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I'm posting this because I am sick and tired of people going on and on about how bad and overrated Mass Effect 2 and how much better Mass Effect is than its sequel. I'm tired of people complaining about how trivial gameplay aspects (inventory, looting enemies) apparently make or break an RPG. Mass Effect 2 is an excellent game, it may just be the best single player game ever made. It is easily the most fun I've had gaming in years. It combines the action of a TPS with the storytelling and character development of the best RPGs and tosses in some cool elements suck as the new Paragon and Renagade quicktime events. If you dislike the game because its a TPS and not a traditional TBC D&D clone that's fine. Not everyone enjoys every game, but knocking it and claiming that is less of a game because of that is asinine.

To those who disliked Mass Effect, I recomment that you play ME2. It removes a lot of the poor elements of the original, improves combat, and is ultimately a much more polished game. The weakest aspect of the game is the mining mini game, but you don't have to invest any time in that if you do not desire. The amount of time needed to spend mining is minimal and is by no means enough to ruin the game.

Note: This based on the PC version of both games.

Points of Contention
1) Mass Effect 2 is not an RPG
2) Mass Effect 2 has a weaker story
3) Mass Effect 2 has weaker characters
4) Mass Effect 2 has less customization
5) Mass Effect 2 is a smaller and shorter game
6) Mass Effect 2 has bad gameplay

But first, the obvious!

The Mako

The majority of Mass Effect players disliked the Mako. I disliked it for three reasons. The controls for it are poor, the planets you explore with the Mako are bland, cut and paste worlds, and the Mako takes away from the overall game experience. I did not purchase Mass Effect in order to drive a vehicle around in lifeless worlds. I don't think anyone else did either. If you want to include vehicles, make them secondary. The Mako shouldn't be required for Feros, Therum, Noveria, Ilos, Virmire, and many of the side missions. The Firewalker DLC was a big improvement. I hope that ME3 either avoids vehicles or makes them a secondary element

Graphics

Obviously, the improvement of graphics from Mass Effect to ME2 wasn't huge. There was a moderate improvement, but more importantly ME2 looks better AND runs better than Mass Effect. I call that a win.

And now the issues!

1) Mass Effect 2 is not an RPG

The first problem with this claim is that there is no accepted definition of what makes an RPG. Is an RPG simly a D&D clone? If you use this definition than neither Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2 is an RPG. If you think an RPG needs an inventory system, excessive and useless talents, lootable enemies, and XP from every kill, than Mass Effect 2 is not an RPG.
I'd like to think that the most important element of an RPG is the development of your character. The most important aspect of character development is not leveling up. The most important element is how your character impacts the story and the world around him/her. The key difference between RPGs and most non RPGs is that you have many more choices in an RPG. No one can make a logical argument that Mass Effect 2 lacks character development in that you are capable of making a myriad choices that effect the story, the world around you, your squadmates, and of course, your character.

2) Mass Effect 2 has a weaker story

This assumes that Mass Effect has a good story, which it does not. Mass Effect's story is not original. The issue is not that the story of an ancient evil reappearing is common, but that those plot elements have been done to death in Bioware games. Mass Effect's strength lies in it's presentation and universe.
Mass Effect 2 lacks an original main quest and contains an element that I extremely dislike. Now, I like the fact that the 'suicide mission' is something that Bioware hasn't done before. In fact, I can't even really think of a game with a similar premise, but I'm sure there are some. My biggest issue is not that the Reapers are revealed to be essentially giant cyborgs, but that anyone thought making that hideous Human-Reaper out human mush was a good idea. Seriously, why did it have it look like a giant terminator with human larvea for eyes?
Back on topic, yes, I agree that ME2's main story is less developed than ME. The key difference between the two is that ME2's focus is not on the journey into the Omega 4 Relay, but on the journey up to it, especially on the character development of your squadmates.

3) Mass Effect 2 has weaker characters

I don't even know where this comes from. The only stand out character from the first game is Wrex. I liked Liara (aside from the fact she wants to jump your bones) and Garrus, but the rest of the cast isn't anything to write home about. This changes significantly for ME2. Mordin Solus is the most interesting and easily the most well developed character to ever appear in a Bioware game. Garrus and Tali both seemed to mature during their time spent away from you. Grunt is a humurous look at the basic Krogan desires. He lacks the refinement of Wrex, but I found this to make him more appealing. Thane provides us with our first look into the Drell psyche and is a nice aversion of the typical cold blooded assassin. I didn't find Samara or Morinth particularly interesting as individuals. I don't think Morinth's 'succubus' nature is particularly good fit for a scifi setting. Jack was an annoying and whiny bitch, but her backstory was interesting and forcing her to face the truth of her origin was one the of the better parts of the game. Jacob was okay (except for the prize). I didn't like Miranda, but she's a good look at genetic engineering.

