Mass Effect 2

[Lee_T]

I'm a bit disapointed by the game. It's not a bad game but as far as I'm concerned it's not a better game than ME 1 and that's what I wanted.

My problems are:

First they changed pretty much every underlying mechanic, throwing what was good with what was bad and put good and bad things back in again. I'd rather they had improved the worst aspect and kept what worked. However the things they did right outweighs the things they missed enough to keep the balance.

Second the story is good but is not as well told as the first and feels pretty formulaic, recruit/loyalty, rinse/repeat. It seems they fell to the 2nd amidst a trilogy curse, most of the discovery was already done in number 1, most of the interesting stuff have to be kept under wraps for number 3. The sidekicks are developed a ton more than in the first and that makes for some very good dialogs and some awesome movie worthy scenes (animation and directing and voice talents are pretty impressive), but that leaves the "main quest" in the dust while this should have been the keystone between the 1st and 3rd story arcs.

And third, the real sore spot for me, all this development on the characters leaves any failings as a glaring sore spot. I've got two problems with those characters.

1) Loyalty is a big word and it's way too easy to convince them imo. Seeing Zaeed agree with my goody two shoes Paragon felt contrived. Having them all be loyal to you should have a cost, a moral one, and should take a bit more time than some of the missions we have in the game. In a game that delves in more darker place than the first, you should have to compromise, or at the very least meet them half way, or choose to stick to your ideals and suffer the consequences.

2) As in ME 1 they don't really interact with one another and with the things happening around you. In ME 1 Kaydan had nothing to say about the rebellious human biotics in the few missions about them while 90% of his dialogs with you was about mistreatment of human biotics. In ME 2 you can freely talk about the genophage with Mordin in front of Grunt without fear of his reactions, he won't react at all.

I also hope all this time we spent with them won't go to waste in ME 3. I find the Wrex, Liara and Ashley/Kaydan moments pretty lacking, and since all the ME 2 guys can die I wonder how much they'll be a part of ME 3.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, I'd recommend it to my friends without blinking (I did), but I can't say it's an improvement on the first.