Mass Effect 2 is awful, ME 1 is much better

This game destroyed almost everything that made the first game so good...Here is a summary from this site

"

When a really good sequel comes out, like say, Ghostbusters 2 , Speed 2, or Transformers 2, people often forget the original inspiration that made the series great.

In this case, the ground breaking excellence of Mass Effect is getting lost in this swirl of unrestrained, hysterical gushing over the sequel. These aren't legitimate reviews we're reading of Mass Effect2; we are reading a tween girl's review of a Jonas Brothers concert on her blog. In short, it's embarrassing.

People have forgotten what made Mass Effect such a great game, but I'm here to remind you.

And no, it doesn't involve mining.

The original entry in the series, while being partially a shooter, is at its heart, a role playing game. This is almost completely erased in the sequel. Old reliable aspects of RPGs, such as searching for loot, are almost completely gone. Experience points are plentiful in ME, and as such you level up more often, not just when some douche with a cigarette decides the mission is over. Getting XP for each enemy killed and for exploring everything for your codex (and more XP) was a tremendous joy and for some unknown reason BioWare has deprived us of this joy.

Speaking of which, BioWare seemed hell-bent on turning the Mass Effect series into a balls-out shooter that dudes in frat houses could enjoy. Thus, the combat system was both slowed downed and dumb downed. While the actual fighting in ME does not flow as melodiously as in the sequel, the thoughtful, slow combat system in the original game is more strategic and less like other games we've already played. (*Cough*GearsofWar*Cough*)

In the original game, the ability to use multiple powers without waiting for them to all recharge at once only added to this strategy. In ME2, if you charge your barrier, you have to wait to use pull, while in the first game you could use many powers in a row, offsetting the combat weakness of the Adept and Engineer ****s. Oh, and did I mention that you could actually duck in the original game? That was useful.

Space travel in the original game also represents a better model than ME2. In the premiere game, you just pick the area of the traverse you want to go to and BOOM you're there. In ME2, you may have to stop at a fuel depot? Really? My multiquadrillion credit space ship, run by the uber-powerful Cerberus Corporation needs to pause at an interstellar truck stop every once in a while? Worst of all is the cheesy, little version of the Normandy that you navigate around. The Mako may be silly, but at least it's not this miniature craft from a random '80s game on the Atari 2600.

ME also had a manageable number of characters. In fact, in a single play through, you could actually use each one of the characters for a significant amount of time. ME2 simply has too many characters that you will probably never use, and very few that you'll actually get to know. BioWare's character development is legendary and ME2 doesn't do it justice with the misguided mantra that "more is more." There are too many characters, and the player never has sufficient time to get to know any of them well enough.

Driving the Mako around, while ridiculous, is about 15 times more fun than Mining in ME2. Don't even try to disagree with that. You're lying to me, you're lying to yourself, and you're making your mother cry. Stop it. Mining in ME2 is a terrible, terrible idea and how it slipped past BioWare's quality control will forever remain a mystery.

The Flagship of the series clearly has a better villain – Admit it: Saren kicks the crap out of the Collectors. Sure, we all know the Reapers are behind everything, but these bug people are your main antagonist throughout the majority of the sequel. Saren had personality. He was a dick, and you wanted to take him down. I'm fairly confident that gamers did not have the same feeling toward the Collectors. I know I didn't. I didn't really care. I just wanted to finish the game and hopefully get it on with every possible female crew member. (Thane is also very handsome.)

While in some ways ME2 seems bigger, ME feels more like an open world to explore. The Traverse in general seems to open up with endless mission in the original, while the missions in ME2 feel compartmentalized, linear and directed. Quite often in ME when you fly into a new system, Admiral Hackett will call on you for an extra mission. Again, this leads to the creation of a universe that seems more open and massive. Even the dreaded elevators in the original game not only serve to mask loading time, they also allow you to hear announcements that were often directly entered into your codex for additional side quests.

In ME2 you are on a clear path from the very beginning of the game, and for those of us that enjoyed the open world RPG aspect of the original, this is very disappointing. Even an area like the Citadel, which was an amazing place to explore in the first game, has become constricted and goal-oriented in the second game.

