This is a stunt for traffic, your a dumbass!I will never read an article from this site again!I demand you be fired!That about covers all the basics right xD

Finally, someone else in the world who doesn't think this is the epitome of video game creation. I was really let down by how much they cut/dumbed down from the first game. It's turned into an average shooter with better than average plot yet bad execution and a small handful of RPG elements. Post the rest of the list!

I agree with some points, disagree with others.All in all i just see this article as a cheap way to gain views by talking about a currently popular game

I salute you! I am a former games journalist. I have been inside the belly of the beat and it disgusted me. I run my own blog now I'm free of the constraints. I will certainly never be receiving free product again, but I'd rather have integrity and not feel like a whore for the industry.I LOVE your theory of a +3 modifier for Bioware stuff. Awesome:) I read stuff on Metacritic and can't take it seriously when I see idiot reviewers giving games 100/100... I'm sorry, you are clearly a moron and have no place reviewing games as you are a whore.I've only just gotten around to buying Mass Effect. Passed it up originally due to the DRM debacle. Then it dropped off my radar until this Christmas when Steam had it on huge special. The boyfriend of my wifes friend actually worked for Bioware and wrote one of the characters. And wrote one of the ME2 character. (I forget which ones now.)Anyway, I digree. Thanks for writing this. Wonderful to see there ARE a few people out there willing to stand up and call bullshit on all the reviewers and fanboys wetting their pants.And here's where I shill my blog. Blah, go read it, get angry, leave comments inferring I enjoy sex with the same gender, and watch me not care.

Belly of the BEAST even.

Well I do agree but I do not think it is worth writing an article about it. Of course there this minor set backs, but come on dude, it is not easy creating games with such varsity and depth. They may very well consider that. But i highly doubt it

While I don't find ME2 to be as much of a failure as you might suggest, I'd have to agree with the things that you find wrong with the game. Not necessarily with your suggestions to fix it but these are all pretty much issues with the game. Although I was under the impression that the reason they all spoke english was because of a universal translator (or I could be confusing it with the boatload of Farscape I've been watching lately). Even if that wasn't the case, I think it is something that could be assumed. About the human mannerisms though, well, they could be saying something, that aliens are just as "human" as we are. But it would be nice to have a bit more variety.One thing I found missing in your complaints was the conversation system. It is once again an interrogation of every character by means of "Investigate". Sheppard rarely does anything but question people, or so it seems. I just find the conversations a bit one-sided, and I find that a bit unrealistic.Of course you will get a ton of haters for this article, especially since you called ME2 a failure. You might have avoided that by using a different title..In conclusion, scanning planets SUCKS.

I disagree with a lot of what you said. I see where you are coming from on some of the points you made, but in general it seems like you are reaching. I could go into detail about all of this, but since not many people share your opinion I don't see the point.I am enjoying this game more than I have enjoyed a game in a very long time. If you don't believe that this game deserves at least a 9/10, then this game must just not be for you. Even really really really good games aren't going to do it for everyone. I guess all I can do is feel sorry for the small fraction of people who didn't enjoy the game as much as the other 99% of us.

The essence of any role playing game is the story, plain and simple. You are more than happy to point out the weaknesses of the franchise, and yet you completely ignore what it did right. Sure, everyone knows that Bioware knows how to drive an amazing story, and every reviewer out there points this out, so why bother mentioning it, right?Saying Mass Effect 2 is 'a mess' is hardly fair, just as calling it simply 'mediocre'. Bioware has crafted one of the most expansive and deep Sci-Fi IPs since Star Wars. And saying that Dragon Age is better than -both- games in the series just shows your ignorance.I agree with some of the problems you found with the game, but the ONE thing I do agree with is your assumption that this will garner traffic. But trying to make a sacred cow out of what is simply an amazing experience is a really crappy way to get hits.But then again, thats how journalism works. Bravo.

Are you kidding me? I agree that the scanning planets is boring, but you are way off base here. In my opinion this game is a huge improvement over the first. This website is a joke and you are a DUMBASS.

The assumptions made in this article point to an incredibly amt of unprofessionalism on the part of the article's authore.

You're an idiot my friend...look for the good things in a game not the bad ones and try not be a sony fan boy

Great article and I agree 100%!Bioware has lost its way with acquisition by EA and it's change to developing exclusively for consoles (I say that because the PC versions feel like nothing but cheap ports, even Dragon Age)

wow life is too short enjoy the game for what it is and move on when it boils down to it,it is a good game

This Website has many failures ....Really you have a problem with the combat? if anything this game improves combat...Dude stop bashing the game cause apparently you are the only one...

I... agree. I really enjoyed the game as a whole but when looking at the experience from many aspects the game does fail to remain a sustainable experience.

I... agree. I really enjoyed the game as a whole but when looking at the game from many aspects the game fails to remain a sustainable experience.

You're going to get a lot of hate for this article, hahah. I do agree with the article to some merit; there are a lot of things that could be improved, but I don't see them as major flaws. I'm loving ME2. With a project as big as ambitious as ME2, there's always going to be things that could've been executed better... there will never be as many things to complain about in a Call of Duty game, for example, because the scope of the gameplay is infinitely smaller.

You make a very good point, and i wish more people looked at things the way you do. It's a shame the whole industry is changing so much. but still i find the game to be an overall enjoyable experience.

You sir, are probably the biggest douche I have ever heard speak! Like, do you even know what a good game is? what other game even consists of as much dialogue as this one, and then you complain that it doest have different languages? Like, most rpg games suck ass when it comes to combat, take fallout 3 for example, its combat was retarded, you just press a button and select your targets, and it got praises everywhere. I don't see how any game company could have possibly taken a 3rd person shooter and turned it into a rpg game like they did here. Oh yeah, and that amazing new cover system, yeah, thats the same thing epic games does, and their cover system gets praises all over. Okay, so now we have a cover system, BUT LETS NOT FUCKING USE IT BECAUSE THIS DOUCHEBAG WRITING THIS ARTICLE SAYS THERE ARE TOO MANY COVERS DURING COMBAT. People like you disgust me, I hope you die in a hole!

Good article.Its nice to see an honest critique of a AAA game rather than the brown nosing we get from most other reviews.I haven't and will not buy mass effect 2.I bought 1 and was hugely disappointed with the linearity and the barren,empty worlds.All bioware games are the same.They should take some pointers from bethesda if they want to make a good wrpg.

Man, You can level these criticisms at just about any game out there (Uncharted 2, Bioshock, Demon's Souls, Dragon Age etc). This article is an epic fail. Your just being part of a minority that like's to pretend the fame is unjustified just like their is for everything that is popular.It is what it is, Mass Effect 1 and 2 are two of the most absorbing and interesting games that have came out this generation so far. The whole trilogy works together and has massive replay value because of all of the different choices you can make and outcomes that come from the way you play and what decisions you choose to make.You must hate videogames in general. Because your issue's apply to just about every game out there. And saying it doesn't surprise or has no twist is a complete lie.

yeah i disagree. i respect your opinion, but i think you expect games to be perfect. a 96 isn't perfect. it means it's an amazing game, which mass effect 2 was. if it was a 100 on metacritic your arguments would hold much more weight. but as it is, you're expecting a team that put together a MASSIVE amount of content into a game to make everything 100% polished and perfect. it just doesn't work like that. i'd rather have multiple branching storylines and a massive galaxy than perfectly polished menus. sure the menus arn't great but they got the job done and i really don't mind it that much. your points are valid and i'm not denying bioware has work to do for mass effect 3, but i thought it was an AMAZING game and a landmark piece of entertainment.

