Editorial Mass Effect 2: Time Magazine's 10th Video Game of the Year

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Mass Effect 2

<p>Time Magazine (slightly less prestigious than the prestigious Codex) have named Mass Effect 2 as number 10 on <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2035319_2034548_2034561,00.html">their list of video games of the year</a>. The bullshit reason they came up with to justify this was:</p>
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">With most movies and games, sequels give first-installment fans cause to shudder and weep. But every so often, a follow-up can outshine the original. Case in point: Mass Effect 2, which came out in January and sold more than 2 million units in its first week of release. Set in a dystopian year 2185 complete with warlords and gangs, Mass Effect 2 is the wild space frontier that gamers love to imagine. You're back playing the role of Commander Shepard, a paramilitary hero trying to repel a massive forthcoming alien invasion only to be unceremoniously killed at the beginning of the game. Not to worry: you're resurrected with cybernetics and nanotechnology so that you can go on a suicide mission to discover why colonies of humans are disappearing. Depending on how you play the game, you can change the outcome, almost guaranteeing a different story line each time.</p>
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<p>Can't be much of a hero if he dies at the start of the game. Merry Christmas.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Thanks <strong>AndhairaX</strong>!</p>

 

[Xor]

Depending on how you play the game, you can change the outcome, almost guaranteeing a different story line each time.

Bullshit.

 

[commie]

I don't know what's worse: pseudo gaming-'journalists' writing cack based on who throws them a bone or totally clueless hacks that know not even the most rudimentary thing about games except what the promotional material tells them.



"Dystopian year?...warlords and gangs?" Break out the JD trenchcoats as we also seem to live in a 'dystopian' world full of warlords and gangs!

Also what Xor said. Fuck me, at least PRETEND to have played the fucking game before vomiting some crap!

 

[Eyeball]

Time Magazine. The McDonalds of wanna-be serious publications. Ignore.

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

But every so often, a follow-up can outshine the original.

orly? I guess that the thousands of pages worth of hate that the game gets on it's own fucking forums got it all wrong then?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

But every so often, a follow-up can outshine the original.

orly? I guess that the thousands of pages worth of hate that the game gets on it's own fucking forums got it all wrong then?

To be fair, 999/1000 pages were biotards whining that they couldn't fuck their favourite party member.

 

[Jaesun]

I am completely shocked. Shocked I say.

 

[Cassidy]

I don't think Time Magazine is smearing shit on paper only about gaming. In fact this makes me inclined to believe that both Daily Mail and The Sun are better publications. And Der Sturmer was definitively much better than Time Magazine.

What else to expect from those who elected the creator of Facebook as "Person of the Year"?

 

[StrangeCase]

You're back playing the role of Commander Shepard, a paramilitary hero

Wait, I thought Shepard was just plain military. What's with the "para" prefix?

That's really all I've got, not much I could criticize that hasn't been criticized millions of times before.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

You lie! It's so totally not an advertisment!
It's an analytical review of games from different genres released in 2010, with no broad age appeal. It's a Top list, for chrissake. You can't qustion the list. It's even written by a guy who didn't play it, printed in a magazine read by physiological adults and has nothing to do with gaming and gone to press right in time for the holiday shopping season! Gaming journalism doesn't come any more solid than that.
Oh, wait...

 

[MicoSelva]

ME2 also is on my list of "Top 10 best games released in 2010, that I've played".
I've played three. The other two (Starcraft II and Alpha Protocol) were better.

 

[KalosKagathos]

Their write-up on SSFIV confuses me:

Probably the only people who were disappointed with Super Street Fighter IV were the ones who rushed out to buy the game last year. Not only did 2010's SSF IV update include 10 additional characters, including the Taekwondo fighter Juri and the Turkish oil wrestler Hakan, the controversial Super and Ultra combos made a comeback, forcing players to change up their strategies. The story follows the fighting-game-series canon: each character has his own personal motivations for wanting to fight his way to the top, whether for love, pride or respect. What this means for game play is that you've got more characters with different fighting styles to play around with. In SSF IV, each round is exquisitely rendered in a hybrid 2-D/3-D animation.

So, uh, why would you change your strategies if the mechanics stayed the same? They don't think that supers and ultras weren't present in the vanilla SFIV, do they? I mean, ultras originated in SFIV; where else would they be making a comeback from?

 

[SimpleComplexity]

Depending on how you play the game, you can change the outcome, almost guaranteeing a different story line each time.

Bullshit.

Almost bullshit.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I love Mass Effect 2, but

Depending on how you play the game, you can change the outcome, almost guaranteeing a different story line each time.

Bullshit.

This.

You can affect the storyline in small ways, like who you want to sleep with, but the rest is locked down tight until the final choice of destroying the base or handing it over to Cerberus. And dying/living, of course, which isn't canon! IS NOT CANON! If your Shepard dies you can't play Mass Effect 3! So angry!

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Mass Effect 2 has to be one of the shittiest, most generic, retarded, unoriginall, fucked up, boring and pointless games ever.

VD, racofer and all you morons here on the codex who claimed that ME2 is "not an RPG anymore but a fun game": SUCK MY COCK

I don't even know where to begin how unbelivably shitty this fucking piece of shit game is. The whole gameplay consists of an endless circle of Endure WORST WRITTEN DIALOGUE EVER -> challengeless, boring popamole shooting trough linear level corridors -> endure some shitty dialogue again

There is no exploration, no interesting combat, no interesting dialogues, no interesting questdesign, no nothing. The whole game is just a fucking piece of shit.

