Dissapointed by Mass Effect 2

I think I must be the only person who was seriously disappointed by this game. The story wasn't too bad, fairly generic sci-fi plot made somewhat more interesting by including a dash of modern politics [extreme nationalism, shady corporate interests, slavery]. The graphics were quite good though nothing remarkable.

But the combat and movement were ridiculously clunky compared with say Fallout 3. Why can't I jump, and why do I have to use their absurd cover system rather than just crouching behind something?

The art design was also disappointing, it seemed like every level looked like it was filled with lighting and props from a cheesy massive trance show. It's almost like they looked at the dirty neon cyberpunk of Bladerunner and stripped out all of the 'dirty' and most of the 'cyber.'

But the worst thing was the dialogue. It felt vaguely 'cinematic', almost like the worst movie I had ever seen. The characters seemed like absurd stereotypes that you couldn't possibly care about, by contrast in Fallout 3 I felt genuinely sad when a huge inhuman robot died.

Thats too bad. I thought it was the best game I have played in some time. Also I felt quite the opposite. I thought Fallout 3 was cold and uninteresting, where as ME2 was very emotionally engaging and exciting. The combat was very fast and very good (played on Veteran, then Insane). But with Fallout 3 the combat was made boring and rather lame with the VATS system, or the incredibly bad non-VATS combat.


Also, you have not seen many bad movies have you? The writing was good, especially if you were renegade.

Just too bad that you didn't enjoy it like I did.

shard said:

Thats too bad. I thought it was the best game I have played in some time. Also I felt quite the opposite. I thought Fallout 3 was cold and uninteresting, where as ME2 was very emotionally engaging and exciting. The combat was very fast and very good (played on Veteran, then Insane). But with Fallout 3 the combat was made boring and rather lame with the VATS system, or the incredibly bad non-VATS combat.


Also, you have not seen many bad movies have you? The writing was good, especially if you were renegade.

Just too bad that you didn't enjoy it like I did.

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Agreed.

The whole "Dialog feels like a movie thing" Is what Bioware is going for in their games. They WANT it to feel like a cinematic experience. Sure, Some of the dialog can be quite cheesy, or just sound...dumb and cliche'. But some of it is quite good too.

And I agree with shard, that I couldn't stand Fallout 3. I found that to be one of the most boring games I played on the PC recently. Fallout 3 would be the last thing I'd compare Mass Effect 2 to. Fallout 3 felt too open, with no direction, and WAY to much time between action. Could go nearly 5+ minutes of walking around the map, and finding NOTHING to interact with ( No enemies, no items, etc...)

I didn't feel like jumping was needed in ME2. There was nothing in the game that made me feel like I *needed* to jump for ANY reason.

I'm not saying ME2 was perfect. God no. I wish there was a bit more action in the game. The actual fighting was spread too far apart, and didn't always last long enough. not enough extra missions either ( when scanning a planet, you could find a mission to do ).

Also, I liked ME1's more "open" fighting style. You could go into a battle with guns 'a blazin and not die. The maps were less linear ( they were still VERY linear, but not as bad as ME2's missions ), and I didn't have to hide behind a damn rock or pillar every 3 seconds. But even though it forced you to use the cover system for 90% of all the battles, the combat was still quite fast, and very fun.

And yeah, While the Graphics in ME2 aren't "ZOMG!!!, TEH PRETTIES!!!", It still looks really good....Until you notice how many objects, armor, and characters tend to have VERY low resolution textures. ( look up close at Garrus's or Grunt's armor...looks pretty bad ).

But I still think ME2 was one of the BEST games I have played in quite a while, and by looking at what will be coming out later this year, I have a feeling it will easily be in my top 5 list of best games of 2010. Probably in my top 3 in all honesty. ( If Star Craft 2 lives up to it's reputation, it will easily take the #1 spot ).

eh, to each their own I guess.

There were a few times where I wanted to jump over barricades and the fact that I couldn't and had to fumble around with using the cover system to vault them instantly destroyed any sense of immersion.

Also, being able to wander around the ship and chat with people felt completely pointless and the travel between systems felt like a strange minigame you had to play to move to another level rather than a well integrated gameplay feature.

But the writing is my biggest complaint. It's not that it is worse than that of most other games, it's that Bioware are held in such high regard when actually their writers are pretty mediocre. Games like 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand or Gears of War make no pretence of being well written, they are just about shooting stuff. Mass Effect 2 clearly has cinematic pretensions, but instead of apeing hard gritty sci-fi like Children of Men or District 9 [or any of the 1000s of great sci-fi print stories out there] they apparently felt the need to copy from the generic mess of Babylon 5 and Star Trek guff. Incidentally I don't claim that either of the movies I mentioned are great work of scriptwriting, they just have reasonably believable characters, motivations and dialogue.

The Irish comic writer Graham Linehan made a comment in an interview last year to the effect that game writers no longer seem to actually read literature and that their only experience of dialogue comes from watching Scarface 300 times. He was specifically talking about Vice City, but I think the same kind of thing applies here.

