Quote:Original post by nilkn
The more I reflect on ME2 the more I realize in retrospect how much it does upset me that 90% of ME2 was spent recruiting teammates and only 10% was spent advancing the story.

I agree 100% - while I found the characters in ME2 (generally, as Wrex > Grunt for example) to be more interesting than in ME1, the timeline of the main story can actually be broken down into only a handful of events... very little actually happens. I was expecting perhaps the first half of the game to be recruiting your team.

Also, I found the "suicide" mission and the possible squad deaths to be almost infuriatingly contrived. The ship upgrades -> people die/survive in a non-interactive sequence was so incredibly transparent as to be almost pointless - I knew this exact sequence would happen right from the first moment upgrades were mentioned. In ME1, there were a couple of unexpected occasions during missions where a teammate could be lost and I actually cared about it. My friend and I genuinely sat and discussed the available options for a few minutes. In ME2, there was a half-hour period where your entire team could be killed one by one in quick succession and for me this had precisely zero emotional impact. The characters became (quite literally) interchangeable pawns in the final act.

Sitting there and watching this all unfold, hearing the disc drive spin as different alternative movie segments were loaded, I lost all sense of involvement and immersion in what was happening on-screen. The game simply lost all of its magic for me at this point and began to feel more like a cheesy, transparent "choose your own adventure" book.

That said, I did enjoy the game overall and would recommend it - the dialogue, atmosphere and side-plots were generally excellent. The combat is good. The Mass Effect universe is typically rich and well imagined - this is what I love about ME.

Quote:Original post by WavyVirus

I agree 100% - while I found the characters in ME2 (generally, as Wrex > Grunt for example) to be more interesting than in ME1, the timeline of the main story can actually be broken down into only a handful of events... very little actually happens. I was expecting perhaps the first half of the game to be recruiting your team.

ME2 is almost the opposite of ME1. In 1, there was this epic story arc (oh, we also tucked a few side missions as filler content). But main story felt much bigger. Mako, as much as a disaster as it was, added a nice change of pace to main missions, contrary to 2 where it's just clearing 4 rooms and killing the boss.

At the same time, ME2's "side" missions are where the beef is. Each of them could be almost bigger than any of ME1's main missions, and they also have a strong tie in with the world (Illium, Krogan homeworld). But the main story arc comes through as "oh, you checked off the side missions, here's another main one).

Quote:In ME1, there were a couple of unexpected occasions during missions where a teammate could be lost and I actually cared about it.

ME1 did this much better since it just threw it in. This is why I feel that there are simply too many squad members in ME2. It's just a bunch of faces, and forced loyalty missions means you're obliged to split time evenly among all of them. And in ME1 it was also a no-win situation. Without knowing, there was nothing to do when it happened. In ME2 it's just walking around with a checklist.

Also in ME1, one would quickly get the chosen two members, then use them for the rest of the mission, and their comments and involvement would personalize the story. ME2, with so much emphasis on loyalty missions forces one to always bring an X guy just for the sake of mission requirements.

ME3 might be a complete success (best of 1 and 2), or the exact the exact opposite, considering how drastically BioWare changed core elements and how drastically they dealt with many past hallmarks (citadel is just a bunch of stores, everything else is just a bit in the news and most past members are just a footnote).

I'd also say that the engine is a limiting factor. The need for so many so frequent reloads seems to put considerable constraints on the design. For some reason, ME1 didn't suffer from this, despite likely being same engine.

Quote:Original post by phantom
I liken ME2 to a good book; you enjoy it, you want to see how it ends yet at the same time while the ending is good you are sad because you know it'll never be quite that good again.

A super intelligent AI making a 20x size human as an "ultimate design", to be packed in a flying squid as capitan terminator ?

Most of us are game developers here, we should at least be familiar with high-school physics concept of mass/volume scaling, so what sort of intelligent being would create a human x 20 and fill it with "genetic paste" to create a "reaper" which is the pinnacle of evolution cycle ? I would have bought it if they cloned Sheppard (1:1 scale) because he managed to destroy Sovereign, but at 20x scale human design simply makes no sense. What part of the creature is actually using the organic parts ? AI certainly isn't, muscles and tissue - again no at 20x.
It's far from "ultimate design by super intelligent AI" and more like "ultimate dumbing-down" by a game designer in order to make the final fight fit the standard "action RPG" boss concept - giant monster with shoot tags ... if the level was greener and Shepard had a boomerang I could have mistaken it for a Zelda boss fight.

And not to mention the utter failure to bring the feeling of "epic proportions" for protean ship in to the level design with level being a few hallways that go straight along and some flying platos, seen a million times.

Overall this lacks any sort of depth and innovation, gameplay or story wise - you are right tough, while I didn't enjoy it, the only reason I played trough is that I wanted to see how it ends because the story had so many interesting ways to go after ME1. And now I wish I didn't.

After being disappointed with this and DAO I think I'll quit AAA gaming all together, it just seems to get shallower and dumber with each iteration.