-
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
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
BioWare just shot themselves in the foot.
I don't know how much the rest of you know about serious Sci-Fi gaming (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like Star Wars where you can become successful by being an asshole. If you screw hardcore sci-fi gamers over, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.
What this means is the Mass Effect fans, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase Mass Effect 3, nor will they purchase any of books, comics, or DLC. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but BioWare has alienated an entire market with this move.
BioWare, publicly apologize and cancel Mass EFfect 3 for PS3 or you can kiss your business goodbye.
I don't know how much the rest of you know about serious Sci-Fi gaming (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like Star Wars where you can become successful by being an asshole. If you screw hardcore sci-fi gamers over, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.
What this means is the Mass Effect fans, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase Mass Effect 3, nor will they purchase any of books, comics, or DLC. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but BioWare has alienated an entire market with this move.
BioWare, publicly apologize and cancel Mass EFfect 3 for PS3 or you can kiss your business goodbye.
masterkajo
Member
Definitly manageable but hard. A friend of mine played through it with an adept and there where parts of the game he got stuck and asked me to help him - he is not the best at playing strategic. Told him that soldier would have been the way to go but he already played through the first using an adept und wanted his character to be imported.VaLiancY said:
Most important ability as an adept IMO is Warp. Effective against almost anything and does lots of damage.
Count of Monte Sawed-Off
un33dab@dpu$$y
VaLiancY said:
A pain in the ass and not much fun. Not terribly though difficult though aside from a few areas.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
subversus said:
The DLC front is quiet. Lots of rumors, and some confirmed stuff, but no dates or substantial information.
I'm thinking we might have to wait until E3. I hope we get something for May though.
We're going to get an announcement on DLC early next week.
www.masseffect.com
What could it be? We're supposed to get a new armor set, heavy pistol, incisor rifle and of course, more alternate appearance packs but I'm hoping for something more significant.
www.masseffect.com
What could it be? We're supposed to get a new armor set, heavy pistol, incisor rifle and of course, more alternate appearance packs but I'm hoping for something more significant.
derFeef said:Hm. Have not bought kasumi yet as I think it is not worth it. Never touched the game again since I finished itI would pay 60$ for the chance to dive deeper into Tali´s story though.
Personally, if you're a big fan, I'd pay for it. It's a really good mission. It might be on the shorter side (1 hr), but it's got a lovely mix of role-playing and action.
Finished this today. I absolutely loved it.
I played through as a female Shepard and I definitely like her voice actor better.
I unfortunately didn't have a high enough charisma score to end the argument between Tali and Legion neutrally so I ended up losing Legion on the suicide mission. Disappointing since I thought he was pretty cool. Everyone else made it.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
It would probably be too much asking for a near DA:O type of DLC. Still very exciting.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Darkmakaimura said:
Do you mean like Awakenings? Because I'll be very surprised if ME2 never sees a full sized expansion pack.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
You're right. It probably won't. Either way, more DLC for ME2 is always welcome.EatChildren said:
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Darkmakaimura said:
What?! I mean it probably will see a full sized expansion. BioWare have been pretty good with DLC offerings so far and the game sold a ton. If they can justify an expansion for Dragon Age I'm sure they can for ME2 as well.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Just woke up and on second cup of coffee...EatChildren said:
If we do see an Awakenings type of expansion, it will probably be disc-based like it was for DA, especially considering how ME2 is heavier in the graphics department compared to DA.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Yeah, I would be surprised if there isn't an expansion pack or something of that nature for Mass Effect 2. There certainly seems to be plenty of opportunity there.
As far as DLC goes, my interest depends on how much content is in it.
As far as DLC goes, my interest depends on how much content is in it.
Finished the game for the first time today.
Probably long past the point of anyone caring, but here's my thoughts.
I'll try to keep it to a top 10 for points:
****WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS *****
1) The death/resurrection of Shepard seems unnecessary. The only reason I can see for this contrivance was to allow the player to retool the character model, but honestly, doing so takes away from the "direct sequel" factor regardless, so I'm not sure why anyone really needs that.
I suppose that you could argue that this was a method by which they get Shepard under control of Cerebus, but I'm still not convinced that it really added much to the fiction, and instead added a hole in the plot (ie - if you can reverse death, why are we throwing away corpses at all).
I'm not sure why it bothered me, but it stood out for the entire game as unnecessary and odd. Having this realization that your character is, essentially, a zombie is strange enough to throw off the "invincible hero" aspect that they strive so hard in other areas to create.
2) The "impact" of decisions from the first game was practically zero. This is probably one of the biggest disappointments, especially since it's still one of the most compelling features of the series. I sincerely tried to ignore the ways in which this game had been specifically constructed to sidestep all of the ramifications of your decisions from ME1, but found it practically impossible to really do so since it was blatantly transparent.
The real fallout from this realization wasn't lessening the decisions of the first game, however - it was lessening the decisions of the second. During the first game it was very easy to imagine that the choices you made would have impact. However, now that we see how they intend to deal with the "split-destiny" of your choices, it basically just made you aware that everything that involved significant choice in the second game would be rendered pointless in the near future.
Do you get to choose who lives or dies? It basically just means that they will be written out of the story either way.
Do you get to choose who maintains power? It basically just means that their power will be rendered pointless and irrelevant either way.
There's a certain amount of fun in just fumbling choices around in your mind before clicking a button, but the oft-promised, seldom-delivered realization of this actually shaping the game you are playing beyond an immediate dialogue split is becoming more and more noticeable with this style of game.
They really need to either step up and deliver on this sort of thing, or trim down the illusion to lessen expectations. The way that they are currently trying to cut it just leads to disappointment.
3) Bioware obviously took the complaints about sidequest inferiority in the first game to heart, but it almost feels like they sacrificed the meal in order to serve a better desert.
The main mission is fantastic, but short and underdeveloped. The bulk of the game seems too centered on the character recruitment and "loyalty" attainment, which strips the game of focus and momentum.
Western RPGs in general still need to figure out the best way to retain their core promise of "open world" while still maintaining an overall sense of direction and narrative coherence, but this game in particular, with it's driving, compelling time-dependent storyline - suffers greatly from the meandering, lackadaisical nature of it's random sidequest design.
They also need to just axe the padded-out "random street stop" sidequests that belittle the importance of the overall missions, or seriously step up their relevance to something that might be worthy of the character in question.
You're supposedly on a time-crunched mission to save humanity from galactic threat. Does it really make sense to stop and kill a few out-of-control alien dogs for the local security guard, or handle some package delivery for a random business-man like a common messenger? These type of things really feel out of place. Yes, you have the option to skip them, but at some point it becomes an issue of overarching character development - and I think they really cross that.
Let's not even touch on the whole "up or down" morality system's effects on mood-swinging central character personality. I'm just talking strictly about what she/he is doing on a day-to-day basis.
4) I'm really not a fan of shooter games, but I have to give credit that they really pulled things together with the combat here. I recognize that some people have complained that it is almost too much of an action game to fit within it's genre, but I really think that this style fit the nature of the game rather well, and I, for one, was thankful to finally play a modern WRPG where combat did not primarily consist of running backwards.
What continues to be frustrating is how locked-off you are from the majority of combat options due to class-specific decisions, however. I get that the developers think we're all going to have time to play these games 20 times each in order to see everything, but in my opinion, this purposeful limiting does more to make each playthrough repetitive than to create a desire to continually restart.
The "heavy weapon" system did a great job of replicating the feeling of "mega attacks" usually confined to JRPGs, but they should have focused the path of attainment for these a little bit more instead of allowing the player to dictate it's direction. I ended up stumbling on the "cain" far too early, and everything else felt like a huge step down for the rest of the playthrough.
5) AI-assisted RPGs really need to start pulling away from the "select two team members" mentality if they want to have a cast this big. So many of my characters felt like they were locked on the ship until the very last mission, only really existing on their loyalty quest and inter-mission conversation trees.
What really made this clear was the "group effort" nature of the final mission. We really need more of this throughout the game, rather than confined to one epic-showdown moment.
Random Other things:
6) Elevators were better than straight-up "loading" screens. The fans really fucked up on this request.
7) The Mako was broken and boring, but planet scanning isn't any better. They need to just give up on their notion of "hundreds of explorable planets" and start delivering only on what they actually can make.
8) Grunt is the worst character in Mass Effect so far bar none. What a bad trade.
9) Overall, this is the best looking WRPG I've ever played. Tech finally catches up to their art department. Thank god. Voice acting is some of the best I've ever heard in a video game as well.
10) I suppose this goes without saying on a Bioware game, but goddamn is this thing buggy as shit. Some of the random stuff that occured during my playthrough just had me laughing out loud during serious moments (AI player model "skating" in circles behind a cutscene), while some had me gritting my teeth in frustration (lock-up to the point of hard-stop rebooting). One way or another, they really need to start getting on top of this shit.
....Overall, this probably all reads incredibly negative, but I actually thoroughly enjoyed this game. I think the frustrating thing about Mass Effect, overall, is that it's so easy to see the potential for more. With a lot of less ambitious games, they basically manage to execute on everything that you could ask for. With Mass Effect, you can very easily see the aspects that they missed on in addition to everything that they did right.
But if I were to just focus on what they did right, I'd have no problem saying that this is one of the best RPGs I have played in the generation, and something that I'm 100% on-board to continue.
The hardest part about finishing Mass Effect 2 is undoubtedly how long we have to wait for the conclusion.
This is probably the most I've written about a game in a couple years. That's gotta say something, at least.
****WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS *****
Probably long past the point of anyone caring, but here's my thoughts.
I'll try to keep it to a top 10 for points:
****WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS *****
1) The death/resurrection of Shepard seems unnecessary. The only reason I can see for this contrivance was to allow the player to retool the character model, but honestly, doing so takes away from the "direct sequel" factor regardless, so I'm not sure why anyone really needs that.
I suppose that you could argue that this was a method by which they get Shepard under control of Cerebus, but I'm still not convinced that it really added much to the fiction, and instead added a hole in the plot (ie - if you can reverse death, why are we throwing away corpses at all).
I'm not sure why it bothered me, but it stood out for the entire game as unnecessary and odd. Having this realization that your character is, essentially, a zombie is strange enough to throw off the "invincible hero" aspect that they strive so hard in other areas to create.
2) The "impact" of decisions from the first game was practically zero. This is probably one of the biggest disappointments, especially since it's still one of the most compelling features of the series. I sincerely tried to ignore the ways in which this game had been specifically constructed to sidestep all of the ramifications of your decisions from ME1, but found it practically impossible to really do so since it was blatantly transparent.
The real fallout from this realization wasn't lessening the decisions of the first game, however - it was lessening the decisions of the second. During the first game it was very easy to imagine that the choices you made would have impact. However, now that we see how they intend to deal with the "split-destiny" of your choices, it basically just made you aware that everything that involved significant choice in the second game would be rendered pointless in the near future.
Do you get to choose who lives or dies? It basically just means that they will be written out of the story either way.
Do you get to choose who maintains power? It basically just means that their power will be rendered pointless and irrelevant either way.
There's a certain amount of fun in just fumbling choices around in your mind before clicking a button, but the oft-promised, seldom-delivered realization of this actually shaping the game you are playing beyond an immediate dialogue split is becoming more and more noticeable with this style of game.
They really need to either step up and deliver on this sort of thing, or trim down the illusion to lessen expectations. The way that they are currently trying to cut it just leads to disappointment.
3) Bioware obviously took the complaints about sidequest inferiority in the first game to heart, but it almost feels like they sacrificed the meal in order to serve a better desert.
The main mission is fantastic, but short and underdeveloped. The bulk of the game seems too centered on the character recruitment and "loyalty" attainment, which strips the game of focus and momentum.
Western RPGs in general still need to figure out the best way to retain their core promise of "open world" while still maintaining an overall sense of direction and narrative coherence, but this game in particular, with it's driving, compelling time-dependent storyline - suffers greatly from the meandering, lackadaisical nature of it's random sidequest design.
They also need to just axe the padded-out "random street stop" sidequests that belittle the importance of the overall missions, or seriously step up their relevance to something that might be worthy of the character in question.
You're supposedly on a time-crunched mission to save humanity from galactic threat. Does it really make sense to stop and kill a few out-of-control alien dogs for the local security guard, or handle some package delivery for a random business-man like a common messenger? These type of things really feel out of place. Yes, you have the option to skip them, but at some point it becomes an issue of overarching character development - and I think they really cross that.
Let's not even touch on the whole "up or down" morality system's effects on mood-swinging central character personality. I'm just talking strictly about what she/he is doing on a day-to-day basis.
4) I'm really not a fan of shooter games, but I have to give credit that they really pulled things together with the combat here. I recognize that some people have complained that it is almost too much of an action game to fit within it's genre, but I really think that this style fit the nature of the game rather well, and I, for one, was thankful to finally play a modern WRPG where combat did not primarily consist of running backwards.
What continues to be frustrating is how locked-off you are from the majority of combat options due to class-specific decisions, however. I get that the developers think we're all going to have time to play these games 20 times each in order to see everything, but in my opinion, this purposeful limiting does more to make each playthrough repetitive than to create a desire to continually restart.
The "heavy weapon" system did a great job of replicating the feeling of "mega attacks" usually confined to JRPGs, but they should have focused the path of attainment for these a little bit more instead of allowing the player to dictate it's direction. I ended up stumbling on the "cain" far too early, and everything else felt like a huge step down for the rest of the playthrough.
5) AI-assisted RPGs really need to start pulling away from the "select two team members" mentality if they want to have a cast this big. So many of my characters felt like they were locked on the ship until the very last mission, only really existing on their loyalty quest and inter-mission conversation trees.
What really made this clear was the "group effort" nature of the final mission. We really need more of this throughout the game, rather than confined to one epic-showdown moment.
Random Other things:
6) Elevators were better than straight-up "loading" screens. The fans really fucked up on this request.
7) The Mako was broken and boring, but planet scanning isn't any better. They need to just give up on their notion of "hundreds of explorable planets" and start delivering only on what they actually can make.
8) Grunt is the worst character in Mass Effect so far bar none. What a bad trade.
9) Overall, this is the best looking WRPG I've ever played. Tech finally catches up to their art department. Thank god. Voice acting is some of the best I've ever heard in a video game as well.
10) I suppose this goes without saying on a Bioware game, but goddamn is this thing buggy as shit. Some of the random stuff that occured during my playthrough just had me laughing out loud during serious moments (AI player model "skating" in circles behind a cutscene), while some had me gritting my teeth in frustration (lock-up to the point of hard-stop rebooting). One way or another, they really need to start getting on top of this shit.
....Overall, this probably all reads incredibly negative, but I actually thoroughly enjoyed this game. I think the frustrating thing about Mass Effect, overall, is that it's so easy to see the potential for more. With a lot of less ambitious games, they basically manage to execute on everything that you could ask for. With Mass Effect, you can very easily see the aspects that they missed on in addition to everything that they did right.
But if I were to just focus on what they did right, I'd have no problem saying that this is one of the best RPGs I have played in the generation, and something that I'm 100% on-board to continue.
The hardest part about finishing Mass Effect 2 is undoubtedly how long we have to wait for the conclusion.
This is probably the most I've written about a game in a couple years. That's gotta say something, at least.
****WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS *****
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Hunahan said:
I generally agree with this, although I still felt like some decisions were important. It was definitely a shame that most of those decisions wound up feeling completely marginalized. I'm holding out hope that it's all being saved for a big payoff in Mass Effect 3, but I think this was a mistake in the context of Mass Effect 2. There should have been more impact based on your decision with the Council; the surviving human character should have played a larger role rather than only being shown a couple of times; there should have been more of the Rachni rather than
a single scene of you getting a message from them
I hope that Bioware take this to heart while working on Mass Effect 3, and try to have your decisions carry more impact in 3.
Agreed. Playing both this and Final Fantasy XIII is like night and day. Mass Effect 2 has a great cast, but they almost never feel like an actual group, while Final Fantasy XIII really excels at doing that. Mass Effect 2's characters felt like a bunch of individuals, and we never really got to see bits where the party members actually interacted with each other or participated on missions together. More stuff like the big finale mission would be great.
Ashley says 'hi'. Besides, I don't think Grunt is that bad. He's no Wrex, but he definitely had his moments. While I wouldn't consider Grunt one of the best characters in Mass Effect 2, I don't think he's terrible.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Hunahan said:
This is the only point I disagree with, because I personally believe direct sequel mentality is the road to bad story telling. While I wasn't happy with ME2's story in the long run, I believe that each entry in a 'trilogy' still needs to flow as a singular plot. The death of Shepard was a great way of seperating the two games by a good few years.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Eh, just realized a very glaring plothole in Jacob's loyalty mission.
The game states that the heat clips and the mechs are manufactured shortly after the end events of ME1, which is... what, IIRC, 2 years ago?
Sloppy work, Bioware... Sloppy work.
The game states that the heat clips and the mechs are manufactured shortly after the end events of ME1, which is... what, IIRC, 2 years ago?
And yet although the ship on the loyalty mission crashed about 10 years ago, somehow weapon clips are already available on that planet and Jacob's father is already commandeering Mechs.
Sloppy work, Bioware... Sloppy work.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
HK-47 said:
I found Miranda, Jacob and Kaiden all slightly more interesting than Ashley. Most of them are pretty boring overall, though.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Cep said:
Jacob isn't really interesting, but I at least give his character props for having one of the best loyalty missions. That's really all his character has going for him, but it's still more than either Ashley or Kaiden had.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Content wise it might have been interesting if they actually "went there" rather than imply everything (especially funny if you have Miranda the walking whore with you)... but gameplay wise his mission was just like most of the others, shooting things in corridors with boxes for cover.
infinityBCRT
Member
I'm honestly expecting ME3 to come out before E3 2011. They mentioned something far reaching would be coming out by next Spring and I think thats it. I also don't think its a coincidence that GoW3 and AC3 are also just hitting before E3 2011. Seems like publishers are speculating that new hardware will be revealed then.Snuggler said:
Aesius
Member
I've put almost 30 hours into this in the last 3 days, and I'm still not even ready to go through the Omega 4 Relay yet.
I played the first and loved it, and I've gotta say - I have almost no complaints about this one either. I approve of almost every change they made (although I really don't like the new Citadel. I keep going up to Anderson's office just to look at the old section.)
I'm also glad I didn't change Shepard's appearance back to default. My Shepard is kind of ugly, but he IS Shepard to me now. Pretty awesome to play through 3 games with the same user-created character.
I played the first and loved it, and I've gotta say - I have almost no complaints about this one either. I approve of almost every change they made (although I really don't like the new Citadel. I keep going up to Anderson's office just to look at the old section.)
I'm also glad I didn't change Shepard's appearance back to default. My Shepard is kind of ugly, but he IS Shepard to me now. Pretty awesome to play through 3 games with the same user-created character.
harriet the spy
Member
Cep said:
Do you mean 'made too easy'? Because I just got the widow gun, and I have adrenaline rush, and i feel no threat in combats anymore. pop out, slow down, aim for head, kill, pop back in.
I don't like the combat so much in this game... i .. i think i prefered the combat system of ME1.
I find collectors much better enemies than geths, though.
- Status