Hard to admit for some but you didn't write incongruous, derisive palaver here! I am a huge Bioware fan especially of IPs like Jade Empire and Mass Effect. I can't help too feel that Mass Effect 2 has been stripped and dumbed down for a somewhat lummox market that is too trigger happy and not appreciate innovation vs a rehash of some of the most trite and inane AAA titles out in the market today. I am still plowing through the game and missing every second of so many things that made the first one so much about exploration, customization and engrossing storytelling.I couldn't agree more with you on all points addressed in your article and how to readdress them in a third installment of ME. Alas, most companies have but one mission and that's to cater to the largest mass of gamers out there that love their combat games. Keep the games simple with enough action and who will complain? At the looks of it we are probable hitting the Idiocracy era faster than I ever imagined.I will hold on dearly to my Jade Empire and Mass Effect memories because these are games that stand for something.

I agree mostly with what's said. There is a lack of depth with the revamped interface and inventory system -- and combat is less dependant on strategy and weapon choice than other RPGs true. That's probably my 2 biggest gripes.However, I'm not really sure about the whole "show me with actions instead of words". Do you realize what the animation budget would be for such a game? I don't think any studio is capable of doing something like that for a universe the size of Mass Effect -- it's not lazyness and I think you're dead wrong to assume so

I agree with you completely. The fact that any sort of boxes, cover etc = combat = fail.What drives the game, imho, is the story. And getting to see the romance scene with Miranda Lawson.

I agree with everything save forced exploration. Bioware would be better off spending time that you would have players waste what will inevitably be fairly empty environments, with fleshing out the cast. Forcing exploration is what got us the Mako and mining.

Wow, I have to say that I am really impressed by this article. I just finished playing through Mass Effect 2 and enjoyed it but definitely not as much as Dragon Age: Origins but I couldn't quite put my finger on what aspect of Mass Effect 2 made it excellent in some respects but repetitive and uninteresting in others. I think you hit the nail on the head. It is a good game but if only they had implemented the suggestions or avoided the mistakes you point out here it would have been that much more amazing. Eye opening article. Thank you.

How does it feel to be alone?

I have never played ME (1 or 2), since I have a crappy computer, and only a PS3. But I think it's great to hear some negative sides about the game, it actually makes me reconsider getting it (IF it comes to PS3)... although I'd probably get it anyway. I don't think any game deserves 85+ as of yet, since there will be better games, and one day the bar will be raised so high, that what is good now, will be a 1 in the future. But I guess that how it works, raising the bar.Great job. You actually kept me reading for 4 pages, and wanting a full list of fail.

Fantastic article. As a student designer (Graphic Designer) we feed off criticism. Not only does it improve our designs but it great that some goes through our designs with a fine tooth comb, pick out things that they think is wrong with it and give us suggestions.Im sure the guys at Bioware are loving the great reviews Mass Effect 2 is getting, because it is a great game, but i think they would love an article like this more because it gets to the nitty gritty of the game and picks out the flaws. It was good you offered suggestions as well. I hope you forward the article on to Bioware. Im sure they will appreciate it.

I partialy agree with some of your points, but this whole article feels really negative, I think you could've got the points across without sounding like flamebait for fanboys. Anyway, this should be posted on BioWare social forums, so the developers can actually take a look at it.

Everyone is entitled to their own view, but I strongly disagree. Calling this game a mess is quite silly from my point of view and by pretending to be an aberration you only make yourself seem like a spoilt critic. Yes some of the points you've made could do with refinement, but they in no way make the game obsolete or messed up. I think that you should know something has gone wrong with your article when not only are reviewers giving it an average of 96, when not only has the game sold tons, but also when those who buy it, love it. WIth Love

Cry me a river!Is ME2 the perfect game? No, but the perfect game doesnt exist. All games have some flaws or could be improwed.I think the game is great, most other buyers also do that, so cry me a river F'¤%# FacePlease tell me what the perfect game is, would really like to try it. I guess this reporter have either tried it, or maybe he even made it. God knows....

I haven't played Mass Effect 2 yet. Finished Mass Effect 1 a week ago. I agree on some points you make, can't really argue since I haven't played the second game, but I also disagree with the bit where you call this a mediocre game. I, for one, quite liked the Mako. Not a perfect experience, but like you said it reminds of an old arcade game. I guess that is the reason I enjoy it. It gives you a far more interactive experience than hovering the mouse on a planet.Everyone has different opinions and I believe people do enjoy those games. It's not all bad reviewing. Maybe people do really like the game.I also believe that more reviews like yours should be posted. It gives another perspective of what gamers want.The problem of your review will be that we don't know if you are just another PS3 fan trying to slash an xbox (at least for now) game.Either way, I liked the review.

I agree, although I haven't played Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 1 shared many of the same issues anyway. I think the one defence here is that what you have identified is common in many games, but more noticable in games where they capture reality so well in some places, that the typical gamey standards stand out even more.

Very informative article and I agree with everything, the problem with reviewers as with the general public is that they all get fanboyitis when a majorly hyped game comes out and turns out to be good......I'm sure after a few weeks the reviewers realized what could of been improved but decided againts editing their review to stop them from looking incompetent..Dugg.

Hi, I completely agree with all of your points. I have to add that the story was bad, really bad, (all about recruting members, plus a crappy final mission) but that's personal taste, isn't it? ;-)People might call you and me dumbasses, but know that you have someone who agrees here in Italy. See ya!

Bleh

With every outstanding game released the days, there's always gonna be someone thats going to insult it: you.

you know its not really n rpg its more a shooter rpg and people like the action yet i dont see many people bothered with any of these things i know im not. i rather listen to english than read boring subtitles since they ruin the imersiveness of the game. i rather read important information later on than to be told and never forget. i have no problems with the interface at all. and i found this game used tactics pretty well. you need to know the difference between world of warcraft and halo, because this game mixes both those genres. i tell you, stick with one, cos complaining on a mix of two great genres is pointless on your part.

Interesting article. I liked how you suggested ways to remedy what was wrong. A bit harsh in places, but I agree with some of your points. ME and ME2 are still great games, however.

You couldn't be more wrong. Whilst I agree that the planet scanning game is poor, you clearly have some anti bioware agenda. They do not automatically get plus 3 to all their games, thats ridiculous. Also, I highly doubt that metacritic, an independent website, would remove all poor scores just to make the game look good, that defeats the object of what they aim to do. The combat is much improved from the last game and is genuinely enjoyable. As for your comment that 'Unfortunately, they all speak English,' is completely wrong and shows a lack of research on your part. If you look into the codex on either of the mass effect games, it tells you that the omni tools everyone carrries lonk to the public extranet and rapidly translate to English or the necessary language, thus why shepard hears everything in English. I know it seems incredibly nerdy that I know that, but what you're saying is blatant misinformation. The reason this game is setting records and getting high scores is because it's a fantastic game that truly does deserve the praise it's been getting. It's not without its flaws, but it is a masterpiece. You say that everyone is wrong? Maybe you should take a look in the mirror.

only good point was the mako, scanning arguement. Less journals? please some people adore this, gives a great mythos to the galaxy..be fair it is a great game, show me your fav game and Ill easily pick it apart as you have done here

About the "British Romans Effect": Theres a dispositive in ME (explained in Codex), that translate 'almost' every language in universe to your main language. Its not a 'feature', its just a excuse, but works.

I will agree on most of those points, but you haven't once put in anything good that the game does. For instance, (X360 comments by the way) graphically it's much better than the first game. Secondly, the load times have been vastly improved. The set pieces look a lot better in the newer areas, although appear a lot smaller in some places than were in the previous game(Have yet to complete the game). The plot appears to be a rather compelling story with some new alien force taking over the galaxy.I bet there are plenty of things they have done better than in the first game, so if you take out the Survey like you would the Mako, and say that the Combat is very similar to the first game, which is bad, because it hasn't improved and as you say, is pretty much telltale what will happen next. The trouble is, it's the gamer that is to fault, because when you go through various game websites and online chat sites, there are so many thick gamers out there, they have to have there hand held because they don't know how to play games that need to use your brain.Give them an Infocom adventure and they probably won't get to the end without using a cheat book all the way through.Yes, Bioware have made a cock up with this game, but it still does things better than the first, just not the whole game which is a real shame.

