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bobobologna on 01 February 2010
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rocketpig said:
disolitude said:

I rented mass effect 1 for an hour and didn't like it, but I picked up Mass Effect 2 after everyone and their dog telling me that action has been greatly improved. I spent about 14 hours with Mass Effect 2 thus far and while it is an improved experience for the action junkie, I find it still somewhat lacking.

It seems to me like Bioware must not have played Contra, Doom, Quake, Vectorman or any classic twitch action game as they have no clue how to generate tension in their action set pieces. Furthermore, the set pieces are 1/10th as imaginative as the best stuff found in some other games. Remember the last level of Half Life 2 Episode 2...with the tripods coming and defending the base etc. Well there isn't anything as engaging and tense in Mass Effect 2...not even close.

It almost looks like they miss the chances to make action gameplay more intense on purpose too. One of the missions involves traveling to a planet to help Zaid sort out some old grudge with an ex partner. There you find an option to save workers stuck in a burning factory complex. This situation would be 10X more fun, if it actually had a timer before factory explodes. that way you'd have to hurry up and shoot fast and quickly figure out where to go and what to do. Instead you get to strol through the burning factory without a care in the world...shooting enemies at leasure, powering up your weapons...etc.

I am not saying the game is not good as it clearly is an amazing package. I just wish the action elements were better...as they have no reason not to be.

Not to be a contrarian but ME2 is NOT an action game. It's an RPG, which means they can't make everything twitch-based lest they alienate the traditional RPG base.

And timers? ME2 has several segments that are timed. You obviously didn't play the game long enough. There are even segments of the game where the outcome can be altered based on how long you take, only BioWare DIDN'T provide the gamer with a timer. That created some seriously intense gaming moments during the last hour.

Oh please, everything I've seen, and everything the developers have said have all pointed to Mass Effect 2 being more of an action game.  The RPG elements have reportedly been streamlined, and they have added a lot of elements that action gamers wanted.

I'm a HUGE fan of Deus Ex.  It is an FPS/RPG hybrid.  And I will also be the first to admit that the game was a horrible FPS.

I can't believe how many people are trying to make excuses by hiding behind the fact that it's a hybrid that does one part well, and one part maybe not so well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/jan/17/microsoft-games

"What we have done is focus on the shooter aspects more. We wanted to make it more visceral. We did this because we wanted to open up the audience to gamers who like Gears of War or Modern Warfare and introduce them to a genre that they may normally ignore. The upshot of this is they may notice the great things about Bioware games such as believable characters and great stories. If you can convince them that this is a fantastic shooter but then they will discover that there is so much more to Mass Effect 2 than that."