Mise said:

POSITIVES

+ Combat in the first Mass Effect was a bloody bore, even on the higher difficulties. Not so much here - the combat system is essentially a light version of any cover-based TPS. Works well enough, and the importance of cover adds a skill element to the game, so you can actually (gasp) die during fights. The limited ammo, while a little inconsistent with ME1, forces you to use different weapons, so it's ok. Personally, I would've kept the overheating with the ammo, but that's just me. If ammo was unlimited, like in the first, people would have done what they did with the first game... Play with assualt rifle all the way through (and maybe the occasional snipe)

And honestly, I'm fine with removing XP from enemy kills. Agreed.

+ Like in ME1, the voice acting is pretty damn good, and Martin Sheen does actually do far more in this game than Patrick Stewart or Liam Neeson ever did for Bethesda. Old favorites have their own voice actors back, including the Shepards, and the new ones do a good job with their designated characters. Agreed.

Unlike ME1, however, this game focuses almost solely on your team. Indeed, you spend most of the game recruiting people for your inevitable (not-so-)suicidal mission. Most of the characters are interesting enough and besides some cliches and archetypes, they tend to grow on you. There are definitely some flaws and overused tropes here, and I'd still find it a loooong stretch to say these are the best written Bioware characters ever, but they're definitely solid, and none of them raised any urges involving an airlock or a sun, like Ashley and Carthdan from the first game.Agreed. Except I didn't mind Ashley.

Just for the record, Shepard him/herself contends for the spot of the most ridiculously overblown Mary Sue I've ever seen in a videogame. And that's saying something. I would have to disagree here. In many stories, calling someone a Mary Sue is appropriate. However, Shepard is in this position BECAUSE he's the very best. He was the very best humanity had to offer, so he became the first human spectre, and subsequently saved the galaxy. They spend billions bringing him back because he was the best of the best. The story paints him in the light it does because if he didn't live up to what everyone thought of him, he couldn't be the kind of guy that could be in this position.

+ Thank GOD they got rid of the Mako rides. Agreed, though I didn't mind them as much as everyone else.

+ Minigames. The replacements for the ME1 hacking minigames are far better than the first iterations: More relevant to the task at hand, much less dependant on pure luck, and more interesting to actually play than the maze-thingy from the first one. Even the planet roaming and scanning components weren't that bad - largely because they reminded me of Star Control 2. But hey - if you're going to copy something, might as well copy from the best. Agreed. Minigames and scanning weren't bad in this one. Infact, my only complaint isn't with ME... I wish the Dpad on 360 controls were better, because occasionally in the code segment minigame, it would jump diagnolly onto a red segment.

+ Sidequests and the final story mission.

Variety! Design! Different floorplans! Something not entirely pointless! My God, they actually put effort into the sidequests of this game!

Yeah, they're far better than last time. Agreed. As much as I like invading a box 20 times during a game, this was way better.

Most of the main storyline missions are pretty bleh, but the final mission is pretty damn good and definitely different from the other outings - and your relationships with your characters actually matter here, since your decisions up to, and during, the mission determine who lives or dies. And the chance of losing everyone is something I'm definitely going to try on my following playthrus.

+ While I still think the dialogue wheel is still somewhat under- and misused, it's nevertheless a solid mechanic - and the new interruption options make an already working system even better, especially since these aren't constrained by your alignment (more on that later). Not to mention, some of the Renegade options are just plain awesome - not that the Paragon options are that bad either. I love this new addition. So many games you think "Man, I wish I could just kick this guy out a window right now, no questions asked." Bioware obliged.

NEUTRALS

= Most people seem to think the inventory was removed, when it really wasn't - just reduced to a weapon select screen and a few counters. While I didn't miss all the wonderfully bland items from ME1, like Volkov 7 or Agent X, I wouldn't have minded some additional choices regarding gear and customization - especially with weapons. Ok, you can revamp your own armor, but the feature seemed like an afterthought, since the game wasn't exactly swimming in armor parts. I definately wanted more variety, but I was happy to now have to spend 10 minutes reducing to omnigel/selling every few missions.

= Research and resource use. Ok, you need secondary resources to upgrade your stuff - fine. You need to scan planets to find these resources, fair enough. But could someone explain to me, why there's nobody in the entire universe who could trade credits for resources and vice versa? Or why do I need to strip mine eight planets worth of Iridium just so my SMG's can fire faster? I don't have to buy my own guns, but why the hell do I need to buy my own fuel, when I have a staff of dozens who could do it for me? This didn't bother me... you have to go out of the way to hit a fuel depot, that would require captain's orders. It's not like you have to play a pumping gas mini-game.

NEGATIVES

- Level-up system.

This seems to be a step back, even from the first game. Having less levels and more meaningful choices regarding your abilities is all fine and good - if the character classes and abilities weren't completely unbalanced. Ranging from being completely broken (Assassin cloak, Infiltrator class) to completely useless (Neural Shock, Shredder Ammo), the abilities are distributed so randomly among the support characters and main classes that it'll probably take at least a few resets before you figure out what abilities work and what don't. As a result, any Infiltrator will have a much easier time that any Vanguard, and Miranda will probably never leave your team. Really? I was a vanguard, and I barely ever used Miranda. Well, after I got Archangel, anyway.

