I Don't get all the love for Mass Effect 2

[zinfamous]

Who cares about the plot? I'd say you'd have to be pretty damn gullible to care about a "save the universe" type plot which is so prevalent to be cliche. More interesting were parts like the fate of the migrant fleet and individual character stories. I'd recommend to most to just skip ME1 and go straight to ME2. The story will be more satisfying and the gameplay definitely so.

lol.

is this Casiotech?

:hmm:

 

[Red Hawk]

Who cares about the plot? I'd say you'd have to be pretty damn gullible to care about a "save the universe" type plot which is so prevalent to be cliche. More interesting were parts like the fate of the migrant fleet and individual character stories. I'd recommend to most to just skip ME1 and go straight to ME2. The story will be more satisfying and the gameplay definitely so.

Skipping ME1 is just about the worst thing you could do when it comes to getting a satisfying story out of ME2. You'll miss out on a lot of backstory, character development, world building, etc.

 

[Keeper]

Hell no. The first one sucked me in and I cared about what I was doing with my character and the decisions I was making, the second felt like a re-hash of the first, but with less gravitas.

KT

I agree...:thumbsup:

 

[NoSoup4You]

Hell no. The first one sucked me in and I cared about what I was doing with my character and the decisions I was making, the second felt like a re-hash of the first, but with less gravitas.

KT

Agreed.

However one thing is for certain - casual gamers absolutely hate the "points distribution" style of leveling up seen in ME1. They want to pick a talent and that's it, a la ME2 and even TES 5.

 

[thespyder]

Agreed.

However one thing is for certain - casual gamers absolutely hate the "points distribution" style of leveling up seen in ME1. They want to pick a talent and that's it, a la ME2 and even TES 5.

It's an unfortunate outcroping of the world we live in. "Casual" gamers want their 5 minute sound bite and get on with their lives. They want to satisfy their ADHD by scratching the surface and then moving on to the next distraction.

RPG gamers tend to be the exception to this. The reason that games like Baldur's Gate are still played today is that there are so many levels and ways to play that they put most other games to shame. And you can play it again and find something completely new and different or at least have a completely different experience almost every time. but you have to be willing to invest the TIME and EFFORT. Two things that our ADHD world have breed out of the current generation of gamers.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy games like "God of War" where the only real decision is which special do you level up first. But I play these games when I don't want to use my brain.

I enjoyed ME2 but it was less than half the game that ME1 or the KoTOR series was (to me).

 

[skace]

I've never really torn into ME2. And for those who have read my opinions before, you will probably guess the next sentence: because I never actually beat ME2. ME2 is a shadow of its former self. It is completely forgettable.

A lot of people will claim ME2 is streamlined and that is good. However, I will posit that the combat still absolutely sucks in ME2. So, you lost RPG elements for what, for nothing? You didn't gain better FPS elements or better action/adventure elements. You just got a lighter, more shallow RPG. On what grounds can I make such claim? Easy, Dark Souls, here is a series that has more RPG elements than ME2 and more action elements. Beaten on both fronts. The only genre that ME2 brings to the table is "story telling", which really isn't a gaming genre so much as it is emulating a movie.

We excused the combat in ME1, we excused the combat in Kotor, we did this because they were RPGs. Once you eliminate the RPG aspect, you can no longer excuse the tired, unimaginative combat. More so, limiting ammo at a disgustingly low amount is not a valid way of balancing the difficulty of your game.

The problem with the gear in ME2 is that none of it is substantially better. So besides a few skill upgrades, you are really as strong as you will be at the start as you are at the finish. Which is great from a "do things in any order" viewpoint, but terrible from a "well I'm really good at this game, it isn't going to get much harder and the story isn't really gripping me, so I'm going to put it aside and pretend I beat it". Should I need to be challenged? Well, it is a video game, and that is usually the crux of video gaming.

The other problem I have with ME2 is that they removed one of the only unique elements they had going. Planetary Exploration. This one hurts me a lot and, aside from a better story, is the main reason I love ME1 so much more than ME2. I really enjoyed planetary exploration, it made me feel disconnected, alone, remote and it made me feel like I was really exploring space. The exploration feature wasn't perfect in ME1 and was best implemented in the moon mission DLC, which really worked hard to fully populate a planet with interesting things to do. Going into ME2, I thought the moon mission from ME1 would be the template for planetary exploration. But instead they scrapped most of the concept completely. In fact, one of the only missions I really enjoy in ME2 is where they brought back planetary exploration, I think it might have been a DLC, for some planet with lava.

For a comparison, I recently revisited my backlog and completed STALKER:Call of Pripyat. I revisited this before ME2 and Fallout:NV and many others that I've only partially completed because CoP challenges me. Both CoP and ME2 took me back to a common environment and let me revisit it. And even though CoP is a foreign game with terrible cutscenes and reused almost 100% of its artwork, I still felt more engaged, more challenged, even at the end of the game I was still trying to figure out how to improve my character, what weapons to upgrade and how to improve my tactics against various enemies.

Someday I will finally truck through and finish ME2, hopefully the last 40% of the game some how surprises me and I can eat my own words.

