-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Mass Effect 2 |OT|
- Thread starter Skilotonn
- Start date
- Status
I think it was the world in DA that just didn't make me care for the characters. In ME1 i only liked Wrex, couldn't care less about the rest. Here i find Thane, Jack, Grunt, Samara and Garrus all interesting characters to talk too. But perhaps the comparison isn't really fair, ME2 puts a huge focus on the companions because a large part of the game is recruiting them and doing their loyalty missions.Cep said:
The suicide mission, for me,
was one of the most intense moments in gaming. While I was fighting through the collectors that was fun and all, but each time there was a cutscene I was fighting for my squadmates life. I didn't want any of them to die, as a commander, and each time whether their vitality was in question I was on the edge of my seat. It was unique to this game that I've felt like that. I had a connection with each character, even the ones I didn't really like (Miranda, Jack).
Confidence Man
Member
Another good review, pretty much sums up my feelings on the game (and the first):
http://www.gamecritics.com/brad-gallaway/mass-effect-2-review
http://www.gamecritics.com/brad-gallaway/mass-effect-2-review
Sir Hamish
Member
Playing this game after dragon age made me really miss the party banter. Having the characters talking to each other casually made DA a far more immersive experience IMO. In mass effect 2, I can bring Garrus along to meet wrex and nothing happens. It just feels wierd. I think the only character that really acknowledged his existence was ashley.
dilatedmuscle
Member
EazyB said:My mini-review of ME2. Probably going to stir up some hate as many see this game as the second coming but whatever. No brilliant insight so feel free to skip right over it.
I suppose I came into ME2 with my expectations set too high because many aspects of the game have underwhelmed me. I'm hesitant to say I over-hyped it because I didn't think ME1 was as brilliant as others claim it to be so my expectations were probably lower than most.
I was disappointed with the combat. Improved over ME1 but still falls short of anything labeled a shooter. They really improved how the gunplay and the arcing shots give it something fresh and fun. I love the 3-round burst Battle Rifle and the pistol Hand Cannon. Hmm... wonder whyThe addition of heavy weapons and the move from overheating to ammo counts was a smart move.
But shitty cover mechanics, getting stuck in animations, glitches, bugs, AI you'd only find in the shittiest shooter make the game play sloppier. Limiting your abilities to one per cooldown, the lack of grenades, and the fact that the trajectory of your teammate's abilities spawn from your player character limit the strategy involved. As someone who appreciates gameplay first and foremost these shortfalls were the most important.
Maybe I'm judging ME2 as a shooter too harshly, it's unfair when it could be argued that it's an RPG first. The game pretty much delivered on the RPG front. While it retained most of the good RPG elements from the first, it improved and streamlined them a bit too. You level up and improve abilities less often but the changes feel more significant. They added armor parts which, while sort of a missed opportunity because they were so rare, was a welcome addition. They reduced the amount of looting in general, while some of this falls to preference, I enjoy the looting elements of RPGs and while I appreciate the fact that each gun you found felt significantly different, there should have been a lot more of them(unless I fork out $$$ for future DLC). Not entirely sure how I feel about the move from exp per kill to exp per mission but I think a may've preferred a mix of the two. Finding vendors or certain treasure chests to find weapon upgrades is sorta cool but it would've been better if there were multiple locations and ways of acquiring them.DLC wat
Story stuff. Though the main story arc was worse than ME1's. The final mission was presented from the very beginning of the game. While interesting from a design standpoint, the way the surrounding missions were set up made the main story feel like a super long fetch quest. There were maybe 5 main story mission and what that main arc lacked in length they replaced with 10 or so character acquiring missions and another 10 loyalty mission if you chose to do so. At the end of ME2 I felt like nothing had really been accomplished; from a purely story perspective it could've been a spinoff of the main arc. ME1's main story felt more epic and was paced much better. That said, Bioware really made those character missions pretty interesting and worthwhile. The problem was the majority of them had nothing to do with the main story and which made it feel like I was just putting what was supposed to be urgent on pause. I supposed that could've played a role in how I felt about the main story arc. the dialogue and stuff was pretty good. Tried to be funny too often and fell short more times then I'd have liked. The writing in Dragon Age was much better (given DA's cinematic delivery as lacking). I really don't like Shepard as a character, I don't know if it's the voice actor but almost every line he delivers (good, bad, or neutral) just made him seem like a douche... There were some pretty memorable lines and many of the other characters were better.
