Does Mass Effect 2 deserve its game of the year 2010 Award?

[kar]

Mass Effect 2 was a damn good game.

Dunno something about it though, really felt lacking. Dunno if I'd give it game of the year status, it was a bit like a pizza express kinda game.

Hits all the spots, quality ingredients and reasonable in quantity. But...just not quite special and a little forgettable?

 

[arc@css]

Mass Effect 2 was a damn good game.

Dunno something about it though, really felt lacking. Dunno if I'd give it game of the year status, it was a bit like a pizza express kinda game.

Hits all the spots, quality ingredients and reasonable in quantity. But...just not quite special and a little forgettable?

Have you played ME1? If so, maybe we could regard the first title as a starter, ME2 being the main course. You're never going to be 'quite' as hungry after the first course / game, this sometimes has an impact on the desire to carry on with the same level of enjoyment in a game series. If they change the third game substantially then some folk will appreciate the refreshing change, but you can't please everyone all the time (Some won't want it to differ too much so it's a hard balance). I've yet to play the second game so I am still quite peckish.

 

[Lemmonds]

Mass Effect 1 was an amazing game, great storyline, great character development, great graphics for the time and ok combat.

Mass Effect 2 is 1000X better.

 

[krooton]

Mass Effect 2 was a damn good game.

Dunno something about it though, really felt lacking. Dunno if I'd give it game of the year status, it was a bit like a pizza express kinda game.

Hits all the spots, quality ingredients and reasonable in quantity. But...just not quite special and a little forgettable?

I kinda agree. ME1 drew me so damn deep, I loved it even though the combat was iffy, inventory was naff and side-quests were pointless. Something about the setting, storyline and characterisation was just epic.

ME2 had better production values, better side-quests and arguably better combat, but the storyline just didn't seem to drag me in quite as deep. The individual missions were great, especially if you took Mordin with you to recruit Grunt, but the overall big picture just paled in uber-wow compared to ME1.

Both amazing games though, and I really can't want for number 3! (Though The Witcher 2 should tide me over )

 

[Ravenger]

I loved ME2 on the first playthough, but I just can't play through it again because I can see exactly how the missions are constructed, and it just grates. Especially annoying is that you know you're going into combat every time you enter a room with waist high boxes/rocks/crates/walls scattered around.

I much preferred the story in the first one. It was more epic and full of great surprises and twists. ME2 is more like 'The Blues Brothers' - 'we gotta get the band back together.' and just didn't grab me. Individual sub-plots were great, but the whole quest of ME2 wasn't a patch on the first.

 

[ic1male]

I much preferred the story in the first one. It was more epic and full of great surprises and twists. ME2 is more like 'The Blues Brothers' - 'we gotta get the band back together.' and just didn't grab me. Individual sub-plots were great, but the whole quest of ME2 wasn't a patch on the first.

I disagree. The first one set up the universe and the story. I can't say too much about the second without giving spoilers away but the locations in the second one, after having played the first, had me weeing myself with glee. The second is far more atmospheric, I thought.

 

[Cutshaw]

Totally deserves it in my opinion, The second game is vastly different to the first in terms of combat, much more action/shooter based than the first game.However the story and roleplaying aspects are the same as the first. So it depends on what you actually didn't like about the first game.

For me tho ME2 is one of, if not the best game i've played in the past few years

My thoughts exactly.

Aside from the planet scanning, I've no complaints with ME2. The planet scanning "problem" was compounded because of my OCD'ness and not being able to pass up a planet.

You really don't have to scan that much.

 

[Narj]

My thoughts exactly.

Aside from the planet scanning, I've no complaints with ME2. The planet scanning "problem" was compounded because of my OCD'ness and not being able to pass up a planet.

I found that whacking my mouse res right up made scanning super quick!

 

[Alexrose1uk]

You know, me and one of my friends were having a big discussion about Mass Effect the other day; we both really enjoyed the games, but both agree both games were a little 'off'.
Mass Effect 1's combat could be a bit clunky, but it worked, the RPG elements were fairly strong, the story was great. To make it a better game needed slightly more appealing combat and more unique items rather than ItemI-X

Arguably Mass Effect 2 streamlined too much, the RPG elements were heavily toned down, and the game felt much more like a reasonable shooter with some RPG elements, not to mention adding clips back in after infinite ammo in the first game sort of made sense from a gameplay point of view, but felt really wrong from a progression/universe point of view.

Story was arguably more epic on the first game, while a little more 'closed in' on the second, perhaps suiting the playstyle, and I'll admit to being a bit 'well...I kinda saw that coming' and a bit dissapointed with one 'revelation' in ME2. Both are really good games, I just hope ME3 is a better blend of what made both games great.
Strong Story and RPG elements from the first, with faster-paced action based off the second, with some improvements to the pacing and how repetive it could feel at points (as mentioned above it could often become a bit predictable).

Hopefully we won't be let down, and Bioware will learn, I think from the feedback they'll probably realise that perhaps they still need to get the balance more on the spot, they do seem to care about this franchise.