Defeating ME feels like a real accomplishment. Saren is vanquished, you've proven the galaxy wrong about a human Spectre, and the Reapers have been repelled for the time being. In stark contrast, too much of ME2 is building up to a payoff that never comes. You spend the entire game hunting for the ridiculously large team that you assemble for one final mission that takes about twenty minutes. Twenty hours of going from planet to planet, finding allies and gaining their loyalty, just for one relatively short mission?

ME, on the other hand, has three main missions (all of which feel very important and unique), and one amazingly well constructed sequence on Virmire involving a nuke and the loss of possibly two crew members. Finally, the game leads you to Ilos and a game changing twist that leaves you fighting for your survival (and the survival of all living creatures) as the Citadel burns around you. It is epic in every way that the ending to ME2 wasn't.

Finally, the level design and combat mechanic suffer from an extreme case of "Cliffy B Syndrome," that is to say, it's too much like Gears of War. Not only is the cover system strikingly similar, the landscape of every area is deformed by an unnatural occurrence of chest-high barricades behind which you can take cover. No fight is ever a surprise in ME2. Instead, you always know there's a fight coming when you see a bunch of random objects that look like they're about the right height to crouch behind.

The counter-argument here is simple and I'm not sure how to address it: Mass Effect2 is almost uniformly more fun to play, especially during combat situations. Admittedly, this is a pretty big deal. However, what BioWare has taken out of the Mass Effect franchise should not be forgotten. I won't forget it as I play through the original for the eighth time."

Quote in MLA format...

Link is at sarcastic gamer mass effect better than mass effect 2...i dont know if i should put a link

Things I PERSONALLY thought were missing from MAss effect 2 that detracted from my experience were:

!) The Blue menu screen which i like better than the red one

2) The text in ME 2 is too small at times and you can't read..ME 1 had no problems i think

3) The codex and xp collection which was my favorite in the last game..oh the fun of just finding some xp points or codex and listening to it..from that awesome computer voiced guy in the Primary codex thing, though the voice return ...the way you collect xp is boggled down

4) Your characters and the story isn't that interesting so far...i just started the game but im not into it at all...What happened to the saving the world party after Sovereign's defeat,,I felt as cold as ever meeting my team mates again*Spoiler

Garrus and Tali I met them ...and they were like.."oh...shepherd..your alive..i thought you were dead,...and right now I just feel ilke kiling my self.so no more typing

How much? Eh? I fail to see what this has to do with Modern Warfare 2

How much? Eh? I fail to see what this has to do with Modern Warfare 2

DavidToolMusic

man i didnt read all of it because its a wall of text you really should have summarized that. All i can say is a disagree. ME2 is a better game in every way. I knew some people would be mad at the changes but if you think about it they arent taking out stuff but streamling the exp.

fire_bird, i would quote your blog, but its a little large

ME1 was unreal, ME2 was MORE unreal

ur griping about Bioware scrapping the DUMBED DOWN RPG elements from the first? - loot collection was stupid, considering most of the stuff u got was just a higher level version of the crap u already have, so variety blows, plus u cant really get the best armor till u hit about level forty, which is retarded. customization was also lame, as u were overloaded with mostly useless upgrades, it just got tedious after u hit level twenty

the combat of the first was clunky and akward, animations are stiff, in general its not that great, the sequel's combat is better in every way, and while it shares its similarities with GoW, its not even close to the same thing that u are claiming it to be, i mean, u cant even blindfire...

u actually liked the Mako sequences? it looks like u and Jessica Chobot are the only people on the planet who actually did like it...those sequences made me want to fly to canada and ask the makers of the game what in god's name were they thinking when they thought up the mindless driving, along with the mapping of the generic looking planets(the same map with a different color scheme does not count as different)...the physics were rubbish as well, i mean the mako weighs(in theory) tons, but during gameplay, it can be made to fly almost...mining in the second at least serves a purpose, and while its not too entertaining, i was still scouring planets for iridium for my new heavy weapon because i loved seeing that seismograph-like meter freak out when i hit something good.

the sidequests in the first were so generic, so lame, that i wouldnt have done them, but i had to get to level 60 somehow(*sigh*). at least the side-quests in the second have a storyline, and while they are linear, they do much better than the ones from the first. the first game had no building of the story(to me at least, it kind of just came all at once) at least the build up in the second does it justice, i mean, ur tasked to go on a suicide mission? thanks for at least making something risky, and having far-reaching consequences

u say there are too many characters? are u serious???? the more the merrier! considering they can all die at the last mission, and at the halfway mark, it makes each character have even more weight, and it actually tries to make u care about them in some way, which is more than i can say for Kaidan or Ashley...