FAIL! If you can make a game anywhere near a fraction as good as ME2, then maybe Bioware will have to worry about what they did wrong. I think you should just enjoy what you have, and not cry because you didn't like some things.

...which is true for most new games. Still people (and I) think they are fun - oh, the complexity :-)Cheer up, feed a girl a cupcake!

A very interesting read, having played ME2 myself I hadnt noticed alot of these issues until they were pointed out with a big stick ....maybe I kinda knew at the back of my mind but ignored them ? trusting the Bioware name.

I agree 100% with the bloated scores and phoney journalism. Keep it real homey, great review!

I love me2 and think it's one of the best games I've played. You didn't compare it to any games out there .In reality you should be making games , you know it all. That's my assessment of your article,. opinions are a dime a dozen, put your vast knowledge to work!

I don't entirely disagree with any point but I think at one point you suspended reality to support your complaint and it made you sound like a bitter fan boy even though you may not be. Like maybe, you spent 60 dollars and sat up 24 hrs straight to play and beat it and said "that was it? this sucked!" The reality is every good 'Agent' has a 'logbook' or 'filing cabinet' he keeps important info in. That's not to say he does not have to do a little detective work to build a respectable 'logbook'. An Agent, Specter or FBI will go to his filing cabinet 'logbook' and find a building 'planet' to shake down 'investigate' and uncover 'hack' where the bad guys went or where they got there drugs/guns and then head for that area 'planet' to shake it down. I don't think it should have gotten such a high score, maybe an 8 or 8.5 at best. I am also tired of being a hardcore gamer and having to play this dumbed down BS so they can attract casual gamers. Leave the casual gamers their Wii's and Madden 25's and pound me out a fully thought out experience not a lazy one. Now who sounds like a bitter fan boy.

You make some valid points but the thing is we can sit there and pick apart any game. I can list 10 things wrong with Uncharted 2 and 10 things wrong with the new Mario Bros. Wii as well. However I think you're missing the point and that point is just exactly how fun a game is. It's like Roger Ebert saying this movie has a great story and great acting and so on and should have Oscar nominations but fails to sell tickets at the theater. It's not all about marketing and spending millions to hype a mediocre title. It's about entertainment and pleasing fans. You will always have your critics but they will continue to face an uphill battle. Especially pessimistic ones.

You might make a few good points. I was also bothered by the aliens in the first game being basically humans with alien masks but I got used to it. However I think you probably played the game in a difficulty that is way too low so you really shouldn't blame the game for being no tactical enough. Play on insanity or veteran... it is very tactical. You gotta use your and your squad powers properly to advance. Finally I think bioware focused on the most important thing in gaming which is framerate!!! They should be thanked for optimizing their game because it is the main reason this game is such a blast to play. I wish all dev would optimize their games that mch and I hope they will keep that in mind for their future productions.

I haven't yet played ME2, it's sitting waiting at home.. However, I completely agree with what you said about reviews etc. for games. Much like Assassins Creed 2 suffered so terribly with screen tearing that I put it back in it's box. It's a shame that people don't come together and agree when things aren't bad; they would rather pretend they got their money's worth than admit they've been fleeced.I'm sad to hear that Mass Effect 2 won't be all it was billed to be. Thanks for the article though.

This is very good article. I share your feelings about the game. "Awful Combat Stages" is the main reason for me to quit playing even at last (I think) collectors level. I'm sorry for my broken english xD.

Actually, I played on Hard difficulty, my standard setting for all games.

I completely agree with you! The problem is the industry as a whole have ceases to innovate. Mass Effect is just....not very fun. I think it's because we come from a generation that grew up on the old games. Where games didn't have excessive, bloated, almost silly storylines. Games used to put gameplay first and then story second. That's the way it should be. Dragon Age is a great testament to this. I got MUCH more gameplay time in that game than Mass Effect. And the gameplay was a lot better! I regret buying Mass Effect. Games are games, if I wanted to see a Sci-Fi movie, I would go rent one. (One with a MUCH< MUCH better storyline) The story in Mass Effect is completely ripped off and just not good. So, you aren't the only one who thinks Mass Effect sucks.

Agreed.ME1 ranks as the most disappointing game I have played... ME2 is better (well at least more polished), but remains far short of its potential. KOTOR and the original BG are the best Bioware games IMHO.

wow, where do i begin, most of the things complained in this article ARE NOT a big deal, like goddamn get over it you whiny action-whore, this game is an rpg before a shooter/action game, and that takes priority over the shooting part. Im also guessing you played the game on normal or veteran, which really isn't hard at all, aka which you don't need strategy as you said, im playing the game through again on insanity and it is difficult (soldier class level 30). Enemies are strong as hell, they take way too many bullets, and you die very fast, i think that means there needs to be strategy in how you go about into fighting. Also the environments for fighting in are wonderfully designed, i never saw two of the same places, yeah there are chest high walls and walls tall enough to cover a human head, but where have i seen this before and it worked as well, o yeah GEARS OF WAR. Yes i know Mass Effect 2 isnt perfect, the problem i have with it are the bugs, but that doesnt stop the game from being awesome. Your argument here is invalid because your just fucking retarded, and cant accept the fact that Mass Effect 2 is an amazing game

I agree 100% that game reviews are a joke, and a lot of games have near perfect scores months before anyone has ever played them (e.g. Halo, Zelda, Call of Duty). And I don't disagree with any of the gripes you have about ME2. In fact, I agree with most of them. That being said, I had more fun with this game than I have with any other in a long time. Despite it's flaws, it still is a wonderful experience.

i completely agree with this article

"Worst of all is the gaming press. They enable these mediocre games to proliferate by refusing to deal with obvious problems, safely hiding behind hyperbole and bloated review scores. Great companies like Bioware need to be criticized at a higher level because they are the ones that set a standard that all else follow."I agree. The sad thing is we all know that reviews are bought and paid for by the big companies or they refuse review copies. If Ray wants honest criticism maybe he should start by having an honest discussion with his boss who bought his games high praise and then open an avenue for gamers to critique there games which can not be done on his or any other game forum without the devout slamming you and getting your thread locked.The reason gaming has become so dull is because of game journalist who never critique a game and the gaming community itself that never allows any form of criticism toward there favorite game or platform etc.

Most of the people saying they agree with you are sad lonely sony fanboys from N4G. Anyway this article is great for whipping up a flamebait storm for the kiddies to argue about. Sadly for you, Mass effect 1 and 2 are great games and your article is irelevant.It's the in thing to piss all over new releases these days to get a few cheap hits to crappy sites. I wish you would stop to be honest. Next up, God of war 3, why it sucks ass. Spare us please.

Being a Bioware Fanboy since the days of Baldurs Gate, it's with strong regret I have to agree 100% with this review. Mass Effect 2 is lacking. Infact, it's predecessor had more going for it. Yes some areas of Mass Effect 2 are well done, but they are few and far between in comparison to the gaping holes.One person in the social network suggested the game was rushed. Given some of the glaringly large holes in the game, bugs and just things that are beneath Bioware as a professional company, I have to wonder if they were right. It really does feel rushed.I'd like to pin the blame on EA for this, and I will. EA, it's your fault. Well not entirely, this much is very clear, but I feel like the EA Effect, the EA Rush, it effected this game, and we suffer for it in many ways. But it's also very evident to anyone who considers gaming to be more then just a passing hobbie, that Mass Effect 2 was simply badly made, by Bioware.Bioware, you made a bad game. I'm gonna go cry now after having said that.

