old quickly.  I couldn't do more than a few playthroughs of ME1 solely because the thought of driving around in that Mako again started sounding like a horrible idea.  I was not sad to see it go for ME2.

That said, I also really hate planet scanning.  I read a review that described it as "fun as coloring in a basketball with a sharpie."  I hope they ditch this for ME3 and try again.  So I'll give you this - planet scanning is awful and an artificial way to increase the length of the game.
 
[quote]Driving the Normandy round the space map[/quote]
You said this is a minor point, and I'd agree with that assessment.  However, I'd also agree that it could've been done in a more immersive way than the go-kart type feel of moving the Normandy around.

[quote]The reloading of the pistol[/quote]
I'd like a third pistol that's better than the other two.  The hand cannon is pretty good but runs out of ammo ridiculously quickly, especially on the harder difficulties.  So, another minor point, but I'll give you this one.  Pistols were better in ME1.  Combat as a whole, however, I think is much improved for ME2.
 
[quote]Lack of customisation for your look[/quote]
Not really sure what you're going for here.  You want to be able to make your teammates wear their helmets where there's breathable air?  Maybe you should just use Tali all the time?  >.>  That said, I see no harm in adding this option if it's something people want.  Didn't bother me, but to each his own.

[quote]The music[/quote]
I don't know, I thought the soundtracks were similar but I didn't pay that close of attention I guess.  I enjoyed both.  I'll withhold a comparison-type judgement on this one.

[quote]Sacrificing story for action. Mood for boom, boom[/quote]
I thought that the combat system was much improved for ME2, and I was glad to see it.  I can't say like I feel there was a big sacrifice of 'story' to do it.  I still enjoyed getting to spend more time in this universe, and I really enjoyed getting to meet all the new characters that were introduced for Shepard's team.  I thought going onto a derelict Reaper was extremely haunting and eerie, as was the abandoned Cerberus facility that Jack wanted to blow up.  There were a number of impressive locales, I thought.  I will grant you that there were fewer wide open space type environments, but I guess that's a side effect of losing the Mako.  Maybe with the new Firewalker DLC, we'll get some more of that in the future.

There's no reason to penalize an RPG for trying (and in my opinion, succeeding) to improve their combat system.

As for multiple playthroughs, I'm currently on my third.  First was as my male paragon Shep.  Second my female renegade Shep.  Now I'm doing an insanity playthrough.  I'll probably do one more after Kasumi is released just so I can take her along to most places.  I think my total number of ME1 playthroughs was around 3, so I'm right on target.
 
[quote]Not the same level of ‘stop dead’ decisions[/quote]
I think your expectations might have been a bit unrealistic on this one.  They're making one game - if they did what you seemed to expect here, they'd have to make way more than the content of one game to account for huge effects of all the choices you made.  It sounds like you wanted ME2 to play like completely different games dependent on a number of different choices you made in ME1.  ME2, however, is already a good-sized game.  It's 2 discs on the 360.  I think that adding that much more content that would differentiate between every possible set of choices just wouldn't be feasible.

I do think, however, that ME3 may surprise you with the effects that your choices had on the outcome.  You're presumably going to be fighting the Reapers.  Will the Quarians be helping you, or will they be embroiled fighting the Geth?  Will the Geth be a sizable force to help you, or did you tell Legion to blow up all the Heretics, greatly reducing their numbers?  Did you spare the Raachni so that they're available to help?  Did you keep the data that was working towards a Genophage cure?  What did you do with the Collector base?  Do the aliens have some respect for humans for saving the Council, or are humans regarded with fear and dislike since Shepard let them die?  I expect all these things and more will have an impact on the outcome of any fights with the Reapers.  These, however, will likely be incorporated without having to make basically multiple different games - they'll be worked in through dialogue and cut scenes if I had to guess.  But we'll find out.

[quote]The ending[/quote]
Can't agree with this one either.  You do realize what we found out at the end, right?  We find out what Reapers actually are.  They're a sort of symbiote between Reaper technology/AI and the genetic material of a race.  In the current crop of organic races in the Galaxy, they chose humans.  This is why you always hear Harbinger saying to take Shepard alive if possible - he wants to 'assimilate' him; to melt him down and make him part of the human Reaper whole.