the stories for both are excellent, neither gets an edge in my book

next time, mr. fire_bird...make a blog post, so i dont have to rant

fire_bird, i would quote your blog, but its a little large

ME1 was unreal, ME2 was MORE unreal

ur griping about Bioware scrapping the DUMBED DOWN RPG elements from the first? - loot collection was stupid, considering most of the stuff u got was just a higher level version of the crap u already have, so variety blows, plus u cant really get the best armor till u hit about level forty, which is retarded. customization was also lame, as u were overloaded with mostly useless upgrades, it just got tedious after u hit level twenty

the combat of the first was clunky and akward, animations are stiff, in general its not that great, the sequel's combat is better in every way, and while it shares its similarities with GoW, its not even close to the same thing that u are claiming it to be, i mean, u cant even blindfire...

u actually liked the Mako sequences? it looks like u and Jessica Chobot are the only people on the planet who actually did like it...those sequences made me want to fly to canada and ask the makers of the game what in god's name were they thinking when they thought up the mindless driving, along with the mapping of the generic looking planets(the same map with a different color scheme does not count as different)...the physics were rubbish as well, i mean the mako weighs(in theory) tons, but during gameplay, it can be made to fly almost...mining in the second at least serves a purpose, and while its not too entertaining, i was still scouring planets for iridium for my new heavy weapon because i loved seeing that seismograph-like meter freak out when i hit something good.

the sidequests in the first were so generic, so lame, that i wouldnt have done them, but i had to get to level 60 somehow(*sigh*). at least the side-quests in the second have a storyline, and while they are linear, they do much better than the ones from the first. the first game had no building of the story(to me at least, it kind of just came all at once) at least the build up in the second does it justice, i mean, ur tasked to go on a suicide mission? thanks for at least making something risky, and having far-reaching consequences

u say there are too many characters? are u serious???? the more the merrier! considering they can all die at the last mission, and at the halfway mark, it makes each character have even more weight, and it actually tries to make u care about them in some way, which is more than i can say for Kaidan or Ashley...

the stories for both are excellent, neither gets an edge in my book

next time, mr. fire_bird...make a blog post, so i dont have to rant

H_U_R_D

yup thats what i meant by streamline they took out the dumb and useless stuff. People coming on here swearing that the loot system from ME1 was good but it wasn't. I def agree about the characters too for one ME1 and 2 is a game that is meant to be play through at least twice so if there wasn't alot of characters things would def get stale. As for story i thought i was good. You have to look at the big picture since ME is a trilogy and ME2 def sets the story up for an epic ending.

I thought it was a shame that they got rid of the inventory and changed the way you get experience points but overall I thought ME2 was a quality title and better than the original.

1. The new characters are much more interesting, Kaidan's, Ashley's & Liarra's reappearance really emphasised how boring they were - Wrex is the only one I miss. I loved learning more about my squad via their loyalty missions.

2. Combat is much better, heat clips force you to master as many weapons as possible and biotic/tech cooldown times place a much greater emphasis on squad combat and using biotic combos.

3. Side quests have much more depth and variety.

4. Landscapes change - after a while in ME1 I started wondering only one architect existed in the galaxy.

5. I thought navigating the galaxy was massively improved - and yes, you need fuel, the engine is powered by Eezo and like petrol eezo gets used up.

6. The Illusive man is much more engaging the council

7. Paragon & Renegade have a much greater impact than in ME1

Mass Effect 2 isn't awful. You just didn't like it. There's a difference. Maybe the game didn't do what you personally wanted it to, but that doesn't mean it's "awful" or "embarrassing."

Yeah, a more polished and refined game is "awful" and worse than a more unpolished and unrefined game. Yup. :lol:

I did like most of the story in ME1 better, however.

ME2 is the best game on the 360. 96 on metacritic, yeah real terrible game getting universal acclaim and all.

While reading the post I agreed with most of it, they took a lot of stuff out from the first. but the first game was a bulk to say the least, there was a lot involed and most I still don't get. I can see why they took it out, I didn't miss anything you posted up while I was playing the second. combat btw was so well improved I like shooting in the second one.

