Why Mass Effect 2 was, and is, the superior out of the Mass Effect trilogy. [No Spoilers]

[Psych the Psycho]

OK, let's get this out of the way first, Mass Effect 3's ending is trash (with or without the extended cut) which already puts it below ME2, but that's not the only reason.

The 3 main reasons why Mass Effect 2 is the best out of the series are:
1- A perfect balance of Role-playing and Action.
2- Interesting Hub worlds.
3- The ever present tension of the impending suicide mission.

Explaining these reasons:
1- In ME1 the combat was unrefined but had very good role-playing elements. In ME3 the combat was very polished but there was way too many fights and the role-playing elements became simplified to the point where there didn't seem to be any at all. ME2 on the other hand, had the balance just right; the fights never felt forced and having dialogue conversation during missions was always interesting.

2- ME1 let's you explore each planet you find, though most were barren, the main hub world is the Citadel, this is the same for ME3 but on a smaller scale which causes it to get boring after a while. ME2 however didn't have one hub world but four: The Citadel, Omega, Illium and Tuchanka, all of which had plenty of stuff to do.

3- Throughout the course of ME2, there is constant build up to the final mission and making sure everything and everyone was ready for it. ME1 was more about finding and stopping Saren which did have so tension to it but not a lot. In ME3, the first half did have some build up to the final push but after craving through tons of enemies the game starts losing tension.


There are other smaller reasons why Mass Effect 2 is best, like the 12 squard members you grow attached to and the great opening, etc.

What do you think? Is Mass Effect 2 the best of the three or not?

 

[Genocidicles]

I just found so many of the side quests completely irrelevant (same with the first game.)

All the side quests in the third game actually seemed important as they all sort of tied into the main quest.

 

[LetalisK]

Why Mass Effect 2 wasn't and is not the superior out of the Mass Effect trilogy:

Wait, so Mass Effect 3 was the superior game? Because it sure as hell was not the mind-numbing chore that was Mass Effect 1.

On a more serious note, I see nothing but good things coming from this thread.

 

[madwarper]

ME2 superior to ME1? Bullocks.

Fucking Thermal clips. Yea, ME2 had tighter gunplay, but that means fuck all when you don't have any ammo.
Turning my Infiltrator from a snipping god to a fireball hurling wizard wannabe? Unforgivable.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Why I will never play it anyway, the soldier went from being a tanky guy that's the best with guns to being a support class that makes everybody better with guns through their magical ammo enhancing powers (ammo powers are the dumbest thing ever). I liked the gun skills. The stupid magey classes shouldn't be as good as at guns as the guy that went through tons of training to be good at them. Also they removed immunity. They shouldn't even be close. Now, with proper support from allies, they can be almost just as good while also being able to throw things around with their mind or blow them up with their mad hax0r skills. AND THEY CAN BE TANKIER THAN THE SOLDIER BECAUSE THEY GOT RID OF MY BELOVED IMMUNITY!

(as I didn't play any of the other classes, I don't know if it was more fun for the rest of you guys. I just don't think I couldn't enjoy mass effect without being able to run right up into an army of geth juggernauts and just not give a fuck)

 

[madwarper]

Wait, how did you even get close to running out of ammo? No really, I want in spray-adn-pray with my Soldier and I wasn't even close of running out once.

Like I said, try playing Infiltrator on Insanity.

Snipers rifles only have either have only 9/12 total ammo, or do shit for damage.

 

[sanquin]

Story: ME1 wins hands down. ME2 didn't continue the story at all. It was just a side-story. And ME3 started great but went downhill the further you went and ended with pure crap.

Roleplay: ME1 again, it had the most conversations and choices within those.

Combat: ME3. Combat was very polished and the multiplayer options were kinda nice for a while.

Level up system: All three had their faults, though I think ME3 did it best. ME1 most skillpoints had no tangible effects, and the inventory system for 'leveling up' your guns was very cluttered. In ME2 the skill system was very narrow and shallow. Guns the same.

