(2016 Discussion) Mass Effect 2

[Adamantium93]

I love ME2, ties with the first game for distinction of my favorite.

I think what really sells me on 2 is something that a lot of people probably didn't like about it, but the overall story structure. The whole game is, basically, recruit ally, talk to ally, fix ally's personal problem, repeat 11 times, with an occasional break to further the main plot.

That doesn't sound very interesting on its face but each personal story takes place at different points around the galaxy and builds the world you reside in while also building the characters. Its a clever strategy and, by the end of the game, I've learned about Quarian internal politics, the schism in the Geth, old Asari monsters that still prowl the galaxy, Krogan rights of passage, the personal effects of the Genophage, entire space stations that act as a giant slum, and more general things like the lengths that people would go to unlock biotic potential or how one deals with dangerous criminals in the era of spaceflight. Each of these I learned personally; I saw, spoke, fought, and felt the products of all of these facets of the world. I didn't just have it told to me by squadmates.

This is all stuff that fleshes out the universe and makes it feel lived in. It gives Shepard et al a reason to fight. Conversely, the side quests in ME1 were more generic: slavers hiding on a planet, mining operations gone wrong, rogue VIs. Good stuff from a sci fi perspective, but the universe didn't exactly feel lived in besides a handful of locations where actual civilians reside. Further, each of those personal quests in ME2 is tied to the main objective, ie build up your team until they're the best strike force in the galaxy.

Additionally, the Collector threat hits the right sweet spot of "threatening enough to be important" but also "clandestine enough that you can take your time figuring it out" so it still feels real without making you feel bad for pausing to help your assassin reconcile with his son. The mystery of "who" is collecting humans is solved immediately, leaving you with "why", a question which is sufficiently answered at the end only to raise more questions which make the arc villains more interesting ("Why turn the Protheans into Collectors?" "Who is Harbinger to the reapers!?" "Why were they building a f***ing human reaper!?") these reveal bits about the enemy without taking away their mystique. Their motives are still unknown, their origins are still unknown, we've just been shown more of their terrifying power to whet our appetites.

I feel that, game-play wise, 3 was the best as it had the best developed gun and power system and levels that were designed semi-intelligently but the plot and characterizations were all bonkers. As far as 1, I feel like it delivered on the "RPG" part of "Action RPG" and had a serviceable plot, but it didn't develop a unique universe outside of dialogue with squadmates; most sidequests and even a lot of the main quests were "generic scifi plot #x" and did nothing to build the world we were saving. 2's combat was generic, and it has the least RPG elements, but I think 2's story fits the series the best.

 

[Glongpre]

It is a good game.

But I didn't think it was a worthy successor to ME1. I was very disappointed.
It got rid of too many things like the mako, inventory, weapons system, and the main story was really lackluster. The things it got rid of only needed some refinement. It also lost a lot of it's scale.

So disappointed.

Yeah, speaking as a fan of actual RPGs, I was kinda sad that ME 2 was basically just a shooter. I liked the slow tactical style.

The story in 2, however, I think was bit better. I loved the new characters, particularly the good doctor. Romance was still meh.

I found ME1 to have far quicker combat than 2. You don't need to cover, you just run in and spam your skills (cause they don't have the ridiculous global cooldown!!!). Most things died pretty fast.
ME2 you have to stay in cover for 80% of the combat unless you were a vanguard or maybe a sentinel. My favourite in 1 was adept b/c they were OP (I will be honest), and they were fairly neutered in 2. ME2 is more strategic because of the cooldowns and armor/shield dynamic.

 

[Sharia]

I think what really sells me on 2 is something that a lot of people probably didn't like about it, but the overall story structure. The whole game is, basically, recruit ally, talk to ally, fix ally's personal problem, repeat 11 times, with an occasional break to further the main plot.

That doesn't sound very interesting

Correct, it absolutely sucked.

 

[LetalisK]

ME2 > ME3 > A whole bunch of stuff > ME1

ME1 was a kernal of awesome suffocated by bullshit fluff, ME3 was great sans the obviously rushed ending, but ME2 was just all around the best. I'm also a fan of the turn the story took from the grand "Save the galaxy" plotline to a more narrow and character-focused game.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I enjoyed all 3 Mass Effect games equally even right to the ending of the 3rd game.

I wish Dragon Age could have kept its consistantcy

(Mind you I have not played the 3rd game yet)

 

[Hades]

ME2 has some things that ensure it had ''sidegame'' written all over it. The Collectors appear so little that its not much of a stretch to say that your primary enemies are all petty criminals, mercs, pirates and gang members. Rather then focusing on the big threat directly the game is more about bonding with your team and finding out more about the Galaxy.

