Editorial Mass Effect 2 is Overrated

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: BioWare; Mass Effect 2

<p>... wait, what? Yes, <a href="http://robotgeek.co.uk/?p=4321" target="_blank">another site felt the need</a> to let us know that <strong>Mass Effect 2</strong> is in fact overrated.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My issues with this game lay outside of this. Mass Effect 1 had a very compelling story, stunning graphics, strong RPG mechanics, and even some compelling exploration. There were quite a few things that disappointed me about the game however, the frame rate and texture pop-in was notoriously bad, the upgrade system was too convoluted, the vehicle sections sucked, and the universe apparently contracted one company to build all of its secondary quest related structures. These issues were forgivable in light of what Mass Effect accomplished though.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I guess if you've never played an RPG before, Mass Effect's RPG mechanics might leave the impression of being *strong*.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You must think I am crazy but consider this closely. What tough choices did you make in Mass Effect 2? Good or evil? In Mass Effect 1 you decided the fate of the council, talked down Wrex (or not), and decided whether or not to allow the Rachni queen to live. These were tough choices. In Mass Effect 2 where were all these tough, seemingly consequential choices? You decide whether to save the Reaper ship and&hellip;well, you get my point. The story seems like it was purposefully made so inconsequential because it would be way too complex to account for all the choices over 2 games for Mass Effect 3. But if our choices were never going to have some deep impact the way we were led to believe, then why not just craft a compelling story and improve the game mechanics?</p>
<p>I do not want people to get me wrong here. Mass Effect 2 is a great action shooter. It is, however, a terrible RPG and an even worse sequel. I hope the hype will not blind BioWare to its flaws so they can be rectified in Mass Effect 3; which will be the greatest game of all time. Stay classy people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If ME2 only had more deep choices...</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/100789-mass-effect-2-is-overrated.html">Gamebanshee</a></p>

 

[grotsnik]

My biggest quip with Mass Effect 2 is it’s classification as an RPG

Eleven years old or just not particularly bright?

I hope the hype will not blind BioWare to its flaws so they can be rectified in Mass Effect 3; which will be the greatest game of all time. Stay classy people.

Eleven years old. Ending on a non sequitur Anchorman, er, quip? Genius. Man, this fourth-grade book report ain't newsworthy.

 

[DakaSha]

Mass effect 1 was EXTREMELY overrated and actually led me to sell the whole fucking console. thats not a joke.

So I needless to say I knew mass effect 2 was overrated before it came out

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Mass Effect 2 is not overrated, it's a much better game than 98% of Bioware's entire catalogue. What these faggots are proving by hating on it now is that it's actually UNDERRATED.

Quick, V of D! Make a new newspost. You can link to my post.

 

[DakaSha]

then over hyped.. better?
edit: for the record i still think its massively overrated ^^

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Eh, this is a common theme in gaming journalism. After a while the game that everybody loved and hailed as the best damn thing since corn flakes becomes "overrated" and "not as good as everybody thought it was". Especially if it's a sequel. Nobody seem to take into account that ME1 was too cowardly to go either full cinematic cover shooter or full action RPG, thus resulting in an extremely boring and slowmoving game. Dragon Age was better.

 

[DakaSha]

no idea i long ago gave up on game "journalism"

 

[KalosKagathos]

Nobody seem to take into account that ME1 was too cowardly to go either full cinematic cover shooter or full action RPG, thus resulting in an extremely boring and slowmoving game. Dragon Age was better.

Come on. I'm not much of a fan of ME 1, but even that mediocrity was better than the best RPG since Arcanum.

 

[Vamp]

I liked ME1. ME2 is shit. Don't ask me why.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I liked ME1. ME2 is shit. Don't ask me why.

Why did you like ME1, and why didn't you like ME2?

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Nobody seem to take into account that ME1 was too cowardly to go either full cinematic cover shooter or full action RPG, thus resulting in an extremely boring and slowmoving game. Dragon Age was better.

Come on. I'm not much of a fan of ME 1, but even that mediocrity was better than the best RPG since Arcanum.

It really wasn't.

 

[Vamp]

I liked ME1. ME2 is shit. Don't ask me why.

Why did you like ME1, and why didn't you like ME2?

NOOO!!! You weren't supposed to ask!!!!

 

[MicoSelva]

Mass Effect 2 is a great action shooter. It is, however, a terrible RPG and an even worse sequel.