Ultimately, your squadmates in ME2 are at the very least as interesting and well developed as your ME squad. More importantly, Joker is actually funny in ME2.

4) Mass Effect 2 has less customization

Okay, where the heck is this supposed customization in Mass Effect? ME2 allows you to make a more visually unique set of armor. ME2 has less weapons, but the weapons have more unique properties and ME2 has more weapon types that you can use. Sure, Mass Effect has dozens of weapons per slot, but all those weapons are just slight performance improvements over one another. ME2 gives you multiple unique heavy weapons, sniper rifles that can fire more than round per reloading, shorguns for both short and long range, SMGs for short and long range, etc.
Another customization issue I see being brought up constantly is lack of abilites in ME2. This is true for your companions, but not for the player character. Mass Effect 2 PCs can have up to 7 abilites and their are a total of 39 unique powers avialable to the PC. Mass Effect only has 24 unique abilities available to the PC. Granted some of ME2's powers are ammo powers and some are simply stat increases. However, ME2 cuts away a lot of the unnecessary fat from Mass Effect.
You no longer have to invest points to improve your accuracy or damage with weapons, but lose the special damage abilities that come with those talents. You no longer have to invest points to improve your armor, but no longer gain the shield regen abilites from those talents. However, your shields now regen in cover, thus making those abilites pointless. Decryption and Electronics have been removed, allowing the player to always attempt hacking or overriding. First aid and Medicine are gone, but would have been pointless (and didn't work well in Mass Effect to begin with) because you regen health when in cover. Charm and Intimidate have been removed as talents and are now based on your respective Paragon and Renage scores, which I consider to be an improvement.
ME2 classes now have unique and distinct powers. Engineers get Combat Drones, Vanguards get the incredible Biotic Charge, Soldiers get Adrenaline Rush, Sentinels get Tech Armor, and Infiltrators get Tactical Cloak. All these abilites provide a distinct playstyle for their respective classes, an element sorely lacking in the original game.

5) Mass Effect 2 is a smaller and shorter game

What? In my experience, ME2 has more content. Everything I've found suggests that ME2 has upwards of 20 more hours of gameplay than ME. I'm still looking for more reports as to how long both games take.
The key is that ME2's side content is more fun. There are no lifeless planets to muck around on in ME2. Instead you get right into the action in the ME2 side missions. So even if ME2 is shorter, it's more enjoyable.

6) Mass Effect 2 has bad gameplay

This is of course very subjective. I've seen people complain that ME2 has poor level design, which is simply silly. Bioware put a lot of effort into improving the level design in ME2 and they succeeded splendidly. What I'd like to know is how Mass Effect had good gameplay. At early levels your shooting is horribly inaccurate. At higher skill levels you never even need to zoom in to hit your target. You never have to worry about running out of ammo, you can crutch on silly skills like Immunity instead of flanking your enemies and counter flanking. ME2 is an excellent TPS. Yes, I know you can't crouch. You do that you're supposed to be up against cover, right?

Amaya wrote:I'm tired of people complaining about how trivial gameplay aspects (inventory, looting enemies) apparently make or break an RPG.

Trivial to you. For a lot of people the loot and your ability to customize your gear is a big part of playing an RPG. In that realm Mass Effect takes the cake for the variety of weapons, armor, and upgrades to them it has and you can use. So if someone does place a lot of weight on that its not trivial to them and it is a place where ME beats ME2 hands down.

Mako

The majority of Mass Effect players disliked the Mako. I disliked it for three reasons. The controls for it are poor, the planets you explore with the Mako are bland, cut and paste worlds, and the Mako takes away from the overall game experience. I did not purchase Mass Effect in order to drive a vehicle around in lifeless worlds. I don't think anyone else did either. If you want to include vehicles, make them secondary. The Mako shouldn't be required for Feros, Therum, Noveria, Ilos, Virmire, and many of the side missions. The Firewalker DLC was a big improvement. I hope that ME3 either avoids vehicles or makes them a secondary element

I've said it before, there's nothing really wrong with the Mako. The entire problem with the Mako was the worlds they had for it to explore. Full of ridiculous 75 degree slopes and craters that have more in common with mineshafts. If they'd instead taken the Mako and made good solid maps for it that were varied, interesting, and most importantly not just lifeless plains, I think people would remember the Mako fondly.

Firewalker was bs. The took the Mako and removed it's armor, gave it an indirect fire weapon, and made it jump then stuck it in maps that have nothing to do with the core game and more in common with Super Mario brothers. It was free and I feel I paid too much for it.