And I'm okay with that. It all comes together in a way that makes ME2 a smaller but far more personal journey. You really feel like you get to know your team and I always found the galaxy to be the most alive in this game.

Also, I think the STUPID revelation about the Reapers retroactively ruin their presence in the trilogy as a whole. They were successful as villains because they managed to inspire dread. They no longer do and moments I thought were awesome then just lost all meaning now that I know how ''incomprehensible'' they are. The Reapers and their cronies hardly appear in ME2 so its a lot easier for the story to avoid that taint.

 

[RedDeadFred]

It's definitely my favourite of the series. The gameplay was at the point where, while not particularly challenging, you could tackle things in a variety of very interesting ways. Pulling off combos felt natural and was satisfying. I also found the story to be the best, mostly due to all of the great personal missions with the various characters. After the ending of 3, the Reapers kind of felt a bit flat as a villainous presence, so ME2 largely taking the focus away from them is in hindsight, a huge plus. The Illusive Man and Cerberus were interesting as tentative allies, and the various side villains along with the Collectors kept the story interesting throughout.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

6 years later it's still on my "top 10 games of all time" list. I thought it was absolutely fantastic from start to finish. Even the DLC for the game was very good and added a lot of variety to the game (for the most part). Lair of the Shadow Broker remains one of the best things about Mass Effect 2. It is the last good game that Bioware has made. If Bioware didn't fuck up Mass Effect 3 so much I'd still have faith in them. But now I don't even care about what they end up making next. And I was such a Mass Effect fanboy.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

C'mon, another "2016" titled thread? Posted in the year 2016 on a forum which discourages necroposting? Isn't that rather redundant? It's a nitpick, but I don't understand the distinction at all, and I'm wondering why you keep making it.

It is the last good game that Bioware has made. If Bioware didn't fuck up Mass Effect 3 so much I'd still have faith in them. But now I don't even care about what they end up making next.

I take it you won't be buying, watching anything of, or playing Andromeda at all then?

And I know this thread's about ME2 (though it feels more like a general ME thread; how can any fan ever talk about one entry in a trilogy? it is immediately and unavoidably relative to 1 and 3), so hell, PM me the reply if you wish, but how on earth do you figure ME3 was a bad game? Putting aside the last 30mins or so - because no work can be judged fairly on a tiny fraction of its content - was the core combat and powers usage worse than ME2's? Was its writing? Presentation? Or control system/inputs?

I get that people had an, er, emotive [over]reaction to ME3's conclusion, and down to simple taste there'd be many who don't find it an engaging game or story regardless. That makes sense. But for those who appreciated ME2, in particular, I find it very hard to understand how they view 3 so negatively - unless their views are being wholly skewed by the ending/s.

ME2's my favourite of the series, and it's one of my all time favourite A/RPG's, but I'd never call it a 'better' game than ME3; I feel the writing's about equal throughout the trilogy (i.e. excellent, though I'd be tempted to say it has the best, given a few key scenes - two with Javik[footnote]Who's practically Shepard's mirror, giving the mostly bland yet seemingly schizophrenic protagonist some dramatic texture she otherwise wouldn't have[/footnote] always come to mind - and the presence of the Citadel DLC), the combat's further refined and tighter from 2, and the presentational style is a further iterative improvement over ME1's famous, self-consciously 'cinematic' approach.

However, whilst I think 3's by some considerable margin the most accomplished in the series - given just how many things it does so damn well (Citadel's surely an all time stand-out of the DLC era) - for all the reasons previously given in this thread, 2's a sentimental favourite. Character narrative > plot, for me, and so ME2 was perfect in that respect; the fairly ho-hum (at that point) 'Reaper threat' was almost entirely pushed aside, to focus on the individual trials and tribulations of a small group of characters, largely living in the seediest parts of the galaxy. It was primarily about people with motivations and traumas you could relate to, as opposed to distant, rather abstract galactic menaces.

BioWare nearly always struggle to craft genuinely good or inventive core gameplay, so ME2's by no means perfect; ME's core combat went from poor to dumb-but-fun by 3 (loadout customisation helped a lot). Still, as an example of character focused narrative and structure, I still think it stands up as one of the best of the last gen.

Also, I think the STUPID revelation about the Reapers retroactively ruin their presence in the trilogy as a whole. They were successful as villains because they managed to inspire dread. They no longer do and moments I thought were awesome then just lost all meaning now that I know how ''incomprehensible'' they are. The Reapers and their cronies hardly appear in ME2 so its a lot easier for the story to avoid that taint.

I felt that at the time, but ME3's Leviathan actually changed my mind. In ME2's Arrival I felt the Reapers came across as being low-rent Lovecraftian's fronted by a Bond villain... But by Leviathan? To me that retroactively made the Reapers MO across the trilogy make more sense than it'd ever done.

In ME1 the Husks, for example, just seemed like painfully lazy combat and creature design - bland stand-ins for zombies, barely justified by the lore, existing only to give you suicidal foes to gun down (and also expose the shitty ranged-to-melee/CQB transition design of ME's combat... something I don't think they ever solved). But knowing how the Leviathans monitored and influenced their vassal worlds, suddenly the whole indoctrination concept and the functional uses of other races made more sense, as opposed to just being ho-hum tools of galactic villainy.

Thematically, I also rather like that even the Reapers can barely comprehend their own raison d'etre. They live and can die, and so in truth they have not transcended anything about existence. They function outside of morality, sure, but a doorstop can do that. I think their very mundanity makes them more interesting as far as sci-fi concepts go; space-magic runs throughout everything in the series, so to have the largest threats to sentient life be so utilitarian - yet so effective on a galactic scale - is welcome.

The horror of the unknowable is a nice, evocative, and easy idea to flirt with, but it's not an easy thing to resolve in an epic mainstream trilogy (BioWare didn't exactly stick 3's landing, sure, but I always found the endings interesting and provocative).

 

[Frankster]

Me2 got rid of a lot of things I liked about Me1 but it also bought enough so that in the end I enjoyed it and thought it was a solid sequel. Whilst me1 will always be my fav, I can quite understand if someone says me2 is theirs.
It's when someone says me3 is their fav that I get confused xP

Going back to me2, theway the game was built up around recruiting specialists to prepare for a climatic suicide mission where different variables from your previous actions came into play is something I wish more games would do and is a nice case of gameplay and story walking together hand in hand.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Gameplay-wise, it is the superior out of the first and second and individual elements, such as the characters and some missions, were fantastic, but as an experience, I didn't ever feel like it matched the original. The world felt much less like the sprawling galaxy I had come to love from the original, and the overall believability (or at least the charm) was kinda lost. I kinda feel like the optimism of the original would have greatly benefited the second, if only as way to foil the overwhelming cynicism which kinda crippled it for me. I also didn't like the story or its conclusion all that much.

 

[Souplex]

It was a good game, but clearly the weakest of the series.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I take it you won't be buying, watching anything of, or playing Andromeda at all then?

I don't even care. It means nothing to me. I find the very idea of setting the game in a new galaxy with so much of the old one left to explore, quite frankly retarded. It's lazy writing. Competent writers could have made a thousand Mass Effect games that take place in the same month without any of the characters ever interacting with characters from the other 999 games. That's how fuckin' enormous the galaxy is. But Bioware is too incompetent. It always has to be about saving the world or the galaxy. They can't fathom making a game with a smaller, more personal story that has nothing to do with being some kind of Jesus figure. And with Andromeda they're showing us that they're so incompetent, they can't make a prequel. They had to escape to a whole new galaxy because of their own mess.

I get that people had an, er, emotive [over]reaction to ME3's conclusion, and down to simple taste there'd be many who don't find it an engaging game or story regardless. That makes sense. But for those who appreciated ME2, in particular, I find it very hard to understand how they view 3 so negatively - unless their views are being wholly skewed by the ending/s.

I admit that I overreacted. But I was pretty irrationally invested in Mass Effect. I didn't realize it until the end. And I still sort of remember how bad it felt when I finally got to that ending. I don't care anymore, it's been years. But at that moment when I played it for the first time I was enraged. I couldn't even describe all the negative emotions that I wanted to express. I wanted to beat the living shit out of Casey Hudson. I really wanted him to piss blood when I'm done with him because I felt like he trolled me. Like Bioware took my money and my time and fucked me over in the end. I overreacted so much that I surprised myself for the first time in years. I had no idea that anything can do that to me, least of all a freakin' video game. And yeah, it's embarrassing. So I have no intention of giving more money to a company that did that to me. That would be insane.

 

[someguy1231]

It's definitely my favorite of the ME trilogy, but I still have my criticisms:

-The obvious bias in favor of Paragon over Renegade.

-Too many missions focusing on recruiting/gaining the loyalty of your teammates. The game's supposed main quest felt more like a glorified sidequest.

-Shepard felt too much like a Mary Sue on certain occasions (a common criticism I have of all Bioware's games).

-Romance sidequests still basically amount to "Pass a shallow multiple-choice test, get a cheesy cutscene of dry-humping as a reward". Like the above, that's a common criticism I have of all Bioware games.