As for the suicide mission - one thing I really like about what they did here is that they let you utilize more than just two team members.  It would have been lame if I assembled this huge team for the suicide mission, then I got to take two of them in with me.  This was something that bummed me out about ME1 - I liked all my characters and couldn't find out why I couldn't get them involved, especially at the end.

My only wish would be that they had let us play as the other squads in the suicide mission.  Maybe you play through as Shepard helping the tech specialist get through, then it switches to you playing whoever you chose to lead the Fire Team  in cutting through an alternate path, or holding the door while Shepard's squad makes it through another area.  Then perhaps play as the squad member you assign to lead the Normandy crew out of the base.  Still, it was a step in the right direction.

I didn't have anyone die, but I guess that's because I did
all the loyalty missions (how could you not?!?) and made the correct
assignments.

I don't agree that the Reaper plot has not been advanced at all.  We found out what the Reapers do to the organic races when they return - they don't just kill them all, they rewrite their genetic material and breed them as mindless slaves.  They turn at least one of the races into a new Reaper via their genetic materials - perhaps that's their entire motivation?  They need to reproduce, and they need organics to do it.  Shepard and his team of what legitimately felt like some of the most dangerous people in the galaxy stopped them.

[quote]In summary[/quote]
As much as I appreciated your disclaimer at the beginning of your post, I'm disappointed with how you ended it.  I'm pretty insulted to be dismissed as a CoD fanboy that can't appreciate a good game and just wants everything dumbed down.  You clearly had different expectations for what you wanted to see out of this game, and they didn't take the story in the direction you'd hoped.  I'm sorry you didn't like it.  A lot of us, however, did, and not just because we like mindless pew pewing.

[Cascadus]

As a game, I could never shake off the feeling it never reached it's full potential. So many instances surrounding the game of cut content, the removed beginning, the concepts surrounding the Collectors, Legion and every other character. I'd of gladly waited another year if these kinds of things came to fruition, but sadly it doesn't look to be so.

I love ME2, and as far as gameplay goes, I much prefer the feeling of it over ME1's and I have no issues with the typical issues brought up with it such as the lack of inventory and the 'railroading' into Cerberus, but while I prefer the squad members of ME2 FAR more than ME1's (and brought all the ones besides Wrex I cared for), the squad interactions were disappointing.

ME2 is a game that was great, but a game that could of achieved so much more.

[Axterix]

Juunana wrote...

And if your complaint is that you didn't get to spend enough time with each character over the course of the game and so they should have put in fewer...well, isn't that a decent reason to play through the game again?

No, not really.  The problem is the depth isn't there.

Like you, I like most of the characters.  But I'd still rather have had half the number with twice as much of them.  The other half could have gotten a similar treatment in another game.

And, more importantly, because all the time is spent recruiting, you don't get any real feel of a story.  Yeah, Collectors are out there.  Big deal.  I need to go find me an assassin.  And a Asari Biotic, because the three I already have (not potentially counting Shep) aren't enough.

Probably the biggest flaw of the game.  The story is lacking.  It really should have followed the more traditional role of a 3 act play.

The Mako was fun at first.  But for me, it got old quickly.  I couldn't do more than a few playthroughs of ME1 solely because the thought of driving around in that Mako again started sounding like a horrible idea.  I was not sad to see it go for ME2.

The main problem wasn't the Mako, but the planets, in my opinion.  Mountain range after mountain range.  If 90% of them had been rolling hills, dunes, something flatter, smoother, it would have been a lot better.  Overall, more interesting than scanning and would add a bit of a sense of scale.

That said, while scanning sucked, missions on more hand crafted maps is nice.  And that's one thing that driving around the planet first would tend to interfere with.

I'd like a third pistol that's better than the other two.  The hand cannon is pretty good but runs out of ammo ridiculously quickly, especially on the harder difficulties.  So, another minor point, but I'll give you this one.  Pistols were better in ME1.  Combat as a whole, however, I think is much improved for ME2.

I'd have to disagree with this for a large part.  Found ME 1 combat to be more mobile, more interesting.  ME 2 made some improvements, for sure, but a lot of it came down to hide behind cover and curve your special powers around.  The ammo system was annoying and it took a while before you get the actual fun guns, like the SMG you pick up on the Tali recruitment mission over the original.

Which isn't to say that there weren't improvements, but hopefully ME 3 finds the right balance between ME 1 and 2.
 

