Mass Effect 2. Game of the Year. I'm calling it. [Spoilers will probably abound]

[shadow skill]

zit deserves credit for putting in worse versions of the same mechanics that have been done better in so many other games? What? That makes no sense. It doesn't even do those things as well as the games that came before it. It's actually rather bad at combat while at the same time being a combat heavy game. It's not so great at being an RPG because the game is not given enough time to develop characters. (This is largely a side effect of Bioware not understanding how to make the second game properly. it isn't complete unto itself, it actually feels like the midpoint of a larger game which is a bad thing.) Mass Effect isn't even close to the first action-rpg Deus Ex, and System Shock come to mind. The only thing I can't remember seeing was being able to carry your save over into subsequent games. (Though I'm sure someone will enlighten me.)

Deus Ex and System Shock are two of my favorite games of all time, but you're overrating them here, or viewing them through rose colored glasses. Neither of them was as linear as Mass Effect 2, but ME sacrificed sandbox gaming for pacing, and judging by the reviews it was a trade-off well worth making.

I'll defend anyone's right to their opinion, but to be honest it reads like you're just taking a polarized stance here for the sake of being argumentative, and making no effort whatsoever to be objective. Randomly lifting gameplay elements out of context and either comparing them against out of genre titles or simply sneeringly dismissing them off-hand is not presenting compelling evidence of why you hate the game so much.

It's a problem with a lot of user reviews on here, and it's a good lesson in why average joes make lousy critics. There's this propensity to pitch everything too high. Either the subject being discussed is lavished with outlandish praise, or it's the worst piece of crap ever endured. I realize this is an internet forum, and as such top quality discourse shouldn't be at the top of my list of expectations, but if you're incapable of applying rudimentary objectivity to your opinions then they're really just a lot of useless noise.

I'm not saying that Either of those two games are better, I was just pointing out that Mass Effect isn't the first game of this type.

Except for the fact that Mass Effect's technical design is so shot to hell that it's not even funny, or the fact that all of the character quests are just dropped on your head because the game has no concept of pacing itself so that the quests appear "on time". Oh yes Mass Effect 2 really beats all of these games even though there are about four or five other games that are better than Mass Effect 2 mechanically depending on which mechanic you decide to take a look at.

Oh yea, because letting the player decide on what pace they want to play the game at is such a bad thing. I need to be guided along like a sheep in everything I do during gameplay or I get completely lost. That's why Final Fantasy's mechanics are SO much better.

/Sarcasm.

Aww how cute. Although when you look at the fact that Gears, Uncharted, Graw, and Rainbow Six Vegas all either have better cover mechanics, or map design and Persona 3 actually has a relationship system that doesn't just drop the equivalent of loyalty missions on your head from no where not to mention menu screens that you can actually read because the designers had the sense to actually use colours that provide contrast, it kind of throws your assertion under the bus.

Did I say ME2 did every mechanic better than the games that essentially created the mechanics to begin with? No. What I said was that it did do all these things well, some of them better than others, but putting all of them together in a single game is a completely unique accomplishment. Why did no other game do it first? God if I know, but ME2 damn well better get the credit it is due for having done so. Which means GOTY.

zit deserves credit for putting in worse versions of the same mechanics that have been done better in so many other games? What? That makes no sense. It doesn't even do those things as well as the games that came before it. It's actually rather bad at combat while at the same time being a combat heavy game. It's not so great at being an RPG because the game is not given enough time to develop characters. (This is largely a side effect of Bioware not understanding how to make the second game properly. it isn't complete unto itself, it actually feels like the midpoint of a larger game which is a bad thing.) Mass Effect isn't even close to the first action-rpg Deus Ex, and System Shock come to mind. The only thing I can't remember seeing was being able to carry your save over into subsequent games. (Though I'm sure someone will enlighten me.)

Done INDIVIDUALLY in different games. Not all PUT TOGETHER in a different game. Even Deus Ex didn't have the depth of story/conversation that ME2 does. Besides, you act like they took all these mechanics and made them horrible. They're all done pretty damn well. Not perfect, but even the games that introduced the mechanics didn't do them perfectly. Name me one other game that had all of these same mechanics in it, because there have to be a few, and I guarantee that it did many of those mechanics much worse.

That doesn't change the fact that Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 have markedly worse core gameplay mechanics than those other games. The cover mechanic in Mass Effect 2 is clumsy even though so much of the game involves combat. It doesn't make sense to say that Mass Effect is better than all of those other games because of the some of it's parts when so many of those core parts are orders of magnitude worse than other games both in and outside of it's genre. It's less fun to shoot people in Mass Effect because the mechanics are as bad as they are, the character quests are less fun because there is no sense of progression. The newer characters feel less fleshed out than the older one's that return because there isn't enough time to get to know them. It's not simply that there are better implementations of Mass Effect's mechanics it's that they come together to create a game that is actually less fun than other games because the core mechanics have been implemented so poorly that they detract from the complete product. If I find myself cursing the interface every time I get into a fight, there is a serious problem.

Knights of the Old Republic wouldn't be as good as it is if the menu system was convoluted making battles difficult would it?

 

[Ascarus]

You two weren't even discussing the intensity or thoughts on the suicide mission here, you were originally talking about the story. He made a comment on how the characters and getting to know them IS a part of the story, and you ignored that entirely, deciding instead to focus on your own little discussion about the suicide mission specifically.

So he's right. You're just a troll. No matter what he says, you will just change subjects and give another negative opinion on some other random part of the game.

fair enough ...

so what is the main story in mass effect? the reapers, extinction, survival, etc.

in the first game bioware was able to move the main story forward while at the same time integrating and introducing new characters to your team.

ME2 had NONE of that seamless interaction of story and team building. they were decidedly separate from one another. with the exception of Tali's, not ONE of the team member personal quests had anything to do with the main story line. the STORY of this game is recruitment. it had hardly ANYTHING to do with the reapers, or extinction or whatever.

it's disappointing to me, given all the improvements from ME1 to ME2, that Bioware changed from meeting new characters during the main story line to recruiting new characters with missions utterly tangential to the main story from one game to the next.

why do that when the first was so successful?

 

[fire fiend35]

I would not be suprised if it won game of the year, i havent actually started playing it but iv seen some gameplays and it looks AMAZING!! especially the opening.It will however have some huge competition from Fable 3,ff13 which are the two games im really hyped out for.saints row 3 looks pretty shifty but still looks awesome and so does bioshock.

 

[shadow skill]

That doesn't change the fact that Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 have markedly worse core gameplay mechanics than those other games. The cover mechanic in Mass Effect 2 is clumsy even though so much of the game involves combat. It doesn't make sense to say that Mass Effect is better than all of those other games because of the some of it's parts when so many of those core parts are orders of magnitude worse than other games both in and outside of it's genre. It's less fun to shoot people in Mass Effect because the mechanics are as bad as they are, the character quests are less fun because there is no sense of progression. The newer characters feel less fleshed out than the older one's that return because there isn't enough time to get to know them. It's not simply that there are better implementations of Mass Effect's mechanics it's that they come together to create a game that is actually less fun than other games because the core mechanics have been implemented so poorly that they detract from the complete product.

Again, you're acting like they implemented all of these mechanics horribly. That's obviously not the case, or the game would not be ranked 95% on average. The mechanics were all done very well, and they work very well together. Like I said before, not perfect, but nothing is. I don't remember having a problem with the cover system once throughout my entire play through, so you must have been playing a different game than me or something.

That is precisely what they did in fact. You can't even do something as simple as fluidly switch to cover while in combat. You have to get out of cover and then run over which can lead to death if you find yourself in a bad spot, their entire interface is shot to hell too. It's actually harder to tell whether you have switched a squad member's weapon on the PC version than it is on the console version. Even the galaxy map thing was fucked up because the little indicators for the world can sometimes obscure the correct place to go to so you end up jumping to the wrong area because of the poorly made interface. None of the shit that Mass Effect 2 gets away with would be tolerated if the company with it's name attached wasn't Bioware. They made so much text unreadable in a character and therefore dialogue driven game and I'm supposed to believe that the game is super awesome?

 

[Casual Shinji]

We pretty much already have all the games coming out this year pre-listed. None of them can hold a candle to Mass Effect 2, even in concept.

If you keep talking like that you'll create a major backlash and ME2 will soon replace Halo as "the game people are most sick of hearing about".

I love this game, but if The Last Guardian makes this years release I'll have forgotten all about ME2.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

That is precisely what they did in fact. You can't even do something as simple as fluidly switch to cover while in combat. You have to get out of cover and then run over which can lead to death if you find yourself in a bad spot, their entire interface is shot to hell too. It's actually harder to tell whether you have switched a squad member's weapon on the PC version than it is on the console version. Even the galaxy map thing was fucked up because the little indicators for the world can sometimes obscure the correct place to go to so you end up jumping to the wrong area because of the poorly made interface.

I'm on my second playthrough of the PC version and I have no idea what you're talking about. The UI and interface is crisp and elegant and a joy to use. It's a huge improvement over the cumbersome interface in the first game.

I've been playing PC games for 25 years. I really don't know what you're comparing this game to that makes it such a chore, but I'd really love to know.

 

[shadow skill]

That is precisely what they did in fact. You can't even do something as simple as fluidly switch to cover while in combat. You have to get out of cover and then run over which can lead to death if you find yourself in a bad spot, their entire interface is shot to hell too. It's actually harder to tell whether you have switched a squad member's weapon on the PC version than it is on the console version. Even the galaxy map thing was fucked up because the little indicators for the world can sometimes obscure the correct place to go to so you end up jumping to the wrong area because of the poorly made interface.

I'm on my second playthrough of the PC version and I have no idea what you're talking about. The UI and interface is crisp and elegant and a joy to use. It's a huge improvement over the cumbersome interface in the first game.

I've been playing PC games for 25 years. I really don't know what you're comparing this game to that makes it such a chore, but I'd really love to know.

And still one of the dumbest interfaces I have ever encountered for any piece of software. They picked colours that blend into each other for some reason I can't figure out. It would be like a website picking a white background and gray text, sure it's possible to read but it is far more difficult to read than a black background and white text or the traditional white background with black text. If you are writing something that needs to be viewed from a distance you don't use yellow for example.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And still one of the dumbest interfaces I have ever encountered for any piece of software. They picked colours that blend into each other for some reason I can't figure out. It would be like a website picking a white background and gray text, sure it's possible to read but it is far more difficult to read than a black background and white text or the traditional white background with black text. If you are writing something that needs to be viewed from a distance you don't use yellow for example.

Are you colorblind? I have experienced nothing remotely like this.

 

[shadow skill]

And still one of the dumbest interfaces I have ever encountered for any piece of software. They picked colours that blend into each other for some reason I can't figure out. It would be like a website picking a white background and gray text, sure it's possible to read but it is far more difficult to read than a black background and white text or the traditional white background with black text. If you are writing something that needs to be viewed from a distance you don't use yellow for example.

Are you colorblind? I have experienced nothing remotely like this.

No I'm not. But I do have to design interfaces for other people. I'm sure there are people who can read this, but I wouldn't design any software using this color pallet.

 

[dududf]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat.

Game of the Year.

Yeah I just called it, I've played ME2 and CoP, and I prefer CoP over ME2.

I have nerdgasms THINKING about my CoP, ME2 is just drooling.

 

[TheLefty]

Greatest ending ever.

What?
Well, if enforced and entirely non-nonsensical "suicide" missions mixed with a joke of B-movie boss and healthy chunk of unnecessary, lazy, disappointing cliffhanger, the sole reason of which appears to be to get you to buy the sequel rather than fully enjoy the game you've just purchased, is your idea of the "Greatest ending ever" then you have my sympathies.

Also, its February...

You're point is valid, but I mean the feeling of ever choice possibly ending with your team members dieing. Maybe it's just me but I actually to the time to talk to and like my characters, seeing them die and not make it into the next game would be awful.

 

[Fox242]

You're calling this waaaay too early. There are plenty of other games that have yet to be released that could top Mass Effect 2. Bioshock 2, God of War 3, and the next Call of Duty will without a shread of doubt be great games and will also be GOTY contenders....Sequels seem to be all the rage these days.