Overall, it's probably my favorite Bioware game, but given my criticisms of Bioware, that's still not saying much. In terms of story/dialogue choice, games like The Witcher 3 and Planescape Torment blow it out of the water, and as far as gameplay goes, give me Gears of War anyday.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

It always has to be about saving the world or the galaxy. They can't fathom making a game with a smaller, more personal story that has nothing to do with being some kind of Jesus figure.

I'd say Dragon Age 2 begs to differ (Hawke may end up as the Champion, but the entire game is pretty much The Hawkes: A Family Tragedy, and the Champion ultimately cannot stop the rising/impending chaos), and the vast majority of ME2 had zero concern for being a godly saviour.

And with Andromeda they're showing us that they're so incompetent, they can't make a prequel. They had to escape to a whole new galaxy because of their own mess.

Eh, I don't mind. As my avatar attests, I love Interstellar, so I'm sentimentally entirely fine with skipping over to another galaxy. Plus, I gather the Guardians Of The Galaxy are there, too, so by all accounts it seems to be a very nifty place to hang out...

I'd have disliked a prequel (they're generally a fairly shitty idea in games or films, given they're frequently besotted with tedious references to stuff the player/viewer's aware of from previous games and future timelines), and I was frankly done with the cultures and history of our galaxy.

I admit that I overreacted. But I was pretty irrationally invested in Mass Effect. I didn't realize it until the end. And I still sort of remember how bad it felt when I finally got to that ending.

Wow, so you concede that it really is just the last frikkin' 30mins that make you say ME3 isn't a good game? That just seems bizarre and completely irrational, ergo the accusation that ME3 is poor just for that ending is absurd.

But at that moment when I played it for the first time I was enraged. I couldn't even describe all the negative emotions that I wanted to express. I wanted to beat the living shit out of Casey Hudson. I really wanted him to piss blood when I'm done with him because I felt like he trolled me.

...my reaction was pretty much 'Huh, cool'. ;-) It was only going online sometime later that I found out people had 'issues' with it.

Like Bioware took my money and my time and fucked me over in the end. I overreacted so much that I surprised myself for the first time in years. I had no idea that anything can do that to me, least of all a freakin' video game. And yeah, it's embarrassing. So I have no intention of giving more money to a company that did that to me.

Fair play, conceding you overreacted. But c'mon, BioWare didn't "do" anything to you nor take anything from you. They made a game, and you bought it. End of.

 

[Jute88]

I agree with people who said, that gameplay wise, it was something of an improvement, but the story was lacking. Why not have the collectors build a massive mass relay like in the Citadel for the reapers to come through? Then Shepard would have to charge to the Collector base to stop its activation, but only manages to stop some of the reapers from coming through. There. The Reapers are in the galaxy, but their strength is severely diminished and the galaxy has to prepare for them.

So what happens immediately in Mass Effect 2? Shepard dies, she loses her ship, she loses her team, she is forced to lose the support of the Council and the Alliance, and her mission is hijacked to deal with the major agenda of a terrorist organization rather than finding out *a way to stop the Reapers*.

The very idea of Shepard dying at the beginning always felt strange to me. I get that it was meant to take Shepard out of the "game", so that his group would have a reason to dissolve and for the bad guys to further their plans. But, why death? The whole idea of rebuilding Shepard seemed sort of off and even fan fictiony. Why not just cryogenically freeze Shepard or something? It would've served the purpose of keeping Shepard out of the galactic affairs for a few years and none of that reconstructuring crap of him/her.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It is the best game in the series and on it's own it's fantastic, but it did show that the writing was on the wall when it came to how this trilogy would eventually end. The Reapers weren't expanded on at all and most of your teammates were just there to be cool badasses, not add to the overall plot. This is why most of their loyalty missions felt like working down a shopping list. Some of these characters could've been cut entirely, specifically Samara and Frog Man. Also, Legion should've been one of the earliest editions to the team, as he represents the most interesting aspect of the game. He's a Geth that wishes to join your fight, but you hardly get to spend any time with him.

And the Collectors were the biggest throw-away villains.

 

[Allar]

It's difficult to say, but I doubt ME3 would've had as much of an impact without it. It was the "smaller" story and focused on building your relationship with the characters, and those relationships payed off in ME3. It also did this a lot better than ME did. The firs game relied heavily on dialogue dumps, while ME2 integrated player choices, character quests and better animation sequences into the mix. I mean it's difficult to say for sure, and I love the cast of the first game as much as the second, but I think it had a big impact on building the emotional core of the series.