I agree 100%. Pity he realized that 11 months too late.

 

[KalosKagathos]

Nobody seem to take into account that ME1 was too cowardly to go either full cinematic cover shooter or full action RPG, thus resulting in an extremely boring and slowmoving game. Dragon Age was better.

Come on. I'm not much of a fan of ME 1, but even that mediocrity was better than the best RPG since Arcanum.

It really wasn't.

It was. DA combat is impossible to tolerate for a sentient being. ME combat isn't.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Nobody seem to take into account that ME1 was too cowardly to go either full cinematic cover shooter or full action RPG, thus resulting in an extremely boring and slowmoving game. Dragon Age was better.

Come on. I'm not much of a fan of ME 1, but even that mediocrity was better than the best RPG since Arcanum.

It really wasn't.

It was. DA combat is impossible to tolerate for a sentient being. ME combat isn't.

You're arguing about combat. Alright then. Look, DA has a lot of problems but the combat is really the least flawed element because it's combat as it's been since NWN. With Mass Effect though, Bio tried something different and failed astronomically because they didn't want to go all the way.

 

[Jaesun]

So some dumbfuck unknown Journalist™ finally discovered Biowarian C&C? Congrats I guess.

 

[Baron]

I'm a huuuge ME fan, but the sequel left me a little cold. There were certainly clever elements to it, and I really liked what they tried to do with the conclusion (thank god Kiefer Sutherland took one to his fishy head). But here are my main complaints...

1) The Party
Whiney, boring, alien losers. Grunt, Dyke, Samara, The Cod, Jaesun, Miranda, Black Guy... all forgetable. I love story, I read everything, but I hated listening to their background and their woes. I kept missing Wrex ending a conversation with a shotgun blast, or burying my face into some teenage blue pussy. That's my kind of party interaction. ME2 NPCs just didn't cut it. Although Archangel was a nice development (but he falls under ME1 as far as I'm concerned.)

2) Planetary Scanning
How did nobody pick up that that wasn't fun in testing? Christ, I wanted to mod it so that instead of scanning a planet you could fire nukes until the planetary government gave up its resources. I was one of the ones that LOVED hooning around on the planets, exploring for my mini-games. The only thing I would have changed about that would be that the Mako was destructable from falls or crashs, so that I drove it a little more cautiously and there was some sense of danger from rolling off a mountaintop, and that missile turrets were lethal to the Mako but couldn't target small targets like people, to encourage you to park safely and approach a base on foot, fighting the defenders with firearms instead of cannoning them into space.

3) Guns
The inventory sprawl of the first one did need fixing, but they screwed it up. Overheating was a nice mechanic, I thought, and I wasn't fond of reducing it to ammo rods (although I accept this was probably to stop players being too conservative in combat, bunkering down and wearing out opponents. The limited ammo meant you had to press the attack.) The arms manufacturers of ME1 gave a nice feel to the game's lore, even if it was way too much Diabloesque loot.

4) The Villain
Saren was a potentially brilliant villain the moment he blew the face out of his associate. He let himself go later on with the tubes and shit stains, but he was still a formiddable villain when he was the current baddest galactic superspy. Bugman in the sequel was ruined early on. Shit, I shot that guy not out of fear, just to stop him talking. There is a maxim I employ in dating but also applies to cRPG villains... Familiarity breeds contempt. The repetitious encounters with the insectoid leader never added to his prescence or development. It's like they created the equivalent foe of being pestered by mosquitoes.

Overall, the biggest complaint was the NPC allies. As I said, I liked what they tried to do at the end, it was a good concept. And if my companions had meant more to me I am sure I would have felt gutted had they died, instead of guffawing. But the process along the way was too painful in execution. Miranda, I don't give a fuck about your lil' sister... you're supposed to be a cold blooded Cereberus bitch, keep your family squabbles to yourself. Maybe female gamers ate that shit up, but I thought it drew me away from the INTERGALACTIC PERIL which siphons away the urgency and tension of the main plot.

I certainly didn't hate ME2, but I did shelve it for a couple of months before finishing... and this coming from a guy who pre-ordered the collectors edition! I just loved the first one so much that it was always going to be a difficult task to recapture. I don't know about overrated... They tried new things, but didn't work for me. Am still keen to see how ME3 takes shape, but won't be preordering this one.

