Mass Effect 2 teaser

[TinCow]

I rank ME alongside Planescape: Torment at the top of my RPG charts, and consider it to be the standout example on how to do some aspects of the genre.

It's my most replayed RPG - and post DOS era game - ever. 7 complete playthroughs, including a pair of runs which were done for no other reason than to experience the combat at the two highest difficulties.

ME and Planescape are a better couple than it might first appear. They excel at certain things and are flawed in others, and it happens that the flaws lie in areas I care less about and they excel in the ones I value most.

Whacker would certainly burn me alive for agreeing with you, but I will... tentatively. Planescape had a brilliant plotline and incredible story with some of the worst (and buggiest) gameplay that has ever been made. To that level, I agree with the analogy.

One of my main problems with ME is also a huge problem with DA:O... meaningless choices. Both of these games pat themselves on the back for having many huge moral dilemmas, but they're all meaningless. No one really cares if you run around being a jerk... they'll follow you pretty much to the ends of the earth. DA:O is slightly better in this in that some actions will make party NPCs go hostile, but only if they're with you when you do them. ME treats the player with kid-gloves, and only allows you to make choices that won't prevent you from fulfilling you Ultimate Destiny to be Awesome. There are no consequences for your actions, just your own endorphins making you feel good or bad for being an angel or a bully.

Mass Effect also seemed to strike me as extremely linear. It was advertised as another sandbox RPG, but that wasn't remotely present. Being able to pick the order that you do the quests in does not make a game a sandbox game. Bouncing around on planets in a buggy picking up collection quest items also does not make a game a sandbox game. ME had as much open-ended gameplay as KOTOR and KOTOR2... essentially none.

So, what I was left with after I finished ME was a game billed as a dark, mature RPG with a huge sandbox world... and what I got was a storyline with meaningless moral dilemmas and a very one-track plot. Top it off with the horrid interface and uninspiring combat, and I was very underwhelmed.

That said, I do very much like Bioware's original IP products. I thought the Jade Empire world was superb, even if the game itself was not as good. Both ME and DA have equally interesting and well-developed worlds. I like the Bioware IPs a great deal and they are worth playing simply to see the universes they create. Bioware is essentially the Bizarro Bethsoft. Bethsoft makes games that are fun to explore but where the main storyline is relatively pathetic, while Bioware makes games that fall apart when you leave the main storyline.

I am about to do a second run-through of Mass Effect because I erased the saved game from my first time through and want to be able to import my character for the second. Maybe my opinion will change on round two.