Mass Effect 2 has not "gotten away with murder." many of the criticisms you have are petty and just there for the sake of having more reasons. some are true i admit, but the majority a simply untrue. all games have problems, this game included. the entire package is amazing though, one of my favorite games ever,( i didnt love ME1 ) it doesnt deserve hate. the reviewers are not missing anything, they are just being honest and not looking for problems like you.

One thing I don't get the the review scores on the 360 side of things is the 9.5/10 visual ratings.This game has SO many visual glitches and dull spots in the environments. Texture work is horrible in some areas, and the games AA is really lacking. It's a very jaggies filled game. The characters eyes cross often during dialog, clipping abounds.... I dunno. I would give an overall of 9.5 for the game, but probably 8-8.5 for the visuals. Awesome facial details, but a huge dropoff visually elsewhere.

Ok, we get it. You don't like Mass Effect 2. That's a legitimate argument which you supported with examples. There's absolutely no need to include paragraphs critiquing other media outlets, which have the right to publish positive reviews of the game if they found it enjoyable. I mean, what exactly were you reviewing again?With respect to the "log" issue, it's one of the oldest video game tricks in the book. While I agree that it isn't innovative now, there are many games that use this trick, and so your criticism can't be leveled at just Mass Effect 2. The same goes for merchants.And why do you have two different sections of the review that boil down to "change the combat"? I already read about your dislike for the game's combat. I don't need to read it again.Finally, here are a few synonyms for "boring": tedious, dull, dreary, mind-numbing, tiresome, lackluster, unexciting, monotonous, repetitive, wearisome, humdrum, uninspiring. Feel free to not use "boring" every time you find the game boring. It bores me. See how boring it is to use boring all the boring time?

Firstly the only voice that is British is Miranda's secondly how do Salarian's sound like anyone you ever met(alien accent)? then again if you don't like RPGs(or maybe Microsoft exlusive RPGs) don't bother playing and nagging about it Bioware wasn't ever about gameplay it's pure story and NPC.

You bring up some solid points, and I'm sure Bioware will indeed look at those and try to improve them (see: What they changed from the transition from the first game to the second) That said, however, the rest of the content of this article feels very stretched and attempts to be "edgy". Starting your first paragraph with a rant on review scores really sets off my shitty-article-o-meter.

I agree with some points here, but others are sorely lacking. The egregious lack of a helmet toggle, at least for dialog. The neutering of non-firearm centric combat is another (specifically biotics, but tech to a lesser extent).For interactive objects, on the Normandy, there are a few that have no real purpose but to give buttons to press. The trash compactor by Zaeed and shutters by Joker are interactive, but don't have a purpose.

I like how the reviewer is critical, but he is seriously pointing his rants in the wrong direction, I will dis-agree with most of this, because any common sense explains why they did this and that, No Game is perfect to pick on half of his stuff.But it's about time somebody looks into little details, thing is there are too many little details to mentioned, I would worry about others, and there are a few bigger issues that were overlooked

While I do adhere to the right for people to voice their opinion, this "review" of ME2 is so biased that even the smallest things that are present in many other games and media are made out as incredibly major flaws in this one, and some of the "flaws" mentioned aren't even flaws at all. Even I am aware that Mass Effect 2 is not a perfect game, but calling it a ” complete mess, from top-to-bottom and not a product worthy of Bioware’s heritage" is not only extreme, but also highlights the prejudice against it by not mentioning the game’s good points and only looking at the bad. I agree wholly on a few points though, like with the Planet Scanning, and the strangely shafted interface. But…english accents? Making the game harder and needlessly complicated by removing logbooks and journals (even though ME2 tells its story through the character interactions anyway and only relies on logbooks and journals for the small things that can be missed), Mission arcs? Some of the flaws in this game are flaws (or features) in almost all video games/media, and yet the article makes it sound like they’re majorly disappointing disasters just because they’re present in Mass Effect 2. Also, the rant on “False Sense of Complexity” is simply Absurd: try playing any other class other than Soldier on Hardcore and Insane difficulties, and the number of deaths you can rack up simply by getting out of cover at the wrong second is so ridiculous it’s not even funny (especially against Krogans). It’s frustrating to me as a player, but then again it teaches me that I need to use a bit more brain to actually bypass a level rather than spamming abilities and weapons.This article has that air of arrogance about it that tries to get its point across, and in some it comes across well. But it’s so rooted in bias over this game that it exaggerates some of the game’s flaws and never even balances it with the game’s strengths, which include its cinematic presentation, great dialogue and lines weaved into an enjoyable story. I’ve always thought that good game reviews were objective, but if this is what a “good” game review is supposed to be, then it’s no better than the “bribed” game reviews that this article claims it’s against.

I have to agree with most people, you are very dumb. Just trying to create traffic to a website that no one cares about and never will. You could nitpick every single amazing game ever down until they all seemed like crap, but you fail on so many levels because you seem not to realize a game is an overall exp.Have fun writing for this website while its still running, I have a feeling it wont be for too much longer.

Wow. words cannot describe how wrong this is.

While I agree with some points (i.e. Planet Scanning) a lot of what your wrote ad how you wrote it comes off as very subjective. If Bioware was designing just for you than many of those changes may be justified but they have a wider base than that.

mass effect 2 isn't perfect, but i really don't agree with a lot of your opinions. mass effect 2 works fine, though it does have some minor flaws. and when i say minor, i mean smaller than fly poop.it seems like the guy who wrote this article is basically just trying to make himself a "non-conformist". go drink some coffee and smoke some cigarettes.

does this guy realize that this is all is opinion and has no effect on the game or how people perceive it at all? sorry you didn't like a great game. my advice? stop expecting every game to blow away your expectations.mass effect is a work of art and it works well.and yes, you are very much alone in your assumptions. sorry.

Wow. You complain about having to push the escape button on the PC to access menus. How dare Bioware make a video game in which you have to push buttons to get shit done. The nerve. And, you complain about the aliens not having any different culture. What then, are the asaris, cause they're really not anything like humans. What about the hannar's? They are nothing like humanity. There are many examples of species in the game that are not like humanity, but all you look at is what language they speak. You have to look deeper, into culture and things like that. I agree that there are many traditional RPG elements not in the game, but there are also many elements in the game which aren't in traditional RPG's. Besides, its a video game, the entire point is to have fun, and I personally know I havent enjoyed any games as much since KOTOR.

Nick said 02 02, 2010 08:28 "Most of the people saying they agree with you are sad lonely sony fanboys from N4G. Anyway this article is great for whipping up a flamebait storm for the kiddies to argue about. Sadly for you, Mass effect 1 and 2 are great games and your article is irelevant.It's the in thing to piss all over new releases these days to get a few cheap hits to crappy sites. I wish you would stop to be honest. Next up, God of war 3, why it sucks ass. Spare us please."right on nick.

A well written article I only have a few complaints about... the reason there are not subtitles is because Shepard doesn't speak any alien languages, if he doesn't understand them, we don't. All omni-tools (the glowy gauntlet things) provide on the fly translation of all known tongues. I forget if this is established in the ME2 Codex or Me1, but it's in there.Also, I don 't mind journals, logs and such.... they're an effective means of relaying information if people aren't there to do it directly. If my commander suddenly developed a 'Shepard-sense' that let him know why a dead space-station was full of bodies and floating without power without reading a journal I'd be pissed.

