-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Mass Effect 2 is my most loved game of the generation
- Thread starter Daingurse
- Start date
Mass Effect
Member
Wow. Usually I can tell the difference really easily, but I guess not this time. Yvonne definitely sounds Australian in the interviews I saw, but I went back and listened to some Miranda dialogue and she sounds British to me. And as far as Zaeed goes, I went back and listened and yeah, he doesn't sound Australian (because he's not...), but his accent sounds strange to me. It doesn't sound like the typical London accent to me, but maybe that's because his voice is so raspy it's hard to tell. I don't know. I just know I feel stupid for mixing the two up.
And I watch plenty of British TV (Top Gear, Dr. Who, Copper).
I loved ME2 and I can recognize it as the better all around game, but ME1 is still my personal favorite. Experiencing that universe for the first time was really something, and it felt like a more replayable game. The whole ending sequence might be the best of the generation too. ME2's ending is close but the reaper baby knocks it down just a bit.
Honestly Mass Effect 1 is great, and the combat (my main gripe with the game) is far more fluid on pc. But I still found it clunky and less fun compared to Mass Effect 2's admittedly flawed cover shooting. Also Engineer is just plain ass in Mass Effect 1. My hardass renegade Femshep suffered so much before all the mechanics introduced in 2 and 3.
JimmyRustler
Member
Liked the game but I still cannot forgive BioWare that the got rid of the planet cruising instead of improving it.
It is a brilliant game. The characters, some of the writing (like Legion, Mordin), multiple (smaller) hubs, fun and engaging missions, memorable moments, loyalty missions, holstering (!) and Illium probably remains my favourite place in the trilogy.
The only bad things are the HORRIBLE planet scanning crap and some tacked on side-missions. Other than that, it's one of my favourites in the trilogy. And even though the overall writing quality severely diminished in ME 3, after replaying it recently, I've learned to love and appreciate it too.
The only bad things are the HORRIBLE planet scanning crap and some tacked on side-missions. Other than that, it's one of my favourites in the trilogy. And even though the overall writing quality severely diminished in ME 3, after replaying it recently, I've learned to love and appreciate it too.
Forceatowulf
G***n S**n*bi
I played all 3 back to back to back last December/Jan and I definitely loved ME2 the most. that game was so much god damn fun. The missions were great, the characters were great, the art design was great, the enemies were great. I loved it!
ME1 and 3 I also enjoyed, but to a lesser extent. One of the things that really stuck out to me playing all these games back to back was the lack of enemy diversity in ME1/3. Fighting amost nothing but Geth and Cerberus in both games got old fast as fuck man...
ME1 and 3 I also enjoyed, but to a lesser extent. One of the things that really stuck out to me playing all these games back to back was the lack of enemy diversity in ME1/3. Fighting amost nothing but Geth and Cerberus in both games got old fast as fuck man...
Quite an experience. I think it's an easy top 10 of the generation for me. Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted 2 probably take top honours for my favourite AAA Western games this gen.
I don't think I've ever gotten so embroiled in the lore of any game series until I played ME2. Actually read a couple of the novels, which I thought were decent, and I bought that gigantic art book they released with ME3.
I don't think I've ever gotten so embroiled in the lore of any game series until I played ME2. Actually read a couple of the novels, which I thought were decent, and I bought that gigantic art book they released with ME3.
WrenchNinja
Member
I shit on it so often but I did play through it five times. Maybe Im just tsundere for Mass Effect 2. Its not like I really like you or anything...
Colonel Nasty
Member
This was such a great game. I loved the characters, the story, the final mission and all the outcomes. I didn't even mind the boss too much. Definitely in my top 3.
Forceatowulf
G***n S**n*bi
And not being able to holster in ME3 really bugged me. it bugged me more than the infamous supposedly atrocious ending I was preparing my self for. But in the end the most egregious thing about ME3 was the lack of holstering. The fuck was that shit Bioware.. the fuck was that...
Riposte
Member
I would give it like 3/5 (for all three games, really), yet I did play a few times too. I haven't really pinned down why the game sucked me in. It certainly wasn't the combat or exploration... it must have been a feat of atmosphere (like the story structure I just praised).
gollumsluvslave
Member
ME1 >> ME2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ME3
Played ME1 about 4 or 5 times, ME2 twice and ME3 once. Can't imagine I'll play ME3 again, even if I try a whole trilogy replay.
ME2 improved some aspects of the game, but really messed up on others.
Played ME1 about 4 or 5 times, ME2 twice and ME3 once. Can't imagine I'll play ME3 again, even if I try a whole trilogy replay.
ME2 improved some aspects of the game, but really messed up on others.
This is also one of my nitpicks.
Kitschkraft
Member
While I definitely prefer ME1, I will say that that's a nice lookin' character OP.
Appreciate it. My original Mass Effect character, he was pretty much my ideal self haha.
WrenchNinja
Member
Maybe its the whole oceans eleven/ dirty dozen vibe. Its the closest a game has gotten to emulating that sort of feeling and the suicide mission sort of feels like a heist.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
ME2 is the game I replayed the most this generation (although not the game I spent the most time with, which was Company of Heroes followed by Europa Universalis 3). Really enjoyed it, although I have no intention of playing it in the near future. I think I completed it 6-7 times total.
"For all the legitimate complaints about its dubious structure, its stripped down RPG elements, and what it actually brings to the intended trilogy's storyline, moment to moment it's a fantastic experience and easily the best Bioware game since Baldur's Gate 2. " EviLore - NeoGAF
It's on the box, look it up. Oh, and I agree with the OP, loved Mass Effect 2 in 2010.
It's on the box, look it up. Oh, and I agree with the OP, loved Mass Effect 2 in 2010.
SkullplateMurray
Member
This. It felt like a whole season of a really amazing sci-fi show.
You had the over-arching plot thread and the episodes which dipped into it, then more standalone episodes focusing on particular characters. An effects-laden intro mission, strong 'mid-season finale' and stunning ending. Brilliant writing and some of the best characters BioWare has ever created.
manzo
Member
I finished Mass Effect 1 together with my wife. We both loved the game and enjoyed the Mako exploration (I know this was poison to lots of people).
We eagerly waited ME2 and both of us were disappointed that the game had changed to a generic shootbang with extremely minimal RPG elements.
It also didn't help that the plot in 2 was extremely forgettable. The game felt like a big sidequest anyway. Mass Effect 1 ---> straight to Mass Effect 3 would've been a good transition.
We eagerly waited ME2 and both of us were disappointed that the game had changed to a generic shootbang with extremely minimal RPG elements.
It also didn't help that the plot in 2 was extremely forgettable. The game felt like a big sidequest anyway. Mass Effect 1 ---> straight to Mass Effect 3 would've been a good transition.
Only the free DLC you'd get by purchasing new copies of the standalone versions:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/mass-effect-trilogy-dlc-detailed-6397522
The Mass Effect trilogy has a lot of quality DLC, but it also tends to be expensive for what you get. It's really too bad they never released versions with the DLC included.
A lot of old school RPGs did that, on top of my head Eye Of The Beholder, Realms Of Arkania and some of the Might And Magic games. It was a pretty common option for RPGs with multiple episodes, but now it seems forgotten.
Hmm very interesting. I did remember a series after my original post though, The Witcher games! Don't know how I could forget, considering I fucking love those games too.
Riposte
Member
IIRC those were examples of only your stats coming over, not so much a collection of choices and whatnot. I remember being pretty bummed with what Baldur's Gate 2 did.
eot
Banned
Being reductive is not proper criticism, it's just being reductive. You can't ignore 90% of the game and say the story was bad, it would also help if you stopped using story and narrative interchangeably.
Anyway, the central plot is just a framing device for meeting all these characters and exploring different parts of the universe. Saying that the central plot isn't a big focus is just a statement of fact, not uncovering some great flaw, not every story is focused on plot. A detective novel might be all about plot, whereas a movie like Lost in Translation isn't at all.
I enjoyed Mass effect 1 more than 2 (I guess it was because of my age, I was younger when ME1 came out and played it many more times). Then, the third part destroyed the meaning of recluting characters and made the second part pointless.
It is pretty good actually and I was VERY impressed by the graphics, really. This trilogy could be one of the best easily... I cannot find something similar (no KOTOR, I am tired of Star Wars universe).
It is pretty good actually and I was VERY impressed by the graphics, really. This trilogy could be one of the best easily... I cannot find something similar (no KOTOR, I am tired of Star Wars universe).
Digressive
Neo Member
Wholeheartedly agree. The entire trilogy is fantastic and I think it broke a lot of new ground but Mass Effect 2 is my favourite game this generation. It had a massive effect on me (crappy pun intended) as a gamer and as a person.