@fire_bird

Well your arguement was very well stated, but I think some of the problem isn't that you didn't like ME2, but you liked ME1 so much that you wanted exactly the same experience in as close to the same way as possible. ME2 is a great game and superior to ME1. I admit that there were a couple of areas that I wished more was done (ex. meeting old teammates, Captain Anderson is pretty much a cameo, Citadel's smaller area) and the mining is kind of lame,; ME2 still introduces you to so many new things that it more then made up for skipping over some of the nostalgia.

Your squad mates are very interesting, Omega is a really engaging planet, and it seems like out in the Terminus System you start to see "real" space then the council controlled space where everything is orderly. The planets landscapes look amazing, and we get to fight pretty much all the enemy types in ME1 plus collectors, and defense systems, and advanced geth, and different types of aliens.

This game destroyed almost everything that made the first game so good...Here is a summary from this site

"

When a really good sequel comes out, like say, Ghostbusters 2 , Speed 2, or Transformers 2, people often forget the original inspiration that made the series great.

In this case, the ground breaking excellence of Mass Effect is getting lost in this swirl of unrestrained, hysterical gushing over the sequel. These aren't legitimate reviews we're reading of Mass Effect2; we are reading a tween girl's review of a Jonas Brothers concert on her blog. In short, it's embarrassing.

People have forgotten what made Mass Effect such a great game, but I'm here to remind you.

And no, it doesn't involve mining.

The original entry in the series, while being partially a shooter, is at its heart, a role playing game. This is almost completely erased in the sequel. Old reliable aspects of RPGs, such as searching for loot, are almost completely gone. Experience points are plentiful in ME, and as such you level up more often, not just when some douche with a cigarette decides the mission is over. Getting XP for each enemy killed and for exploring everything for your codex (and more XP) was a tremendous joy and for some unknown reason BioWare has deprived us of this joy.

Speaking of which, BioWare seemed hell-bent on turning the Mass Effect series into a balls-out shooter that dudes in frat houses could enjoy. Thus, the combat system was both slowed downed and dumb downed. While the actual fighting in ME does not flow as melodiously as in the sequel, the thoughtful, slow combat system in the original game is more strategic and less like other games we've already played. (*Cough*GearsofWar*Cough*)

In the original game, the ability to use multiple powers without waiting for them to all recharge at once only added to this strategy. In ME2, if you charge your barrier, you have to wait to use pull, while in the first game you could use many powers in a row, offsetting the combat weakness of the Adept and Engineer ****s. Oh, and did I mention that you could actually duck in the original game? That was useful.

Space travel in the original game also represents a better model than ME2. In the premiere game, you just pick the area of the traverse you want to go to and BOOM you're there. In ME2, you may have to stop at a fuel depot? Really? My multiquadrillion credit space ship, run by the uber-powerful Cerberus Corporation needs to pause at an interstellar truck stop every once in a while? Worst of all is the cheesy, little version of the Normandy that you navigate around. The Mako may be silly, but at least it's not this miniature craft from a random '80s game on the Atari 2600.

ME also had a manageable number of characters. In fact, in a single play through, you could actually use each one of the characters for a significant amount of time. ME2 simply has too many characters that you will probably never use, and very few that you'll actually get to know. BioWare's character development is legendary and ME2 doesn't do it justice with the misguided mantra that "more is more." There are too many characters, and the player never has sufficient time to get to know any of them well enough.

Driving the Mako around, while ridiculous, is about 15 times more fun than Mining in ME2. Don't even try to disagree with that. You're lying to me, you're lying to yourself, and you're making your mother cry. Stop it. Mining in ME2 is a terrible, terrible idea and how it slipped past BioWare's quality control will forever remain a mystery.

The Flagship of the series clearly has a better villain – Admit it: Saren kicks the crap out of the Collectors. Sure, we all know the Reapers are behind everything, but these bug people are your main antagonist throughout the majority of the sequel. Saren had personality. He was a dick, and you wanted to take him down. I'm fairly confident that gamers did not have the same feeling toward the Collectors. I know I didn't. I didn't really care. I just wanted to finish the game and hopefully get it on with every possible female crew member. (Thane is also very handsome.)

While in some ways ME2 seems bigger, ME feels more like an open world to explore. The Traverse in general seems to open up with endless mission in the original, while the missions in ME2 feel compartmentalized, linear and directed. Quite often in ME when you fly into a new system, Admiral Hackett will call on you for an extra mission. Again, this leads to the creation of a universe that seems more open and massive. Even the dreaded elevators in the original game not only serve to mask loading time, they also allow you to hear announcements that were often directly entered into your codex for additional side quests.