Can't agree with this one either.  You do realize what we found out at the end, right?  We find out what Reapers actually are.  They're a sort of symbiote between Reaper technology/AI and the genetic material of a race.  In the current crop of organic races in the Galaxy, they chose humans.  This is why you always hear Harbinger saying to take Shepard alive if possible - he wants to 'assimilate' him; to melt him down and make him part of the human Reaper whole.

Yeah, we found out the Reapers are made of slushies, talk about your midi-chlorian factor.  We were better off not knowing.  This, the giant terminator action figure, and the silly taunting did a lot of hurt to the reputation of the Reapers.  They were sorta cool and scary.  Now?  I think someone taped a "kick me!" sign to the back of them, that's how much respect they get.  But at least somewhat redeemed by seeing the fleet go active.

Mind you, the game was overall still fun.  It had its good points, some things that were great improvements (the interrupts, for one).  But it was lacking in a few ways.

Overall, I'd say it is slightly worse than ME 1, though relatively close.

Hopefully, the devs can take what worked from both and present us with a truly great 3rd act.

[Karstedt]

Wild Still wrote...

bjdbwea wrote...

Great post, OP. Don't mind the usual suspects who'll insult you without even reading your post.

As opposed to the usual suspects who hang around a forum because they hate the game those forums are devoted to.

In summary:

1: Didn't like the huge number of crew or the crew themselves
2: Didn't like the structured nature of ME2
3: Didn't like scanning planets
4: Didn't like driving the Normandy
5: Didn't like ammo
6: Didn't like the automatic helmet
7: Didn't like the music
8: Didn't like the limited influence ME1 play throughs had on ME2
9: Didn't like the ending
10: This game is for frat boys now.

I look forward to continued posts about how much better the good old days were. Rose coloured rear view mirrors are the best kind!

So, in summary, Wild Still:

1: Didn't like the small number of crew or the crew themselves in ME1
2: Didn't like the less structured nature of ME1
3: Didn't like driving the Mako
4: Didn't like the absence of a vroom vroom Normandy and fuel managment in ME1
5: Didn't like the lack of ammo in ME1
6: Didn't like the being able to remove your helmet
7: Didn't like the music of ME1
8: Didn't like that ME1 had any impact whatsoever on ME2
9: Didn't like the ending of ME1
10: Thought ME1 was for whiny haters

I
look forward to continued posts about how much better the new days are. Rose colored windshields are the best kind!

Yes, I'm mocking you. You post was thoughtless and resolved with an unsubstantiated implication. If you are going to troll, try to keep it to one or two lines; like I usually do.

Modifié par Karstedt, 23 mars 2010 - 05:41 .

[lastpawn]

I agree with a lot of what you said, OP, especially about ME2 not having the same emotional impact.

That said I still think that ME2 was superior in many ways, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. My hope is that BW can take the best from these two games and make ME3 something really memorable.

In the meantime I'll be finishing my 11th Insanity playthrough (shotgun Engineer, because why not).

[jamoau]

I pretty much agree with you OP, however I thought the reboot of the story and Shepards death, frankly, pathetic. Instead of 'let's carry on with a cohesive story', it was 'who cares what we did in ME as long as we get the shooter gameplay right'. The beginning was a Deja vu for me; KotOR all over again, except you didn't make planet fall - you were burned to a crisp.



I thought ME2 was overall a good game, but I personally got little of the enjoyment from it that ME gave (warts and all) and I'm currently on my third playthrough.



I hope that BW can recapture some of the magic in ME 3, but when you look at their current direction, I have my doubts.

[smudboy]

Juunana wrote...
Would I have liked to see more interaction with Garrus?  Sure.  But ME2 gave us something that ME1 didn't - an entire mission done for Garrus, something directly involving his past and something he cares about deeply.  It shows the state of mind he's in after the events on Omega, and you can choose to help point him towards a sort of non-violent redemption, or you can help him take his vengeance.  You say we got little beyond the "reach and flexibility" story, but seeing Garrus and how he reacts to things on his loyalty mission was, I thought, great development.

There was a whole mission dedicated to tracking down Dr. Saleon in ME1, which directly involves his past and is something he cared about deeply.  Additionally, you talk to Garrus in such a way that you either P/R his view on doing his job, which is to abide by rules, or be ruthless.  This also handles how you deal with Dr. Saleon.  This changes his view entirely.  "I've never quite met someone like you before, Commander."