Wow, you tried to actually write something against the game? Ballsy, but that is it, try stupid! You do not go against the wave in this day and age, specially if the wave is a good one. Look man, any problems that Mass Effect 2 has, I guarantee it was brought about by that fantastic SHIT of EA. Every game they have, they have manage to utterly destroy, so why shouldnt ME2 fall under the same knife?? Think about it, ever since EA became a game pumping cash making machine, they have not been really concerned with quality, and it shows in their games, and you know they are not concerned, well because their games still sell, and sell alot!! Their Sports series, no matter ho bad, people will still buy every year on the excuse that the players roster will be up to date, seriously? Where is innovation on madden, fifa etc.. There is none man. Nee for speed, used to be a good arcade game for car enthusiasts, what is t today? The perfect little racing game for asians and hispanics, their wet dream come true, to be able to modify Lambos and ferraris! Here the thing, EA has become so big, so powerful, that they do not give a rats ass about a given franchise or its following. In essence, EA has become like Microsoft and Sony, too big, too important to listen to and cater to the shitty humans, why? they will buy it anyway, thats the mentality.

Well said, I was very hyped about ME2 from what I saw in previews and because I loved ME1...reviews where wayyy off, this is not a 9.6/10 game ect... This is a watered down game, theu took too much away from what made ME1 great...All this game is about...build a team fight last battle...game over :(

Love the article, and very well said. I feel like too much has changed from the first game, and instead of improving on ME1 we just have a completely new game that needs improved. It seems that all of the basic concepts of ME1 are gone, how can one justify that? No omni? Inventory? Mako? Fuel and Probes? Ammo? Exploring? Crates? Etc. The list goes on and on. This isn't ME2, it's another game based on ME1. Kinda like making a sequel to a movie and changing out all the main actors, it just never feels the same.

Thanks for posting it. Your criticisms of the game (a very good game but not nearly as good as it could be) and also game "journalism" are spot on.I think it's odd that even in these comments you have people that are foaming at the mouth defending a game or a company from criticism. If you like the game that's great - this article is obviously not for you. But for those of us who do agree with the points the author made it's important because now we know a name we can trust when it comes to reviews in the future.To the people that want to have an argument about a video game and somebody's opinion on it I can only suggest one thing - relax. It's not that serious.

Wow, judging by the comments I guess many folks think Michael Bay is a superior director to Stanley Kubrick huh?You know you wrote a good article when people are attacking you with immature language. Hope you write a review of Bioshock 2 before I buy it, because I don't want to spend money on another game based on all these misleading 10/10 scores. :)

Yes, 2 million copies shipped is a failure. The game is leaps and bounds better than ME1, and I give them props for stepping outside their comfort zone and trying new things. So few companies these days want to try something new, or try a new direction with their games. This is why Call of Duty 37 will be the same as Call of Duty. ME2 stripped almost everything from ME1 and redid it, and redid it better.They could have easily slapped in some new quest, dialogue, planets and called it a day...like how MoW2 is MoW with new maps and guns. Instead, they took feedback from the players, and made the game better than the first. It was a nice change of pace from playing Dragon Age, which can really be over tedious at times.ME2 is just not your game. It has over a 90% score from both users and critics...so no, this isn't just the critics being fanboys, it's them agreeing with the fans and the people who bought and played the game.Good troll though.

the article is sprinkled with some fair criticisms but you're guilty of doing the opposite of these mainstream journalists by calling this game a failure. yes it has many flaws but it is still a good game. 8/10 seems like the score most fitting.

Eh, there's one in every crowd. I'm betting you don't like Avatar either, not because it's a horrible film but because it's immensely successful.Critics are failed artists, that's common knowledge, so I can't really say I'm surprised to see this article. In fact I'm surprised there aren't more of them.Here's the thing, I agree with some of your points, particularly the bit about Bioware giving you an unnecessary heads up based on the room layout. Hopefully they will address that in ME3.That said, criticizing the combat in an RPG (even a watered down RPG like ME2), makes about as much sense as criticizing the story-writing in Modern Warfare.ME2's combat system is an afterthought. Always has been, always will be. The game exists for people who want to get lost in a huge, immersive, original world. Is the story particularly original? No, it's a Dirty Dozen riff, but what draws people to games like this are the characters and the detail, and no one brings game characters to life like the artists and writers at Bioware. Spending 40 hours with ME2 (as I've just done) feels like hanging out with old friends, such is the care and quality put into the fleshing out of the cast.I'm sure many people zip through the dialogue trees as fast as possible to get to the combat and beat the game, and that's a shame. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and every other game Bioware has ever made is not about combat or game mechanics, it's about characterization and world-building. These guys are storytellers first, they happen to be working in the field of video games.Perfect game? No. I'd personally like more exploration options and a little bit less linearity. But calling it a mess is laughably off-base and smacks of needing to be different. ME2 does exactly what it set out to do. Keep criticizing the combat system though, and we'll keep laughing at you (and hoping you eventually get it).As an aside, having a blog that no one's heard of before today doesn't make you a journalist or part of the game industry, but another in a long line of pretenders who think their opinion matters./salute

"They are more than capable of delivering a masterpiece of design, as evidenced by Dragon Age..."Really? That's your idea of a masterpiece? I actually stopped playing about 3 or 4 hours into the game because it was so unbearably boring and generic. I find even WoW grinding to be more entertaining than Dragon Age.

Everyone has a translator that changes everyone else's voices into their language.Start a romance with Thane. At one point he calls you "siha". Shepard says "I think my translator just glitched on me. What does siha mean?"

I enjoyed the experience as a whole, but maybe that's because I came into the game expecting shitty gameplay. Taken as a whole, it wasn't bad, just rather mediocre for a company like BioWare. They ought to have learned a bit more from the criticism of the first game instead of being a formulaic hack like the CoD series.The mainstream industry seems to be incapable of advancing beyond 'RAWR KILL MAIM BURN BLOOD GOUTS' or 'Generic CSoid 9.3'. Take a look at the newest RPG titles. How many of them made players make a genuine moral choice? How many of them didn't have paper cutouts for villains (when you make some TACTICAL GENIUS guy who looks like Snape disagree with an overenthusiastic blond white knight raised-on-fairytales sort, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's more going on)? Shit, look at how successful God of War has been and weep.And Call of Duty. Don't get me started on that. It was good when there were no numbers appended to the end, but now? Bleargh. Modern Warfare managed to revive it a bit, with a relevant story and a change of feel, but it's all gone to shit now.

You've got some legitimate points, but a lot of your points are bollocks and obvious attention-whoring flame bait.Bioware gets automatic +3 on review scores? Really? I agree that not all Bioware games are 10/10, the-second-coming-of-Jesus's, but they're still all very good, certainly better than a 7/10 (assuming that 7/10 is your average, run of the mill, decent but not very good game).1st Point: Planet Surveying You're right it's slow and boring. But hey it beats the game automatically giving you everything, and it's actually feasible, no? Demanding what is essentially an entirely separate game just for the relatively minor planet exploration mechanic seems a bit unfair.2nd Point: Englishmen Everywhere Perfectly valid criticism. I personally disagree (I prefer English over unintelligible and meaningless gibberish), but your preference is completely valid.3rd Point: Crappy, Unsurprising Combat Your point is valid.4th Point: Logbooks Suck I disagree. In a game like this, with interactive dialogue, exposition is not as bad is it would be in a book or film. The game already does show a lot, and because the dialogue is interactive, I'm participating in the exposition, not just sitting back and being bored. If you want technobabble about the workings of an eezo drive, I'd rather I go to the out-of-the-way logbook, rather than have the game constantly throw unimportant pieces of fluff in in my face when I try to play the game. Logbooks are also great for getting back into the game after taking a break. If I spend a week from the game, I might forget about what I have to do fro my quests. Not forcing the player to take physical notes on in-game quests is good design, not stupid.5th Point: Crappy Interface Valid point, although your main gripe seems to be more about the lack of menu hot keys (at least on the PC), rather than a truly failed interface.6th Point: Framing Sucks I don't know about you, but I remember the good old days where I spent half the game pixel-hunting, looking for just the right pixel to click on so that I could get to the next part of the game. I'm happy those days are over and I don't know why you'd want to go back. Framing is good because it actually encourages exploration (I can explore without spending 10 minutes in each room, jamming on the "use" key to make sure I didn't miss anything. Woo!)7th Point: No Inventory Management You've got a valid point, although you have to give Bioware props for taking a risk and streamlining the RPG trope of tons and tons of useless loot.8th Point: Mini-Games Suck Valid Point9th Point: It's a valid point, although I can't quite see what's so bad about every character having a loyalty mission.10th Point: Too Easy Hey, you know what you could do? You could turn up the difficulty. Maybe you'll have a need for all your fancy abilities then.In Closing: You've got quite a few valid points. You just need to stop exaggerating. Mass Effect is by no means the platonic ideal of video games, but it's also not a horrible game. It's quite good, but it's not perfect, and you need to stop nitpicking.