In ME2 you are on a clear path from the very beginning of the game, and for those of us that enjoyed the open world RPG aspect of the original, this is very disappointing. Even an area like the Citadel, which was an amazing place to explore in the first game, has become constricted and goal-oriented in the second game.

Defeating ME feels like a real accomplishment. Saren is vanquished, you've proven the galaxy wrong about a human Spectre, and the Reapers have been repelled for the time being. In stark contrast, too much of ME2 is building up to a payoff that never comes. You spend the entire game hunting for the ridiculously large team that you assemble for one final mission that takes about twenty minutes. Twenty hours of going from planet to planet, finding allies and gaining their loyalty, just for one relatively short mission?

ME, on the other hand, has three main missions (all of which feel very important and unique), and one amazingly well constructed sequence on Virmire involving a nuke and the loss of possibly two crew members. Finally, the game leads you to Ilos and a game changing twist that leaves you fighting for your survival (and the survival of all living creatures) as the Citadel burns around you. It is epic in every way that the ending to ME2 wasn't.

Finally, the level design and combat mechanic suffer from an extreme case of "Cliffy B Syndrome," that is to say, it's too much like Gears of War. Not only is the cover system strikingly similar, the landscape of every area is deformed by an unnatural occurrence of chest-high barricades behind which you can take cover. No fight is ever a surprise in ME2. Instead, you always know there's a fight coming when you see a bunch of random objects that look like they're about the right height to crouch behind.

The counter-argument here is simple and I'm not sure how to address it: Mass Effect2 is almost uniformly more fun to play, especially during combat situations. Admittedly, this is a pretty big deal. However, what BioWare has taken out of the Mass Effect franchise should not be forgotten. I won't forget it as I play through the original for the eighth time."

Quote in MLA format...

Link is at sarcastic gamer mass effect better than mass effect 2...i dont know if i should put a link

Things I PERSONALLY thought were missing from MAss effect 2 that detracted from my experience were:

!) The Blue menu screen which i like better than the red one

2) The text in ME 2 is too small at times and you can't read..ME 1 had no problems i think

3) The codex and xp collection which was my favorite in the last game..oh the fun of just finding some xp points or codex and listening to it..from that awesome computer voiced guy in the Primary codex thing, though the voice return ...the way you collect xp is boggled down

4) Your characters and the story isn't that interesting so far...i just started the game but im not into it at all...What happened to the saving the world party after Sovereign's defeat,,I felt as cold as ever meeting my team mates again*Spoiler

Garrus and Tali I met them ...and they were like.."oh...shepherd..your alive..i thought you were dead,...and right now I just feel ilke kiling my self.so no more typing

fire_birdn99

I agree that I could have cared less for meeting the old crew because they were all so boring. However, the whole "there' s too many characters" argument is bogus to certain ****s one character is more useful then the next which is why you play the game multiple times and even then their way more interesting and more invested in the expierence then in thefirst game.As for the story you have to remember that ME2 is the middle child so it' s suppose to be a build up for ME3 and it' s conclusion. Also the Mako was crap and I' am not lying when I say that the mining is so much better because I can just get straight down to the action and plot rather then waste my time driving around abland rocky enviroment. I' am also not lying when I say that I never used the Mako to look for minerals but just went straight to the missions.

The comabt system is also much improved over the first game, sure you had to wait a little while before you can use another but it comes back pretty quick.

I would have preferred if they kept some of the methods of the original, but ME2 is far from awful. It's an awesome game. I miss the level progression and sheer amount of weapons and enhancements the first one had. I think sometimes when we love games and are used to certain methods we might not always be thrilled about change. That's kind of where I'm at with ME2.

Love the game, think it's awesome, but I do like the original's way of handling things a tad better.

This game destroyed almost everything that made the first game so good...Here is a summary from this site

"

When a really good sequel comes out, like say, Ghostbusters 2 , Speed 2, or Transformers 2, people often forget the original inspiration that made the series great.

In this case, the ground breaking excellence of Mass Effect is getting lost in this swirl of unrestrained, hysterical gushing over the sequel. These aren't legitimate reviews we're reading of Mass Effect2; we are reading a tween girl's review of a Jonas Brothers concert on her blog. In short, it's embarrassing.