Unfortunately, this new found attitude or outlook is nowhere to be seen in ME2.  Which bugs the crap out of me because it was done so well, and seems like not that big a deal to carry over.  Not even a comment or change (unless I really missed something, and someone fill me in here.  I'm sure there was only one new comment by Shepard/Tali if you got her the geth data in ME1.)

ME2 is, as you can see from all the commercials, largely about "assembling your team."  That's clearly the direction Bioware took this game.  I suppose it's a matter of taste on whether or not that worked for you.  Meeting the characters that join your party is always one of the highlights for me in Bioware (or Obsidian/Black Isle) games, and this one delivered in spades.  I loved that each character had a recruitment mission focused on them, as well as a loyalty mission focused on them.  I thought that served to develop the characters really well.  You may prefer that they take some of the emphasis away from that and focus more on the Reaper/Collector thing; that's fine, I'm guessing that's what 3 will be.  But I thought ME2 set the stage very nicely for ME3, giving you a team of characters that you have now gotten to know quite well.

Forget emphasis on Reaper/Collectors.  The side missions have nothing to do with anything going on in ME2, save maybe Mordin's recruitment where he gets reduced to a plot device.

And if your complaint is that you didn't get to spend enough time with each character over the course of the game and so they should have put in fewer...well, isn't that a decent reason to play through the game again?

Would you rather have fewer more relevant, fleshed out characters, or as many as possible?

The Mako was fun at first.  But for me, it got old quickly.  I couldn't do more than a few playthroughs of ME1 solely because the thought of driving around in that Mako again started sounding like a horrible idea.  I was not sad to see it go for ME2.

One thing we can say is BioWare is having a problem with planet exploration.

You said this is a minor point, and I'd agree with that assessment.  However, I'd also agree that it could've been done in a more immersive way than the go-kart type feel of moving the Normandy around.

I think it's safe to say we'd rather have the MAKO over launching probes.

I think your expectations might have been a bit unrealistic on this one.  They're making one game - if they did what you seemed to expect here, they'd have to make way more than the content of one game to account for huge effects of all the choices you made.  It sounds like you wanted ME2 to play like completely different games dependent on a number of different choices you made in ME1.  ME2, however, is already a good-sized game.  It's 2 discs on the 360.  I think that adding that much more content that would differentiate between every possible set of choices just wouldn't be feasible.

ME2 has 2 main plot choice decisions:
1) Sell/Keep Legion, Turn it on/off
2) Save/Destroy the Collector base.

Compare that to ME1's saving/destroying a species (Rachni), saving/destroying a human colony from a 50k year old mind controlling sentient plant, killing a prisoner/leting her redeem herself after getting a mental tool to comprehend the thoughts of a 50k year old civilization, killing/calming down a crew member over the potential cure to their species survival, having a crew member thank you for saving them and deciding whether to thank or reprimand them and getting a vision of destruction as the start of the entire plot, protecting a dreadnaught with the leaders of the galactic government/neglecting them to attack the most dangerous threat in the universe, etc.

I do think, however, that ME3 may surprise you with the effects that your choices had on the outcome.  You're presumably going to be fighting the Reapers.  Will the Quarians be helping you, or will they be embroiled fighting the Geth?  Will the Geth be a sizable force to help you, or did you tell Legion to blow up all the Heretics, greatly reducing their numbers?  Did you spare the Raachni so that they're available to help?  Did you keep the data that was working towards a Genophage cure?  What did you do with the Collector base?  Do the aliens have some respect for humans for saving the Council, or are humans regarded with fear and dislike since Shepard let them die?  I expect all these things and more will have an impact on the outcome of any fights with the Reapers.  These, however, will likely be incorporated without having to make basically multiple different games - they'll be worked in through dialogue and cut scenes if I had to guess.  But we'll find out.

Only the Collector base can happen in ME2, and the Rachni were from ME1.

Can't agree with this one either.  You do realize what we found out at the end, right?  We find out what Reapers actually are.  They're a sort of symbiote between Reaper technology/AI and the genetic material of a race.  In the current crop of organic races in the Galaxy, they chose humans.  This is why you always hear Harbinger saying to take Shepard alive if possible - he wants to 'assimilate' him; to melt him down and make him part of the human Reaper whole.

How do you know this?

As for the suicide mission - one thing I really like about what they did here is that they let you utilize more than just two team members.  It would have been lame if I assembled this huge team for the suicide mission, then I got to take two of them in with me.  This was something that bummed me out about ME1 - I liked all my characters and couldn't find out why I couldn't get them involved, especially at the end.