1) Mass Effect 2 is not an RPG

The first problem with this claim is that there is no accepted definition of what makes an RPG. Is an RPG simly a D&D clone? If you use this definition than neither Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2 is an RPG. If you think an RPG needs an inventory system, excessive and useless talents, lootable enemies, and XP from every kill, than Mass Effect 2 is not an RPG.
I'd like to think that the most important element of an RPG is the development of your character. The most important aspect of character development is not leveling up. The most important element is how your character impacts the story and the world around him/her. The key difference between RPGs and most non RPGs is that you have many more choices in an RPG. No one can make a logical argument that Mass Effect 2 lacks character development in that you are capable of making a myriad choices that effect the story, the world around you, your squadmates, and of course, your character.

I agree with you that ME2 is an RPG but I think that there are a lot of expectations that come with something having the RPG moniker affixed to it. A lot of character customization, equipment customization, and general looting is one of the things a lot of people expect. I don't think it's enough to strip ME2 of the title RPG but you've got to understand that those things are not trivial to some people so for them (me included) half the stuff that makes an RPG a lot of fun is gone. The rest of the RPG experience is still there and awesome but at the same time we can't shake the feeling that it could have been better.

2) Mass Effect 2 has a weaker story

This assumes that Mass Effect has a good story, which it does not. Mass Effect's story is not original. The issue is not that the story of an ancient evil reappearing is common, but that those plot elements have been done to death in Bioware games. Mass Effect's strength lies in it's presentation and universe.
Mass Effect 2 lacks an original main quest and contains an element that I extremely dislike. Now, I like the fact that the 'suicide mission' is something that Bioware hasn't done before. In fact, I can't even really think of a game with a similar premise, but I'm sure there are some. My biggest issue is not that the Reapers are revealed to be essentially giant cyborgs, but that anyone thought making that hideous Human-Reaper out human mush was a good idea. Seriously, why did it have it look like a giant terminator with human larvea for eyes?
Back on topic, yes, I agree that ME2's main story is less developed than ME. The key difference between the two is that ME2's focus is not on the journey into the Omega 4 Relay, but on the journey up to it, especially on the character development of your squadmates.

Again, they're different beasts. ME was never meant to be original. It's a reconstruction of the classic space opera and it's fantastic. It's a retelling of an old story but it's done so well you don't care that you've seen and played it a dozen times before. ME2 lacked the core of ME, the drive. ME was a pine tree, sure there are branches and other things to do but at the end you've still got that central story pointing straight up. Me2 was more like a bush with thoughts and ideas meandering all over the place. It gets somewhere interesting in the end but the path isn't as linear. Again, I keep looking at these two games and in the case of both I feel that a synthesis of the two would have resulted in an even greater game. A strong central story but with lots of interesting branches.

I will say this, when it comes to your party members ME2 does them real justice as characters. ME can't hold a candle to it there.

3) Mass Effect 2 has weaker characters

Ultimately, your squadmates in ME2 are at the very least as interesting and well developed as your ME squad. More importantly, Joker is actually funny in ME2.

Yeah, anyone claiming that ME2's characters are weaker is an idiot. There's little development of ME's cast. ME2's DLC characters have more meat on their bones than half the ME cast put together. Someone putting this arguement up is just reaching for anything.

4) Mass Effect 2 has less customization

Okay, where the heck is this supposed customization in Mass Effect? ME2 allows you to make a more visually unique set of armor. ME2 has less weapons, but the weapons have more unique properties and ME2 has more weapon types that you can use. Sure, Mass Effect has dozens of weapons per slot, but all those weapons are just slight performance improvements over one another. ME2 gives you multiple unique heavy weapons, sniper rifles that can fire more than round per reloading, shorguns for both short and long range, SMGs for short and long range, etc.

You're right that you can alter the visual appearence of your armor and that's a big plus. The downside is that you can't change the general overall use of it. The pieces you can select add some nice customization but in ME you can wear light armor with lots of benefits to power uses or heavier armor if you were just a soldier. To me the armor is a wash. Another place that a synthesis of the two set ups would likely have been better. Alter the general armor for play style and then tweak the individual components for the more esoteric bonuses.

With the guns, you're just wrong. First of all for the majority of the weapons classes one weapon is just flat out better than the rest. The only real question is the heavy weapon you pick up in the collector's ship. Those actually give you a choice. Standard assault rifle with excellent accuracy or bullet hose with less? Rapid fire sniper rifle or the one shot one kill anti-tank gun? Quick firing more ammo carrying shotgun or three round boom stick? You can only pick up one though. So while I had some choice in assault rifles once I picked up the machine gun I was still left with just the standard weapons in the rest and there's no real choice in those just the default best in class which you get right out of the gate. For a loot hound getting your endgame weapon half way through the opening act of the game is just criminal.