People have forgotten what made Mass Effect such a great game, but I'm here to remind you.

And no, it doesn't involve mining.

The original entry in the series, while being partially a shooter, is at its heart, a role playing game. This is almost completely erased in the sequel. Old reliable aspects of RPGs, such as searching for loot, are almost completely gone. Experience points are plentiful in ME, and as such you level up more often, not just when some douche with a cigarette decides the mission is over. Getting XP for each enemy killed and for exploring everything for your codex (and more XP) was a tremendous joy and for some unknown reason BioWare has deprived us of this joy.

Speaking of which, BioWare seemed hell-bent on turning the Mass Effect series into a balls-out shooter that dudes in frat houses could enjoy. Thus, the combat system was both slowed downed and dumb downed. While the actual fighting in ME does not flow as melodiously as in the sequel, the thoughtful, slow combat system in the original game is more strategic and less like other games we've already played. (*Cough*GearsofWar*Cough*)

In the original game, the ability to use multiple powers without waiting for them to all recharge at once only added to this strategy. In ME2, if you charge your barrier, you have to wait to use pull, while in the first game you could use many powers in a row, offsetting the combat weakness of the Adept and Engineer ****s. Oh, and did I mention that you could actually duck in the original game? That was useful.

Space travel in the original game also represents a better model than ME2. In the premiere game, you just pick the area of the traverse you want to go to and BOOM you're there. In ME2, you may have to stop at a fuel depot? Really? My multiquadrillion credit space ship, run by the uber-powerful Cerberus Corporation needs to pause at an interstellar truck stop every once in a while? Worst of all is the cheesy, little version of the Normandy that you navigate around. The Mako may be silly, but at least it's not this miniature craft from a random '80s game on the Atari 2600.

ME also had a manageable number of characters. In fact, in a single play through, you could actually use each one of the characters for a significant amount of time. ME2 simply has too many characters that you will probably never use, and very few that you'll actually get to know. BioWare's character development is legendary and ME2 doesn't do it justice with the misguided mantra that "more is more." There are too many characters, and the player never has sufficient time to get to know any of them well enough.

Driving the Mako around, while ridiculous, is about 15 times more fun than Mining in ME2. Don't even try to disagree with that. You're lying to me, you're lying to yourself, and you're making your mother cry. Stop it. Mining in ME2 is a terrible, terrible idea and how it slipped past BioWare's quality control will forever remain a mystery.

The Flagship of the series clearly has a better villain – Admit it: Saren kicks the crap out of the Collectors. Sure, we all know the Reapers are behind everything, but these bug people are your main antagonist throughout the majority of the sequel. Saren had personality. He was a dick, and you wanted to take him down. I'm fairly confident that gamers did not have the same feeling toward the Collectors. I know I didn't. I didn't really care. I just wanted to finish the game and hopefully get it on with every possible female crew member. (Thane is also very handsome.)

While in some ways ME2 seems bigger, ME feels more like an open world to explore. The Traverse in general seems to open up with endless mission in the original, while the missions in ME2 feel compartmentalized, linear and directed. Quite often in ME when you fly into a new system, Admiral Hackett will call on you for an extra mission. Again, this leads to the creation of a universe that seems more open and massive. Even the dreaded elevators in the original game not only serve to mask loading time, they also allow you to hear announcements that were often directly entered into your codex for additional side quests.

In ME2 you are on a clear path from the very beginning of the game, and for those of us that enjoyed the open world RPG aspect of the original, this is very disappointing. Even an area like the Citadel, which was an amazing place to explore in the first game, has become constricted and goal-oriented in the second game.

Defeating ME feels like a real accomplishment. Saren is vanquished, you've proven the galaxy wrong about a human Spectre, and the Reapers have been repelled for the time being. In stark contrast, too much of ME2 is building up to a payoff that never comes. You spend the entire game hunting for the ridiculously large team that you assemble for one final mission that takes about twenty minutes. Twenty hours of going from planet to planet, finding allies and gaining their loyalty, just for one relatively short mission?

ME, on the other hand, has three main missions (all of which feel very important and unique), and one amazingly well constructed sequence on Virmire involving a nuke and the loss of possibly two crew members. Finally, the game leads you to Ilos and a game changing twist that leaves you fighting for your survival (and the survival of all living creatures) as the Citadel burns around you. It is epic in every way that the ending to ME2 wasn't.

