richardhutnik said:
I am NOT going to just stand by here and have you SCREAM over and over how Mass Effect 2 is not an RPG, which then would cause a game like Borderlands to be LESS than not an RPG, because the creators of Borderlands look to create a fusion of RPG and FPS. And yes, Borderlands fits that. And if it does, then Mass Effect 2 is even more so an RPG. First, outside of Tetris, about EVERY videogame is an RPG of sorts. You PLAY A ROLE that is not you. In Mass Effect 2, you played Commander Shepard, and it is your job to save the galaxy. You also leveled up and gained proficiency in weapons. The game was gun focused. And you did other things also in the game besides shooting. And there are character classes, three basic versions, and six overall that mixed the two. And they impact things differently. Your hatred of Mass Effect 2 is blinding you to the reality it IS an RPG. You may ended up hating it, and saying it stinks, which is fine. You may also say it falled to deliver a real RPG experience, while succeeding in other areas. This is fine. But to say it isn't something, when it is, is flat out wrong. It is an RPG. |
By that standard the RPG genre should not exist since every game is an RPG.
So an RPG is a game where "playing a role" is central to the game mechanics: Mass Effect 2 is a game where shooting is central to the game mechanics, hence it is not an RPG. Not by any means.
You can be a complete douche when talking to the other characters and the only consequences are a somewhat different development of the story. Not even a different story. You can lose only when shooting, hence it's a shooter. Play Gothic and try to trash-talk some NPG, try out Planescape Torment or Arcanum or, even better, try to play a dating-sym (!!!) while trash-talking everyone. You'll find much more role playing in an average denigrated JRPG or JSRPG than in ME2.
My impression is that this game was labelled as an RPG just for commercial purposes.