NiMic
Cina
I really expected better from the two of you. Your taste is normally excellent. You disappoint me.
I'm not going to argue that the original Mass Effect (ME1) had better gameplay. It didn't. The shooting was a bit lacklustre. The Mako missions were kind of fun for a while, but the identical nature of all the minibases you discovered really started to take its toll on the enjoyment there. The improvements in ME2 to differentiate the various classes by giving them special powers was -- in my opinion -- a huge upgrade. It really made playthroughs different, and I loved that.
But everything else about it was inferior.
Firstly, the characters. In the original, they were all fantastic. Even those who were a little "boring" -- like Ashley -- still served an interesting purpose in the story. Garrus, Tali, Kaidan, Wrex and Liara all had such depth that even just talking to them on the Normandy was entertaining. Hell, I didn't even mind the long, drawn out elevator loading screens because of the conversations the two companions would have as you waited, which were always amusing (I also liked the similar "party banter" thing in DA:O).
In Mass Effect 2 (ME2), it was far more hit and miss. Granted, there was some excellent ones; Mordin, Grunt and Legion were all great, and so was Zaeed. Those four were totally worthy additions to the franchise. But the others... not so much. Miranda and Jacob made Ashley from the first game seem like a whirlwhind of charisma and personality, and Samara, Thane, Jack and Kasumi were tedious, too.
What really annoys me is that the only reason they culled all but two of the first game's characters from the story -- and replaced them with new characters -- was to make it easier for them to develop them game; there were a lot of permutations as to who could have lived and died in an imported save. Was it Kaidan or Ashley who stayed with the bomb, for example? Did Wrex freak out and get his head blown off? In order to avoid all of those complications, they just wiped the slate clean of characters and went again. Who cares what decisions you made when we're starting from the beginning?
But there's more to it than that. One of my main gripes with Mass Effect 2 is the way that it functioned on a mechanical level regarding the missions themselves. In the first, there were about five different "areas" that the game was based in: Noveria, Feros, Artemis Tau, the Citadel and Ilos. You spent a significant amount of time in each, not just uncovering the main quest that furthered the initial story, but also playing through the story of
that individual hub. You weren't just figuring out what Saren and the Geth were doing; you were also finding the Rachni Queen on Noveria, or the ancient plant deity thing on Feros.
There was a continuity to the story that meant that each area felt like its own complete episode, and yet helped uncover the grand mystery that drove the game. When you disovered the Rachi Queen and made your decision it really felt important, but at the same time made you want to carry on to the other hubs to find out more - I mean, what the hell was Saren
doing?
Mass Effect 2 was far more compartmentalised. You just went around collecting companions like you were a Pokémon trainer. Mission A, then Mission B, then Mission C. When you'd completed the set, you did all their loyality missions in the same broken, haphazard fashion. Alright, I'll nip to this abandoned prison planet for Jack's loyalty mission, now I'm on the Citadel helping Thane... welp looks like I'm off to the Terminus systems for Zaeed's. There was no coherency, nor was there any urgency. The game felt entirely piecemeal, with no real plot thread running through it other than "make a team". Quite why I couldn't just use my team from the original, I don't know.
Oh, wait, that's right, because they fecked with the plot. "We need to do something big for Mass Effect 2!" cried the Bioware storywriters. "We can't just carry on with this same epic, amazing plot from the first; a futile battle against an ancient, unknowable terror. People will get bored if we keep our standards this high."
So they killed Shepard off. How original! How exciting! Oh, but look, he can come back from the dead! Because he's Jesus! Even though no one has been able to do this before! And here's the really big twist: you remember those nasty human supremecists from the first game? Cerberus? He's working for them now! Yes! IT'S SO CLEVER AND INTERESTING ISN'T IT?
Seriously, the entire basis for the plot shift was absurd, and ridiculous. It was a ludicrous departure from the story of the first, and just made the transition between games feel jarring. Where did Cerberus suddenly get all this funding? Why are they now so powerful? Why does no one really care? It changed the entire feeling of the game, at least at the start. By the time the game ended it had become irrelevent whether you were working for Cerberus or not, which begs the question... why do it at all? It wasn't remotely needed to further the plot; all it did was feck with the story for ten hours or so and then ignore that it ever happened.
The main antagonists were dull as hell, too. So I've spent the entire first game fighting the Geth, only to be told at the end that they're really just insignificant pawns of a much bigger and more terrifying foe. An unfathomable, ancient evil that represents a threat to the
entire galaxy; a dark monstrosity that hungers, that destroys, and one that has never been stopped. That's a great twist; sets up the remaining games quite nicely.
But do I actually get to fight the Reapers in the second game? Not a chance in hell. No, instead we'll make up a new race called the "Collectors" and you can fight against them. Whilst working for Cerberus. Alongside companions you've never met before. Oh, you wanted continuity from the first game? Lolzy. (Bonus points to Bioware for making the one interesting plot twist about the Collectors -- that they're the remnants of the Protheans -- so transparently obvious that it was telegraphed about three hours before the big reveal.)
Also, to anyone who found the Mako missions in ME1 boring, I'll counter that with the mineral scanning in ME2. However dull driving round on the surfaces of identical planets was, it pales in comparison to the exceptional tedium of waggling the mouse around and hoping it beeps. It wasn't even optional - if you didn't want all your companions to die before you even reached the final base, you had to buy the upgrades. If you skipped it, half your team were gone before you could do anything.
All that said, ME2 was still a good game. It was a lot better than most other games released and for someone less invested than me in the Mass Effect universe was probably exceptional. I was disappointed with it because I loved the first so much, and it's such a radical departure in terms of plot, characters and structure that it really jarred.
It did have some plus points, though, and some really memorable moments. As I mentioned, a few of the introduced characters really stick in my mind as excellent additions to the series. The final mission assaulting the Collector base is also gaming gold. I loved the decisions and the pressure of correctly organising my team. I loved how visceral it felt when characters died because I made the wrong choice, although the gratuitous developmental decision to insist that any character I hadn't earned full loyalty on would die no matter what did jar a bit.
For example, I lost Miranda's loyalty when I sided with Jack in their argument on the Normandy, but why that meant she had to be pre-determined to die is a little odd. So because she doesn't like me much anymore, she's less bothered about keeping herself alive? Not even that, she died because she got shot defending that doorway with the other companions whilst Shepard and his chosen two are off fighting the human Reaper (which I won't even get started on...); she didn't put up less of a fight, she just got unlucky. On a separate playthrough, however, when it was Jacob who didn't have my loyalty,
he died getting shot through the crack in the doorway and Miranda survived. Apparently Collector bullets are attracted to those who don't like Shepard.
Also, the ME2 story DLCs were good. "Firewalker" and "Lair of the Shadow Broker" were excellent. "Overlord" culminated in a plot twist that made it one of my favourite missions of the entire
series, and possibly in gaming ever. It was superb. Genuinely superb. "Arrival" was alright; it set up the third game nicely, at least, though it suffered from the same problem that "Bring Down the Sky" did in ME1 - it was clearly made so much later than the game itself that none of the companions were present (or at least didn't interact, as was the case with BDtS) because they didn't want to bring the voice actors back in.
So ME2 wasn't a bad game. It was very good, in fact. But anywhere near the level of its predecessor?
Not on your life.
I'm sure there's more I wanted to complain about, but it's slipped my mind at the moment. Maybe I'll come back to it. Not that anyone's going to read this post anyway, except for Revan.