Graphically the game is phenomenal. With the exception of some clipping and animation glitches it does an awesome job and may be the best looking thing on the 360. I've always loved ME's art direction and character design and ME2 doesn't disappoint.
Beat it on Veteran and am in the midst of a "insanity" play-through. While my review probably sounds harsh, it was a fun ride the first time through and good enough to entice me to play through it a second time.
I agree in some ways. ME1 was based around a story that main characters gravitated to. I Feel like ME2's story gets put on the backburner constantly when recruiting characters and doing their missions. Most of the character development is based around these missions
except for miranda and jacob
dont really interact with the council, apparantly one of the biggest choices in ME1 doesnt really matter because you wont even interact with the council... and wtf is up with the presidium being a tiny ass room where Andersome (a seemingly unimportant character for the most part) is standing and repeats the same things over and over again. Anderson was awesome in the first game and he became a stand-in in the sequel
Im loving this game so much, the first review of the game noted that the story was disappointing so i set my bar low so i wont get dissappointed. My advice on your next hyped game; Hope for the Best but Expect the Worst, that way you wont be so underwhelmed.
Its pro's outweigh the cons. At first i was dissappointed with the streamlined gameplay features but after a while i became glad they made those changes. The armor costumization was a great way to keep your character looking fresh while keeping your armor at its best specs, in ME1 you were stuck with the best armor even though it may not be the best looking. It really helps the game become its own thing instead of a lootfest it was and most rpg's are, collecting items in ME1 made it extremely easy to become a millionaire since you can sell so much crap. and THANK GOD they did away with those bootleg clone environments.
Scythesurge
Member
The dialogue and cinematography in this game is great! Such an improvement from the first, it's hard to believe how much they ended up programming in the game. Also I'm really liking the characters a lot more than the first game so far, despite being about 6 hours into the game. Can't wait to go home and play this baby some more.
brandonh83
Banned
I think overall ME2 is better than the first one, but only due to slightly better gameplay. I think ME1 had better story writing, but ME2 does a great job at fleshing out the universe more and is far more character-centric. I think the problem with my first playthrough is that I didn't realize just how important the character recruitment process was. Before I went in, I was expecting that to just be the angle at how you get new squad members, but as it turns out that's actually the meat of the storyline. I think that's why I was disappointed, initially. I still am, in the sense that the actual core storyline didn't really seem to go anywhere at all
.
I mean, don't get me wrong, that's cool and all, but for an RPG series like this, it just felt really non-progressive aside from a few major points. The first game had all sorts of things going on in the main story, like the council stuff, the Benezia stuff, the ExoGeni stuff, etc etc etc which all tied in with the Saren plot. In ME2, pretty much everything aside from the intro and the
was nearly completely detached from the main story, whereas, as noted, almost everything going on in ME1 was part of the Saren/Sovereign plot in some way. In a way, ME2 almost felt like sidequest installment with only a few important plot points at the beginning, middle, and end.
Other than that it's a truly awesome game. While it's upsetting that there wasn't more plot progression, all the content was still really good regardless. I have more fun playing this one, the conversations and choices are better, the dialogue and voice acting is better, achievements are way more fun and are way easier to get which is a plus for me (I have 50/51 achievements which is the most I've gotten in a 360 game, in just over a week of playing whereas I still lack like 15 in ME1 and I've beaten the game upwards of 9 times :lol )the atmosphere is still good and it has an absolutely amazing, balls to the wall finale. So in the end I'd give this sequel the upper hand.