And don't even get me starded about retarded design like giving all of your party-members a "personal quest", which accidently all come up at the same time and all of them rewarding you with a new outfit for your party members. FUCK. Baldurs Gate 2 at least tried to embed those personal quest into the context of the gameworld and make them flow naturally with the story progression.

The only thing which made me and my brother endure 15 hours of it this electronic diarrhea were Shepards hillariously retarded "renegade" answers and our ability to laugh our ass off at how bad this game is overall.

In the old days this piece of crap would have recieved the codex bashing it deserves. These days however we have enough morons here who will claim it's "a fun game" set in an interesting "b-movie space opera setting".

FUCK YOU.

/im very angry about mass effect 2

:godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley:

 

[SimpleComplexity]

I love Mass Effect 2

 

[Konjad]

what is FPS game doing in RPG news?

 

[Drakron]

For fucking god sake, EVERY FUCKING TIME a newspaper or a magazine decides to talk about something they NEVER do it ends up like this.

Many years ago one newspaper (that I read) decided to put a small section about games in the central pages and the whole thing was hilarious bad, I remember it because they mentioned Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury at one time.

This bullshit is expected, not the specialized "gaming media" is that much better ...

 

[Konjad]

The only places I've read reviews in recent years were RPGCodex and RPGWatch, although Watch reviews more for the lulz since they have no balls to admit some game might suck and also write crap like:

Your reaction to ArcaniA will vary widely depending upon what pair of glasses you are wearing. If you are a new or casual RPGer, then ArcaniA is a fun game that you will enjoy greatly. Even for classic RPGers it will be a nice game to have if you can afford it for when you do not have the time for a more immersive RPG.

 

[Azrael the cat]

The only places I've read reviews in recent years were RPGCodex and RPGWatch, although Watch reviews more for the lulz since they have no balls to admit some game might suck and also write crap like:

Your reaction to ArcaniA will vary widely depending upon what pair of glasses you are wearing. If you are a new or casual RPGer, then ArcaniA is a fun game that you will enjoy greatly. Even for classic RPGers it will be a nice game to have if you can afford it for when you do not have the time for a more immersive RPG.

Personally, I'd add the NY Times (online version, I don't live in the US so I've no idea what the print one is like) to that. Obviously you can't expect them to have the same knowledge of crpgs and games outside today's mainstream trend, but they tend to come in with a good knowledge of video-game history, a complete indifference to the 'hype' of the gaming press, and most importantly a desire to critically review a game rather than advertise it.

It's basically what you'd expect if a paper was (a) coming from the usual non-gaming perspective of not really having much to do with the subject, BUT (b) deciding that they don't want to drag their publication down with the usual hilariously bad 'token gaming review', and so are determined to hire someone decent and research the thing that they're reviewing, so they put in the same kind of effort that they would with a film or albulm review.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I think the NYT had a nice PS:T review online.

http://www.webcitation.org/5iqx3F0nL

 

[Tycn]

Plane scape could well herald a new wave of games that are valued as much for their artistic merit as they are for their technical brilliance and the fun they offer.

 

[Tolknaz]

what is TPS game doing in RPG news?

Fixed.

 

[JarlFrank]

Someday I'm going to play through ME2 to see whether it's any good or not.

If I ever manage to find the motivation to watch through the many cutscenes and play lots of linear popamole.

 

[PlanHex]

what is FPS game doing in RPG news?

What, are you dense? Are you a retarded or something? Didn't you see the text?

You're back playing the role of Commander Shepard

IT'S A ROLE PLAYING GAME GODDAMMIT

 

[Serious_Business]

/im very angry about mass effect 2

:godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley:

Mission accomplished.

 

[Cassidy]

Mass Effect 2 has to be one of the shittiest, most generic, retarded, unoriginall, fucked up, boring and pointless games ever.

VD, racofer and all you morons here on the codex who claimed that ME2 is "not an RPG anymore but a fun game": SUCK MY COCK

I don't even know where to begin how unbelivably shitty this fucking piece of shit game is. The whole gameplay consists of an endless circle of Endure WORST WRITTEN DIALOGUE EVER -> challengeless, boring popamole shooting trough linear level corridors -> endure some shitty dialogue again

There is no exploration, no interesting combat, no interesting dialogues, no interesting questdesign, no nothing. The whole game is just a fucking piece of shit.

And don't even get me starded about retarded design like giving all of your party-members a "personal quest", which accidently all come up at the same time and all of them rewarding you with a new outfit for your party members. FUCK. Baldurs Gate 2 at least tried to embed those personal quest into the context of the gameworld and make them flow naturally with the story progression.

The only thing which made me and my brother endure 15 hours of it this electronic diarrhea were Shepards hillariously retarded "renegade" answers and our ability to laugh our ass off at how bad this game is overall.

In the old days this piece of crap would have recieved the codex bashing it deserves. These days however we have enough morons here who will claim it's "a fun game" set in an interesting "b-movie space opera setting".

FUCK YOU.

/im very angry about mass effect 2

:godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley:

I never thought I'd agree with TalesfromtheCrypt one day.

Good to see not everyone enjoys shit movies with minigames for retards like pop-a-mole and that the Codex has not fully declined. I didn't play any ME game but I don't have to. I am 100% certain they suck from the opinions of the few reasonable players with similar preference to gameplay over storyfagging or dating sims around here.