- Tying diplomacy to your alignment.

Honestly, why? This choice basically forces you to play either all-out good or all-out bad, and completely cutting off the chance of developing both choices and using them whenever appropriate. Yeah, the interruptions are still open to anyone, which mitigates this somewhat, but a better option would've been just to leave both paths as separate skills you could develop at will, independent of your alignment. Agreed. People die unless you go all-out renegade or paragon, which is kind of annoying.

I'm not going to even mention the nonexistent neutral path, since that's been Biowares standard procedure for a long while now. It exists, everyone just dies.

- Lots of little things, including:
* The silly final fight
* Removing quick keys that were present in ME1 (honestly, what the hell?) Didn't play the PC version.
* Removing free ducking and grenades Grenades were poorly implemented in ME1 anyway, I don't miss them.
* Not being able to revisit dialogue trees, especially irritating with party members
* No individual ability cooldown, which doesn't really make sense IMO I'd say it makes more sense. If I can use biotic abilities, what prevents me from using the same one over and over? Now yes, you can't spam 3 abilities in 3 seconds, but you can reuse the same ability several times in a single fight. just not 2 from the same character back to back.
* Having powers being arbitrarily blocked by shields and armor Agreed.
* Seems to be somewhat buggy and unstable, will hopefully be fixed in future patches I encountered only a couple bugs in the entire playthrough, and it didn't get me killed or cause the game to crash... maybe i was fortunate.
* Both the enemy and friendly AI are still retarded Agreed, though by controlling your aliies, they work great.

- Design of most fights.

Honestly - if you put that much effort into revamping the combat and weapons, why the hell would you still make most of the fights bland cover drills with spawnpoints and boring mooks? Most of the fights go like this: Go behind boxes, shoot someone, hump the box for a few seconds to regain your life, shoot someone else, occasionally switch weapons or use an ability, lather, rinse, repeat. And when you've seen one Eclipse Vanguard, you've seen them all. All 573 of them.

Since Bioware is so bent on epicness with the Mass Effect series, why not cut down on the number of fights, and design each one as a separate experience? Why not make the fights so unique, varied and exciting, that you'd want to reload saves just so you could replay the fights all over again? Making every enemy/fight THIS unique is quite an undertaking. Yes, I'd love it to be the case, but there's a point where one is asking too much. As it stands, I don't know how they fit ME1 on a single DVD, or ME2 on only 2, so to ask for even more seems like a lot.

- The plot. If not for the team members and their loyalty missions, Mass Effect 2 would've fallen flat on its face. Even with them, it feels like a side story instead of a direct sequel to one of the biggest WRPGs ever. The plot is derivative, short, dull and all around pointless. Hell, it even ends on just about the same cliffhanger ME1 did. Not to mention, Bioware has written themselves into a corner concerning the party losses and the final mission - either they put it a lot of extra work making these choices have significant impact on ME3, or just flat out ignore most of them and make ME2 seem redundant. That was the game. ME1 was uncovering this epic plot and stopping Saren/Soverein. ME2 was building a team that could stop the collectors from <what they were doing>. I felt you played out an aspect of games that is usually completely ignored. Most games you start with some people, or you encounter new people, and after a quick conversation, they're on your team. ME2 was different, it realized that the entire purpose of the game was fairly small, but getting there required a lot. Ever watch Burn Notice? In it, Michael mentions that 90% of an operation is preparation. And this game was all about one big, very important Op... and in order to accomplish it, you needed to prep. Maybe if you look at it from it's primary plot points, there weren't many. But building your team WAS the game. I don't think a game can be faulted for doing what it set out to do, and doing it well.

OVERALL

It's a step up from ME1, and a good game as well. While it certainly has its issues, and is far from the perfect RPG some people seem to think it is (we can agree to disagree on that one) , I'd say it stands up well for itself. Worth a try for any WRPG fan who's not allergic to shooters, and also to shooter fans who'd like to expand their horizons a bit. For me, Mask of the Betrayer is still the best WRPG of the gen - good try, though.

If you want a score, I'd give ME2 about 84-86 / 100, while ME1 was 80 / 100. Sacriledge.

...

Damn, this was a long post.

I agree, on a few points, but disagree on many too... Notes above...

Yeah, I'll have to break this up, I hate long quote columns.

Thing is, the universe is bending over backwards for her from the first minute of Mass Effect 1. She basically becomes a Spectre just because she asked to be one, she can read garbled mind messages just because she's Shepard, everyones completely gaga over her and her informed abilities from the word go when all you have to go on are a few paragraphs from the intro, and she is reconstructed and raised from the dead since humanity would either fall or isolate itself from the galaxy just because she died.

I know Shepard's a super-elite soldier and all, but goddamn.