I think that was something of a finalized review. Something of one. Sorry for the ramble. I just started shooting off and kept going. I think I'm just trying to say... awesome game Bioware, just put more plot in the next one (which I'm not worried about, considering it will be the final installment, so something has to happen, surely) :lol
all that really happened in this 20+ give or take hour RPG, the Collectors were originally Protheans and now they're working with the Reapers and taking people away to make a human-like Reaper out of them and you destroy that and it ends with the Reapers coming out of hiding for a full-on assault
I mean, don't get me wrong, that's cool and all, but for an RPG series like this, it just felt really non-progressive aside from a few major points. The first game had all sorts of things going on in the main story, like the council stuff, the Benezia stuff, the ExoGeni stuff, etc etc etc which all tied in with the Saren plot. In ME2, pretty much everything aside from the intro and the
Horizon events (which wasn't much), the IFF mission, and the suicide mission/ending
Other than that it's a truly awesome game. While it's upsetting that there wasn't more plot progression, all the content was still really good regardless. I have more fun playing this one, the conversations and choices are better, the dialogue and voice acting is better, achievements are way more fun and are way easier to get which is a plus for me (I have 50/51 achievements which is the most I've gotten in a 360 game, in just over a week of playing whereas I still lack like 15 in ME1 and I've beaten the game upwards of 9 times :lol )the atmosphere is still good and it has an absolutely amazing, balls to the wall finale. So in the end I'd give this sequel the upper hand.
I think that was something of a finalized review. Something of one. Sorry for the ramble. I just started shooting off and kept going. I think I'm just trying to say... awesome game Bioware, just put more plot in the next one (which I'm not worried about, considering it will be the final installment, so something has to happen, surely) :lol
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
Zeliard said:
Just Kelly when I initially recruited her said Samara seemed different and wouldn't talk to her anymore.
brandonh83
Banned
How DO you get the... other one?
gregor7777
Banned
Skilotonn said:
No, this is completely wrong.
There are very few games for which this is true. Most games bought at retail cannot be downloaded from Steam. Mass Effect 1/2 unfortunately is not an exception.
Infinite Justice
Member
brandonh83 said:
as in the morinth/samara thing/
during samara's loyalty mission when they meet you will have the option to kill one of them and whoever you choose to die the other will join you.
during samara's loyalty mission when they meet you will have the option to kill one of them and whoever you choose to die the other will join you.
brandonh83
Banned
Oh okay. I figured, I just didn't remember all the details. Also the sound completely dropped out for me during that part so it was a confusion carnival to begin with.
brandonh83
Banned
Is there any sort of benefit to getting the alternative?
Also, starting my Insanity run now, what would be the best class, and should I import a ME1 or ME2 character?
Also, starting my Insanity run now, what would be the best class, and should I import a ME1 or ME2 character?
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
This game is fucking great and im only 10 hours in. Fuck the little haters RPG lovers. Cry some more if you want, I dont give a damn.
BTW I have fun scanning, buyed lost of pods and looked mineral for hours, liked a lot more than doing the completionist mako mineral and shit hunting.
BTW I have fun scanning, buyed lost of pods and looked mineral for hours, liked a lot more than doing the completionist mako mineral and shit hunting.
Been playing the PC version for 7 or so hours, good stuff and much better than ME1 even at this early stage. The dialogue with your crew members/various NPC's is sooooooo much better than the first game, and is the biggest highlight of the game by far. Many aspects have been streamlined and made better than in the first one, but I still miss some stuff from the first one (like loot, more open areas, better sense of exploration) and so on. The shooting is also very much improved, and is actually solid now (though it doesn't measure with other 3rd person cover-based shooters).
brandonh83
Banned
Infiltrator it is. Soldier is boring.
Also, I wonder if Mordin has a Twitter page
Also, I wonder if Mordin has a Twitter page
The Lamonster
Member
So I'm going to start ME1 and do a male Renegade run. What is the most powerful class in ME1 that uses biotics?
