Am I likely to enjoy Mass Effect 2?

[OneMoreNameless]

A year or two ago I completed the first Mass Effect game (on PC) and quite enjoyed both the story and shooting halves of it. At worst I recall the level design being obviously lazy at points, but not in any ways that were unreasonable to the setting so it didn't bother me too much. Good times overall.

Yesterday I tried playing Mass Effect 2 for about thirty minutes and found it ... honestly kind of awful. The lazy porting wasn't a great start - mouse acceleration, artificially long loading screens, use/sprint/cover stuck on one key, can't hotkey weapons or scrollwheel the menus etc. What bothered me moreso were the deliberately exaggerated visual effects such as lightsaber-esque lens flares or thick red tentacles (?) covering the entire screen when you take health damage. The flashy style isn't to my taste and the latter was disrupting gameplay at literally the worst time for it. Another 'feature' ruining my immersion was the bright, gamey and frequent pop-up notifications that stood out from the rest of UI (and indeed, setting). When they started distracting me in the middle of combat for the purpose of reminding me that I was one headshot closer to a pointless achievement, I just about rage quit.

Now I did eventually figure out how to mod away most of the above, but it hasn't left a very good impression on me and seems as if the sequel is not actually aimed at the same gaming demographic as the original. I never cared much for the skill system, but its simplification in ME2 gives a half-hearted feel to the gameplay and I've heard that equipment fared no better. The short but universal cooldowns suggest spamming single powers during combat will be the order of the day rather than their more tactical usage I enjoyed in ME1, though I've yet to play long enough to fairly judge that. Some of the dialog from the first mission felt stilted and rushed, rather than building up to events or giving Shepard much motivation.

I'm thinking of just cutting my losses and uninstalling. Does the bulk of the space opera and 'killing stuff from behind cover' still remain akin to ME1, or is the game that much of a different gung ho experience now?

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Well, the thing is, Mass Effect's gameplay is not really the calling card of the series. It's the storyline, lore and characterisation. It's the combination of those, and some lesser, things that really make Mass Effect what it is. If you want pristine shooting or quality tactical squad combat.. well, you'll have to look elsewhere. If you can't overlook the shortcomings of the gameplay for the strength of its true qualities, then it's probably not the game for you.

I will agree that, similar to The Witcher, the first game does have a very specific, awesome charm despite its flaws that the sequel(s) failed to have.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I really enjoyed the first game and i hate the second game. The story goes nowhere, the leveling system is terrible, the weapons feel like peashooters and the constant drive to find enough ammo to kill everything in a given area is painful. If you aren't liking it yet then chances are it wont grow on you.

It's a typical Bioware series...starts good, goes nowhere and then tries to claw it back in the last installment but ultimately fails because all the creative genius was used up on the first game. Best company ever indeed

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

the weapons feel like peashooters

While I do like all three games, I'll certainly openly admit this. The shotgun above all else. In the first game it felt truly powerful, as if skulls and brains were being exploded into disgusting little pieces of unidentifiable matter after a close range blast. In the latter two games such a violent, earth-shaking impact is not felt and it instead feels like a pea or piece of paper being thrown at the enemy. The impact and violent force of firearms is a big deal in the authenticity of shooters, and in that aspect, the first game definitely reigns supreme above the other two.

 

[Silvanus]

I played it very recently (for the first time, too), and loved it. It's a more solid game than ME1 in a number of ways.

It has a great cast of characters and a really interesting set of moral decisions. On the downside, the combat is certainly nothing special. You play for the world and the lore and the cast.

Does the bulk of the space opera and 'killing stuff from behind cover' still remain akin to ME1, or is the game that much of a different gung ho experience now?

You will do a great deal of killing stuff from behind cover, unless you specialise the skills that allow you to bull into your enemies and blast them away with the shotgun.

 

[linwolf]

I loved ME1 it hit most of what I wanted in a space opera. ME2 on the other hand I hold to be the worst game I have ever finished. The story goes nowhere, it ends up making the Reapers go from elder horror to spamming combat taunts. All moral choice is binary and have little to no impart on the next choice. And there are a large amount of people being stupid in order to keep the story on track.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Hmmm I liked ME2 but no where near as much as ME1 and to be honest I was done after finishing it on Insanity the story just left me cold with no desire to bother seeing what happened further in the story or characters in the third installment.