dude you are an idiat, go fuck urself

Very nice review. Actually agree with all points and most of all with +3 for Bioware. If critics don't give adequate and thorough oppinion about games why the hell make the game better. lets just stick ME3 sticker to the old system and sell it whole anew. Game does have lots of flaws which of course don't make it bad but much less perfect than others think.) GJ and best of luck)

Well, mission accomplished. The author got his desired results of stirring the pot to gather up some attention. Too bad he wasnt as objective as he claims to be.

You're overanalyzing. Sit back and enjoy the game for what it is, not masquerade the games few faults. Although I do agree with you on a lot of these, it shouldn't let you hate the game this much.Jeez.

I agree with most of the improvement-suggestions. Personally I think ME2 was a great game and a great experience. Storytelling was better in me2 and It was as addicting as ME1, but I was also really disappointed that they dumbed it down. Still, a great experience, because it felt like more than a video game - it was like being the main character in a novel rather than main character in a videogame. One thing I really hate is voiceacting at crucial moments. Shepard seemed like he'd rather shove a burrito up his ass than do a good prep-speech before the assault on the collectorbase. It wasn't worth 96/100, closer to 90. Still a LOT of improvements to be made for ME3. I can only pray they don't rush it, like they rushed ME2 (You can argue all you want, but they have to rush the ME-series because the ME trilogy has to be published during the Xbox360 prime time)

Oh, and your title is just a fanboy/hate aggrovator. You should have made it something like " Cons and improvements for mass effect " Failure is a strong word, and it definately wasnt a failure.

"Bioware is one of a select number of game companies that receives a +3 modifier in review scores.". I quit reading your article after that statement. BioWare gets great reviews because they make great games. There's no way Mass Effect 2 deserves a 66. In fact after playing Mass Effect 2 I think a meta critic score 96 is a bit low. The game may not be perfect, but seeing as its my favorite game this generation I would actually score it a 10. Note: I don't believe that a 10 denotes perfection, just something truly magnificent.

I think that many of your points are valid. They do not however make this a bad game, simply not as good as it is hyped up to be. My personal opinion on this article is that it sounds like you want this to be Fallout, in space! That being said I was dissapointed by the repetitiveness and the lack of innovative item structure.

THANK YOU!Finally someone will stand up to Mass Effect 2!I just beat the game and had an AVERAGE experience.The only flaw I think u missed is how the CITADEL FUCKING SUCKS! I loved the citadel in ME1 and now it blows.Great article tho!

at first i wasn't happy with your article but i cooled down and started to agree with some of your points. some like the aliens speaking english was explained in ME1: universal translator. It's good to see someone saying something bad about a exelent game, that encorages the developer to try to make a better game. The worst point about ME2 is that it feels like the half, like The Empire strikes back in Star Wars. It's a great game and Bioware will be happy to see a someone saing the game isn't perfect. Now excuse me, i have to save the universe and bang a new alien chick in ME2

I agree on pretty much all points. One think that I dislike with bioware's games is that the real story is usually no more than a fourth of the game. 2/4 is about recruiting, 1/4 is about exploring and then we have the story. Who gives a crap when a game is 30h long when it's all sidequests? My first playthrough took me about 19h when I completed perhaps 90% of all sidequests. However, my second playthrough took me less than 9 hours when I skipped the loyal quests.

I read this article with interest and was glad to see that not everyone was falling over themselves to praise ME2. A strange thing for me to say as I'm such a fan of the ME games. The reason I say it is because even as a fan I can see the flaws in this game. I've just finished my first play through and I've come away feeling ever so slightly unimpressed. There are lots of things I like, but the weaknesses of the first game are still present, just in a altered form. I wouldn't go as far with my criticism as you have, but there are disappointments. I think your article is unfair in reviewing the game on what you think should be in it. I think too many of your suggestions are personal preferences. As much as you may like more resource management, for instance, the next gamer may not. There's also to much anti Bioware feeling. This game has obviously been produced as RPG lite to entice a larger gaming audience. Bioware are playing to the crowd on this one. Think about how many people will of picked up a copy of this game up that wouldn't of considered playing the first because it had a RPG label. In this sense the game is a huge success, or maybe it's just Bioware's PR that's the success? I think we can all agree on one thing, and that's that this game is no KOTOR. Overall, I agree that the game has flaws and that the reviews have been scored to high, but I'm still buying the third game when it's released. Bioware can bank on that.

wow they deleted my comment so ill say it again this website has many failures... for example they talk about how they all talk English but their aliens...maybe they have voice translators like what they have in star trek which allows humans to hear English all the time . anyways the game is meant to be a more movie like experience then just another RPG..yes the mako is a good thing and which they haven't took it out but it did have aiming problems....god you people complain about the mako so they decide they take it out then you guys go complain about it not being there jee make up your minds maybe god of war should get a review score of a 2 just cause i hate hack and slashing..anyhow people give opinions and the people that do the reviewing say they like it..

Wow, you really hit the nail on the head with this. BioWare would do well study this article. There are a couple points I personally am less bothered by (such as the codex and the interface) but I am super impressed by how you were able to break away from the rest of the bioware dick-riders without coming off as a bioware hater. BioWare CAN do better and we should be pissed if they don't. You Just gained yourself a regular reader.

There are some good points in this article (amidst the perplexing or impossibly demanding ones), but it all comes apart in your unnecessary internet-troll rhetoric that you're clearly using as flamebait to get traffic on the site. Articles like this totally ruin a site's credibility and reliability-- it's great to have an opinion, but extremist language is unprofessional and makes the writer sound ignorant, even if they have a few good points to make.Oh, and I don't EVER trust a critic who is ignorant enough to say "oila!" (it's totally "voila") or calls Mass Effect 2 a first-person shooter or "RPG game" (role playing game game).