If I remember correctly, it would be Vanguard doing the pull+pistol combo. Is that true?
If I remember correctly, it would be Vanguard doing the pull+pistol combo. Is that true?
Well, I got the first Mass Effect last week. Had it already once, but just got bored of it, and sold it. Got it again, because I wanted to transfer my save..in the remote case I finished the game this year, when I finally decided to buy the sequel; the save will be there.
But..for some reason I was so addicted to it that i finished the game just 2 days ago and the very moment I finished it, I went to Gamestop and bought the sequel. Darn, what a great game it was.
So far, (to me) Mas Effect 2 is so much better.sometimes in really obvious ways, but others..is so subtle that I sometimes wondered how I managed to play (and love) the first game without those complainign about those little things.
Some random notes:
-Loadings are still ..well, not short even installed (on the 360) but are sometimes hidden on movies and cutscenes.
-Combat feels and controls quite similar to Gears of War.
-You can change your party members in the planet itself, or sometimes even before a big/important mission.
-Miss the whole thing to upgrade weapons/armors , but like that you can customize the look of your armor.
-Don't like that when you acquire a new weapon, that new one automatically substitutes your current one (of the same class)..but sometimes don't mind, since usually the newest weapon is better.
-Ammo was added, so now you have to be careful on not wasting bullets.
-Leveling up is ..harder, which I don't mind. Right now I'm at 12 hours, and I'm barely on Level 8. Compared to the first game, which I finished on 16 hours..and was level 40.
-Like the characters, they have different personalities and looks..and I'm actually alternating the party members because I enjoy them. Unlike the first game, were I only cared for Kaidan and Liara....
-Yet.... Kaidan.. ..Liara..
Oh well, yet I feel like I'm not even half of the game...though I already had to switch discs, to visit a planet..which they handled that better (like in Forza to give the option to install the second disc).
But overall, amazing game and great improvement. Going to play more now.
But..for some reason I was so addicted to it that i finished the game just 2 days ago and the very moment I finished it, I went to Gamestop and bought the sequel. Darn, what a great game it was.
So far, (to me) Mas Effect 2 is so much better.sometimes in really obvious ways, but others..is so subtle that I sometimes wondered how I managed to play (and love) the first game without those complainign about those little things.
Some random notes:
-Loadings are still ..well, not short even installed (on the 360) but are sometimes hidden on movies and cutscenes.
-Combat feels and controls quite similar to Gears of War.
-You can change your party members in the planet itself, or sometimes even before a big/important mission.
-Miss the whole thing to upgrade weapons/armors , but like that you can customize the look of your armor.
-Don't like that when you acquire a new weapon, that new one automatically substitutes your current one (of the same class)..but sometimes don't mind, since usually the newest weapon is better.
-Ammo was added, so now you have to be careful on not wasting bullets.
-Leveling up is ..harder, which I don't mind. Right now I'm at 12 hours, and I'm barely on Level 8. Compared to the first game, which I finished on 16 hours..and was level 40.
-Like the characters, they have different personalities and looks..and I'm actually alternating the party members because I enjoy them. Unlike the first game, were I only cared for Kaidan and Liara....
-Yet.... Kaidan..
..Liara.. Oh well, yet I feel like I'm not even half of the game...though I already had to switch discs, to visit a planet..which they handled that better (like in Forza to give the option to install the second disc).
But overall, amazing game and great improvement. Going to play more now.
Finished last night, an amazing sequel that's even better than the first.
I loved most of the new additions, but Bioware did take some steps back in a few areas IMO. The planet scanning thing is absolutely ridiculous and I can't believe I have to break up the awesomeness of the game to stare at rotating planets for hours. I understand some of the Mako complaints, but to remove it altogether was a mistake. I also thought the reunions with characters from the first game were totally lifeless and underwhelming.
Those complaints aside, I love the new skill sets and combat. I don't feel like I spent the entire game in the menus and that is a relief. The new crew is awesome and I think overall they are a better cast than the first.