Reminded me a fair bit of FFXIII in that it was incredibly linear but had the opposite problem in that the combat started great but by end game nothing really had changed it really is a one trick pony which wouldnt be so bad but it seemed like it was having an identity crisis like EA said shooters sell and RPGs, ok make a shooter RPG with these mechanics and dont make it complicated that will hinder its sales. People dont like to be challenged to much makes them feel stupid.

Character wise its aboout the same as the first game a couple of good characters and a lot of duds at least thats what I thought but inoffensive enough apart from a few that I couldnt stand the sight of like Garrus.

If you play the first hour and dont like it odds are you wont like it later it puts pretty much all of it out there straight away and nothing really changes it up basically its a dumbed down ME1 thats more restrictive in many ways with a slightly different combat.

Sounds like im ripping it apart but I did enjoy it, I was just not left wanting more.

 

[RJ 17]

From the sound of things a lot of your issues revolve around you playing it on the PC. Can't say much towards those since I've only played the series on the 360. What I can do is give you a general over-view of the game.

Personally I consider it to be the weakest of the 3 games, but it does still have it's own merits. In terms of a character-driven story, that's the game's strong point. The focus is less about the story's actual plot and more about getting an in-depth look at the various squadmates that you'll be picking up. The combat is a lot tighter than in ME1, however it is true that both the abilities and the equipment have been watered down considerably.

Where-as in the first game there were countless weapons and armors from numerous manufacturers, ME2 simply has a base form of the five types of guns (pistol, smg, shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle), an upgraded version of each gun, and in the case of shotgun, sniper, and assault rifle there is even a super-version that you can pick up about halfway through the game. If you get the Kasumi DLC, you can pick up a Lotus SMG which could be considered the super version of that gun.

As for abilities, yeah, there's not much to work with there but that's intentional. The game really wanted you to focus around building the appropriate squad to compensate for Shepard's strengths and weaknesses. Generally speaking, though, considering the way they've got the combat set-up with almost all enemies having either Armor, Barrier, or Shield bars as extra defense, you're going to want to have at least one character with Warp and one character with Overload on your team at all times. Overload is strong against Shields while Warp is strong against both Armor and Barriers (Incinerate is strong against Armor as well, but as I mentioned Warp is strong against both). As such, Sentinel Shep is the most overpowered class in the game, as you have both Warp and Overload at your disposal, meaning you can take pretty much whoever you want on your squad. Otherwise you'll need to put more thought into team formation.

Armor is acquired in bits and pieces that you mix-and-match to give yourself different stats, though there's a few DLC armors that are a full suit with set stats.

So as to the question of "will you enjoy it?" Eh, it's hard to tell as only you can really answer that question. I found it to be fun, despite it's short-comings, and the characters are a lot of fun to get to know. The DLC is pretty decent too, especially the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC.

Looking ahead to ME3, I can tell you that the equipment and powers are a mix of ME1 and ME2. You still mix-and-match armor pieces, but there's a lot more guns available and it gets back to the system of adding mods to your weapons to tweak their specs. You also have access to more powers than you did in ME2, but it's not a full, massive page of stuff like it was in ME1.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

If the story and lore from Mass Effect is not enough to make you want to play Mass Effect 2, then I think you're not going to like it. I admit that ME2 changed a lot of stuff, and I miss a lot of that stuff. I miss the feeling of sprawling open worlds and levels, of wandering around on a barren planet and just stumbling across something on the map, and even the Citadel itself. ME2 streamlined a lot of stuff to the point where it really does feel like a different game, both in gameplay and in terms of the 'feel' of the universe.

However, I adored Mass Effect enough that I had to keep going with 2, and once I accepted the changes and realized that 2 does indeed have its own special moments, I liked it. It shines, just in a different way than the first game. And that final mission. Whoo, talk about tense if you care about the characters and go in blind without a guide. I spent some serious time agonizing over who should lead what the first time I did it.

 

[BeerTent]

I too, positively hated ME2, and while I agree that the multiple health types were good, I don't really feel it made for more of a tactical gameplay. It felt more drab. I went straight from ME1 to ME2 with my infiltrator, and upon seeing my skills in the second game, I felt cheated. "I was this awesome guy with these cool abilities, and now all I get is different ammo types? That's ALL I'll ever get? You fucking with me?"