Being able to romance Tali in the second game was OBVIOUS fan service as well, because most people I know who played the first game found her more likeable than either Ash or Liara...not that I'm complaining; she was probably the most likeable of the females in both games haha. Ironic given you never actually see her. Bioware really teased people with that one too, I kinda hope they reveal at least what her species looks like come the next game.



I'd say go for ME2 over FO3:NV, as by and large I'd say ME2 is PROBABLY the better game, not that it's perfect. It probably is one of the best games out this year too, I had to wait til recently to play it, and I definately enjoyed it despite not playing it during the rush earlier in the year.

 

[ChrisJSY]

It is one of the very few games these days in which the story is engaging, it took me a while to get into it, but just any story until you start to know the characters better it's kind of sucky. After I finished 1 I was on 2 in a snap, I just needed to know what happened!!!

Combat in the second which much smoother/nicer but still has room for improvement.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

That reminds me, I can't be the only one who found the retained characters from number one through to number two, were generally more likeable than the new entries from 2. Not saying I didn't like any of the new characters, and it might be accidental nostalgia, but I just didn't take to the new team as well as I did to people like Tali and... Archangel

Edit: ME2 feels more claustrophobic as well, a lot of areas are smaller than ME1, whether that was a sacrifice to keep things running well on console, the pc port felt a lot more like a conversion than ME1s port which was very obviously pc-centric.

 

[MystaEB]

While not perfect, Mass Effect 2 sits head and shoulders above just about every other game this year, if not the last 5. Most of the DLC is great too, especially the Lair of the Shadow Broker.

Compelling, immersive and visually stunning at times. Easily worthy of all the praise it gets.

 

[skippy2421]

ME1 took far too long to get into and i lost interest and as such never bothered with ME2 even though it's sitting there in my steam library waiting to be installed. Wasn't a big fan on the combat system either, or is it best played with an xbox pad? oh well plenty more games out there.

 

[iamtheoneneo]

me2 is amazing, truly magical game.

 

[meghatronic]

It is one of the very few games these days in which the story is engaging, it took me a while to get into it, but just any story until you start to know the characters better it's kind of sucky. After I finished 1 I was on 2 in a snap, I just needed to know what happened!!!

Combat in the second which much smoother/nicer but still has room for improvement.

Does ME2 bring you up to speed with ME1 enough to be "engaging"?

 

[drunkenmaster]

Decent game but not great, ME1 is better in every regard.

ME2's story is, well, its linear and boring, its a bit wrong to say nothing really happened but thats how it felt. It was massively scaled down, from the tiny size of the Citadel to almost every location being much smaller, the planet scanning, while the whatever the heck the vehicle was called was painful in the first, they did almost the only thing they could to make it even more boring and irritating with the planet scanning.

THough, IIRC theres very little need for money in the second game compared to the first, guns were boring and linear progression where the first game getting real money meant buying the really best weapons.

DLC addon rubbish for the second game meant overpowered guns and armour straight away, the RGP part, as in your character growing was dumbed down severely and no where near as big a difference from start to finish as the first.

The dialogue and conversations in the first game were infinately better than the second.

ME2 is good, but ME1 was a 9.9/10 game, ME2 was a 8/10 game at best, largely because the story was MUCH worse. Combat is fine in both games, its certainly not close to brilliant combat in either games, both have their quirks and boring side missions, but a great RPG has a truly epic story, ME1 had that ME2 didn't.

Even saying all that, I'm not sure it didn't deserve to be game of the year, largely because so much out this year has been such a massive massive dissappointment.

Sequels lately(or maybe always) seem to be rushed, dumbed down and with significantly worse stories/dialogue/whatever, New Vegas and ME2 certainly are.

But was anything else this year a better game, I honestly can't remember.

 

[davewhite04]

Sequels lately(or maybe always) seem to be rushed, dumbed down and with significantly worse stories/dialogue/whatever, New Vegas and ME2 certainly are.

The bottom line for me is, ME 2 was a very good game compared to what's on offer out there. it is not as good as ME 1 in any way, apart from the combat.

Fallout NV on the other hand is better than Fallout 3 in every way, and I have played both for hours.

 

[krooton]

That reminds me, I can't be the only one who found the retained characters from number one through to number two, were generally more likeable than the new entries from 2. Not saying I didn't like any of the new characters, and it might be accidental nostalgia, but I just didn't take to the new team as well as I did to people like Tali and... Archangel

I found Engineers a bit pants in ME2, so Tali didn't feature much.

Mordin was my favourite new character, with Thane in second place, but my usual team was Archangel and Miranda as their powers complimented mine the best.

 

[ChrisJSY]

Does ME2 bring you up to speed with ME1 enough to be "engaging"?

Personally it would be like cutting into a trilogy of books or films from the second one, you might get the whole idea of things but you're not doing yourself any favours if you genuinely like the story.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I found Engineers a bit pants in ME2, so Tali didn't feature much.

Mordin was my favourite new character, with Thane in second place, but my usual team was Archangel and Miranda as their powers complimented mine the best.

I tended to play Tali and Archangel together simply because thier comparative combat ranges worked quite well to ensure I could always put damage into the enemy. *I played a sniper*.