I cannot explain how much this article irked me.First, there are the contradictions--the +3 modifier, for instance. you claim that if a game is published by Bioware (or square enix, or ubisoft, whatever), 3 points are automatically added to the lower score another (normal) game would have gotten. You imply that Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age Origins, and Mass Effect 1 received high scores simply because of the company under which they were published. You say this as though bioware does not produce games worthy of a 9+ score. Later on in the article, however, you say that mass effect 2 is not a worthy addition to bioware's legacy... so does bioware produce quality games deserving of high scores, or not? Because, i was under the assumption that in order to have a legacy worth something, your games have to be worth something. ALSO: you rage at reviewers for sugarcoating the game and not presenting the truth in its entirety when you are on the other end of the spectrum, just as extreme, just as wrong, enhancing every flaw without informing the reader of the surplus of things the game did right.But, on with things.The one thing I agree with entirely:-Ditch the planet surveying, and bring back the mako (though in moderation)On the fence: these are things where the premise of the idea held promise, but you succumbed to utilizing hyperbole to stress the point to breaking. These problems aren’t as much of a hindrance as you suggest, but they have room for improvement.-combat stages- yea, we all agree that their use of crates are pointless. But it works, It doesn’t ruin the game. -mission arcs- yes, the Mission ARCS are repetitive, but by no means boring. The stories behind the arcs are absolutely fantastic. story serves as the foundation of any rpg, and this one has a foundation that is nearly indestructible. Your suggestion that there be LESS STORY in an RPG and more game play rendered this article, and your opinion, meaningless to me. Let me quote you to remind you of what you said: “Just because one character has a back-story mission doesn’t mean every character needs one.” (end quote). How dare you.These things I disagree with STRONGLY, simply because you are acting like a fussy child by this point:-british roman effect: there was a codex released in a DLC explaining intergalactic language. There is a common trade language and technological implants to aid in translation and sound emission. Please, get your facts straight. -log books-the log books aren’t a crutch, they are a supplement. You say that an alien language needs to be developed to increase depth, but this will not happen because you say that people are illiterate and need everything read to them, then claim that log books need to be eradicated because the player has to read them. Contradictions. -interface-the interface is fine. -environment interaction- without highlighted regions, it would become frustrating to figure out which of the 10 computers you can interact with, which asari is the one that you need to talk to. The highlight feature is a necessity.In this review, you shattered the basis of this game and reformed the splintered shards into a fictitious game that no longer resembled that it was. This article was entirely void of professional journalism and you reduced yourself, as the author, to using slander as fuel to magnify otherwise insignificant flaws. In future articles, I suggest you adopt a more proficient approach.

I must say, I really like your "i don't like this, so the obvious solution is countless hours of complex, overworked coding and development, because Game Design isn't hard at all...."Fuck you, and your ignorant bullshit. I wasn't excited for this game at all, but even I must say that your points are idiotic. Get rid of recordings and logs, because you think it's LAZY writing? That's several man hours of work, and if you spent the time to read them instead of being lazy yourself, you'd learn all those cool background stories. Creating a mission for each would undoubtedly cost a fortune, and you could probably expect another disc to put in. Perhaps you'd like combat without cover, or a mini game for every second between dialogue and battle. I reiterate, Fuck you.How about you actually learn how much effort goes into making games, especially ones of Bioware's caliber, and after you've cranked out years of hard work for little pay (and had your work critiqued by a moron) I'd love to hear your 'suggestions.'

Even though I actually really like ME2, it doesnt make it immune to critique, and i actually agree pretty much with everything here, except for the aliens speaking english, that was in the first one too and never really bothered me and would be weird if they changed it just for the 3rd game, and them telling the story with actions not words, which im not against completely, its just to completely remove ALL codex stuff is asking for a lot.Also, I agree with the maps being boring and predictable with way too much clutter for cover points, but its certainly not easy. i've always said that mass effect is really only fun on insane difficulty, because there is little room for error, so the importance of strategy/tactics makes it a way more engaging game.These flaws are all definately there in ME2, but there is actually a lot of great things this game does, and while its story could be less predictable, its presentation is definitely a huge step forward for bioware games. hopefully they will learn from these mistakes, but thinking in extremes is not good for anyone, and just pointing out flaws is just as bad as being a blind fanboy. and i mean that for everyone, not just the author.My only other complaint that you missed was the fact that they put cover and run as the SAME BUTTON!!! also, no crouch? with as much crap as there is on the battlefield, getting stuck on random walls can sometimes become a problem.anyways, great article, bioware should read it.

Way to go against the flow, man. I dont agree with your review but I salute you for trying to be different.

Lol.How many wanna-be 'journalists' can the internet produce?ME2 and Bioware simply own your face. I'm sorry you didn't make it in video game design college and decided to start yet another gaming blog, but hey, at least you can enjoy your site's one moment of spiking traffic before resuming your average life.I look forward to your oh-so-original take on ME3 in a couple of years. Lmao.

Yes the best way to defend yourself is by listing the obvious way people would react to this trash of an article.Infoaddict.... ill try to remember the site so i wont land again in this mess

[...] One of our writers posted a critique of the latest wildly-popular BioWare RPG, Mass Effect 2, on our sister site, InfoAddict, and it’s seriously stirred up the emotions of quite a few fanboys so we thought we’d reprint it here for you to enjoy (or hate) too. (If you’d like to read some of the encouraging comments and fiery criticisms left on the original, you can find it here.) [...]

you make a better game

[...] One of our writers posted a critique of the latest wildly-popular BioWare RPG, Mass Effect 2, on our sister site, InfoAddict, and it’s seriously stirred up the emotions of quite a few fanboys so we thought we’d reprint it here for you to enjoy (or hate) too. (If you’d like to read some of the encouraging comments and fiery criticisms left on the original post, you can find it here.) [...]

Look, it's simple to prove youre whole argument foolish simply from the fact that when you add up all your "suggestions" to bioware, you get a game that would take a decade to complete and bankrupt any publisher in the process.

A lot of people read a headline such as this and then accuse the author writing an article like this in order to get hits, well, if you are concerned with the amount of hits the author is receiving stop commenting on articles that you believe to be written to gain hits, problem solved.

To start, I am a huge fan of Mass Effect 1 & 2. That being said, I have to agree with some of the things that were said. I thought that combat senarios were very predictable. I could tell when the enemy was gonna come cause of the cover and everything. I also thought that the weapons and armor were limited. There are only a few pieces of armor to use and custimize with. Maybe they should have different armor types with more pieces like light, medium, and heavy armor types.All-in-all, I still really like Mass Effect 2. The story telling is still incredible and the game is still entertaining. I think Bioware tried to bring in First-Person Shooter fans with this game and forgot about the true RPG fans that really looked forward to Mass Effect 2. I still think that Mass Effect 2 deserves it's high ratings because compared to other games, it is quite superior. I can only hope that Bioware sees this article and reads the comments. Mass Effect 2 is not a perfect game, but I will enjoy playing it untill Mass Effect 3

I haven't played Mass Effect 2 (I don't even have an XBox 360), and I admit that I have a little trouble buying that the game's as bad as you say. Still, I think it's great that you're standing up to the hype, you definitely don't see that enough these days, and I suspect that your critique of game journalism is more accurate than most of us are willing to admit (and doesn't just apply to video games, either). Also, some of the fanboy complaints are just sad, they seem to actually think it's appropriate to call you "flamebait" or "anti-bioware" or to imply that you're wrong just because you're in the minority. I'm guessing these people were (or are) bullied a lot in school, and they love the internet because it gives them the chance to be the bully for a change. Pathetic.

Oh, I almost forgot...I too loved the "+3 modifier" bit! lol

There were a lot of problems with ME 2. That reviewers have been giving it 9 or 10 is beyond me. The game was three steps forward and two steps back IMO. Sadly Bioware will probably settle for bathing in in review glory and not fix the game. I enjoyed ME 2, but overall I had more fun playing ME 1 warts (fairly large) ones and all. Great too see someone being a little more objective.

Nice article, but I have one major complaint: ME2's overratedness, IMO, is not so much the "Bioware" part as it is the "shooter with decent RPG elements" part. I mean, Dragon Age got *less* acclaim than it deserved, despite being--again IMO--better than ME2. But it's an RPG, and review sites don't seem to like RPGs on principle. (G4 RPG GOTY 2009 going to Bowser's Inside Story, anyone?) But since ME2 is, primarily, a shooter, it gets the ridiculous 'bump' given to ALL popular shooters, plus the benefit of being one of the few in the genre with something solid backing up the gunfights.

