Mass Effect vs Mass Effect 2, a discussion

So I recently finished Mass Effect 2 (for PC) and was hoping to have a discussion on how other people felt it compared to the original Mass Effect. What changes people thought were for the better or worse and which game people liked more.

This thread will contain spoliers.

(Game) Conclusion:
Both games had good conclusions but I thought ME2's was a little more epic feeling.
I liked in ME2 how you had to choose specific squad members for things. I felt like more was at stake in the ME2 conclusion although I thought the end boss was a little lacking. That being said I did think the ability to get saren to off himself in ME1 was pretty cool. I think I would have to give the conclusion of the game to ME2 just because it felt like you could lose a lot and hence felt more epic to me.

Story Progression.
I liked the Story progression in ME1 MUCH better then ME2.
I just really didnt feel like that much happened before the end of ME2. In ME1 I felt like each mission I did advanced me further along the main story with Prothean beacons, becoming a spectre, looking for clues to saren. Most of the characters you got along the way, when doing missions that had another purpose. With ME2 I did not get that feeling at all, getting people was the game.. I felt in ME2 it was, hey your back, go get some people, oh look your done climax time, there was a little with the collector stuff, but it was not much at all it felt like to me.

MediGel:
I thought ME2's use of medigel was a good improvement over ME1

Ammo and Grenades:
I thought heavy weapons with ammo were a good change from ME1 to ME2
I thought ammo for normal guns was a TERRIBLE change from ME1 to ME2. I found this to be very annoying as it makes it so you can't be a sniper and have enough ammo. Also the way they did it makes no sense to me...if things are going to have "universal ammo" have them have universal ammo. if the ammo clips that fit in my sniper rifle also fit into my pistols why are they stored in seperate pools. Also why can't I just buy more when I am at the store. I got so fed up with this change roughly half way through the game I started using a memory scanner to give myself unlimited ammo because I wanted to be a sniper not a guy who runs around with a pistol.


Weapons:
ME2 pistols were a good change from ME1.

Equipment upgrades:
I like buying and selling new equipment.
Maybe I have just played too many older RPGS, but there is something about getting new stuff that makes it seem like your character is progressing.

Interface:
Character/Power Screen: I thought ME1 had a much better interface. It was easier to see your health and your party members health and there was no overlap on the power/weapon selection screen.
Ship Interface: I found the buying fueling/driving the ship around to be kind of annoying. It's not like shepard would be doing that anyways, joker would be flying it around shepard would just tell him which system to go to.

Characters:
I thought the loyalty missions were a nice touch.
Personally I liked the ME1 characters better.
It felt like the ME1 characters talked to each other more. I suppose this was a function of the old elevators but I felt I got to know them a lot better and it felt more like a team in ME1.
I suppose I also felt like I knew my ME1 team better because there were more missions I did with the whole team.
ME2 did a better job developing the side characters like joker, EDI and the engineers.

Skills:
I liked the ME1 way of doing skills better.
This mostly plays into the weapons/ammo thing. Ammo does not seem like it should be a skill I have to level. It's ammo. you put it in your gun and shoot it. Aiming however does make sense and getting better accuracy as you progress makes sense too. Because of the way ammo works I almost felt forced into speccing into ammo.


Power Cooldowns:
I don't like the shared power cooldowns in ME2. I think it makes it more of a pain to play a power focused character and I don't like it.

The ME1 Truck:
The only problem I had with the ME1 truck was the drive around and collect ore/other stuff missions. They got rid of the truck but kept those in the form of planet scanning. Not really a negative or a positive for either but I thought the truck was kind of fun to drive.


Overall: My impressions of ME1 vs ME2
Don't get me wrong, both games are good games. But I liked mass effect 1 much more. I am on my 4th replay of mass Effect 1 right now and enjoying it...Mass Effect 2 a good portion of the game I found myself thinking about playing mass effect 1. I couldn't get over the feeling during ME2 that I was playing gears of mass effect. I am hoping ME3 will follow more after ME1, although that remains to be seen seeing as a good portion of reviewers rated #2 a little better.