Bear in mind one thing - Shepard is unique in additional ways after the first Mass Effect - due to his firts mission, he's the only human who has the Cipher, as well as Prothean memories from the beacons - he knows the single most about the Reapers out of anyone in the galaxy, this naturally makes him invaluable.

Mirandas fourth tier talent gives a persistent 25% damage bonus to the entire team. That's bloody insane in this game.

I didn't realize that - that's beyond insane. Welcome to permanant member status on my next playthrough.

I dunno, I would've preferred actually throwing grenades at entrenched enemies instead of casting bloody arcing Hadokens with the power of SCIENCE~ . Pyrokinesis is fine and all, but I would've still preferred proper grenades.

I don't know what you mean.

Thing is, the ability cooldown would make sense if, for example, all biotic talents had a group cooldown - so you could still use your tech talents right after biotic talents, ammo powers or physical talents (like Fortification). That would've made more sense, been internally more consistent and added a tactical element to the fights, all at the same time. The current implementation doesn't exactly add up, IMO.

Fair enough, I suppose - but the cooldowns are so short, if tech and biotics were seperate, you could spawm them non stop, wouldn't even need guns. I wouldn'tbe surprised if there was a reason for it though... aside from asari, nanites are needed to access biotic abilities, maybe these also interface with your omnitool to coordinate tech abilities?

I guess what I'm asking is to make the fights stand out from each other more, in terrain, tactical possibilities and enemy behaviour. Now, you can basically win every fight with the same tactics - the only variables that matter are your starting position, cover positions and boss enemies.

Fair enough, but ME is now a shooter, and shooters need a body count. As awesome as different and interesting fights would be, if they reduced the number of enemies in favor or more interesting ones, there'd be a lot of running and minimal action. I think they balance they chose, story to keep you involved, numerous enemies to provide action, was a good one.

I was looking for the main plot points, yes. In those, Mass Effect 2 doesn't really hold up. At all.

Why not? The game is right smack in the middle of an epic story. It seems to me we're just playing a part of the story most games glaze over - you either start with a loyal, or encounter people and they join your merry band, end of story. Now you get a chance to assemble a best-of-the-best team, and it's not some arbitrary detail along the way. You're gathering strength and allies in preparation for a single, critical mission. That's the plot. Granted, it's not what ME1 was, revealing new and exciting things as the story grew larger and more interesting, but really, ME1 was the reveal, ME2 was preparing to strike back, and scoring a blow against the reapers and their allies, and it leaves room for an epic showdown in coming games.

Also, there were some very confusing things in the meager plot, as well:

* Why does Shepard even want to work for with Cerberus anyway, when it's completely obvious what kind of people she's dealing with? Even a full-blown Renegade Shep would have some issues working with a shadow group that's apparently about as powerful as the rest of the Systems Alliance itself. He doesn't want to, he makes that clear... but if they are the only ones who will give him a ship and the resources he needs, he doesn't have much choice.

* EDI's comments at the crew capture scene were slightly off. They should've read: Shepard, you just passed the point of no return and no one with a brain bothered to script the following sequence. Please distribute these Idiot Balls to your entire crew and go joyriding in the middle of buttfucking nowhere so the collectors can capture your crew and give you a pointless extra reason to go kill yourself as soon as possible.

When I first got the reaper IFF, I wasn't done with all the side missions I wanted to do. This entire game took place in a relatively short time period, considering what was accomplished - and given the choice to twiddle their thumbs for hours, or complete a mission, taking a shuttle out didn't seem like a terrible idea. Yes, it was done to move the storyline, but it didn't really take away from it, it wasn't ridiculous.

* Why isn't anyone more shocked by the fact that Shepard's been dead for two years? Even when you meet people you've known for years, the exchanges amount to basically this:

"Shepard, where the hell have you been for the last two years? Nobody has heard anything of you since the Normandy was destroyed"

"I was dead. I'm better. I'm your goddamn Jesus, worship me, you maggot."

"Oh, ok. Cookies?"

As entertaining as it would have been to include a 3rd DVD, entirely filled by hour long conversations catching up on the last two years, hugging friends and family, telling them long stories about the Collector attack and his reconstruction, etc, Bioware remembered that people were playing a game, and that adding 10 minutes of explanations to literally every former acquaintance you run into would not make for a better game. Besides, he was a Spectre. If you knew a friend of yours was a high level government agent, and he vanished for a while, you might know there's more to it than your clearance entitles you to.

There are more silly things, of course - I remembered those off the top of my head.

This one suggests you acquire a sustained existence and begs one recall that this is merely video entertainment. (I know, I'm one to talk)

The PC version of ME1 had quick keys for ie. Journal, Codex and Squad windows. Missing these isn't exactly the end of the world, but coding them in would've only taken a few minutes, and they were there in ME1, so I see no good reason for removing them.

Fair enough.

On my personal scale, 6 is an average game, 7 is good, 8 is great, etc. I also grade them on a curve of sorts - it isn't that hard for a game to score a seven on my scale, but eight and above require quite a bit of work.

Still Sacriledge!