Do you think that the Mass Effect series has lost it's 'touch'?

[Savagezion]

Nope.

Mass effect 3 is not released yet, is it?

And for the record RPG means ROLE PLAYING GAME, mass effect is an RPG. I challenge anyone out their otherwise.

I can roleplay as Master Chief while playing Halo

Therefore, Halo is an RPG under your definition.

Actually, you can't. Mass Effect gives you the ability to define your role in events in-game. Halo doesn't. You don't define Master Chief when you play Halo. You either follow the scripted events the same way everyone else has to, and beat the game - or you don't. In order to define a character you have to have the ability to do respond to situations differently than someone else.

 

[GuitArchon]

I'll concede the point that you made about Mass Effect 2 having less RPG-elements. I'd even go so far as to say they cut back on those aspects too much. However, I would definitely say that I think the sequel is the stronger game because I think the combat was much more enjoyable in the 2nd installment.

I would love to see some more RPG leveling elements in the 3rd game, but I'm such a sucker for this series that I'd probably buy the collector's edition even if Bioware didn't change anything about the combat system. Ya know, just to see the ending that the 1st 2 games have been building up to.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yes, if you import a character from Mass Effect, you get a whole bunch of resources, but you still have to do so mining at some point; less than if you started from scratch, but some none the less; and it's still boring. Also I can't imagine how anyone could possibly think that a mineral scanning minigame could be a good alternative to driving a tank/ATV/APC-thing around. I mean c'mon, who didn't enjoy drivin' around doing doughnuts on alien planets? Now if only there had been more variety in the alien planets...

True, but is 15 minutes of mining really that awful? Sure, it's not enjoyable at all, with the only exception being mining on Uranus twice, but it honestly isn't as bad as the things a lot of other games make you do (Witcher with the fetchquests, RDR with gathering flowers and hunting huge amounts of animals and so on) as long as you do import a save game.

So I understood already why people don't like it, but not why people complain so often about it. And yeah, the Mako was indeed more fun, but it did become incredibly boring after having cleared a few planets and it takes many, many hours of roaming the same lifeless planets over and over again for you to do and find everything you need to do/find, compared to the 20 minute max amount of time needed to mine enough resources to buy everything.

Yeah I know. The part that bugs me the most is the fact that someone over at Bioware (or possibly EA) thought it'd be a good idea to replace the Mako driving sections, which were quite fun for the most part, with the mineral scanning minigame which was NEVER fun by any stretch of the imagination. ...well except for EDI's witty comments when you probed certain planets.

And speaking of EDI, that's another thing that bugged me about Mass Effect 2. In the first Mass Effect, they made it very clear that AIs are illegal. And yet in Mass Effect 2 nobody seems at all concerned that an AI has been installed on the ship. Well I mean Joker makes a fuss and I think Shepard can express some sort of concern about it, but nobody mentions anything about AIs being illegal or anything. I mean I know Cerberus isn't likely to care about that sorta thing, but I wouldn've thought at least someone would've commented on it. Also you show up at the Citadel and C-Sec doesn't seem to care either.

Off topic: This is the second time today the capatcha thing has given me a upside-down word.

 

[penguindude42]

It didn't even HAVE a "touch" to begin with.

WTF, Bioware? Stop making stupid crap and make another Sonic Chronicles already!

/rant

~Tom#!

 

[El_Chubba_Chubba]

How can it have lost it's touch, if you liked 1 & 2, and 3 hasn't even been out yet?

 

[Thamian]

I don't think it's lost its touch yet. I'm not going to judge ME3 until it's released, no matter how much some of what people are saying worries me.

That being said, I really missed my mako and world exploration, and while we're at it, weapon and armor mods. Yes, the mako tank was poorly executed as far as it's steering was concerned, but was way more fun to both drive and fight in that that damned hammerhead... thing, and to (mis)quote yahtzee, 'having a square mile of a world to explore gave the game universe a sense of tangible bigness'.

Meanwhile, mods meant you could tailor weapons to your preferences, play style and enemies, and armour to suit particular sets of play preferences. Yes ok, you could still do that with shepard's armour to an extent but only an extent. By all means, streamline them from what was in ME1, but they still add just that little bit more depth. And while ME2 got both it's atmosphere and pacing beautifully right, it didn't have even close to the sheer depth of ME1 (and the cover mechanic in ME2 can only be described as asininewhen compared to the same mechanic in ME1 as far as I'm concerned, but that's a personal gripe of mine...).

 

[Savber]

Lets put it this way...
Even if it's not a great RPG like The Witcher 2... I still believe it's a GREAT game. Screw what's a RPG or not as despite anything I LOVE Mass Effect 2.

Imagine if the stats and skills were taken out of The Witcher 2. Would I then hate the Witcher 2? No, because it was the CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES, the CHARACTERS, the WORLD, and the STORY, not those damn numbers that made me love the game as it is.

 

[Haelium]

ME2 was fun, but not as good as ME here's why I think so:

1 - Leveling, 5 abilities and a weird points system, nuff said.
2 - Planet mining. The Mako was fun, the controls werem't as bad as people said.
3 - Story, Mass Effect brought you into a galaxy threatened by an immediate enemy, each mission mattered, and you were a spectre, which was cool. You made derisions and Mass Effect 2 was just preparation, more preparation, and then you fight some aliens. Oh, and you're working for Cerberus, which sucks.
4 - Characters, Liara was basically a nerd, Ashley was a soldier to the core who was xenophobic, Garrus was a renegade cop who wouldn't play by the rules, Kaiden was a bit lacking in depth, but he was still cool, Tali was curious bubbly genius. In ME2, Liara is a ***** all of a sudden, Ashley stays the same, Garrus never talks, Kaiden suddenly acts like a woman and then you've got a bunch of crappy characters(Aside from Grunt, Kasumi, Zaeed and Jacob).
5 - Paragon means illogical in many parts of the game, any favour for the genophage is somehow renegade? "Don't hide behind statistics!" has to be the stupidest line I've ever heard in a game. And not destroying the human reaper makes sense, it should be studied, and the collector base has valuable tech that could be used against the collectors.
6 - I just preferred the soundtrack in Mass Effect.


Once they remove planet mining and make the levelling more like the first game ME3 will be great. Also, more characters like Zaeed, he's awesome.

 

[scar_47]

They tossed most of the annoying or useless features and balanced the classes, in 1 weapon stat and inventory management just became a pain after a while and biotics users were way over powered compared to the likes of the solider since a biotic could render the enemy immobile and do damage on top of shooting them all a solider got was shooting which doesn't do crap compared to biotics after a few level. I don't really miss anything they cut and the streamlined skills were a lot more intuative than ME 1's skill set. I do look forward to seeing certain things like grenades and weapon mods back and hopefully done better.

 

[linwolf]

Yes I do. ME2 was a shallow game that instead of improving on the first just removed features until it was a boring hall shooter. Not too mention the story went over the deep end with the plot.

 

[Nimzabaat]

ME1 was Pitch Black, ME2 was Chronicles of Riddick I'll agree with those who voted with their wallets, dumping ME2 in the bargain bin really damn early, and venture that Bioware has lost their touch as a company. In my opinion, ME2 and DA2 were both inferior games when compared to their previous games. ME2 was prettier but the improvements ended there. Glitchy, weak story (baby human Reaper? that's Final Fantasy bad), breaking immersion as often as possible... ripping off Gears of War with the "interact with chest high walls to take cover or possibly attempt to take cover behind pixels which really don't offer a lot of protection and die" (oh wait GoW wasn't that glitchy). I'm going to wait until the reviews from actual gamers before buying another Bioware product.

 

[AlternatePFG]

The main plotline of Mass Effect 2 was terrible, while the loyalty missions were amazing. I really hate what BioWare did with ME2, instead of fixing what was wrong with ME1 they simply removed it.

It still has some excellent writing, but it also has some crap writing as well. I prefer the story of ME1, though I will admit the game is not very fun to play at all.

 

[DustyDrB]

It didn't even HAVE a "touch" to begin with.

WTF, Bioware? Stop making stupid crap and make another Sonic Chronicles already!

/rant

~Tom#!

*takes out my "List of Things I Will Never Hear Anyone Say", scratches off item #8*
Well...I can't always be right.

 

[SpaceBat]

Yeah I know. The part that bugs me the most is the fact that someone over at Bioware (or possibly EA) thought it'd be a good idea to replace the Mako driving sections, which were quite fun for the most part, with the mineral scanning minigame which was NEVER fun by any stretch of the imagination. ...well except for EDI's witty comments when you probed certain planets.

You skipped like 75% of my post haha, but whatever. Anyway, I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I mean, they shouldn't have removed the mako driving sections entirely, but there was nothing fun about roaming the same planet over and over again. The enjoyment I got out of driving the mako didn't last for more than four or five planets, because they're just so similar to eachother and the objectives are placed as far away as possible from eachother, which means I spent more time driving through empty, boring areas rather than actually doing something interesting.

Yes, mining isn't fun at all. AT ALL. But it barely is necessary and it doesn't take long before you mine enough minerals and never have to touch that horrible minigame EVER again.

And speaking of EDI, that's another thing that bugged me about Mass Effect 2. In the first Mass Effect, they made it very clear that AIs are illegal. And yet in Mass Effect 2 nobody seems at all concerned that an AI has been installed on the ship. Well I mean Joker makes a fuss and I think Shepard can express some sort of concern about it, but nobody mentions anything about AIs being illegal or anything. I mean I know Cerberus isn't likely to care about that sorta thing, but I wouldn've thought at least someone would've commented on it. Also you show up at the Citadel and C-Sec doesn't seem to care either.

Either it's because the AI was tied up, had little power and was locked within the Normandy 2, meaning it couldn't cause any problem to anything outside of the ship, or it was because of Shepard.
I mean, he is/was a specter and he did save the citadel and possibly the council, so they might have chosen to ignore it and Specters are not bound to the galactic law anyway. The AI rule probably only applies to common citizens and military. Yeah, it's kinda weird that nobody made a single fuss over it, but it's not that big of an issue.

 

[chronicfc]

What, after only two games, no, no it has not. In what way could anything lose its touch after only two games, after two games Zelda had yet to decide on what view point the game was to be viewed from.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Nope, I loved Mass Effect 2 all the more over Mass Effect 1. Save the Mako, ammo (I prefer overheating to reloading) and the Armor designs from Mass Effect 1, that is.

And, Mass Effect 3 is not out yet, and not even finished. Leave the doomsaying out of this until March 6, 2012, eh?

 

[pspman45]

i don't think so
the formula is solid, and they keep updating gameplay

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

EDIT: and has it lost it's touch?

There's only been two games, both great. At what point did it lose its touch?