Jereel Hunter said:
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.
= 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.
The fueling and probe-buying wasn't ever a problem, but I didn't really see why I had to do it in the first place. It's basically pointless busywork, even if I never ran out of fuel or probes in inopportune moments.
Mirandas fourth tier talent gives a persistent 25% damage bonus to the entire team. That's bloody insane in this game.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was looking for the main plot points, yes. In those, Mass Effect 2 doesn't really hold up. At all.
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.
* 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.
* 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?"
There are more silly things, of course - I remembered those off the top of my head.
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.
If you want a score, I'd give ME2 about 84-86 / 100, while ME1 was 80 / 100. Sacrilege.
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.
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