 

[thespyder]

A lot of people will claim ME2 is streamlined and that is good. However, I will posit that the combat still absolutely sucks in ME2. So, you lost RPG elements for what, for nothing? You didn't gain better FPS elements or better action/adventure elements. You just got a lighter, more shallow RPG. On what grounds can I make such claim? Easy, Dark Souls, here is a series that has more RPG elements than ME2 and more action elements. Beaten on both fronts. The only genre that ME2 brings to the table is "story telling", which really isn't a gaming genre so much as it is emulating a movie.

I agree 100% with your comments. I just wanted to make one minor suggestion here. While the story and RPG elements are dumbed down, AND the Combat is not improved to the quality of FPS's, and yes this makes it less of a game on both fronts, the intent (as I understand it) is to make RPG type games more accessable to "Casual" gamers. In that, it is preceived by the developers as being a resounding success.

In stead of bringing gamers up to the level where they can learn about the wonder and richness of RPGs, they dumbed down the experience to make it meet the "Casual" climate and expectation. Let's face it, ME2 was meant for a target market including gamers like ... Certain members of this forum who don't want to be encumbered by decisions or consequences of choice or action.

Sux because I think they are doing a huge dis-service for anyone who (a) likes RPGs or (b) gets the opportunity to broaden themselves into the RPG world and mistakenly thinks that ME2 is a good example of one.

Someday I will finally truck through and finish ME2, hopefully the last 40% of the game some how surprises me and I can eat my own words.

Don't bet on it.

 

[sandorski]

Just finished it, great game. Story is as good as the first, but quite different. Inventory is vastly improved, although I kinda miss customizing weapons. I missed Driving, but planet Mining is much better.

There are a few weaknesses with it though. Cities are too limited, especially the Citadel. Mining gives far more than you need for Research, should have included a way to Sell it for Credits. Bioware needs to add Code that updates Tooltips with Custom binds, it's annoying having to look back at your Bindings to try and figure out what key to use.

Looking forward to 3.

 

[ChickenShwarma]

I love the Mass Effect series.

All of the streamlining effort on Mass Effect 2 worked really well for me.
Even for a FPS player like myself, the shooting mechanic is convincing enough, it does not detract, or feel restricted. The simplified inventory and upgrading system is also a welcoming change to keep the gameplay flow smoothly.

Many gamers feel games must fit into a certain category and must have certain gameplay features to be so. I disagree. I don't think RPG games must have specific inventory system, or shooters must have specific aiming element, or what have you. If you don't push the technology, and the gameplay, sports games would have been stuck with Pong.

Going back to the original discussion, one problem I had with Mass Effect 2, is that too much of the game focused on recruiting team mates, and less focus was placed on the main story progression. It is true that all the recruiting effort gave me the chance to see the depth of Mass Effect universe, but while I was doing that, I was less concerned about the main story arc. And that lack of attention to the big picture actually pulls me away from the roleplaying aspect more than anything else.

 

[thespyder]

I love the Mass Effect series.

All of the streamlining effort on Mass Effect 2 worked really well for me.
Even for a FPS player like myself, the shooting mechanic is convincing enough, it does not detract, or feel restricted. The simplified inventory and upgrading system is also a welcoming change to keep the gameplay flow smoothly.

So believe it or not, it looks like you were the target market for the changes. They wanted FPS players and so the streamlining was so that players like you would enjoy.

Many gamers feel games must fit into a certain category and must have certain gameplay features to be so. I disagree. I don't think RPG games must have specific inventory system, or shooters must have specific aiming element, or what have you. If you don't push the technology, and the gameplay, sports games would have been stuck with Pong.

I don’t think that people want “Specific inventory system” to be an RPG. But they do want “An Inventory system” or at least the ability to customize and actually “Select” equipment, weapons and armor used by their team. In ME2, I never ever saw any impact regardless of what weapon or armor you chose other than simple cosmetics. And while this isn’t he end all and be all of an RPG it’s lack definitely detracts.

As far as categorizing, nothing says that some blurring of the lines is a bad thing. But there are very definite things that make a platformer a platformer and that make an FPS an FPS. And removing them entirely from a game that ordinarily falls into that category basically removes them from same. I am fairly sure that you wouldn’t enjoy Halo or CoD where the actual “Shooting” was perfunctory and automated to such a degree that you couldn’t even choose what enemy you were shooting at. Removing “Choice” from an RPG is really very much like that. It is taking one of the fundamental components of the genre that actually make the game fun to RPG players out of the game entirely.

Going back to the original discussion, one problem I had with Mass Effect 2, is that too much of the game focused on recruiting team mates, and less focus was placed on the main story progression. It is true that all the recruiting effort gave me the chance to see the depth of Mass Effect universe, but while I was doing that, I was less concerned about the main story arc. And that lack of attention to the big picture actually pulls me away from the roleplaying aspect more than anything else.

I would postulate that the recruiting of ME2 was a significant part of the storyline. It was all about “Getting the band back together” to go and save the universe. Minus the individual recruiting missions, the actual story line would have been very short indeed. “Hey, presto you are back alive. Pick up two or three elements to activate the Jump Gate. Go in and attack the main ship.” That would have been maybe a couple of hours at most.