In ME you not only had the base weapons but customization slots for added tweaks. While the base weapons were a fairly linear progression, though with minor tweaks between rate of fire, damage, and accuracy for weapons on similar levels, once you start slapping in different modules and ammo they can be radically different. Take the Spectre assault rifle for instance. I slap in a pair of frictionless materials mods and an ROF mod and suddenly I've got a zero heat bullet hose. No real need to aim, just point it in the general direction of the enemy and rock and roll. Throw in explosive ammo for just stupid fun. Or I can put in two rail extensions and a capacitor and while the ROF sucks I'm blowing holes right through the targets when I do take the shot. Or I can tweak it for extreme accuracy or whatever else I please. The ME2 top tier assault rifle (sort of a misnomer really given that there were exactly two assault rifles) is pretty much the same gun from when I get it to the game ends.

Another customization issue I see being brought up constantly is lack of abilites in ME2. This is true for your companions, but not for the player character. Mass Effect 2 PCs can have up to 7 abilites and their are a total of 39 unique powers avialable to the PC. Mass Effect only has 24 unique abilities available to the PC. Granted some of ME2's powers are ammo powers and some are simply stat increases. However, ME2 cuts away a lot of the unnecessary fat from Mass Effect.
You no longer have to invest points to improve your accuracy or damage with weapons, but lose the special damage abilities that come with those talents. You no longer have to invest points to improve your armor, but no longer gain the shield regen abilites from those talents. However, your shields now regen in cover, thus making those abilites pointless. Decryption and Electronics have been removed, allowing the player to always attempt hacking or overriding. First aid and Medicine are gone, but would have been pointless (and didn't work well in Mass Effect to begin with) because you regen health when in cover. Charm and Intimidate have been removed as talents and are now based on your respective Paragon and Renage scores, which I consider to be an improvement.
ME2 classes now have unique and distinct powers. Engineers get Combat Drones, Vanguards get the incredible Biotic Charge, Soldiers get Adrenaline Rush, Sentinels get Tech Armor, and Infiltrators get Tactical Cloak. All these abilites provide a distinct playstyle for their respective classes, an element sorely lacking in the original game.

This is another place where you have to accept that some people like different things. When it comes to weapons I don't give a damn about most of the weapons in the game. I like that I can use my talent points to really boost my abilities in the few weapon types I care about and then get the weapons abilities those provided. I like having options on where I can invest those talent points. in ME2 when its time to level up I have four places I can actually put them. Five once you get the special ability. There are people who love to really explore different "builds" of characters. You don't really have that in ME2 because you'll wind up with enough points to max most of the limited stable of talents you have. Just because you're a soldier in ME doesn't mean you'll be exactly like everyone elses soldier. In ME you can be a smooth talking soldier with a love of shotguns or you can be one using assault rifles who can't talk their way out of traffic ticket. In ME2 your base class defines you. One ME2 soldier will look pretty much exactly like every ME2 soldier with maybe only minor tweaks in how their shot bonuses are distributed. Frankly I'd like more choices past the base class and in ME2 once you pick your base class it's largely done with customizing your character.

5) Mass Effect 2 is a smaller and shorter game

Yeah, it's not. The only way I think someone could claim that is if you look at it from the standpoint of "what must I absolutely do to finish this game." If you focus purely on the main story and completely ignore every one of your crew's missions in ME2 then the game is shorter. It's also the least rewarding as everyone, including you, will die on the final mission. If you actually play out your crew's side missions than ME2 is as long as ME. And lets face it, if you purely focus on the main story missions in ME it can be over pretty quickly as well.

6) Mass Effect 2 has bad gameplay

This is of course very subjective. I've seen people complain that ME2 has poor level design, which is simply silly. Bioware put a lot of effort into improving the level design in ME2 and they succeeded splendidly. What I'd like to know is how Mass Effect had good gameplay. At early levels your shooting is horribly inaccurate. At higher skill levels you never even need to zoom in to hit your target. You never have to worry about running out of ammo, you can crutch on silly skills like Immunity instead of flanking your enemies and counter flanking. ME2 is an excellent TPS. Yes, I know you can't crouch. You do that you're supposed to be up against cover, right?

They have their strengths and weaknesses. I will agree that starting out ME is silly in that you have a spec ops trooper who has issues hitting targets only 50 meters in front of them. It didn't have bad game play though. If you play it on something besides easy you've got to use tactics and think about what you're doing or you'll get pasted. The ammo thing was a nice touch I thought as it got away from the usual FPS problem of always looking around for more ammo. Instead you just fought and instead had to worry about your heat. It was a very nice trade off.The most game breaking, distracting, immersion wrecking thing in ME2 is having to look for those damn heat sinks after a battle. I want to get on with the action and instead I'm still "looting" bodies only now its just for ammo for my gun instead of something worthwhile. Crutch on silly skills? Have you seen some of the ridiculous things you can do with ME2 biotics? ME2 is fully capable of crutching on things. My soldier having biotic shield was just plain silly at times. Flanking? feth that, I could just let my double shields eat up the damage while I kill a couple then duck back into cover, recharge, and do it all over again.

