Mass Effect 2 - Page 13

Some of these feelings/complaints maybe coloured/increased by the fact that I had played through ME1 the days before ME2 came out in anticipation, to update on the story and to get a save-file to transfer, so it makes it very easy to compare and in an sequel you expect the things not quite right in the first one fixed and maybe some new stuff added.

Yes the inventory system wasn't very good in ME1 and it could get boring driving around planet with the mako (although that is mostly the design of the planets fault not the mako itself I found it easy to drive and fun like when you were fighting a Thresher Maw) sure there were things not working properly in ME1 but you don't remove them entirely they should be fixed.

I agree with all the other complaints. I really miss a real inventory, real loot. real customisation.
Any good reason to not have the hide helmet option? That effectively killed all the "dlc-armour" I cannot stand walking around with an ugly helmet on especially inside then you are talking to people. So that means that you only have one armour choice (yes there are a few different choices to leg, chest, etc. but the all look pretty much the same) the only thing you can do is to change the colours on it.

I also feel that the characters from ME1 (excluding Garrus and Tali and maybe Liara not really good but not as bad as others) got really screwed over, were little interaction and generally not at all surprised to see Shepard,
-"Oh hi there Shep, heard you were dead" -"nah I got better" -"k, why working for Cerberus, you traitor!" -"saving the galaxy and stuff, you know the usual" -"I serve the Alliance and I practically hate you now, bye".

Can't say I like what they did to Liara but there's at least an explanation. So hell-bent on taking down the Shadow broker for what he did to her/Shep/some friend of Liara. I know that she blames herself for giving you to Cerberus and all but she could easy of a bit and maybe come with and save the galaxy like old times after Shep assures her she did the right thing in giving her to Cerberus especially if Liara were the romantic interest in ME1.

The first time I had to do the crappy minigame to get minerals I got really bored and by the end of the game I was ready to blow my head off at the thought of it. No question it is the most horrendous absolutely mind blowingly awful time-sink ever. The mako was way superior even if you had to scale Mt. Everest with it at times. Why couldn't you buy minerals, you know on super important time sensitive mission here do not really have time to mine my own minerals to build weapons, or at least trade one mineral for another some of them very nearly impossible to get enough of.
(Wouldn't it be hilarious that when a team of military people get a mission in real life they start by mining ore for iron/steel and pump oil for plastic and then build their weapons before doing the actual mission)

While we are on the subject on weapons. BIG WTF!. In the first game they explain that they don't have to worry about ammo any more since they developed a new system that allowed for thousands of rounds to be stored inside the guns. Now they suddenly came up with the genius idea of thermal clips which has exactly the same limitations they where trying to get away from. Real smart. There are some serious lore issues with this, starting with that it is far inferior and if someone came up with the idea of introducing ammo clips again would be laughed out of the planing room of "the Big Weapons Corp".

The weapons in ME1 could, if managed correctly, be fired indefinitely. An assault rifle in ME1 could fire around 40 rounds in a row before overheating but if you let of the trigger even half a second it would cool down rather rapidly so fire in rather long burst and it wont stop firing. You could even upgrade some weapons with extra heatsinks to make them fire indefinitely without pauses.

Then moving on the the issue of the whole frikkin galaxy have switched weapons systems in 2 year, yeah seams very impossible. Not to mention the fact that it isn't even touched upon except for the codec entry, which I don't buy, So the weapon I used to kill an Reaper/Geth tricked-out Saren robot two years ago isn't powerful enough and we have to start using crappy thermal clips to remove heat faster which in turn allows for higher velocity rounds (=more dmg) yeah I have a bit of a problem with that.

This would be something Shepard should comment about.

-"So I been gone for 2 years and you people managed to regress weapons technology a 100 years. Good work!"

Didn't like the new flight system, what the **** is the pilot for when it still have to fly and refuel it myself? I'm the Captain/Commander and the pilot should fly where I tell him to.

Does anybody know a good reason as to why they removed crouch? I sure can't think of one. Why isn't the radar visible at all times and why isn't there (nearly) any maps more? Might have something to do with hiding how small most planets/side-mission sites actually were, often no more then a couple of rooms and a short walk from the shuttle to the front door of wherever you are going.

This sure feel much smaller then ME1, there you had big planets to explore, while tedious at times, mostly enjoyable. Not to mention how small the citadel is, a few stores, a bar and the Human embassy room nearly no side-missions compare that to ME1 citadel which was huge and had lots of side-mission and people to talk to. All the major cities were pretty much the same as well (Nos Astra, Omega even the Krogan city to some extent) a few stores and a bar with very few people you're able to talk to and very few side-missions.

All that aside the thing that got to me the most (and I don't think have been mentioned already) is the quality of the port from 360, they didn't even bother to map the various menus (quest, char, encyclopaedia thingy...) to keys. I mean how hard can it be to bind the quest (or journal) page to "J" ? It's a pretty standard thing in PC RPGs even ported ones. There's mouse acceleration as well. The original ME port was much better and BW didn't even port that in-house (Demiurge Studios ported ME1 to PC).

The crappy console "trademark" all-in-one button is still there, when I play something on a PC with hundreds of keys you don't have to mash everything into one. I don't want to run, hide, open doors and the "use-key" to be the same key, it can get really annoying at times. I do understand the need for it on the 360 but when you make a port to PC we should at least be able to expect descent controls.

Well that might be enough complaining for now. Now to the good parts.

The fighting system is better now, direct aiming. (thermal clips still suck though) but biotics is nerfed alot and having the ammo type being an "talent" and taking points is a bad idea especially since it triggers global cool down when changed.

I liked the new crew for the most part, Mordin is awesome! He sings Gilbert and Sullivan it's hilarious. Tali and Garrus are really good as well. Both the recruitment quest and the various run ins before that (with Tali) and the loyalty quest. Tali's trial was very good and it was cool to finally see the inside of the Flotilla.
(Might have to step on the grenade and play a male shepard, notably inferior voice acting, to romance Tali she's just so mysterious and sweet.)

EDI works so well with Joker (everything he says is gold)

Really liked Kelly so open about races and people (still worked with Cerberus, but I guess she's right loving humanity doesn't exclude loving the other races as well), not to mention flirty and "kinda" romance option.
The engineers had some really good/funny conversations.

Thane and Jack (Subject Zero) are really interesting and Legion give invaluable insight into Geth-society. Can get some good dialogue if you bring Legion onto the Quarian Flotilla.
Samara/Morinth, Miranda and Grunt are good.
Didn't really like Jacob not sure why.

Not sure what to think of story, the "official" story missions were very good but spending the majority of the game head-hunting people only to do one mission but as long as we don't get screwed out of the crew in ME3 again I guess it's ok.

Final level was great, will have people trying to figure out exactly what triggered the various events to happen and why for awhile. Ending itself was somewhat anticlimactic. But a good build-up for ME3.

FINALLY get to fuck up the reapers