Finally, the level design and combat mechanic suffer from an extreme case of "Cliffy B Syndrome," that is to say, it's too much like Gears of War. Not only is the cover system strikingly similar, the landscape of every area is deformed by an unnatural occurrence of chest-high barricades behind which you can take cover. No fight is ever a surprise in ME2. Instead, you always know there's a fight coming when you see a bunch of random objects that look like they're about the right height to crouch behind.

The counter-argument here is simple and I'm not sure how to address it: Mass Effect2 is almost uniformly more fun to play, especially during combat situations. Admittedly, this is a pretty big deal. However, what BioWare has taken out of the Mass Effect franchise should not be forgotten. I won't forget it as I play through the original for the eighth time."

Quote in MLA format...

Link is at sarcastic gamer mass effect better than mass effect 2...i dont know if i should put a link

Things I PERSONALLY thought were missing from MAss effect 2 that detracted from my experience were:

!) The Blue menu screen which i like better than the red one

2) The text in ME 2 is too small at times and you can't read..ME 1 had no problems i think

3) The codex and xp collection which was my favorite in the last game..oh the fun of just finding some xp points or codex and listening to it..from that awesome computer voiced guy in the Primary codex thing, though the voice return ...the way you collect xp is boggled down

4) Your characters and the story isn't that interesting so far...i just started the game but im not into it at all...What happened to the saving the world party after Sovereign's defeat,,I felt as cold as ever meeting my team mates again*Spoiler

Garrus and Tali I met them ...and they were like.."oh...shepherd..your alive..i thought you were dead,...and right now I just feel ilke kiling my self.so no more typing

I like Mass Effect 1/2... They are ok for me :) It's a nice game..

But... you spend a lot of time writing this , didn't you ? :)

I stopped reading at : "When a really good sequel comes out, like say, Ghostbusters 2 , Speed 2, or Transformers 2, people often forget the original inspiration that made the series great." 1_Hit_Killer

Fair point. Those are all awful movies.

fire_bird, i would quote your blog, but its a little large

ME1 was unreal, ME2 was MORE unreal

ur griping about Bioware scrapping the DUMBED DOWN RPG elements from the first? - loot collection was stupid, considering most of the stuff u got was just a higher level version of the crap u already have, so variety blows, plus u cant really get the best armor till u hit about level forty, which is retarded. customization was also lame, as u were overloaded with mostly useless upgrades, it just got tedious after u hit level twenty

the combat of the first was clunky and akward, animations are stiff, in general its not that great, the sequel's combat is better in every way, and while it shares its similarities with GoW, its not even close to the same thing that u are claiming it to be, i mean, u cant even blindfire...

u actually liked the Mako sequences? it looks like u and Jessica Chobot are the only people on the planet who actually did like it...those sequences made me want to fly to canada and ask the makers of the game what in god's name were they thinking when they thought up the mindless driving, along with the mapping of the generic looking planets(the same map with a different color scheme does not count as different)...the physics were rubbish as well, i mean the mako weighs(in theory) tons, but during gameplay, it can be made to fly almost...mining in the second at least serves a purpose, and while its not too entertaining, i was still scouring planets for iridium for my new heavy weapon because i loved seeing that seismograph-like meter freak out when i hit something good.

the sidequests in the first were so generic, so lame, that i wouldnt have done them, but i had to get to level 60 somehow(*sigh*). at least the side-quests in the second have a storyline, and while they are linear, they do much better than the ones from the first. the first game had no building of the story(to me at least, it kind of just came all at once) at least the build up in the second does it justice, i mean, ur tasked to go on a suicide mission? thanks for at least making something risky, and having far-reaching consequences

u say there are too many characters? are u serious???? the more the merrier! considering they can all die at the last mission, and at the halfway mark, it makes each character have even more weight, and it actually tries to make u care about them in some way, which is more than i can say for Kaidan or Ashley...

the stories for both are excellent, neither gets an edge in my book

next time, mr. fire_bird...make a blog post, so i dont have to rant

H_U_R_D

QFT

DONT WANT ANY TROUBLER FOR QUOTE SPAM SO IM ADDING TEXT HERE FOR NO REASON, caplock is now off, sorry.