Replayability: This is...debatable. But I've personally played ME1 the most. Thinking of doing it again actually.

Environment: ME2 did this the best. Most ME1 worlds were barren, most ME3 worlds were narrow hallways. ME2 had narrow hallways too but made them feel less so.

So for me it's a toss-up between ME1 and ME3. The ending of ME3 gives it a minus point for me though, so I consider ME1 the best game out of the three. Even if, yes, it had it's faults.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Why Mass Effect 2 wasn't and is not the superior out of the Mass Effect trilogy:

The entire story amounts to nothing within the arc of the trilogy, with the final boss being a ludicrous caricature of the Reaper menace, the final choice amounting to absolutely nothing in the long run, and the player being forced to side with Cerberus a janky, needless derailing of the main narrative thread, forcing Shepard to switch sides and back like he's Italy during World War II.

If Mass Effect was supposed to be a three-part narrative, then ME2 spends the entire middle section swimming around in circles before farting bubbles and leaving part three to try and cram in two instalments worth of actual story progression.

To elaborate on this:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7004
The main story was complete garbage. Mass Effect's story was just pretty dull with some bright spots, ME2's was downright insulting.

 

[JazzJack2]

Mass Effect One is the only Mass Effect worth playing, the second is a rather poor excuse for a game and the third is just appalling.

 

[The Madman]

My main complaint about Mass Effect 2 is that the story is meaningless and there is no character development for Shepard.

In both ME1 and 2 you're given opportunity to build up Shepard as a character. You get to see him/her react, and faced with decision that challenge him/her as well as the player. That's actually one thing Mass Effect 3 did very well: It made Shepard more than just a conduit for the players decisions but a character in their own right as well, just like ME1 gave a lot of opportunity to define him/her as a character.

Mass Effect 2 had great missions and mini-story for each of your potential companions, but completely neglects Shepard.

Also again the main story is utterly pointless. You could cut the entire story of the collectors from the overarching plot and little would really change in terms of overall narrative. At best the collectors serve as just a stopgap between 1 and 2, but even then they're completely without personality or drive unlike either Saren and Soverign from the first game or the Reaper threat in the third.

Which isn't to say ME2 is bad by any stretch, it's awesome. But it's definitely got flaws aplenty.

 

[Raikas]

The 3 main reasons why Mass Effect 2 is the best out of the series are:
1- A perfect balance of Role-playing and Action.
2- Interesting Hub worlds.
3- The ever present tension of the impending suicide mission.

Eh, that explains why ME2 is your favourite, but it certainly doesn't prove that it's superior in any kind of objective way.

Personally, I thought the presentation of the world made the first game brilliant, and that the balance of dialogue and action was pretty perfect in ME3, so clearly those elements are all a matter of taste. I felt that ME2 focused too strongly on what should have been a side story, had fewer encounters with the less human-seeming aliens, and simplified the weapon and power systems down to almost nothing. On the plus side, I am one of the few people who will admit to enjoying the planet-scanning, so I did like the addition of that (and miss it it in the third game).

 

[Terminate421]

ME2 superior to ME1? Bullocks.

Fucking Thermal clips. Yea, ME2 had tighter gunplay, but that means fuck all when you don't have any ammo.
Turning my Infiltrator from a snipping god to a fireball hurling wizard wannabe? Unforgivable.

How many times could you MISS?!!

ME2 was way better than the ME1, not just in the gameplay department.

Graphically it aged better, it doesn't look ferpect but at least it doesn't look like GTA4. On top of that, the scenes feel less robotic and oh gawd, THAT ARMOR, thank god it's improved:

The story also felt like less bitching and more people actually doing something. Though Mass Effect 1's story was still damn good.

 

[madwarper]

How many times could you MISS?!!

Zero.