I feel like, the story, the final mission, and nothing else are really what makes ME2. And slogging through COD-esque press space to slide into chest high wall. I liked how ME1 handled it's fights. I liked my infiltrator actually sniping from afar while my teammates mopped shit up. ME2 prettymuch sapped everything fun away. So, I had two minutes of the fun part (Story.) slathered with a half hour of the dull shit parts. (combat, red health tentacles, piss-poor aesthetic, and "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!")

Even the UI problems weren't fixed. Fuck, come ON. Changing the difficulty from normal to hard didn't provide a challenge, and changing it over to casual meant that combat just took longer. It was lose-lose no matter what. So, I said fuckit. My story ended trying to save Jack. And, of course, finding out who Jack was just killed everything it had left for me.

I loved the first game, and if the second game was as good as the first, I probably wouldn't have said, "You know what, if I really go through with this EA boycott, I really won't miss anything par or above." Pretty sure I'm still right.

 

[spartan231490]

A year or two ago I completed the first Mass Effect game (on PC) and quite enjoyed both the story and shooting halves of it. At worst I recall the level design being obviously lazy at points, but not in any ways that were unreasonable to the setting so it didn't bother me too much. Good times overall.

Yesterday I tried playing Mass Effect 2 for about thirty minutes and found it ... honestly kind of awful. The lazy porting wasn't a great start - mouse acceleration, artificially long loading screens, use/sprint/cover stuck on one key, can't hotkey weapons or scrollwheel the menus etc. What bothered me moreso were the deliberately exaggerated visual effects such as lightsaber-esque lens flares or thick red tentacles (?) covering the entire screen when you take health damage. The flashy style isn't to my taste and the latter was disrupting gameplay at literally the worst time for it. Another 'feature' ruining my immersion was the bright, gamey and frequent pop-up notifications that stood out from the rest of UI (and indeed, setting). When they started distracting me in the middle of combat for the purpose of reminding me that I was one headshot closer to a pointless achievement, I just about rage quit.

Now I did eventually figure out how to mod away most of the above, but it hasn't left a very good impression on me and seems as if the sequel is not actually aimed at the same gaming demographic as the original. I never cared much for the skill system, but its simplification in ME2 gives a half-hearted feel to the gameplay and I've heard that equipment fared no better. The short but universal cooldowns suggest spamming single powers during combat will be the order of the day rather than their more tactical usage I enjoyed in ME1, though I've yet to play long enough to fairly judge that. Some of the dialog from the first mission felt stilted and rushed, rather than building up to events or giving Shepard much motivation.

I'm thinking of just cutting my losses and uninstalling. Does the bulk of the space opera and 'killing stuff from behind cover' still remain akin to ME1, or is the game that much of a different gung ho experience now?

Possibly. The storyline is pretty good, probably almost as good as the first, but it's gameplay is definitely aimed at a different demographic. It's pretty much the poster child of "dumbed down" games. If you were looking for a good story, turn the difficulty all the way down and enjoy the story. If you wanted a game that played like mass effect one, you won't find it in mass effect two.

 

[llubtoille]

I didn't like how ME2's combat turned into mandatory cover-shooter even on the easiest difficulty. Clearly cover-shooting is something many (the majority of?) gamers prefer, but it's not my thing.
In ME1 I had the option of maxing out shields and essentially tanking everything out in the open, which is much my preferred play style, but trying that in ME2 just led to constant reloading as I'd die over and over.

 

[Scorpid]

I hated ME2. I at first like it but as I thought about it and compared to how absolutely floored I was ME1 (the only comparison I can imagine is my parents first discovering Star War in the late 70's). I found ME2 weak as hell with the engaging combat mechanics of the first being "streamlined" for mass audience appeal, which it didn't even need to achieve that. Also the paint by numbers approach to characterization further weakened the game. With the baffling choice of every single crew member needing a loyalty mission that arbitrarily decided if they lived in the final mission. There are some good things about it like the writing itself is better when its allowed to be free from the loyalty missions. But for Every Garus and Mordin there is a Jacob and Miranda to grate my nerves which is something the original didn't have. Also ME2 is what started that abuse of DLC that would compromise ME3 so badly. I really did not like ME2 and probably won't go back to play it again.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It's my favorite game of all time. How amazing it is doesn't become apparent until you get to Omega. You get to experience the other side of the galaxy. The darker, underground side where all the shady characters live. It's quite a treat. The "simplification" of gameplay actually made the game better IMO. The annoying inventory system is gone and while the skill system has been significantly overhauled and reduced, it is better because every skill that you invest your points in makes an immediate difference. You don't have to spam points into a skill to see its effect in-game. Give it a fair chance. It's really an amazing game.