I will say this, ME2's cover system vastly improved on ME's. While ME's was well done I can't tell you how many bullrushes on my part petered out in the end because I ran too close to a wall and took cover without meaning too. After using ME2's system the way you take cover in ME has become my least favorite part of the game. Well next to the Mako's maps.

In the end the issue is that ME is a traditional RPG and ME2 isn't. A lot of the adherents of the old school who loved ME are not going to like ME2 stripping off half of what they liked. I'd probably call ME2 an ARPG, action roleplaying game. It's a great game, but most of the changes, dumping weapons customization, dumping inventory, dumping looting, dumping traditional character customization, all seem like Bioware over-reacted to things that just needed some tweaks.

TL;DR, I like both games for different reasons and its really an apples to oranges comparision between the two.

Best Role playing game ever?

You need to play some role playing games son.

I have been thinking of picking the game up solely because I support the whole "Keep your data between games" thing they have going on.

Slarg232 wrote:I have been thinking of picking the game up solely because I support the whole "Keep your data between games" thing they have going on.

They're very good games regardless. The maintaining your character aspect is just gravy.

I am getting to the point where I feel it is useless to defend Mass Effect. I realize it is not everyone's cup of tea and there are just some people who rip on this game just to piss people off. Both games are the only reason why I purchased two Xbox 360s.

There are very bad games out there and I don't see people complaining about them. It only seems like the games that some people enjoy and some people dislike are constantly brought up. The other...well nobody talks about them. I have paid $60.00 for a game that I played 2 or 3 hours and then took back and sold it for $45.00. I played Mass Effect 1 & 2 three times each. Obviously there is something about the game that I (and many other people) like. Why do people feel the need to try and rip apart a game that someone likes? The only time I bring up games that I hate is when I need ammunition against people ripping on my favorite games. When I see them complaining about a game that I like and then I see that they like a game that I hate, well I feel the need to bring that point up. Seriously are we that bored that we have to constantly try and convince people that some stuff is bad and some stuff is good?

I am not going to convince a fan of Demon's Souls, ODST, or Paranormal Activity that their choices of entertainment are bad.

I agree with a lot of your points Amaya. Some of those complaints seriously bring up a lot of WTFs.

Also I wouldn't say best RPG ever, but it is the best since Oblivion. The best RPG by far is Chrono Trigger.

I have never played ME1, but after going on the Wiki and reading all the books I could, I have realized how much of a rip-off ME1 was of all Sci-fi. Playing ME2, I was amazed. It was great to see a story driven game, with random events altering the game, hundreds of things altering the end game, and the ability to KILL THE MAIN CHARACTER. That was awesome, and sad.

When Shepard died in the beginning of the game, the only thought I had was "WHAT THE FETH???", as I had never played ME1, and had no attachment to the Commander. After playing ME2, and having Shepard die, I was sad. It wasn't frustrating watching your character that you had spent 40 hours building fall into deep space once again, it was sad.

After reviewing the fact, ME2 was Better than ME1.

chowderhead13 wrote:I have never played ME1, but after going on the Wiki and reading all the books I could, I have realized how much of a rip-off ME1 was of all Sci-fi.

Even all that stuff about the reapers was a ripoff? I had never seen something on that scale before. The Prometheans are something talked about in a few different sci-fi scenarios but in no way would I consider any of that a ripoff.

I loved how you could explore random planets in the first one. I was so mad that they took it out of Mass Effect 2 that I only just now bought the game. It's alright. But it has less freedom.

ME1 is a classic space opera, it just is. As a space opera its going to appear derivative of pretty much any other space opera you'd like to pick. It's meant to be that way. It's the classic space opera done right. The story isn't trying to be wildly new and exciting. It's taking the classic and putting it back together again after all the deconstruction.

Oh, and ME2 is not an rpg which is crap. I'd much rather play Bioshock 2.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And the Mako from ME1 was AWESOME. One of my favorite video game vehicles.

GalacticDefender wrote:Oh, and ME2 is not an rpg which is crap. I'd much rather play Bioshock 2.

i keep seeing people that say this but it never makes any sense. How is it not an RPG?

BTW Bioshock 2 sucked and was nowhere near as good as ME2.

What was stupid is completely ripping out the exploration aspect. They should have kept the planets to explore, but simply added some more stuff to do there, instead of just some random pirate base or something like in ME1.

Deadshane1 wrote:Best Role playing game ever?

You need to play some role playing games son.

Baldur's Gate, BG2, Planescape: Torment, KotOR, KotOR2, Morrowind, Oblivion, VTM: Bloodlines, Fallout 3, The Witcher, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Jade Empire, NWN, NWN 2, Fable, Fable 2, aren't role playing games?