So 4 out of 11 is acceptable?  For a goal we know nothing of till we actually get there, we'll just get random people because some mysterious guy said so?  That's the pacing?  For people whose skills only involve technical, leadership, and biotic bubble roles?  (Anyone can do the escort.)

I don't agree that the Reaper plot has not been advanced at all.  We found out what the Reapers do to the organic races when they return - they don't just kill them all, they rewrite their genetic material and breed them as mindless slaves.  They turn at least one of the races into a new Reaper via their genetic materials - perhaps that's their entire motivation?  They need to reproduce, and they need organics to do it.  Shepard and his team of what legitimately felt like some of the most dangerous people in the galaxy stopped them.

Why do they need to reproduce and in that manner?  Why do they use proxies in the most inefficient way?  Why didn't they find another way to port into the Citadel/our known galaxy?  Why were they building a large metal/organic human shaped version of themselves?  How do millions of melted human graft itself onto a metal giant?

Perhaps that's the entire motivation?  "Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh." -- these are not the fearsome and super-advanced hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of year old Reapers we know of from ME1.

How exactly has the Reaper plot been advanced?

Modifié par smudboy, 23 mars 2010 - 01:35 .

[Cascadus]

I have to mention that ME2 does introduce a lot of plot-hooks, up to and including the dark energy problem of Haestrom and Legion and Tali's loyalty missions, which are probably the most significant.

[smudboy]

phatpat63 wrote...

I guess I'll brave the trolls and wade in. Fantastic post. Spot on, on all counts. I especially agree with this part:

Payne by name wrote...
 
Not the same level of ‘stop dead’ decisions
I’m sorry but there weren’t really that many stop dead, think about it for a moment decisions to make, only really the one at the end about the Collector base. Unfortunately though the developers have revealed their hand and for all the talk that your decisions in the first would have such a big bearing, you realise that in reality they don’t.
 
Whether the council lived or died is of little real consequence and hence when you are presented with the dilemma of destroying the collectors base, you know that it is something that will be addressed/corrected in maybe two lines of a conversation and that’s it.
 
I really feel for all those that played ME1 multiple times to have all the different saved versions of exterminating or not the Rachni, Ashley dying, Kaiden dying, Wrex dying, letting the council live or letting the council die because they must have discovered that it was all ultimately pointless.
 
When you consider how ME1 ended and for all the intervening time thinking have I made the right decision and it barely affected the new story, one just feels so short changed. When your mind is playing “well by letting the council live, humans and the alien races can work together in better harmony against the forthcoming threat” you realised that, that level of thinking was pointless.
 
Because of this you know that any decisions made in the 2nd aren’t going to hugely affect the third. When you consider that ME made such a big thing of the different branching and how you could affect the story, there has been considerably less in the 2nd, to the point where they’ve allowed themselves to be thoroughly usurped by Heavy Rain.

Mass Effect 2 was a fine game and made several improvements to the franchise(working a larger percentage of the time being the main one), but ultimately is a weak echo of its pedicessor because of 2 core design choices made by Bioware(most likely under pressure from EA to do so).

1)The clandestine decision to make ME2 filler. Three fourths of the game is spent on characters that may or may not all be dead by the end for crying out loud. The Mass Effect franchise started off with an incredible ambition to carry the players story, character, and decisions they made accross 3 games. With Mass Effect 2 that ambition is tossed to the side like so much trash. The "impact" of your Mass Effect 1 choices are given token cameos, there are virtually no such choices presented in Mass Effect 2, and the player is railroaded into the more or less linear plot, all to give ME3 a nice clean, discreet starting point without all those little choices the player made in the pervious two games gumming up the works.

2)Trying to make a game that would appeal more to shooter fans. I think this is adequately addressed by the OP.

Interesting: how do you see ME3 being nice and clean?  How the devil is it going to clean up after ME2, with the possibility of the entrie crew being dead, let alone the lack of any coherent development on the overarching plot, which ME3 is supposed to bring closure to?

[nokori3byo]

Wow. All I can say is that, while I strongly agree the original game was epic and involving, going back to it now after having played the sequel is like wading through flavorless, colorless jello.