I am curious...What were the ups and downs of each game for you guys?

I am not going to go too much in depth but my thoughts on the issue is this. I really never got that much of an emotional attachment to ME1 as I did to ME2. But I felt pretty let down that ME2 really butchered the RPG aspects of the game. I really did like how ME2 was a good deal more action oriented though.

As for the ammo issue. I really liked that they moved to limited ammo. Actually made you play better. Especially on the hardest difficulties. I hope it sticks around in the 3rd one, albiet hopefully handled a bit better.

I loved ME1. ME2 is ok. I am on my second play through this time with a previous saved character. Still not really impressed. It seems EA had Bioware gut the RPG out of it so the simpletons who purchased ME1 and found out it was an RPG not a 3rd person shooter would be placated. Its a good story but I would have much rather had ME1 with improved vehicle handling, more exploration of random planets, more side questing. You know an actual RPG experience.

I felt like the took a lot of options away from combat in ME2. You have less abilities, less squad control, less freedom to use your abilities how you want and less options to use what guns you want. That says nothing of the missing story and exploration either.


mstersmith, that is pretty much how I felt exactly.

TheGreySpectre said:

I felt like the took a lot of options away from combat in ME2. You have less abilities, less squad control, less freedom to use your abilities how you want and less options to use what guns you want. That says nothing of the missing story and exploration either.


mstersmith, that is pretty much how I felt exactly.

Click to expand...

Dont fear GreySpectre Bioware has acknowleged the mistake and plans on merging both ME1 and ME2 play styles. I acually look forward to seeing this happen. Honestly if they screw up DAO II I will probably stop buying there games all together and chalk another one up to EA greed.

That is the best gaming news I have heard in awhile.

I managed to pick up both Mass Effect 1 and 2 over the summer and played them back to back, so I feel like I've got a pretty honest opinion about the two games. They both are fantastic games, overall however, I think Mass Effect 2 is a better game. The story was a bit weaker, more so stretched thin, but it was all around a better game.

Mass Effect 1 had a decent story but the game just wasn't polished, it had too many rough edges that needed to be sanded down. The combat system was a bit wonky and really never gave me that tingling sensation Mass Effect 2 gave me. In all honesty I'd go as far as to say that Mass Effect 2 was one of the better games I've ever played, that's aside from the fact that the story was stretched too thin. It was developed with a sequel in mind, which might explain why the entire story involves you getting a crew ready for one giant battle with a massive terminator-like skeleton.

Nonetheless, I haven't felt such a strong connection to a game in years. Mass Effect 2 is hands down the better of the two, in my own opinion. The atmosphere is rich and full of creativity that just begs at you to believe you really are in a bar on Omega, the combat system is fluid and rarely becomes tiring, and the interactive story line that leads to real consequences is a blast.

Im with you, I liked ME1 better. ME2 is like you say, collect people and go climax, yes, it`s epic how they put some things, it really is, but it lacks of suspense I guess, since most of the time you know what`s gonna happen. The story in the 1st one is so much better unfolded. It has unexpected twists, and better characters. And of course the weapon system was downgraded IMO. I hope ME3 gets the best of the 2 cause the game(ME1 & 2) in general is one of the best games I`ve played.

For me... Mass Effect was like a good, well-told interactive story, like "playing a book". Mass Effect 2 was a good cinematic-carved action-oriented ride with a much weaker story. They both appeal to a different audience in my humble opinion, but they're both very good on their own. I would say however that overall the original Mass Effect is better, I think that one of the various reasons why I preferred it over ME2 is due to the presence of a well established and intimidating antagonist, while most of the missions were focused on the main tasks at hand, from the context, while ME2 was less focused on the main task at hand by the context and more centered around your teammates and trying to play psychiatrist with them, to be honest I'd rather chase Saren in a race against time itself rather than babysit shipmates. My main complaint about ME2 is being forced to work for/with Cerberus, it's the greatest contradiction I could have thought about (or couldn't have thought about, perhaps).

But, anyway, as I mentioned, overall I liked both games, but I loved the original, it was (and still is) just magnificent.