Slarg232 wrote:I have been thinking of picking the game up solely because I support the whole "Keep your data between games" thing they have going on.

It's a cool feature.

GalacticDefender wrote:I loved how you could explore random planets in the first one. I was so mad that they took it out of Mass Effect 2 that I only just now bought the game. It's alright. But it has less freedom.

There's nothing to do on those random planets you explore. The side missions in ME2 are much better.

Lord Scythican wrote:

chowderhead13 wrote:I have never played ME1, but after going on the Wiki and reading all the books I could, I have realized how much of a rip-off ME1 was of all Sci-fi.

Even all that stuff about the reapers was a ripoff? I had never seen something on that scale before. The Prometheans are something talked about in a few different sci-fi scenarios but in no way would I consider any of that a ripoff.

I can't recall a scifi story where they actually harvested organics, but the general idea of 'an ancient evil' returned to spread war is by no means uncommon. The Reapers really reminded me of the Shadows from Babylon 5, but they have signficant philosphical differences.

Something I forgot to mention in the OP is just how great ME2's loyalty missions are. The only one of them that is meh is Grunt's, but at least you get to headbutt a Krogan in it.

Tyyr wrote:ME1 is a classic space opera, it just is. As a space opera its going to appear derivative of pretty much any other space opera you'd like to pick. It's meant to be that way. It's the classic space opera done right. The story isn't trying to be wildly new and exciting. It's taking the classic and putting it back together again after all the deconstruction.

Yessss. Let me kiss you. ME1 is just that, a bleeding brilliant Space Opera. ME2 in comparison feels like the action sequel. Just compare the box art of the two.

The one thing that I really despised about ME1 was the equipment. Who designs all this stuff which is just ever so slightly better than what you have, and leaves it around everywhere?

Just let me upgrade my equipment a few ties during the game. Not after EVERY, SINGLE, FRIGGIN' BOX I EVER OPEN.

Mattlov wrote:The one thing that I really despised about ME1 was the equipment. Who designs all this stuff which is just ever so slightly better than what you have, and leaves it around everywhere?

Just let me upgrade my equipment a few ties during the game. Not after EVERY, SINGLE, FRIGGIN' BOX I EVER OPEN.

Make sure you don't play Borderlands then. It is worse...

Lord Scythican wrote:

Mattlov wrote:The one thing that I really despised about ME1 was the equipment. Who designs all this stuff which is just ever so slightly better than what you have, and leaves it around everywhere?

Just let me upgrade my equipment a few ties during the game. Not after EVERY, SINGLE, FRIGGIN' BOX I EVER OPEN.

Make sure you don't play Borderlands then. It is worse...

derp derp I want mah purplez

That game is only good when playing with friends.

Lord Scythican wrote:

Mattlov wrote:The one thing that I really despised about ME1 was the equipment. Who designs all this stuff which is just ever so slightly better than what you have, and leaves it around everywhere?

Just let me upgrade my equipment a few ties during the game. Not after EVERY, SINGLE, FRIGGIN' BOX I EVER OPEN.

Make sure you don't play Borderlands then. It is worse...

No, in Borderlands most of the stuff you find is worse. ME just had ungodly tiny increases in performance every time you found something. I swear you spent 1/3 of that game in your inventory swapping equipment.

Mattlov wrote:

Lord Scythican wrote:

Mattlov wrote:The one thing that I really despised about ME1 was the equipment. Who designs all this stuff which is just ever so slightly better than what you have, and leaves it around everywhere?

Just let me upgrade my equipment a few ties during the game. Not after EVERY, SINGLE, FRIGGIN' BOX I EVER OPEN.

Make sure you don't play Borderlands then. It is worse...

No, in Borderlands most of the stuff you find is worse. ME just had ungodly tiny increases in performance every time you found something. I swear you spent 1/3 of that game in your inventory swapping equipment.

So finding equipment constantly that is worse than the equipment you have is worse than finding equipment that is slightly better than what you have?

First of all, if Mass Effect 2 is not a RPG then it is one of the clunkiest, most awkward shooters of all time or one of the most boring action games of all time. ME2 is only a "good game" when compared to other RPGs (specifically, the bad ones). Stand it up against genre-standards like God of War or Call of Duty and it starts to look like a pretty gakky game.

Now regarding your (Amaya's) points about ME2 not having a weaker story: A story does not have to be original to be good. But it ought to at least be coherent. ME1 had an unoriginal but coherent storyline. ME2 had an unoriginal, incoherent, and incomplete storyline. In any case: when people talk about the ME stories, one of the two (and ONLY TWO) things they're actually referring to is the setting of ME. You are right to praise the visual design. That is the main draw of the ME games. Unfortunately, ME2 does not develop the world of ME in very many interesting or even significant ways. Despite coming out several years after ME1, ME2 did not even include compelling level design. What happened here?