>HyperlogiK< said:

But the writing is my biggest complaint. It's not that it is worse than that of most other games, it's that Bioware are held in such high regard when actually their writers are pretty mediocre.

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Agreed, I was quite disappointed in a lot of the dialogue in the game.. also the storyline was meh.. While it did look prettier and play pretty well most of the time, I still think it doesn't live up to its predecessor...

It does need more combat, but it might have felt that way because I tried to find and do almost all side missions/upgrades. Jumping would have been good to include but it wasn't really a game-killer in most levels.

Dialogue was decent. It seems like Bioware made more of a 'what would these characters think of saying on-the-fly, in their respective situations' style instead of a 'super creative shakespeare speech' kind. Which I actually find more 'believable'. Cause I doubt that individuals faced with those missions/decisions/etc. would be standing there and thinking for years of how to make up a 'good speech' or whatever; they would be more focused on getting things done and stopping the antagonist(s) before the situation gets worse. But I personally don't care how something is being said, as long as it gets understood. Would rather have them improve the gameplay than the dialogue; which was still good, could always use more combat though.

I wasn't suggesting Shakespearean English, just something a few grades above idiot fodder TV Sci-Fi.

On just how many military vessels does the captain chat up the crew without getting disciplined?

How many people ever begin a conversation with "Lets Chat?"

Half the time you seem to be able to resolve life or death situations with Jonathan Archer style "let's just get along" comments. The biggest problem here is that picking any given conversation option almost always works in the most obvious way. I don't remember any conversations in game where I tried to persuade somebody to do something and they said "Go to hell, I don't believe your bulls***."

>HyperlogiK< said:

I wasn't suggesting Shakespearean English, just something a few grades above idiot fodder TV Sci-Fi.

On just how many military vessels does the captain chat up the crew without getting disciplined?

How many people ever begin a conversation with "Lets Chat?"

Half the time you seem to be able to resolve life or death situations with Jonathan Archer style "let's just get along" comments. The biggest problem here is that picking any given conversation option almost always works in the most obvious way. I don't remember any conversations in game where I tried to persuade somebody to do something and they said "Go to hell, I don't believe your bulls***."

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Well, that does happen with Jack. What you're asking for is fine for a TV script or film but it would frustrate gamers no end if everything they tried ended up backfiring or producing unpredictable results, especially when your actions have repercussions.

Also it's not a military vessel. It's a copy of one but run exactly how Shepard wants it done. It's not part of the Alliance. Hence why you have to gain the loyalty of your team.

Lets chat is cheesy and unrealistic but it's an indicator to develop the stories of the characters.

You're criticisms are as though you're looking at a film, which in a way means that Bioware has been somewhat successful.

What directx is this game ?

Neural Net said:

Well, that does happen with Jack. What you're asking for is fine for a TV script or film but it would frustrate gamers no end if everything they tried ended up backfiring or producing unpredictable results, especially when your actions have repercussions.

Also it's not a military vessel. It's a copy of one but run exactly how Shepard wants it done. It's not part of the Alliance. Hence why you have to gain the loyalty of your team.

Lets chat is cheesy and unrealistic but it's an indicator to develop the stories of the characters.

You're criticisms are as though you're looking at a film, which in a way means that Bioware has been somewhat successful.

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"Lets chat" shouldn't be in there at all. An important rule while writing any kind of movie or game script is that If you can't 'implement' something fairly naturally you should give up on it completely otherwise it breaks the sense of immersion. I wouldn't have noticed if say, Jack, had no explicit back-story at all, but I did notice that she had a cheesy and badly written back-story that was shoved down my throat.

As far as the dialogue options go I'm not suggesting that everything you try should produce unpredictable results, but the conversation options shouldn't feel like the NPC has a series of buttons on their chest labelled "Be Happy" and "Be Intimidated." There is some middle-ground between a completely incoherent David Lynch script and this game.

That I compared the game to some badly written movies and TV shows isn't a sign of success, because there are already games that play like considerably better movies. Though the overall storylines are more or less as banal and generic as Mass Effect 2, Bethesda's RPGs from Morrowind onwards and the Fable series have vastly superior dialogue to this game. For example, NPCs lie to you and get offended by things you say. Even the STALKER titles often have more gritty and realistic conversation if you can look past the poor English translations and misuse of slang. So basically I'm saying that most of Bioware's major competitors write better AAA RPG titles than they do.

Another issue I have with this game is the soliloquies the characters tend to give, an example being the Doctor when you first meet him at the plague clinic. This isn't Elizabethan theatre and the characters don't need to give private speeches to the audience outlining their philosophy.

>HyperlogiK< said:

So basically I'm saying that most of Bioware's major competitors write better AAA RPG titles than they do.

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What compeditors?

Bioware is the only game company making AAA games that have these style of conversations. How many other RPG's let you actually choose what to say with nearly every conversation? A couple obscure japanese games do, but those aren't AAA titles either.

