Mass Effect 2 - Retrospective @ EuroGamer

Myrthos

Cave Canem
Administrator
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
EuroGamer goes back in time with Mass Effect 2, finding it one of Bioware's better games.

"Character is plot, plot is character," said F Scott Fitzgerald, though it's a guideline to which very few games adhere. Usually they focus on plot, either by metering it out as a series of objectives for the player to follow, or by cutting it up, mixing up the pieces and letting the player pick a handful out of a bag. Character, if it happens at all, does so somewhere down the line.

Even the mighty Mass Effect fell into this trap. Its story is all Spectres and Geth, Rachni and Thorians. It focuses on establishing a universe, and does so by laying out a complex and sometimes overwhelming buffet of lore. "The devs can't help letting you gorge on it - to a fault," wrote Tom Bramwell in his retrospective of the original. In this vast milieu of races, cultures, and organisations all at the mercy of some galaxy-eating threat, individuals got a little lost, and the game ended up feeling somewhat cold.

Mass Effect 2 changes all that. With the series' major mystery - the existence of the Reapers - unveiled in the first game, BioWare needed to find a new way to invest the player. So Mass Effect 2 strips back much of what slowed the first game down, and in doing so exposes the pink and tender flesh of character hidden amid all that lore.
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
In ME2 Bioware changed the concept massively and it has EA written all over it.
Less RPG, more action, more butts&boobs, pay2win-for-the-sequel expensive and never-to-be-on-sale DLC. And just to make sure everything is fair, four music tracks composers were NOT mentioned in credits and those tracks, possibly the best ones in the whole game, were never added to any of ME OST albums.

That's not Bioware, that's EA.

This doesn't mean that the game sucks. It's fun. The story doesn't contain any plot holes (at least I didn't notice any) and the game has a proper ending. I dare to say ME2's ending is the best (choices dependant) ending Bioware ever made.

Maybe too many story arcs from the first game were left unclear, probably to be used in the third game which of course, didn't happen. For example we never really learn anything about ExoGeni. But okay, I'll drop it and blame ME3 on it as Ray Muzyka promised nothing will be left unclear in ME3 which was a blatant lie and I bet the reason he left Bioware soon after.

ME1 and ME2 are IMO musthave and mustplay games.
But also IMO, ME1 is a far better game than ME2 because it respects both fans and it's creators. ME2 completely failed in that segment.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
But why? It's better than both NWN combined.

No, I will not be dragged into comparing DLC! I buy games, not game engines.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
The actual quote in the Twitter message through which I found this news was: BioWare at its best: a Mass Effect 2 retrospective
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
I thought ME2 was great! Not a classic RPG, certainly, and a very different direction for the franchise from ME1— but still fun as hell.

My only complaint with the plot is that I didn't understand why they completely scrapped the whole SPECTRE thing, which is odd since that was the point of the first game. The PC was never stripped of SPECTRE status after his presumed death AFAIK, and even now working with Cerberus the PC should still have been humanity's first SPECTRE with all the ninja authority he/she had before.
 
Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
1,748
Location
San Juan Islands, WA
Cerberus is basically a xenophobic organisation. Council and Spectres are a completely opposite thing. It would be illogical if the story insisted that Council, no matter who's in charge based on your choice in ME1, works close with Cerberus.
The main interest in ME2 was mutual, and that's to erradicate Collectors. Completely. So they can't respawn ever again since this is not Skyrim, at least you think they're extinct till you try ME3 multiplayer. But again, it's ME3 to blame, not ME2. :)

But in the end of ME2 you can't please both sides when you have to decide to destroy or keep the reaper.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
So they can't respawn ever again since this is not Skyrim, at least you think they're extinct till you try ME3 multiplayer. But again, it's ME3 to blame, not ME2. :)

If I told you that every single post you make about Skyrim and respawn is beginning to resemble respawn in itself, would you kindly stop dribbling on about such nonsense and making non-sequiturs every second sentence? :p
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
1,974
Location
Australia
You'd have to make a norespawn mod. :)
It's easy don't worry. You don't have to be a mod(erat)er and use the stick of bans. Just say you now know exactly how it feels when something is so unbelievably annoying but is somehow unavoidable.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Cerberus is basically a xenophobic organisation. Council and Spectres are a completely opposite thing. It would be illogical if the story insisted that Council, no matter who's in charge based on your choice in ME1, works close with Cerberus.
The main interest in ME2 was mutual, and that's to erradicate Collectors. Completely. So they can't respawn ever again since this is not Skyrim, at least you think they're extinct till you try ME3 multiplayer. But again, it's ME3 to blame, not ME2. :)

But in the end of ME2 you can't please both sides when you have to decide to destroy or keep the reaper.