Let me say that I bought the 360 SOLELY to play ME1. I thought the visual design was so good, I also bought the "Art of" book. BioWare really dropped the ball on this one with ME2. But, as a subsidiary of EA, I am not surprised that they now cut corners as a matter of course. Maybe we'll see something interesting or have some better idea of what the feth was going on in ME2 when ME2 2 -- er, I mean "ME3" comes out.

Moving on to the other thing people mean when they talk about ME2's story:

Amaya wrote:Ultimately, your squadmates in ME2 are at the very least as interesting and well developed as your ME squad. More importantly, Joker is actually funny in ME2.

ME1 established characters that were interesting enough to want to see developed in a sequel. I call that a major success. Did ME2 follow up? To some extent, yes. But I (me, not you -- don't get confused) felt let down by the companion quests. I didn't think that the characters were fleshed out to the extent that they already merited. Attention was pared off to awkward and annoying new characters, like the Drell, or completely useless ones like Jacob or Jack. ME2 did manage to set up some new characters that I do look forward to seeing developed: Miranda, the doctor, and the Geth are pretty cool. I did not become attached to them like I did to Wrex, Tali, and even Garrus. ME1 set a very high bar for characters and ME2, despite having some significant success, did not quite reach it.

Perhaps if the whole game had been released -- instead of tying off the last half of it to sell later as ME3 -- OP would have some stronger points here. Sadly, ME2 does not measure up to its predecessor. Mako, inventories, and endless items don't enter into it as far as I'm concerned -- and neither do arguments about what constitutes an RPG, for that matter.

In my experience, ME2 was simply not as enjoyable as ME1.

Manchu wrote:ME2 is only a "good game" when compared to other RPGs (specifically, the bad ones).

We get it. You hate Mass Effect 2. Thanks for the input.

Amaya wrote:We get it. You hate Mass Effect 2. Thanks for the input.

We get it. You love ME2. Thanks for the input.

Manchu wrote:I switched one word so it's clever now.

I've seen your posts.

You hate Mass Effect 2 so much that you can not possibly give a good opinion on it. Saying something like "Mass Effect 2 is only good when compared to bad games" reinforces the fact that you have nothing constructive to ever say about it.

It's one thing to say it's not as good as Mass Effect, but you're at the point where you're just bashing it because it wasn't the game you wanted and because it's popular.

"I don't like it and other people praise it" is not justification for slamming what is at the very least, a good game.

Amaya wrote:I've seen your posts.

Cool. Now try reading them. For example:

Manchu wrote:ME1 was a pretty great game. It wasn't great because the graphics or gameplay were good -- those were both recycled from previous iterations of BioWare titles. ME1 was great because of its visual design, narrative setting, and plot. ME2 did not improve on any of these qualities and often didn't even meet the (admittedly high) bar set by its predecessor. Nearly every "level" was visually boring. The main plot lacked both imagination and coherence. Most disappointingly, I felt short-changed by the companion quests. It's not to say that ME2 was crap. We can set the internet hyperbole aside. It's still head's and shoulders above most of what's out there. But it's no ME1 and it's certainly nowhere near as good as a Bethesda game, IMO.

From here.

Or, hey, you could read the post that you are supposedly referring to:

Manchu wrote: ME2 did manage to set up some new characters that I do look forward to seeing developed: Miranda, the doctor, and the Geth are pretty cool.

So, when you claim . . .

Amaya wrote:You hate Mass Effect 2 so much that you can not possibly give a good opinion on it.

It let's me know that you're not interested in having a dialog, which is what a message board is for. I think you'd do better with a blog, where you can disable comments of people who disagree with you.

Furthermore . . .

Amaya wrote:Saying something like "Mass Effect 2 is only good when compared to bad games" reinforces the fact that you have nothing constructive to ever say about it.

If by constructive, you mean complimentary, well, I have already shown you that this is false. But if by constructive, you mean that I am interested in actually analyzing the game rather than mindlessly praising or criticizing it then you're simply wrong. Saying that ME2 is good compared to a fairly bad big name RPG -- like Dragon Age, for example -- and that it is not so good compared to a very good big name RPG like Fallout 3 is constructive. It gives frames of reference for my standards from which a discussion can develop. Again, this is supposed to be a dialog. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean that my views are not constructive. And -- if you take the time to read the post above, you'll see that I agree with you on some points. Maybe those points are at least constructive? If so, then it can't be the case that I "have nothing constructive to say about it."

And finally:

Amaya wrote:It's one thing to say it's not as good as Mass Effect, but you're at the point where you're just bashing it because it wasn't the game you wanted and because it's popular.

