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?
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?