If you have all the DLC, the game is quite literally twice as long as the first one. There's A LOT of content there.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Essentially, Mass Effect 2 is a transition between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 3. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that the game has very little that is better than both ME1 and ME3.

The combat is significantly more refined than the first game's and doesn't come across nearly as much as an action-game wannabe. They do a better job of encouraging smart use and combinations of powers rather than basically just allowing you to spam a bunch of powers at once. The battles are faster, there's more variety in the powers you can use and enemies you face, and the AI has had some significant improvement (at least on consoles). Yeah, it still isn't a particularly strong shooter (if that's how you view it), but they clearly spent more time refining the gameplay than the did in the first game.

The writing is sort of odd. The conflict in Mass Effect 2 is essentially just setting up for ME3, and you could probably cut out about 90% of what goes on in ME2 and not affect ME3 in any way. What ME2 does fantastically, more than either of the other games, is develop its characters. Its loyalty missions take up a big chunk of the story and do a fantastic job of building the characters. For me, personally, ME2 even did a better job of making me care about certain characters from ME1 (won't mention their names to avoid spoilers), despite those characters already having been among my favorites. Simply put, like the first game, ME2 shines on its writing, but it does so more from a character-analysis level than it does from a world-building and storytelling level.

But as for the world building, it's...different. If you wanted to see the criminal underground that was barely touched on in the first game, then Mass Effect 2 has you covered. If you want to see the darker side of the galaxy from their own perspective, then it has you covered. It doesn't do quite as much as the first game, but it had significantly more to introduce you to, and ME2 does a great job of covering what the first game ignored.

Overall, I'd say to give the game a little more of a try. Though the game has slowly fallen to being my least favorite in the trilogy, it is still a solid game. The first thirty minutes are a little jarring, but if you stick with it, you should be able to see that it still has some fantastic writing, especially at the character level, and far superior gameplay to the original. It also does a great job of setting up for Mass Effect 3, at least on an emotional level.

Also, I should probably point out that if you stop playing it now, you are robbing yourself of quite possibly the best end sequence in any video game. Just saying.

 

[EHKOS]

It's basically another KotOR. So if you liked either of those games, hang in there. Besides, it had bad combat too.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

It is my favorite game ever as well. And while I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, I will concede the point that some people don't do well adapting to changes between installments of games. If you like ME1 because it is a unique game that scratches an itch most games don't aim for, then 2 and 3 may disappoint you.

I never had a problem going from ME1 to 2, but I know that my tastes in gameplay are broader than many others. I don't mind most mechanical setups as long as they work properly, and adapting from ME1's loose run-and-gun open world combat to 2's strict cover system and more tactical power usage was no issue. You may be more discerning about those changes.

Bottom line, if you like ME for the characters and storylines and choices, that follows through in the sequels. But if you like ME because of the gameplay, the first one is the only one like it.

 

[happyninja42]

I'm thinking of just cutting my losses and uninstalling. Does the bulk of the space opera and 'killing stuff from behind cover' still remain akin to ME1, or is the game that much of a different gung ho experience now?

I can't speak for how well the PC port plays, as I played it on Xbox. I didn't have any issue with the combat mechanics change, and got used to them fairly quickly. I enjoyed the game, but I can't really say for certain if you will.

I found the game fun, the characters well thought out, and the personal stories of them quite enjoyable to play. Some of the characters have some of the most memorable scenes I've seen in games recently, and I enjoyed the hell out of some of the team/power combinations available. (My personal favorite being Jack + my Adept Shepherd + Another Full Biotic class, my god the carnage).

Does that mean you will like it? *shrugs* No clue. I would however, suggest you give the game more time. It seems like most of your issues are with the mechanics and interface, which can usually be overcome with familiarity and time. I hope you enjoy the game, but really I'm just guessing. I found it to be an enjoyable experience though, and I replayed it several times.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

ME2 is great. Lots of new characters. Also do the side missions for all the characters as the histories are interesting to learn. Only negative thing against it is i wish they let you explore the game world/universe and stumble upon the characters yourself instead of just being given the files with all the info. On the plus point, last mission is awesome. Ok the whole game is great, just that last mission takes thing to a whole new level depending upon your previous choices you made. Dont want to give anything else away about that mission. PLAY THE GAME.