Having only 15 fucking bullets, including the dropped clips, to clear a mission is fucking ridiculous even on the easiest settings.
Expecting someone to do it on Insanity just shows how much shit the addition of Thermal Clip ammo is.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

How many times could you MISS?!!

Zero.

Having only 15 fucking bullets, including the dropped clips, to clear a mission is fucking ridiculous even on the easiest settings.
Expecting someone to do it on Insanity just shows how much shit the addition of Thermal Clip ammo is.

I played on Casual and I still routinely ran out of ammo. Other guns get a lot of bullets from thermal clips on the ground. The sniper rifle gets 1, 2 if you were lucky. It was ridiculous.

 

[Darks63]

ME 2 felt really out of place in the trilogy to me and playing through 3 atm just makes the game feel even more pointless from a story perspective.

Gameplay wise it felt really dumbed down from ME1 to 2. I hated how samey the mako runs were as much as anyone but replacing it with a even more boring and tedious resource radar game was worse.

Character Wise other than Legion how many characters from ME2 really have a significant presence in ME3? It seems like you meet up with them for one mission and then they are gone again. Makes the suicide mission less impactful overall when you realize only Garrus will be in the next game full time as a squadmate anyway so screw all the others.

Romance wise it sucked for my femshep. My options for main romances were the dieing Thane, Bland ass Jacob, and Garrus.

I do grant however that the Shooty bits were much better in ME2 versus ME1. Getting one shot by geth tanks and rocket launchers in ME1 made it so i had to save all the damn time.

 

[LetalisK]

Roleplay: ME1 again, it had the most conversations and choices within those.

Erm...actually ME1 has the fewest lines of dialogue of all three games. I can't say how many times you were told to pick a response in each game, though, not that it mattered most of the time in any of the games. <.<

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

1- A perfect balance of Role-playing and Action.

Mechanically speaking, Mass Effect 3 offered the superior action game with a greater depth to the RPG systems. The only reduction in RPG elements is circumstantial - there often isn't a middle of the road dialog choice but, then, this is thematically fairly consistent. In a war of annihilation, there isn't a lot of room for fence sitting.

2- Interesting Hub worlds.

I don't really agree with this. There isn't much to do or see in these places beyond going on one mission or another.

3- The ever present tension of the impending suicide mission.

I'd argue that the ongoing extermination of my species combined with observed and reported losses of people I've met along the way does this better.

What do you think? Is Mass Effect 2 the best of the three or not?

I think the best game of the three is Mass Effect three. On the balance, it is my favorite entry in the franchise. This may simply be because I was expecting a silly end to the franchise by the middle of the second game when it became apparent they neither had a good way to handle my past choices nor did they advance the narrative in such a way that a final end to the conflict could be anything but grim or silly.

 

[Weaver]

ME2 was really... just a non-event.
Why did we have to work for Cerberus? In ME1 they're portrayed, basically, as unanimously evil and only out for the aquisition of power. They claim to work for humanity, but are just killing people and running experiments on them. We're never SHOWN they're not evil at all. Thus, in ME2 it's like "You're working for Cerberus now, deal with it." and the game just expects you to go along with it. All you can do is ***** about it in some dialog options.

Because of this, I never once trusted The Illusive Man or any Cerberus person. Keeping this in mind, what exactly was the Illusive Man's plan? You just resurrected someone who was, for all intents and purposes, the number one person who was wrecking all your plans in the first game, and you expect him to just comply with all your orders now? Why the hell would you do that? You rebuild the Normandy, at great cost to yourself, and just say "Welp, go get 'em Shepard!" and just expect everything to work out in your favour? How, in any way, was The Illusive Man surprised when you choose to blow up the collector ship with the reaper in it instead of sterilize it and give it to him?

Note that if you have the ?Sole Survivor? background, then Cerberus is responsible for the life-changing backstory events that led to you undergoing severe physical and mental trauma and killed your entire unit. You can?t even bring this up during your chat with Illusive Man?