ME2 may not have been the game I wanted (by that, I guess you mean that it wasn't more like ME1?) and it may have been popular, but neither of those points have anything to do with the detailed critique of several points about ME2 that I actually posted above and in other threads. Again, please read other people's posts rather than having a fit because they obviously disagree with yours.

You just said Mass Effect 2 is less of a game than both Oblivion and Fallout 3.

It's hard to put much value in someone's opinion when they would actually argue that.

Maybe so, for people who don't like Bethesda games. I think one thing is very clear from your posts in this thread: you don't like analysis of ME2 as a RPG. But the fact remains that it cannot really compete with games outside of the RPG genre. It isn't nearly as good as the best shooters and action games. So if it shouldn't be compared with other RPGs and it can't stand up against other non-RPG games, what does that tell you?

Manchu wrote:Maybe so, for people who don't like Bethesda games. I think one thing is very clear from your posts in this thread: you don't like analysis of ME2 as a RPG. But the fact remains that it cannot really compete with games outside of the RPG genre. It isn't nearly as good as the best shooters and action games. So if it shouldn't be compared with other RPGs and it can't stand up against other non-RPG games, what does that tell you?

You're very condescending.

I like Bethesda games. Morrowind remains one of my favorite games. Oblivion is a buggy game in a generic setting with a terrible storyline. The game is unbalanced, has a terrible npc leveling system, poor animations, poor character models, bad AI, poor voice acting, and in general not a lot going for it. Moreso than Morrowind, Oblivion is significantly improved by mods and the excellent Shivering Isles expansion. The only things Oblivion has going for it are its open ended gameplay, improved gameplay over Morrowind (especially spellcasting), and an excellent fanbase capability of putting out quality mods.

Fallout 3 is fun, but only because it's fun to go around shooting super mutants and raiders. The story, setting, and NPCs of Fallout 3 leave a lot to be desired.

Morrowind had a lot of problems, but it is by far the most impressive world setting I've ever seen in a video game and the main quest was executed to perfection. It is a beautiful game.

Amaya wrote:You're very condescending.

Well, I definitely apologize on that score as it wasn't my intention.

I'm going to set aside your comments about Oblivion because I feel the game was very good in a lot of ways but the idea of making the game world "bigger" with the Oblivion portals has left me very sour about it. It has obvious flaws otherwise, as you have pointed out. I agree wholeheartedly that it's storyline was not nearly as good as Morrowind's.

Amaya wrote:The story, setting, and NPCs of Fallout 3 leave a lot to be desired.

I very strongly disagree with you here and my opinion about FO3 is really what drives my reaction to ME2. I was very involved in the setting and story of FO3, which I think was the real successor to Morrowind (as opposed to Oblivion) in terms of game development. In my view, FO3 found that balance I was talking about in the other thread: putting the player in just the right place between having an immersive, interactive presentation and still requiring the use of the player's imagination. By contrast, ME1 stimulated but did not require me to use my imagination. ME2 did not even stimulate my imagination, except as regarding the Geth and, to some extent, the interior emotional life of the companions.

To give us some more common ground, I'll go a little more specific. I was a huge Tali fan and her "unavailability" in ME1 was charming. Getting the chance to learn more about her culture and even romance her in ME2 was a really exciting prospect. But her companion quest left A LOT to be desired. To be honest, I can't remember much about the details. I remember being bored while I played it and I especially remember being extremely disappointed by the visual design of the Quarian Migrant Fleet interiors. The Quarians, through Tali, represented such a fresh and exciting prospect to me before playing ME2. I was similarly disappointed by Garrus's quest, although I did like that he had become more grim and needed to deal with that.

By contrast, there were moments in FO3 that I know I will always remember. I won't go into them here (spoilers and OT) but there are no similar "wow" moments stored in my memory from ME2. That's primarily what I look for from a RPG and ME2 felt like a let-down from that perspective. Again, it's certainly not a crap game by any stretch.

I prefer ME of ME2. Much of the critical major plot areas of gameplay felt as if they went on much too long. I honestly prefer the Mako after having playing the Firewalker DLC last week. I found FW interesting, and the vehicle was neat, but the task involved in it was seriously less intense than the Mako on Ilos. I liked the inventory customization of ME, but it got tedious and felt like to detracted from the overall gameplay as, for me, it would be a bit of an interruption when finding a new weapon or upgrade and wanting to get it set up asap during a battle.

As far as character development, I think they could have worked much much more on this aspect in ME2. Many of the team's side missions for loyalty felt thrown together and/or too short. I felt that way about Shadow Broker, which was good, but think they could have included a bit more with it.

The ME series to me is more of a hybridization of gametypes that uses the space opera as the mechanism to drive the game. ME2 definately did feel much shorter than ME, but maybe that was because of all the inventory fiddling.

I agree with some of the points Manchu states, but really find the premise of this post fanboy-ish.

Amaya, did you play these games on console or PC?