Mass Effect 2

Been preoccupied to say the least lolloloolololololol... Got fallout vegas...and just got my hands on mass effect 2. It has stolen my soul. Everything Mass Effect does, this game does better. Haven't posted in a week or so, so I'll do up my thoughts on Mass Effect 2 in comparison to the first game..The only thing missing is the planet rover exploration and my feelings about its abscence are mixxed.

Planet exploration has changed. On one hand, the lack of exploring makes the game seem less expansive, and surveying planets is no longer immersive. On the other hand, there is no more boring roving around, or annoying planets with tons of steep fucking mountains. Instead you just move the cursor around and scan the surface of the planet without ever leaving the ship, and send probes out to collect resources, or find anomalies which act as side-missions.

Your equipment works much much differently and the differences here are tied with character classes in first place for the best. None of the weapons feel useless. In the first game you had progressive types that were superior to the last set, ammo varients and customization options followed the same tier-based schemetic. In Mass Effect 2, they all have their place; even those you start with. There are far fewer weapons for each class of weaponry, but these weapons all fill a certain niche and I am positive that the players preference can be met. Ammo varients in the first game were items, in ME2, they are instead a learnable class-skill, featuring a "team 'insert ammo type'" for further cutsomization of ones team. Armor is customizable in color through the options of tint 1, tint 2, pattern style/shape, and pattern color. Individual parts can be swapped out (types of shoulder pads, helmets, chest plates, legs, arms, ect) that give different percentage based stat boosts.)

Classes have been reworked extensively and the improvements make them feel unique. You no longer have skill tree's dedicated to certain weapon types. Instead each class has certain weapons available to it. For example, the soldier has access to all types from the get go, where as the Infiltrator only has access to pistols, smgs, and sniper rifles. This means that instead of simply using the weapon you have maxxed out in your skill tree for all engagements, you can instead use the weapon that is appropriate for the range and over all situation. This adds another layer of tactical intent to the way you approach combat. In mass effect 1 the soldier would use his assualt rifle to handle every situation. In mass effect 2, he is free to flank cover with his shotgun or pick off enemies from a far with sniper rifle, switching weapons as the situation demands. To further expand on what truly makes the classes unique is the new class specific powers they get; Infiltrator can use a cloaking field to sneak up on a foe, retreat, or line up a perfect headshot. Vanguard can use his powerful biotics to charge directly towards his foe, phasing through solid objects to ruthlessly blow their faces off. Adept has a consortium of powers he can use in combos to chain into deadly explosive effects. Engineer is a master of crowd control, setting his enemies on fire, freezing them, confusing them with his combat drone. Sentinal is somewhere between tank and caster, he can summon techarmor that absorbs damage and finally explodes to damage those around him. Soldier is durable master of arms who doesnt have biotic or tech powers to fall back on for damage; he must instead rely on tactical prowess and firearms he can however use an adrenaline boost that speeds him up, makes him more durable, and makes him aim steadier. On the final level of each skill you can choose to evolve it into two different extremes. These extremes are usually offensive vs defensive, for example, infiltrators cloak can be upgraded to assassin or agent. Assassin cloak increases the sneak attack damage bonus assosiated with it. Agent cloak instead inscreases the duration of the cloak.

These changes seamlessly combine third person shooter and rpg. Everything has been simplified and streamlined without being dumbed down. Everything is sleek and effecient. The game is simply amazing. Amazing. And this is without touching down on the story elements. lol.

Everything you did in the first game if you import your character, shapes the kind of atmosphere you get in mass effect 2. In me1, my infiltrator was a rogue renegade space-bitch. This made my journey through mass effect 2 very grim. A clever way to add replayability to both games! I dont have a heroic character that I am satisfied with. I have an urge to go back to mass effect 1 and start something fresh. Maybe a soldier or vanguard since my space-bitch was so fragile.

Suffice to say, I am completely sold on this game and I'm purchasing the DLC lol.

New Vegas >> Mass Effect 2.

I will give Vegas praise where praise is due. It feels like alot less of a joke than Fallout 3. In Fallout 3 everything was "lolwasteland". There wasn't good a balance of grim and dark humor. Instead everything seemed so light hearted. Even when you did something terrible. Characters had no personality, and there were virtually no characters that were memorable. In Fallout New Vegas you have a better balance of afromentioned grim and humor. Your actions actually have consqiuences and effects on various communities. There are more people, more quests, more communities. The attitude is alot closer to the first two fallout games, vastly superior to vegas and fallout 3. Hardcore mode makes you worry about things like sleeping, eating, and drinking. To me it makes the game more enjoyable because it helps add immersion and makes alot of those items you scavange alot less redundant. Really. Who needs food when you have stims? Oh wait. Hardcore mode! Problem solved. Tweaks to skill the system and perk system are also great. Alot of redundant stat-boosting perks are gone.

New Vegas is a step in the right direction. It actually hase some substance to it. But to say it's better than Mass Effect 2 would be a hard call for me. Mass Effect 2 seems much more cinematic and enthralling.

To me, Mass Effect 2 is the pinnacle of what's wrong with modern RPGs. Pumping resources into fancy cinematics, instead of creating a believable story, gameplay and charaters (woe to me for I have been genetically engineered by my cruel father/I am a doctor that knows when to save life and when to shoot bad guys - come on). There are no interesting gameplay elements, the minigames are a pain and the overall story is a joke (making a human-shaped spaceship robot out of human flesh????).

Also, the game's world and charaters are overflown with cliches and the repetitive and shallow shooter combat doesn't make up for it. I could go on and on, but overall, it's just my taste.

As for New Vegas, it's a almost perfect sandbox game. Unfortunatly due to the shitty engine it is based on (fuck you Bethesda), there's a lot of quest\gameplay bugs which detracts from the fun. I hope they'll expand the game with good and memorable DLC, as I already found a couple of locations which, I presume, will serve for connecting to new areas (a sealed off mountain pass etc.). Memorable characters and dialogues, lots of skillchecks in dialogues, faction system...it just gets better.

Bloodlines is better
It has souls !

Mmm... Mass Effect!

That game's immersive. I mean the first installment. My laptop's too frail to run the second, but as far as I've seen, it surely does all things the first one did and more. And I'd place my bets on it being one of the best rpgs coming out since 2004.

As far as fallout goes. I'd side with the oldies here. My favourite was and always will be Fallout 2. What bethesda did with f3 and f:NV was... well, ahem. Though, I must admit I did enjoy f3, but it wasn't _the_ wasteland the original fallout had. Oh, and I didn't think the characters would be that ugly, not even after the bombs hit. Ugh!

I agree! I've put fallout 2 on every comp I've owned so far! Starcraft 1 is right behind it, but has missed the latest one.

Being cinematic and immersive in atmsophere should not be considered a flaw! Being an artist myself I highly appreciate the beauty of the game. As for the Cliche's of Mass Effect, I enjoy them. The games setting is practically a meshing of scifi elements and references that you get to participate in fun stuff. Gets me nice and comfortable. And going back to say..Ur-Quan masters, ridiculous as it is, very fun and memorable. And I mean..Garrus. Fucking Garrus..He's the shit.

I think bioware has really only let me down with Dragon Age. Not because it was a terrible game---it was rather enjoyable--just not as good as hyped out to be, certainly no spiritual successor to neverwinter nights as claimed. I hate elves, and was ecstatic that they were second class citizens though lol.

oh and another note...Would be my luck that I'd download all the DLC, then my graphics card decides its want to explode. D: