ME2, anyone?

Aug 10, 2009
1,240
399
As a fan on Mass Effect 1, I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the sequel. I'm not going to rant now because I'd like to see at least 1 other opinion before I do. The TL;DW is:

-Campaign is linear
-New exploring system makes exploring a pain in the ass
-New HUD looks like a bad flash animation
-Regenerating Health?
-Where has the great list of talents gone?
-So much for the old style weapons
-Here, lets take all the characters you sort of knew and keep them, and trash pretty much all of the rest (Tali and Garrus excluded)
-Very monotonous combat (same routine, over and over and over)
-Ridiculous loading screens
-General intelligence level of the game has plummeted.
-Who the hell made the husks so varied (in cliched ways) and the friendly AI so unhelpful? On that same note where the hell did the Geth go?

Kind of a long TL;DW, but those are mostly the necessary ones. Maybe it had something to do with me beating ME1 right before I started ME2, or maybe I'm just a hardcore ME1 fan (which I'm really not), but I feel like ME2 is a dumbed down game that critics only rave about because they're tools of Bioware, and really the only thing going for it is a graphics upgrade.
 
Last edited:

Trotim

aa
Jul 14, 2009
1,195
1,045
I agree wholeheartedly. I raged at the intro, the first few minutes of gameplay (thermo ammo? story-wise really forced new character creation?) and especially at the TINY FUCKING FONT. They have about 100% of the screen free but there's one little pixel in the corner of the TV that tells you what age your imported character was.

Huge disappointment. At least I only rented it.
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
EDIT: Oh god this post turned out looking really long. Don't take this as seriously as it looks! D:

People who completely turn around and hate a sequel because of tiny changes never cease to baffle me. Enjoy the experience as a whole, why do tiny details have to bother you so much?

I have some issues with it too, but overall it still remains one of the best games I've played, and certainly a big improvement over the first one. One thing I'd like to add, though, is that this game has a hell of a lot of clipping bugs. When you get stuck on top of a picnic table by running into it, something is wrong.

-Campaign is linear
What do you want, a damn sandbox game? This is pretty open for an RPG, since you can pick the order of most of the missions.

-New exploring system makes exploring a pain in the ass
Agreed on this.

-New HUD looks like a bad flash animation
I don't see how. It looks like the first, only faster and easier to read.

-Regenerating Health?
Yes, and?

-Where has the great list of talents gone?
It's... right there?

-So much for the old style weapons
What do you mean? They seem similar to me, except for the stupid addition of ammo, which I dislike.

-Here, lets take all the characters you sort of knew and keep them, and trash pretty much all of the rest (Tali and Garrus excluded)
I agree with this one, it would be great if you could recruit some more people from ME1, or if they played bigger roles.

-Very monotonous combat (same routine, over and over and over)
Really? I enjoy switching my party members frequently, and when you level up a bit you'll get some nice and varied powers, especially as an adept or engineer. I haven't grown tired for sure.

-Ridiculous loading screens
How does this matter?

-General intelligence level of the game has plummeted.
As in... what? AI or the writing? Because the AI is fine in my opinion, and I love the writing.

-Who the hell made the husks so varied (in cliched ways) and the friendly AI so unhelpful? On that same note where the hell did the Geth go?
I'm not sure about the variations of husks because I haven't played it all, but I am disappointed at the lack of geth. At least the mechs are cool.
 

The Gentlemanne

L4: Comfortable Member
Jun 18, 2009
170
94
meh,

I get my Bioware game reviews from toegoff,(I watch his youtube walkthrough videos)
 
Aug 10, 2009
1,240
399
Alright well, first and foremost, I've come to a personal conclusion about this. I really like Mass Effect, so as far as carrying over what I liked about ME, ME2 didn't do a great job. As a standalone game, it's great.

And Muffin man, I didn't like the hud because it felt overdone, the whole click this and see what it means on the side, as well as the huge boxes on the side of your screen with elaborate images to tell me I unlocked a new upgrade. I feel they could have put their time towards a more productive goal, same with the menus.

The linearity of the beginning (it sort of branches out a bit in the middle) and less so through the rest of the game is due to two things in my mind. 1) Exploration almost feels discouraged, which is a pity because the planet-unique sidequests are pretty cool, if not a bit short. 2) They sort of blur the line between side-quest and quest in ME2, with all the loyalty missions (Which can be lost if characters get in a word fight, which is certainly worth a life or death situation, and a few lives)

Regenerating health is something I just don't like. I think it makes it too easy on the player, and it doesn't encourage them to play it smart, or equip an armor mod. Even though that's not possible since they nuked the inventory system :(

There were about 3 times as many talents per character in ME than in ME2, something I miss. Mainly these were weapons, and some things Bioware saw fit to take out of ME2, such as stasis, or various electronic abilities.

The weapons are different in that there is ammo, and that they can't overheat.

The combat (for me at least) was pretty monotonous through the middle of the game as an adept. Get in cover, lift them, throw them, repeat, if they have shields or barrier use warp on it...

The enemy and friendly AI in combat I felt could use some work. There were a lot of situations where they didn't put the pressure on when they should have, so I frequently made stupid mistakes and lived from it. Also, allies in cover without a view of who you were fighting wouldn't leave cover to help you on their own, and there were a lot of places I could stand out of cover where the AI would run back and forth trying to 'find' me.

Until the end of the game I didn't understand all the hust manipulation, I wish there were more geth, and I was damn tired fighting random mechs.
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
All right, I understand most of your complaints. One thing I should mention was that I wasn't far into the game when I wrote that post, so I was assuming there would be some more exploration. I'm really disappointed there is no Mako like vehicle and your exploration is limited to scanning. That's truly the worst part of the game.

So while I still enjoy it and I think it's great as a standalone game and a sequel, I'm disappointed to see that the exploration was hit hard.
 
Aug 10, 2009
1,240
399
Agreed. I don't like the simplification, mainly the exploration, lack of inventory and abilities, and I really don't like the Barrier/Shield/Health mechanic. It feels like I'm playing a fifth grade team. How does armor protect you from 1000 newtons? The world may never know...

Also, I was pretty early into the game when I wrote that too, and another thing I noticed was all the core missions were really, really short. I beat the entire final mission in less time then it took me to face against the Thorian in ME, not even the rest of Feros. Also, the side quests were about half of the ME side quests, and the 'middle' quests were about the length of a normal mass effect sidequest (especially Jacobs). Beating ME as an adept (so I could import it into ME2) took me about a week, beating ME2 took about 3 days.

Bioware let me down :(
 

Okrag

Wall Staples
aa
Jun 10, 2009
1,029
655
The campaign really isn't all that linear, it is actually pretty open by my standards.

The new exploring seems alright, it is more interesting yet more monotonous at the same time.

The new hud is fine, I actually like it more.

Regenerating health would be better if the effect to show how low you are wasn't ugly and take up ninety percent of the screen. Seriously, I though that developers had pretty much decided that low opacity effects are best for displaying low health.

The talents have been streamlined, now party members get less abilities and a lot of filler abilities have been removed. However, now when you fully upgrade an ability you get to choose between two improved versions.

I don't get what you mean by old style weapons. Do you mean the new ammo system? The ammo system is of arguable quality, but my beef with the ammo system is that it totally craps on continuity. I mean seriously, we are supposed to believe that everyone just decided that they would rather fire bullets instead of projectiles the size of a grain of sand that could be fired with enough force that they could do the same if not more damage than bullets?

Tali, Garrus and Liara are the only characters from the first game who cannot die and Liara got a comic series so...

This argument is used against many games and is only applicable to a few. This game is not one of them.

The loading screens aren't that long unless your computer isn't very good.

Could you offer some examples of the intelligence of the game plummeting?

Friendly AI was never that good and more varied enemies is better, be it cliched or not.
 

Trotim

aa
Jul 14, 2009
1,195
1,045
The new hud is fine, I actually like it more.
Sorry but I fail to see how a tiny font size is acceptable when the whole screen is otherwise unused. I simply honestly can not read it and would have to go closer to the screen.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
New HUD is worse, the key things are a billion times harder to read, your health, your shield status and those of your squad.
The key changes were, and still are playing havoc though. Why bother swapping them from the first game?