[Jarcander]

Maybe the areas would've felt larger if there had been elevator rides between zones? *drumroll* *laughter* More seriously, you have some valid points, but you make the game sound worse than it is. Maybe you should've considered adding more things you liked and then you could've felt better about the game too. It's really not *that* bad and it improved a lot from the first game.

[Raniall]

Oh look. Another one, how cute. Can we get the mods to create a b**** thread for all these because they really are just cluttering up the forums.

Look, I agree with a number of things that were not done right with this game, but seriously, after the nth thread saying the exact same thing, they get redundant.

Modifié par Raniall, 23 mars 2010 - 02:16 .

[BaladasDemnevanni]

smudboy wrote...

1. There was a whole mission dedicated to tracking down Dr. Saleon in ME1, which directly involves his past and is something he cared about deeply.  Additionally, you talk to Garrus in such a way that you either P/R his view on doing his job, which is to abide by rules, or be ruthless.  This also handles how you deal with Dr. Saleon.  This changes his view entirely.  "I've never quite met someone like you before, Commander."

2. Unfortunately, this new found attitude or outlook is nowhere to be seen in ME2.  Which bugs the crap out of me because it was done so well, and seems like not that big a deal to carry over.  Not even a comment or change (unless I really missed something, and someone fill me in here.  I'm sure there was only one new comment by Shepard/Tali if you got her the geth data in ME1.)

1. Hmm, loaded words here. "A whole mission!" You mean, the 2 rooms you explored before killing/leaving the good doctor? That's not very encouraging. Compared that to his loyalty mission where you see quite how far Garrus is now willing to go in his vigilante status (Harkin, Sidonis, etc.).

2. Actually, they do address it. First time meeting Garrus (after he's done sniping people), you can ask him what he's been up to. He explains how everything you taught him kinda died...along with Shepard. So he decided to try the vigilante business.

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 23 mars 2010 - 02:16 .

[smudboy]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...
1. Hmm, loaded words here. "A whole mission!" You mean, the 2 rooms you explored before killing/leaving the good doctor? That's not very encouraging. Compared that to his loyalty mission where you see quite how far Garrus is now willing to go in his vigilante status (Harkin, Sidonis, etc.).

Yes, "a whole mission!"  Notice how I am not comparing the two.  I am merely stating it existed, since the poster said ME1 did not have one.

2. Actually, they do address it. First time meeting Garrus (after he's done sniping people), you can ask him what he's been up to. He explains how everything you taught him kinda died...along with Shepard. So he decided to try the vigilante business.

Wow.  Great job BioWare.

[spacehamsterZH]

bjdbwea wrote...

Great post, OP. Don't mind the usual suspects who'll insult you without even reading your post.

He lost me at "Halo".

[Karstedt]

The OP clearly hates this game and would rather go back to playing text adventures like Hacker, where you don't even know the commands and have to sit around typing random stuff ad nauseum until something happens.
[/imitation of most dissenters]

Modifié par Karstedt, 23 mars 2010 - 02:48 .

[Valmy]

Payne by name wrote...

Such a wasted opportunity, such a disappointment compared to the first one and a real feeling that your core audience was discarded in favour of the inconsistent vagaries of the shooter audience.

I just I could understand why it is always necessary to insult and belittle those of us who do love the game in the posts telling us why you didn't like it.

I was going to write a counterpoint...but I don't think I will bother.  I guess I am just a vulgar person and not elevated and enlightened right thinking person like you.

[spacehamsterZH]

Valmy wrote...

Payne by name wrote...

Such a wasted opportunity, such a disappointment compared to the first one and a real feeling that your core audience was discarded in favour of the inconsistent vagaries of the shooter audience.

I just I could understand why it is always necessary to insult and belittle those of us who do love the game in the posts telling us why you didn't like it.

I was going to write a counterpoint...but I don't think I will bother.  I guess I am just a vulgar person and not elevated and enlightened right thinking person like you.

Well, at least you're a real person. I like both games, so clearly I don't even exist.

[Karstedt]

spacehamsterZH wrote...

Well, at least you're a real person. I like both games, so clearly I don't even exist.

Very true. It's literally impossible to like both games. Beyond that, It's also impossible to have criticisms of something you like. It would create a paradox causing the reality in which it happened to have never existed. So even if it did happen, it wouldn't have happened.

[Forsakerr]

Well said Op , what also annoyed me what the linear way of recruiting your squad mates and having Legion at the end , the game was good but it could have been way more .