TheLegendOfMart
Banned
I was under the impression that the reapers create a new reaper every cycle and that the reaper takes on the form of the species they are collecting, hence why a lot of them look like the Leviathan race and why the one in the collector base was a human reaper.
Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyofzTevMEU , Dat score.
eot
Banned
Nah it's not broken, you just have to build your character right, pick the right squad and use pause a lot. ME2 on Insanity is great. It becomes quite slow paced, but I came to enjoy that.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
They all look that way, their outer shells differ very minimally from what we've seen. There would not have been a giant terminator flying through space like Superman if it got completed, as hilariously awful as that mental picture is. Everything about the Reapers is moronic, and why they would bother to build a useless giant human robot just to encase it inside a shell it never leaves anyway is one of the less important ones.
Trickster
Member
Like the other ME games it was a good solid game.
But there are some things I really dislike about it.
It had character importing from ME1, great. Unfortunately none of the decissions you made in ME1 matters, and are hardly touched upon. Someone remind me what big changes occur in ME2 based on whether you save or abandon the concil at the end of ME1? You can't, there are no big changes.
The vast majority of the game is about you finding crewmates to help you against the reapers. Many of these crewmates however are not even part of your squad in ME3. Making large chunks of the content in ME2 pointless in the scope of the trilogy.
They also went from having an amazing story in ME1 that ended a really strong note. To a different but still entertaining, but less reaper centric story in ME2. And then at the end they went full retard with the story.
Point 1 and 3 also apply to ME3.
But there are some things I really dislike about it.
It had character importing from ME1, great. Unfortunately none of the decissions you made in ME1 matters, and are hardly touched upon. Someone remind me what big changes occur in ME2 based on whether you save or abandon the concil at the end of ME1? You can't, there are no big changes.
The vast majority of the game is about you finding crewmates to help you against the reapers. Many of these crewmates however are not even part of your squad in ME3. Making large chunks of the content in ME2 pointless in the scope of the trilogy.
They also went from having an amazing story in ME1 that ended a really strong note. To a different but still entertaining, but less reaper centric story in ME2. And then at the end they went full retard with the story.
Human Reaper, seriously bioware?...
Point 1 and 3 also apply to ME3.
I think there are a few distinct differences between a t.v. series and Mass Effect to make this comparison a little weak.
For starters, most television series are designed to be open ended because the creators are hoping to get multiple seasons from their concept. By its nature, the narrative of the show is going to be weak because they want to leave it as flexible as possible so they can adjust to the network's time frames. However, this doesn't preclude them from having to worry about the narrative either. Many times shows are created with either a specific character story to tie the whole series together or an overall conflict that can be addressed from time to time.
Take The Mentalist for example. The larger narrative is the conflict between Jane and Red John and his determination to hunt down the man responsible for his wife's murder. Most of the day to day stories, however, are just the police force solving your average homicide. Even though much of the series' stories are unrelated to the narrative doesn't preclude us from being able to judge the ones that deal with Red John and how they're pretty ridiculous whenever they come up.
And this brings us back to Mass Effect. It wasn't developed like a t.v. series and had a very distinct beginning, middle and end planned out. Now, you don't need an omnipresent narrative for the structure they adopted to work but you still need those narrative "episodes" to be good and for those story "episodes" to feed back into that narrative.
And they weren't and they didn't. There's no excuse for that since the developers knew the exact structure they were working these side quests into. They don't have an excuse like the network yanked their show a year before they thought and had to rush all their narrative heavy plot into the final episode in order to conclude it. The entire motivation for ME2 was assembling a crew for this suicide mission but no real effort was made to work with the whys and the mission itself - which was meant to be this great coming together of all the stray elements - was so bland and generic that pinning the entire narrative on it made it come falling apart when it flopped.
Not to mention the story of ME2 didn't help the overall narrative of the entire franchise. There are some basic structures you'll often notice in trilogies and ME2 didn't hit any of them. It really felt like a spin-off jammed into the middle of its original plot with the hope the audience wouldn't notice. Probably the most egregious stumble is the fact that the final decision in the second has effectively no impact on the third.
Confidence Man
Member
No game has made me rage harder. To think what they could've done with a sequel to Mass Effect... and they gave us this. Dumbed down all around with nothing redeeming at all.
Star Falcon
Member
Loved the game. Building up the Normandy again, strengthening your team - i love that kind of stuff. Just walking around your ship, talking to your crewmates was a great way to pass the time (also liked little touches such as the collectable warships). It gave me that feeling you used to get in the Final Fantasy games where you could walk around the airship and see what everyone is upto.