This style of conversation has only been a couple times before, and they were done by Bioware themselves ( and Obsidian, who did KOTOR 2 ).

This type of conversation system / dictate your own story is a new element to gaming. And you seem to expect it to be as good, if not better than elements of RPG's have have had 20+ years to be developed, and perfected over the years.

It would have been like having the first color TV, and complaining that the colors aren't realistic enough. Stuff takes time to progress, and tends to get better over time, and experience.


But I still do agree that some of the dialog is annoying. "Lets chat" shouldn't be in there. And when someone like jack says " I don't want to talk to you right now, Go away ", there's no need for your character to then say "Well, I'm going to go now". You should just walk away when jack blows you off.

But while certain dialog options are dumb, and needless, I still stand by my assessment of this game.

>HyperlogiK< said:

"Lets chat" shouldn't be in there at all. An important rule while writing any kind of movie or game script is that If you can't 'implement' something fairly naturally you should give up on it completely otherwise it breaks the sense of immersion. I wouldn't have noticed if say, Jack, had no explicit back-story at all, but I did notice that she had a cheesy and badly written back-story that was shoved down my throat.

As far as the dialogue options go I'm not suggesting that everything you try should produce unpredictable results, but the conversation options shouldn't feel like the NPC has a series of buttons on their chest labelled "Be Happy" and "Be Intimidated." There is some middle-ground between a completely incoherent David Lynch script and this game.

That I compared the game to some badly written movies and TV shows isn't a sign of success, because there are already games that play like considerably better movies. Though the overall storylines are more or less as banal and generic as Mass Effect 2, Bethesda's RPGs from Morrowind onwards and the Fable series have vastly superior dialogue to this game. For example, NPCs lie to you and get offended by things you say. Even the STALKER titles often have more gritty and realistic conversation if you can look past the poor English translations and misuse of slang. So basically I'm saying that most of Bioware's major competitors write better AAA RPG titles than they do.

Another issue I have with this game is the soliloquies the characters tend to give, an example being the Doctor when you first meet him at the plague clinic. This isn't Elizabethan theatre and the characters don't need to give private speeches to the audience outlining their philosophy.

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I think you're confused at to what this game is. Did you watch any trailers or read any previews before playing it? What were you expecting?!

The dialog is the best part of Bioware games. I love having long conversations especially in Dragon Age. I would look forward to the end of fight and would say good maybe I can talk now. I'm not a huge reader, and if you are and like a more sophisticated writing style then that's fine but the dialog in this game was fantastic imo. Even though I've played the first game 5 million times I hardly ever skip the dialog. It just sounds so good to me.

I bought mass effect 2 off Steam yesterday, been playing it all day today... i love it!! It's better than the first one IMO...

zexmarquies01 said:

What compeditors?

Bioware is the only game company making AAA games that have these style of conversations. How many other RPG's let you actually choose what to say with nearly every conversation? A couple obscure japanese games do, but those aren't AAA titles either.

This style of conversation has only been a couple times before, and they were done by Bioware themselves ( and Obsidian, who did KOTOR 2 ).

This type of conversation system / dictate your own story is a new element to gaming. And you seem to expect it to be as good, if not better than elements of RPG's have have had 20+ years to be developed, and perfected over the years.

It would have been like having the first color TV, and complaining that the colors aren't realistic enough. Stuff takes time to progress, and tends to get better over time, and experience.


But I still do agree that some of the dialog is annoying. "Lets chat" shouldn't be in there. And when someone like jack says " I don't want to talk to you right now, Go away ", there's no need for your character to then say "Well, I'm going to go now". You should just walk away when jack blows you off.

But while certain dialog options are dumb, and needless, I still stand by my assessment of this game.

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Most of Bethesda's games do and the Stalker series do. In fact I'd argue that people were doing this in some of the text based RPGs and Adventure games from the 1980s.

As far as the colour TV analogy goes, it's not like they are inventing conversation from scratch. As a former avid NWN modder I'd say that the main difficulty in writing topiary dialogue isn't the dialogue itself. It is having a coherent script/story arc and making sure that the different conversation paths all fit into it. As far as writing any single conversation goes it is basically the same as an action novel or filmscript, character one says something and then you have to think of a bunch of plausible, in character, responses to that.

I just don't think that game writing is progressing AT ALL, some of the best game scripts were written over 20 years ago. Starship Titanic and The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy had scripts better than the combined efforts of almost all of the current AAA RPG studios. Considering the vast budgets available for major titles there should be more of a move towards hiring clever novelists or screenwriters to do scripts rather than just blowing it all on a Cryengine licence.

I have not played ME2 yet, but expect it to be on par with Dragon Age as for the dialouge options. Normally in RPGs games during converstaion it is formulaic, and I always find myself going "What can't I just say _____"

That happened maybe twice in the entire dragon age game.

It happened quite a few times in the first ME game though, but looking at how Bioware has evolved lately. I am going to be picking this game up as well