Thought this would fit nicely here.
Mass Effect 2
NOTE: Spoilers ahead.
So I am at the end of Mass Effect 2, just the arrival mission left, but the main story is over.
All in all, the game, I believe was better than Mass Effect 1. It delivered a much smoother experience and I felt like the choices I made also made a bigger impact on the game in general. Whether that's true, I do not know, but it did feel like it.
For me the gameplay itself was fun but not the main reason for my enjoyment of the game. I feel like the creators have actually managed to create a somewhat life-like mythology of how humanity would interact with alien species. Many of the games' stories have a (somewhat) developed background, which make for an interesting gameworld to play in and immerse myself in.
This also makes me make decisions in a way that I would ideally like to make them, lending credence to me "role-playing" a commander in a futuristic setting. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this also makes it very hard for me to play the game as a renegade, because it is just not me. I did make some renegade decisions here and there, but (almost) none of the major decisions, did I go for the renegade option.
So,
gameplay:
The game should be divided into three topics in my opinion:
Shooter: Where you just kill things for a while,
RPG: Where you make decisions, which sometimes have consequences
and
movie/book: where you watch what happens
For me the
shooter part was the worst implemented of the three. All you do is go through a linear stream of tunnels/archways/beautiful landscapes/etc. and shoot at things (or use powers to kill them). That part of the game has little to no exploration elements, (on normal) is usually quite easy due to the speed at which shields and health regenerate and requires no real tactics.
The
RPG area, where you walk in a "hub" town/city and interact with people and make decisions was quite good. I enjoyed some of the NPCs and the interactions with them. Some of the decisions seemed trivial, some of the consequences may be severe or not in ME3. But in general, I thought this was well done.
The main disappointment is also this linearity inside the non-linearity. Some doors were locked just because the mission had not yet reached the point for you to be there, would later open and then lock again. It feels like this hasn't changed since KOTOR came out and I would have liked maybe less, but more open planets to visit.
I actually felt like some planets took a step backwards from ME1, especially the citadel, which felt like an amazing location to explore at the time. In ME2, it is again just a few floors...
Why they didn't just use some of the old artwork and had to create something new and small is beyond me.
The last bit is the
book/movie aspect of the game. What I mean by this, is all the lore as well as cutscenes. Like I said before, I think the lore in the game is really well-written and makes for an interesting world to play in. I think it's fun to have a codex that explains some of the bits you may be interested in terms of races and planets. I didn't read all of it, but it was still fun to read some of the entries. Although they didn't need to have a voice read those for me
.
The gameworld is made up of so many races, alliances and people that it really helps they have put so much effort into this area and I think it shows.
The movie aspect are all the areas you just have no or little control over. These bits, I don't really like, because they sometimes portray my character doing things I wouldn't do with him. Which also relates a bit to the RPG aspect. The dialogue wheel feels very cheap to me as the character says things I didn't mean. It is also horrible since it doesn't allow to properly skip dialogue without mistakenly pressing the next option sometimes. This was a big annoyance in an otherwise good gameworld.
To conclude, I really enjoyed the game. It was fun, it had lots of good things going for it. I am going to finish the last mission though and wait a few months before starting ME3. I expect it to be longer and probably with many of the same shortcomings...
So, taking a break is probably a good thing.