Some of the set pieces in the game are absolutely breathtaking. The Collector Base and Reaper IFF missions in particular. Blasting your way through enemies (combat was infinitely improved over the clunky ME1) to the majestic musical scores with a dying star, bustling metropolis or eerie space looming the background was a great feeling.
The end mission was one of my most memorable experiences in a video game. Having your whole team with you, dividing up who goes where (weighing up the risks and not wanting to put anyone you had grown particularly attached to in danger) was an experience i had not had since the final mission of Final Fantasy VI many years ago. My first run through was not perfect - my heart wrenched as i lost 2 squad members - but that emotional feel and cheesy ending of Shepard and his rag-tag band of heroes flying off into the sunset was the perfect ending to me.
I wouldn't call it my #1 game of the generation - Dark Souls gets that spot so far. But i can't think of anything more worthy of runner-up than Mass Effect 2.
Edit: This piece of music takes me right back to why i love the game - Legion's theme from the Reaper IFF mission.
Some of the set pieces in the game are absolutely breathtaking. The Collector Base and Reaper IFF missions in particular. Blasting your way through enemies (combat was infinitely improved over the clunky ME1) to the majestic musical scores with a dying star, bustling metropolis or eerie space looming the background was a great feeling.
The end mission was one of my most memorable experiences in a video game. Having your whole team with you, dividing up who goes where (weighing up the risks and not wanting to put anyone you had grown particularly attached to in danger) was an experience i had not had since the final mission of Final Fantasy VI many years ago. My first run through was not perfect - my heart wrenched as i lost 2 squad members - but that emotional feel and cheesy ending of Shepard and his rag-tag band of heroes flying off into the sunset was the perfect ending to me.
I wouldn't call it my #1 game of the generation - Dark Souls gets that spot so far. But i can't think of anything more worthy of runner-up than Mass Effect 2.
Edit: This piece of music takes me right back to why i love the game - Legion's theme from the Reaper IFF mission.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Mass Effect 2 is an excellent, excellent game.
Although ME3 have better combat and gun/power customization than ME2, I agree that overall, ME2 is the better game. If only ME3 was an improved ME2 in every aspects, it would have been sooo good. Loved having multiple hubs(I really wanted to see Illium again in ME3 
) and having so many sidequests to do(where they ALL actually made you land on planets instead of probing half of them!).
That planet scanning minigame can go to hell though.
I'm hoping that ME4 will take the best aspects of all 3 games and combine them to make the best Mass Effect game ever. But that's probably asking for too much. I'll still buy it though.
) and having so many sidequests to do(where they ALL actually made you land on planets instead of probing half of them!).That planet scanning minigame can go to hell though.
I'm hoping that ME4 will take the best aspects of all 3 games and combine them to make the best Mass Effect game ever. But that's probably asking for too much.
I'll still buy it though.Captain Tuttle
Member
In my top ten for the generation but ME and ME3 (with the fixed ending and the Citadel DLC) are in that top ten as well.
Never really understood the love mass effect gets. The fiction is really great but I just couldn't get invested in any of the characters. I think it was because they all appeared very robotic, no facial animation besides lip syncing etc. Also I thought the combat was pretty bad. Just not my thing I guess
It's up there for me.
That suicide mission was one of the most nerve wracking things I've done in gaming in recent memory. By the time it happens, I genuinely cared about everyone, and was second guessing every decision I made at the end. Was one of the first moments in gaming where I actually felt I was a leader of a very diverse squad that all depended on my decisions to live or die.
The music was great, the characters were good, and this was just a great setup for part 3.
.....yeah, I'll ignore that and say 2 was a damn solid game, definitely top 10 for me, just may be top 5 this gen.
That suicide mission was one of the most nerve wracking things I've done in gaming in recent memory. By the time it happens, I genuinely cared about everyone, and was second guessing every decision I made at the end. Was one of the first moments in gaming where I actually felt I was a leader of a very diverse squad that all depended on my decisions to live or die.
The music was great, the characters were good, and this was just a great setup for part 3.
.....yeah, I'll ignore that and say 2 was a damn solid game, definitely top 10 for me, just may be top 5 this gen.
Star Falcon
Member
Yeah i think Shadow Broker has to be one of the highest quality pieces of DLC i have ever purchased. Absolutely loved the design for his ship, again another great set piece.
Similar threads
- Poll