Thing is, time and again Cerberus showed they were willing to use 'whatever means necessary' to accomplish their goals. Which is why it's odd they wouldn't want to use Shepherd's authority and status as a SPECTRE, as it would have been incredibly helpful even if Cerberus were at odds with the official channels of human gov't. It just didn't make sense in a narrative sense that they'd close that door…
 
Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
1,748
Location
San Juan Islands, WA
It's interesting how tastes differ. Never Winter Nights I is probably my least favourite Bioware game*.

Did you ever play multiplayer, Hordes of the Underdark - or any of the dozens of top-tier community-created mods?
 
Did you ever play multiplayer, Hordes of the Underdark - or any of the dozens of top-tier community-created mods?

Hordes of the Underdark was good and I did play multiplayer, and thought that was the best part of the game. So in those aspects I agree with you. On the other hand I wouldn't rate Oblivion highly based on mods which changed a lot of the gameplay. So while I would agree with the things you find good, I found the original single player campaign and the first add on campaign (the one with the kolbold bard) were pretty lousy storywise. I also felt that Neverwinter Nights I looked like a game made with building blocks. I found it visually extremely disappointing when compared with Icewind Dale 2, and the companions were for the most part more of an afterthought ( though they got progressively better in the addons). Again that's just my opinion and I can accept that other might not agree with me.
 
Joined
Jan 29, 2014
Messages
2,717
Location
Vienna, Austria
Hordes of the Underdark was good and I did play multiplayer, and thought that was the best part of the game. So in those aspects I agree with you. On the other hand I wouldn't rate Oblivion highly based on mods which changed a lot of the gameplay. So while I would agree with the things you find good, I found the original single player campaign and the first add on campaign (the one with the kolbold bard) were pretty lousy storywise. I also felt that Neverwinter Nights I looked like a game made with building blocks. I found it visually extremely disappointing when compared with Icewind Dale 2, and the companions were for the most part more of an afterthought ( though they got progressively better in the addons). Again that's just my opinion and I can accept that other might not agree with me.

While I agree Oblivion shouldn't be rated based on mods - the editor/modding functionality should be a part of it.

Also, I'm not rating according to score as such - just to how much fun I've had with them overall, and for how long.

NWN was MP centric and it's still the closest we've been to a computer PnP experience - and that's the core of what I think people should understand when rating it, because that was the entire design paradigm - and Bioware was open about that from the onset. The singleplayer campaign was an obvious rush-job, though it was still quite good as a cooperative "action RPG" kind of experience.

It's certainly better as a campaign than the travesty of Temple of Elemental Evil, which a lot of people give a pass because they like the tactical combat system. But, if you think about it, the actual story content and campaign of the computer game implementation is a complete joke.

I actually quite liked Shadows of Undrentide, but to each his own.

NWN2 had a much better launch campaign, but the MP aspect was all but ruined by the clumsy fingers of Obsidian.

As such, I found NWN miles ahead of ME2 and ME3 - both of which suffer heavily from suit-driven creative decisions.

That said, I must give credit to ME2, because it's extremely "slick" and has that top-tier quality feel to it, that ME3 somehow misses.

But it's a creatively corrupt quality, if you ask me.

Obviously, I can also accept that people don't agree with me - as I'd have to be staggeringly naive otherwise.

We're just communicating our opinions :)
 
* I have yet to play Mass Effect 3. I'm waiting till it hits the bargain bin.

You want that game with all DLC as it's really cripled if you play only a base game. All DLC (and I mean proper DLC with missions, not itempacks crap) affect the main game and the last DLC (Citadel) you may consider as a real ending instead of the initial one although it happens before the child/earth/conduitexplosions plotholes mess.

Because Bioware Points never go on sale and are expected to be used also in DA:I, bargain will not happen soon.
But there is still hope. ME4 is halfdone and is possible to hit shelves next year which will drop the price of previous games. Also the whole trilogy is in the process of porting to nextgen consoles. This means it's very possible we'll see something like DA:O ultimate edition, where you pay just once to get the complete game and avoid Bioware Points.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
I've yet to play 2 or 3 and only put a few hours in to 1. I had always intended to play the whole series but now it's so far down my long backlog that I doubt I'll ever get to them.
 
Bg2>Kotor>me1>da1>me2>bg1>me3>da2>je
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 11, 2009
Messages
154
JE = Jade Empire?

My preference:

BG2>>>ME2>ME1>DA1>BG1>ME3>DA2
 
Back
Top Bottom