This is too often missed when talking about Mass Effect 2 I think. For me the real value in Mass Effect 2 was fleshing out the universe through the stories of a handful of people that lived in it. It also did a lot to lay the ground work for why some of the biggest issues in the series mattered on a personal scale. I thought the examination of the impact that the Genophage had on the Krogan socially was particularly important for providing a more intimate context to the problem. Likewise I thought the interplay between Tali and Legion and the raid on the Heretic base did a lot to make the Geth problem a deeper, more multi-layered story. This is especially true given the Geth's entire purpose in the first game being to serve as cannon fodder that show nothing but antipathy toward all organic life.

The first Mass Effect was excellent as an introduction to this big, crazy galaxy but the second actually made me care about the characters in their own right and I don't think that could've been done nearly as well if the story had had too wide a focus.

 

[votemarvel]

Wow, so you concede that it really is just the last frikkin' 30mins that make you say ME3 isn't a good game? That just seems bizarre and completely irrational, ergo the accusation that ME3 is poor just for that ending is absurd.

The endings over shadow pretty much all the flaws in the third game sadly.

How about the very beginning of the game and the face import bug. Sure they 'fixed' it but the removal of certain facial options in the character creator means that it'll never be quite right.

The comedy animations. The massive increase in passive conversations. The eavesdropping side-quests. The ruined journal. The further bias toward gun based classes. Cerberus going from a small rogue black-ops group to a galactic super-power in the space of three years......deep breath. There is hell of a lot wrong with Mass Effect 3 beyond the endings, they sadly have somehow convinced people that it is 'only the last few minutes' that is wrong with Mass Effect 3.

Back on topic. I'm on a trilogy run at the moment and am current halfway through Mass Effect 2. What I find amazing about it is that this is the only one of the trilogy where I don't want to mod the textures.

I can't play ME1 (especially) or ME3 without their texture overhauls but despite trying the ME2 version, I just don't think it needs it. There isn't the leap there that ME1 and ME3 get. Certainly not enough to put up with the increased loading times.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

How about the very beginning of the game and the face import bug. Sure they 'fixed' it but the removal of certain facial options in the character creator means that it'll never be quite right.

Especially by 3; default Shep is best Shep. ;-) So I never encountered whatever that issue was.

The comedy animations.

Meaning?

The massive increase in passive conversations.

As above. What do you mean by passive conversations? As in basic cutscenes with no dialogue choices? If so, I'd say the more passives the better; ME was never a true role-player for me, nor was it a narrative of a fully defined character. ME3 was really the first entry to make her seem like an actual person, as opposed to a weird puppet being passed back and forth between player and scene director.

The eavesdropping side-quests.

ME2 had those as well, though (if you mean triggering misc-quests courtesy of talky NPC's). I'm fine with those. In fact, I'd much rather those kinds of miscellaneous tasks were picked up like that than have to sit through a few screens of back and forths (DA:I comes to mind as a particularly annoying offender). One I remember in 2 was that salarian on Illium who's talking about his families gene records on his, er, space-mobile. To me it felt quite immersive and efficient.

The ruined journal.

How? Okay, in 3 it was rather shite, but I actually found myself simply never using it (especially on subsequent runs) because I never needed it. There was an admirable focus of goals and tasks, and the galaxy map provided enough of a reminder.

The further bias toward gun based classes.

In what way? I'd argue ME3 freed up all choices and empowered all kinds of hybrid builds. You could roll with a single weapon and have insane cooldown as an Adept. Engineers were better than they'd ever been, too.

Cerberus going from a small rogue black-ops group to a galactic super-power in the space of three years....

Eh, we only really saw one cell in ME2, so there's not much to suggest they didn't have those resources even then. Even in ME1 they were an organisation who spanned the galaxy, and had fingers in all sorts of [space] pies. They also abducted a shitload of humans during ME2.

Granted, I found them a fairly dull stock enemy; they were clearly just there to give players humanoids with guns to shoot at, but beyond an initial disappointment it never bothered me. They were cannon fodder breaks from the Reaper forces.

There is hell of a lot wrong with Mass Effect 3 beyond the endings, they sadly have somehow convinced people that it is 'only the last few minutes' that is wrong with Mass Effect 3.

That's a tad unfair. Why would BioWare wish to convince anyone that anything was overly "wrong" with their game in the first place? I'm pretty sure it's an overreacting bunch of fans that have convinced The Internet ME3's finale is some kind of cultural atrocity/personal attack.

Apropos endings, though: I do think 1 and 2 have superbly staged endings which feel satisfyingly conclusive, whilst clearly building up and into the next game's confrontations. The suicide mildly harmful if you forget a brolly and a spare sweater-mission is my favourite finale of the trilogy. Well, ignoring the dopey Human Reaper who looked like a Mega Drive era shooter boss...