Daedalus1942 said:
So, I recently finished Mass Effect 2, and what a game it was.
The story was great, and so were the characters. Unfortunately that was about all their is to rave about.
Why the hell did they take out roaming the planets on the Mako? I know people bitched about it (I certainly wasn't one of them), but scanning was not a good alternative, it was boring and tedious and just lazy in my opinion. You scan a planet, find a mission and then can NEVER go back to it when you've completed it.
They took out the inventory system and micromanaging of mods and upgrades completely, gave you 3 shotguns (one of which only Grunt can use, 2 sniper rifles, 2 smg's, 2 pistols and 2 assault rifles ( 3 IF you bought the Collector's edition).
There were so many glitches I had during cutscenes and when I'd just be walking along and suddenly "oh look, I'm walking along the rooftop of the derelict reaper, wait shit... I can't get down" Oh, look I have to reload. Just poor work Bioware, just poor.
The gameplay was fairly enjoyable, apart from the bullshit they introduced with each power being tied to the exact same cooldown. Even the medpacks were tied to a cooldown, seriously... wtf!? I don't have to use psychic power to apply a medkit. How hard was it to keep the old biotic system where each power had it's own cooldown time? It worked, and for me was more realistic.
The spelling errors... oh my god... I remember once when I was talking to a slave on Illium they spelt slave as slake (yes slake) not once, not twice, but 3 times. The grammar and spelling in those little burst transmissions (and indeed the whole game including cutscenes) you'd get from the Illusive Man weren't much better either.
Sometimes in the subtitles they'd have these black blocks behind the words to cancel out the chance of characters behind them making the writing hard to see. Did we really need those Bioware? It's noticeable, it's lazy and you never needed them in the first game.
As for all the previous characters in the game, they were lazy with that too. You completed one crappy little mission for them all, and to top it all off the love interest from the first game i chose (Liara T'soni) barely said hi to me and is now a crazy cold hearted *****.
The biggest problem (that really pissed me off because I spent 2 playthroughs of the first game getting to level 60) was the fact that realistically apart from certain semi important story elements and characters there was no reason to play Mass Effect 2 with a previous savefile from the first. They still bumped me back to level 3, and completely altered all my powers. I had virually no biotic powers in the first and relied solely on my party for those options. I was the heavy hitter. In mass Effect 2 I find Shepherd's been "upgraded" and I can no longer use any of the skills I had besides charge.
And now the actual game...
The sidequests were shoddy as was exploration. I actually had to strain my brain in the first to complete some of the sidequests, but in ME2 they practically hold your hand and tell you where to go. The entire game literally consists of gaining party members and doing really crappy little sidequests (for money mostly). The scanning is pointless and the amount of experience you get for missions on other planets (125 exp) is bullshit. Why couldn't they keep it like the first game where you gained experience based on who you killed? No, instead they made the levelling story-based which really pissed me off.
It seems to me that the entire game was scrapped in favour of purely focusing on the last mission.
The whole game is just gaining crew members and building them up, until the "Suicide Mission" (which everybody came back alive from, so that was a lie) and then after all that screwing around, they stick you with possibly the most lame final boss ever. They build on this absolutely amazing, imaginative story throughout the game and then you get to the end and it's quite anticlimactic really.
Realistically the Boss (not saying what) is just pointless. How would making the Boss look completely different to a normal reaper change how it would be perceived? That boss technically would just have the same powers as a normal reaper.
Okay, so I've finished my rant and despite all the godawful flaws, I'm not disappointed I bought this game, just disappointed with alot of the decisions that Bioware made for it especially considering all the hype it got. It did better than the first game which really ticks me off as it was far superiour to 2 in nearly every way.
What say you, Escapists? Are Bioware getting lazy as of late (provide examples) or am I just nitpicking on little things?
Ok, people really need to stop paying attention to hype. It means absolutely nothing in terms of the actual game, and can ruin a perfectly good gaming experience.
But in interest of proper discussion, let go through all these points in order:
Scans replacing the Mako: I myself preferred driving around planets on the Mako, and altough it's controls were a bit wonky and the physics could have used some tweaking, it gave great depth to the galaxy and added variety to the combat system. The sense of discover one feels when they find a secret enemy base and be able to pillage is was second to none. The scans however, make exploring the galaxy a chore rather than a quest for new experiences. they also got repetitive fast, making any new side missions found less of a treat.
Verdict: Lazy
Reducing the Inventory system: This I felt really streamlined the shooting experience, rather than the cluttered logistics of ME1. ME1 had me continuously upgrading and comparing equipment so much that it kept me away from missions (like the scanner). A good section of the equipment was barely used (like giving Tali a sniper rifle, despite her having no sniping skills), and usually became obsolete to use compared to other more specialized characters. ME2 fixed this by making each character stick to their strengths meaning you had to think about what you needed rather han just run in randomly, which heightened the combat in my opinion. and BTW, there are technically 3 shotguns, assault rifles and sniper rifles, as you get the choice to grab the super version later on if you had the starting version.
Verdict: Sensible
Glitches in cutscenes: well this changes from disc to disc for some reason. My discs have so far never glitched, despite the fact that I've played them very often.
Verdict: Situational
Power attached to one cooldown: while the old system was more flexible, the one power at a time meant that one could not just spam the target with biotic/techpowers, meaning that one actually had to fight their opponent rather than turn them into jelly. However, this meant that the more specialized classes such as engineer and adept were nerfed in favour of more combat-oriented classes such as soldier or infiltrator, making the class choices of the game less open. And they really should have kept unity and medi-gel separate from the other powers, as choosing between healing yourself or blasting that last baddie away with a power is a very hard choice.
Verdict: Lazy (for the most part)
spelling errors: considering that pretty much every game in history generally has had some typo or mist-placed bits, and unless the errors are every where at all times (which they aren't, I saw maybe 10 or so in total and those were generally in the low-priority messages or side assignments) I consider this a non-issue.
Verdict: Non-Issue
Black blocks: Really are you being this petty? The blocks are generally meant to smooth the reading experience and continuity. People generally notice it more if the writing suddenly disappears in mid-sentence than a black block that clears it up. You may be taking "reading between the lines" WAY too seriously.
Verdict: Non-Issue
Sidequests: Yes the sidequests were generally very poor and pointless. compounded by the scanner, this was certainly a step down.
Verdict: Very Lazy
Previous characters: That was more an emphasis on the usable characters than the old ones. We know that they'll have some impact on the story of ME3 depending on what you did.
Verdict: Fine
Upgrades from ME1: Did you really expect that Bioware would let you keep the level 60 ME1 character in ME2? That would make the gameplay far too easy, and would be pointless anyway, as the number of upgrades that one has in any class is far lower than level 60, which would make those extra levels pointless. The lower levels means you have to pick what you want to specialize in making each experience a little different in combat. This is along the same lines as the weapon stream-lining.
Verdict: Sensible
Story: I agree with you on that account. The story was completely based around the final mission. At least ME1 has a bit more of an exploratory mood about it before going epic.
Verdict: Really Lazy
Final boss: THe final boss actually makes a lot of sense considering that the Reapers consume the organic tissue of the currently enslaved race (speculation). And as the Protheans looked a lot like squid people so it makes sense that Reapers made from Protheans genetic matter would look like squids. The same would go for any Reapers made from human matter.
Verdict: Very Sensible (hypothetically)
[HEADING=2]Final Verdict: Good & Bad[/HEADING]
The game made some things better but made others worse, but gnerally speaking, ME1 was better, as it made us feel like we were in the future galaxy.
There we go, an in-depth answer to your rant. Now can we please stop discussing Mass Effect until the next installment comes out?