Otherwise I'm 10 hours in and not much complain from me. It seems little erratic the intro plot though. Seems like Bioware went too far to do one thing between the games, then spent the first few hours of the game undoing everything that happened between them.

The loss of the mako isn't all that disappointing but the new surveying method is far from 'fun' Its not as bad as everyone makes out though.

aaaaaand the most important issue of all, Miranda's ass > Ashley's and Miranda's boobs > Ashley's
:)
 

Ninjilla

L420: High Member
Sep 13, 2008
445
116
I play on PC, and my font is fine. Btw, story wise you dont fire bullets, you still fire those tiny particles, the heat just builds up into the clips and you eject them :p

I agree though, the ammo issue was VERY annoying, and the lack of different weapons and armors (2-3 of every weapon is pretty crappy, as they barely differ besides strength and ammo capacity). I think my least favorite thing is the story itself. I really did not think that collecting allies would be 90% of the game, I expected more after the last mission, some kind of big twist. The health system I am fine with because I hated how slow medi gel took to refill.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
You forgot Miranda's face >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ashley's

I didn't forget. I just don't agree. In the trailer's with their fancy high poly models Miranda is beautiful, but her model in the actual game has an odd face, at least compared to the high quality one used in the trailers. Whilst Ashley's face is better, Miranda has the better everything else.
 

Ida

deer
aa
Jan 6, 2008
2,289
1,372
I'd care less about the loss of the Mako if it wasn't the best damn vehicle I've driven in any game. Ever.

Also, I just finished the game. Fantastic experience overall, and I've never seen such a good ending to a game in my life. I'm really excited for ME3 now!
 

Radaka

L420: High Member
May 24, 2009
491
244
Out of everything in the entire game, I think my favorite parts are the "human cannonball" power (charge) and listening to Joker and EDI bicker around.

P.S. I hate bun hair, dunno why, it just looks strange.
 
Last edited:

Icarus

aa
Sep 10, 2008
2,245
1,210
I can't help but to feel dissapointed with certain parts of the game. ME2 doesn't feel as deep as it's predecessor. ME1 had rich, living, breathing worlds that change over time. ME2's worlds are comparatively static. Asshole Shepard isn't as fun anymore. I much preferred the fewer, but longer missions like ME1 had, instead of ME2's collection of sidequests. I suppose I cared more about the RPG aspect than the FPS.

That doesn't mean the game was bad, no, I thought it was fantastic in it's own right. It's still incredibly fun, just different. The suicide mission was awsome and surprisingly deep (so many endings, variables) I had to see them all myself with multiple playthroughs.

The game is very worthy of my money, and I'm really excited for ME3.
 
Last edited:

eyefork

L3: Member
Oct 27, 2008
130
186
I played this for the better part of yesterday. A few thoughts:

-Mako will NOT be missed.
-Spaceship models, space hamster, and space fish are enjoyable.
-Not a big fan of the regenerating health. Not because it makes it too easy, but because I can't actively heal. Instead I have to pause the action in the middle of a firefight and hide behind a damn crate.

Overall though I like it quite a bit.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
So I'm probably nearing the end, been playing for well over 20 hours and I can juuuuust about see a few areas for possible disappointment from the first game, they're really just nitpicks

Notably, the loss of the MAKO is good, the gain of scanning is bad. No overall net change.
Some of the HUD changes were a little poor but the simplified inventory makes up massively, filtering through dozens of the same gun, reducing them to omni jel or deleting them was just a bore. I wouldn't mind a little bit more in the way of the old system though. A nice midground where you've got the simple set up now but you can have various improvements applied to your person that act over all guns you're using maybe.

Otherwise this is easily one of the best games I've played. Ever. Its just such an incredibly immersive experience.
 

The Gentlemanne

L4: Comfortable Member
Jun 18, 2009
170
94
I got the best ending I hoped for

Edit: sorry bros
 
Last edited: