I'm the opposite of most people here. I bought ME1 used, on the grounds that it would only cost me $17 if it sucked, and I LOVED it. I even liked driving the Mako. Plus, if you didn't want to drive around the square mile of terrain looking for minerals, ID tags, salvaged equipment, etc, it didn't cripple you in any major way. The one mechanic that I felt it really lacked was a "Special Order" feature at the shops, to allow you to buy the equipment that you wanted at a murderous markup rate (I'd say maybe 4x the standard cost for that item) if that item wasn't in stock. Constant trips to the Noveria and Citadel shops to see if they'd gotten new Level 10 Predator L/M/H armor for my crew was a bit tedious During a second playthrough, I'd have happily payed a million+ credits each to acquire that armor for certain. The same for Level 10 Scram Rails and Frictionless Material mods.
I loved the variety of powers, and the fact that you could play the same class of character twice with different power choices and styles, if you wanted. I bought the sequel at full price so that that Bioware would get it's cut.
While I loved the story, characters, setting, and plot (even though I was sure that I'd done everything right, I was always holding my breath when a point came in the Final Mission when I saw a cinematic of one of my teammates in danger), I was VASTLY disappointed by the gameplay mechanics. My nitpicking is below...
With my Adept from ME1, I could choose to levitate somebody while my squad used them for target practice, freeze them in place with Bastion's improved Stasis and use them for target practice myself, use Throw to toss them off a cliff, have my target and all of his buddies play demolition derby with each other inside the field a Singularity, or just power up my Barrier, walk right up to them, and shoot them. Throwing Warp into the mix was icing on the cake.
My Adept in ME2 can try to use Singularity Lite, curse as the orb hits a piece of cover and glows uselessly, and then shoot the target instead. If I'm lucky enough to hit them with Singularity, it'll disable them for about five seconds, with a much smaller range than the ME1 power. Or, the Adept can use Pull, which is Lift Lite, and have THAT bolt hit the enemy's cover, and requiring that they be shot. Or, the Adept can use Warp which, if it manages to not hit the enemy's cover, takes long enough to recharge that I would have been better off blazing away with an assault rifle as a Soldier.
In addition, if I'm not careful in how I choose my powers, I could very end up with 1-3 points that I CAN'T spend, because I've reached Level 30 but can't afford a level of a power. This is especially frustrating when it's sometimes required to buy the second level of a power I don't want in order to be able to purchase a power that I DO want. In ME1, you might not reach your desired tier for each power, but extra points spent on a power still made that power a bit more potent. I'd tend to buy Tali all twelve levels of Electronics, even though your electronics skill at level 9 allows you to access any system, so that she got an awesome bonus to her shields, for example.
My next gripe: Equipment. Cerberus spends 4 billion credits bringing me back, and then builds an even bigger version of the Normandy, but can't pony up a 2 million credit Travel and Expense account? With no ability to sell captured equipment, I'm wasting time on every damn mission searching every nook and cranny, trying to scrape up enough money to buy upgrades, and hoping that I didn't overlook some equipment blueprint that I'll never have a chance to get again because I shot the last bad guy in the area too soon, and that area is inaccessible once the mission's completed. In the interests of not being banned, I'll refrain from offering my opinion of whomever gave a green light to the mineral search aspect of the game.
What disappointed me most was that there was so much I liked about ME2, and almost no NEED for all of these frustrations (granted: I feel like the biotic powers got nerfed, but that might have been due to concerns about gameplay balance, and I might simply not be using my powers properly). Side Missions could have been made to handle acquiring blueprints, money and minerals (Jack's suggestion about piracy comes to mind), and would have allowed players to choose EXACTLY what upgrades they want to spend time on. When it comes to powers, I felt like they fixed something that wasn't broken to begin with, and actually made things worse. In addition, the character import feature was pointless. Why bother importing your level 60 character if you're just going to get knocked down to almost nothing (well, Level 5) before your first firefight? If players feel like they're not being challenged because their character is so powerful, they can always raise the difficulty settings.
I loved the variety of powers, and the fact that you could play the same class of character twice with different power choices and styles, if you wanted. I bought the sequel at full price so that that Bioware would get it's cut.
While I loved the story, characters, setting, and plot (even though I was sure that I'd done everything right, I was always holding my breath when a point came in the Final Mission when I saw a cinematic of one of my teammates in danger), I was VASTLY disappointed by the gameplay mechanics. My nitpicking is below...
With my Adept from ME1, I could choose to levitate somebody while my squad used them for target practice, freeze them in place with Bastion's improved Stasis and use them for target practice myself, use Throw to toss them off a cliff, have my target and all of his buddies play demolition derby with each other inside the field a Singularity, or just power up my Barrier, walk right up to them, and shoot them. Throwing Warp into the mix was icing on the cake.
My Adept in ME2 can try to use Singularity Lite, curse as the orb hits a piece of cover and glows uselessly, and then shoot the target instead. If I'm lucky enough to hit them with Singularity, it'll disable them for about five seconds, with a much smaller range than the ME1 power. Or, the Adept can use Pull, which is Lift Lite, and have THAT bolt hit the enemy's cover, and requiring that they be shot. Or, the Adept can use Warp which, if it manages to not hit the enemy's cover, takes long enough to recharge that I would have been better off blazing away with an assault rifle as a Soldier.
In addition, if I'm not careful in how I choose my powers, I could very end up with 1-3 points that I CAN'T spend, because I've reached Level 30 but can't afford a level of a power. This is especially frustrating when it's sometimes required to buy the second level of a power I don't want in order to be able to purchase a power that I DO want. In ME1, you might not reach your desired tier for each power, but extra points spent on a power still made that power a bit more potent. I'd tend to buy Tali all twelve levels of Electronics, even though your electronics skill at level 9 allows you to access any system, so that she got an awesome bonus to her shields, for example.
My next gripe: Equipment. Cerberus spends 4 billion credits bringing me back, and then builds an even bigger version of the Normandy, but can't pony up a 2 million credit Travel and Expense account? With no ability to sell captured equipment, I'm wasting time on every damn mission searching every nook and cranny, trying to scrape up enough money to buy upgrades, and hoping that I didn't overlook some equipment blueprint that I'll never have a chance to get again because I shot the last bad guy in the area too soon, and that area is inaccessible once the mission's completed. In the interests of not being banned, I'll refrain from offering my opinion of whomever gave a green light to the mineral search aspect of the game.
What disappointed me most was that there was so much I liked about ME2, and almost no NEED for all of these frustrations (granted: I feel like the biotic powers got nerfed, but that might have been due to concerns about gameplay balance, and I might simply not be using my powers properly). Side Missions could have been made to handle acquiring blueprints, money and minerals (Jack's suggestion about piracy comes to mind), and would have allowed players to choose EXACTLY what upgrades they want to spend time on. When it comes to powers, I felt like they fixed something that wasn't broken to begin with, and actually made things worse. In addition, the character import feature was pointless. Why bother importing your level 60 character if you're just going to get knocked down to almost nothing (well, Level 5) before your first firefight? If players feel like they're not being challenged because their character is so powerful, they can always raise the difficulty settings.