Also, I don't see why people are so hung up on ME's genre. I don't remember this debate in 1988 when Die Hard came out, an action movie with a comedy lead. I don't care how people class Mass Effect, it created its own hybrid genre and did it extremely well.

 

[Serious_Business]

Derp

I'll say it again. You can state that ME 1 and 2 were shit, I have no problem with that. But saying that ME 1 was great and 2 failed? No fucking way.

Your biggest complain were the NPCs? Seriously? I can't remember any fucking npc from ME 1. I can't remember much from ME 2 either, except maybe Mordin, but yeah, not the point. And, guns? Seriously, the 10293838 toy guns you got in ME1? That were all the same? That was great wasn't it? And the ME1 vilain? Get the fuck out of here. Bioware were much better off not writing a pretentious villain and just having some generic creepy insect-men, that was much smarter of them. Is this a troll post?

Seriously, people who like ME1 over ME2 are pretty much just people who have very bad taste and take their games seriously. ME1 took itself much more seriously than its predecessor, I'll admit. Is that a good thing when it's Bioware who's at work here?

 

[Baron]

Troll post? I stated my reasons.

All you throw up is "No fucking way," "Get the fuck out of here," and "people who have very bad taste..."

 

[markec]

ME2 is so much more better game then the first one, not a better RPG or a shooter but a game in whole.

In ME2 party members varied in quality writing but atleast some of them werent complete standard Bioware cliches without any personality like in ME1.

Fuck planetary scanning I can cheat through it and imagine it doesnt exist, something I cant do with Mako missions. Any person who thinks they were even slightly fun is a masochist. Lets not forget that every side mission had completely same looking interiors, with both rooms, enemies and quest goal place the same.

In ME1 you had inventory with hundreds of completely same looking guns and in the end you always used pistols no matter which class you choose. In ME2 pistols were also useful but so were the other weapons.

Saren was a textbook cliche of a villain and Geth were a joke, trough the game story forces some sense of urgency that immediately falls flat.

ME2 is a lesser RPG then ME1 but its not like the difference is comparable to difference between Fallout and Fallout 3, its just that the game stops pretending its a RPG and focuses on other things, making it a better game.

Claiming that ME1 is a better game because of inventory or drop more RPG elements is just stupid.

 

[Excommunicator]

I found that of the things that ME1 tried to do but did badly, ME2 basically threw out, and of the things that ME1 did ok, ME2 did better, even quite well.

I started ME1, quit a bunch of times before I got anywhere. Thought it was totally boring to begin with. Spent some more time with it, started to like the setting and all that, ended up liking it in some parts, while tolerating the weaker bits.

ME2 I started, didn't like at all for the first few hours, as before. Eventually got into it again, started enjoying it for the same reasons as ME1, but this time it wasn't held back by stupid shit like constant bugs, painful driving, FUUUU elevators, boring characters (I liked several), rageful inventory, etc more shit like that.

Basically for me, ME2 really committed itself to crossing the line into action-adventure shooter when ME1 was too uncertain about whether it wanted to be an RPG or not, plus ME2 was polished enough that it was a really smooth ride for me, no bugs or aforementioned bad mechanics. Planet scanning was really easy and was over quickly, didn't annoy me.

I would expect DA2 to go much the same path too, except I actually enjoyed the ME universe, characters and the visuals, unlike DA.

 

[Baron]

Seriously, people who like ME1 over ME2 are pretty much just people who have very bad taste

Top 10 role-playing games

1 - Dragon Age
2 - Mass Effect
3 - Mass Effect 2
4 - Never winter nights
5 - Star wars bioware RPG
6 - Asiatic bioware rpg
7 - Baldur's gate
8 - Baldur's gate 2
9 - Baldur's gate expansion
10 - Neverwinter nights expansion

 

[Excommunicator]

If that is a serious list - which I can't possibly believe that it is - then you have some serious fucking business explaining to do faggot

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Top 10 roleplaying games:
1 to 10: Bioware game.

Christ, people. How obvious does it have to be? Of course it's a serious list! Serious_Business, you are a fucking hypocrite! How can you rank asiatic Bioware rpg over Baldur's Gate 2? How can you even live with yourself?!!

edit: Baron, I will nitpick your little list as soon as I have time.

 

[Excommunicator]

The sad thing is many people would actually have that as a serious list. Volourn, for a start