Bring on part 3.
I loved most of the new additions, but Bioware did take some steps back in a few areas IMO. The planet scanning thing is absolutely ridiculous and I can't believe I have to break up the awesomeness of the game to stare at rotating planets for hours. I understand some of the Mako complaints, but to remove it altogether was a mistake. I also thought the reunions with characters from the first game were totally lifeless and underwhelming.
Those complaints aside, I love the new skill sets and combat. I don't feel like I spent the entire game in the menus and that is a relief. The new crew is awesome and I think overall they are a better cast than the first.
Bring on part 3.
dilatedmuscle said:
Yeah, I was really disappointed that the end game council decision in ME1 had almost no significance in ME2. This kinda leads me to think that ME3 will be kinda similar with respect to the Collector base, surviving/dead squadmates, and other big decision from ME2. It seems like there's too many branching paths from ME1 & ME2 at this point, and unless Bioware is gonna create multiple stories based on these decisions, then the most realistic scenario to expect is to have one main story with some small variances here and there that won't affect the main storyline.
Ephemeris
Member
careful said:
Like you, I too was disappointed
with the fact that the council decision really didn't matter. That said, I think the decision at the end of ME2 will play a much bigger role than ME1's did. I have no proof/it's all speculation on my part, but I believe that ME3 will be a smoother transition import wise than ME2 was.
It's along the lines why I think they made the max level 30 in this game.
The Lamonster
Member
Please elaborate. I know the guys you're talking about but what exactly were they right about?Ephemeris said:
Ephemeris
Member
The Lamonster said:
Remember the disagreement they had? Where the human says the Asari
looks human, the Turian says they look Turian and the salarian thinks they look like their species?
Drink the mystery drink and talk to the bartender. I had my friend take pics if you want to see
Killthee said:You unlock a different power (Dominate, its AI Hack for organics) if you side with Morinth.
If you side with Morinth and then reload the save and side with Samara, you'll unlock both powers
That's what I did!
Wrath2X said:
I never maxed mine and I got them. :/
Received my copy a few days ago though finally sat down with it, put in about 3hrs, and what can i say, I'm absolutely loving it. An excellent improvement over the first, particularly on the tech side of things as that was one of my main issues with ME1 (360 version) whose slowdowns were one too many and sometimes completely dreadful. So much more polished, this sequel.
The one aspect that is really doing it for me is simply how well my ME1 play-through transferred through onto this one, as i feel it's truly something special how you can effectively shape up your experience among successive games. Made the 2+yr wait seem appropriate since there have been a few "oh i remember this" moments so far in my time with ME2. A true positive for me.
Characters so far are also quite good although Jacob is rather dry, and I'm indifferent towards Miranda. Areas are actually populated well now too, so that's another improvement as it truly is a stunning universe.
Although in regards to some of the gameplay trimmings, such as on the RPG side of things, i loved those aspects in the first but in a game with such a rich universe and characters with good gameplay to boot, I'm not too sure if i even miss those aspects. However it would be great if they strike a balance between the two for ME3.
Here's hoping i get some more time to sink into it.
Amazing game.
The one aspect that is really doing it for me is simply how well my ME1 play-through transferred through onto this one, as i feel it's truly something special how you can effectively shape up your experience among successive games. Made the 2+yr wait seem appropriate since there have been a few "oh i remember this" moments so far in my time with ME2. A true positive for me.
Characters so far are also quite good although Jacob is rather dry, and I'm indifferent towards Miranda. Areas are actually populated well now too, so that's another improvement as it truly is a stunning universe.
Although in regards to some of the gameplay trimmings, such as on the RPG side of things, i loved those aspects in the first but in a game with such a rich universe and characters with good gameplay to boot, I'm not too sure if i even miss those aspects. However it would be great if they strike a balance between the two for ME3.
Here's hoping i get some more time to sink into it.
Amazing game.
The Lamonster
Member
lol yeah I'd love to seeEphemeris said:
- Status