I enjoyed ME2 more than ME1. Don't really agree with any of your points and I am more inclined to think you only contradict public opinion of the game for more hits on your sight. However, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and just say I humbly disagree. Not a fanboy of the company, just a fan of the game.

My thoughts exactly. Thank you very much for writing this. I hope ME3 will follow at least some tips you listed.

Agree on some points, disagree with the rest. Didn't like your critical tone. It's so easy to criticize isn't it? Sorry, unless you're a respected game maker who has created some good games out there, your rant does you no credit (I still have not heard of a developer being critical of other developers' work).Plus, tactics are there - go try insanity mode.

I think I agree with all of your points, more or less. The formula of the 'loyalty missions' was a problem for me as well- one of the great things about Dragon Age's party members was that their loyalty was tied to your actions in the main adventure by a matter of degree, instead of flicking the 'normal/loyal' switch by completing the character's mini-quest. And that made them much more real as characters.That said, I think your self-righteous tone of 'I, Alone Of The Entire Worldwide Gaming Community, Am Speaking The Truth! Disagree With Me? I Bet You Even Liked Transformers, Didn't You, You Tasteless Sheeple Fanboy?' is pretty unprofessional; closer to a shouty forum thread than a genuine gaming article. Exposing the lack of interactive objects in Mass Effect 2 does not make you Erin Brockovich.http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/01/ten_things_gone_terribly_wrong.phpThis article actually makes many of the same points you do (and it even has a more inflammatory title) but without the attitude problem.

I agree on basically everything you said. However, I dont know if I'd say that all BioWare games are upped by 3 points. But I would say 1.5 points. I think ME2 was about and 83-84% honestly.

Boon, don't feed us that ridiculous logic. People aren't allowed to criticize games unless they're a game developer? So, I guess you're not allowed to criticize the food you eat unless you're a chef, huh? Have you made any feature films? No? I guess that means you like all movies equally then, since you're not qualified to judge.Go back to your "expert" opinions on IGN and GameStop, please.

I like how one of the commenters says that ME 2 is dumbed-down and then turns around and praises Jade Empire.

Pretty much spot on. I think to actually make Mass Effect better, would probably require Bioware to abandon casual gamers and the game pad as an input device to a degree. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen because there's a lot of money made with console games.

I strongly disagree with you on the majority of these points (with the exclusion of the mining system). I think you're just targeting BioWare because everybody else loves them. I'm sorry, but despite you're criticism-voiding catch all at the end of the article, I'm going to go ahead and say that this is a very thinly veiled attempt to get more traffic on the site. Have you any idea how difficult it is to make a game? Clearly not, or else you wouldn't be asking BioWare to cater specifically to your incessant, whiny needs. I'm perfectly okay with people who disagree with critics (UNCHARTED 2!) but this is a great game and you're just being an annoying perfectionist. To some of these people who post their reviews here, you may be championing non conformity, but, to me, you just sound like a bratty four year old whose mommy bought mini-marshmallows instead of big ones.

LOL at some of these comments...Thanks for the article man, it's nice to hear from someone that isn't sucking dick.

Completely agree, it's nice to see some honest analysis of the game.Its fun, but not a worthy successor to ME1 (which could have also been improved).ME2 is a step backwards.

Thank you for such a refreshing article. I purchased the first ME and played it all the way to the end. I was completely disappointed. After reading all the great reviews I thought I must have been missing something. It is nice to see someone speak their mind honestly. Keep up the good work.

I appreciate what you're trying to accomplish here, but your absurd negativity completely ruins your argument. Your wish for groundbreaking improvements in the industry is one thing. Bashing Bioware for not being the ones to take the step forward is another. This is a wonderful game with real emotion and, man, it's just fun to play. It's obvious they put a lot of love into this game. Most of the dialogue is some of the best written and well acted I have seen in any game. Better than most movies, in fact. Declaring this game a "complete mess" is so damn pathetic. As another poster above me declared quite simply: "YOU go make a better game." Don't sling mud because your highly unrealistic expectations were not met. Awful article.

Another lengthy, in-depth article serving no purpose.No offense, but get used to it. All game companies who want to make any money are stripping down their games to the bare essentials. This is to make them console friendly, and console is where ALL the money is.They ship a nice simple game you can finish in under 40 hours so that you'll be ready to give them another $10 for DLC a month after the game launches.Get used to it.

Fantastic review, and great to see someone stand up against the barage of biased 10/10s this game has recieved. I dont agree on every point, but by and large I feel the same way as you. ME2 is a 7ish game at best. I played ME1 and utterly adored it regardless of its many flaws. ME2 has lost something from ME1. Some things I can easily place, others I cant.Regardless, Im glad to see folks like you. Folks who arent afraid or to busy kissing ass because they are fanboys to let Bioware know that ME2 is as flawed as ME1, and they arent fooling anyone with their many "improvements" (massive cutbacks, removals, and general change of direction).

Have to agree with you on the majority of what you said. Gameplay is very dumbed down, whole interface has console written all over it. As soon as I entered a room the game was telling me there was a wall safe/pda/medi-gel in there, and I couldn't even see the damn thing yet. Room layouts determining if there would be a fight or not 100% correct. The other thing that I found jarringly disapointing was the the introduction to the new members, particularly Jack, where she appears to take out a whole facility on her own, including blowing huge holes in walls with her biotics, yet when she joins the team, she is no stronger/better than anyone else...wtf!!?? (insert other team members name to suit, as it was the same with all of them). Weapon upgrades also a crock...spent 25000 on a new heavy weapon late in the game, still nowhere near as effective as the geth particle rifle found way earlier on in the game. No, the gameplay was a disapointment, but, as paper-thin as the plot was, the way they told it was well done, considering what they had to work with. The only other thing I would like to mention is the cover system; great in concept, lousy in execution. Several times I found my toon being elevated up alongside a high wall on an invisible elevator, leaving me stuck up on top with absolutely no way of getting down, (including hitting the F key), and I wasn't even looking for cover, just moving past it! I think your article is honest, just a tad too negative in its presentation, but its good to see an effort being made to point out the sad but obvious shortcomings of what could/should have been a much better game.

While its nice to see someone finally actually critiquing ME2, you don't give any fair shake to the exceptionally done things in this game. Voice acting and production are exceptional. Few games reach this bar. But ultimately, I think this is a consolidated version of ME. They are obviously trying to cater to the xbox crowd. This leaves PC Gamers fuming. This is blatently obvious from the lack of hotkeys. No hotkey for a quest journal? Seriously?!? Wake up bioware, or else TOR will be another SWG.

It's nice to see reviews like this, because they give an idea of the faults of a game, and help give a better idea of whether or not to purchase. It amuses me that the vast majority of comments are people that seem somehow personally offended that you pointed out flaws in a game they like, and that drives them to personal insults. People also don't seem to realize that different people have different opinions. Frankly, I pity the intelligence of some of these commentators.

SPOT ON review! I had no idea why this game was so revered in the reviews. I played it. I hated it. I did NOT understand! Unless all the reviews are written by numbnut console kiddies who equate pretty graphics with good gaming. Horrible PC game. Absolute shite! Boring, boring, boring! Consoles are f*cking destroying PC gaming.Bioware IS better than this. Or, they were...

I completly agree with this artical. I just expected so much more after all the high reviews. i cant believe the money i spent on this game. I will second guess Bioware games in the future, where in the past i wouldnt have for one second. This game is derivative and dumbed down in every way. Story and Enemy models are great though. It is like playing lots of mini games, i.e. go into room, see a maze like layout, cover, shoot, cover, shoot, defeat enemy, next room...I also found just a lack or control over aspect of the the menu system and pause menu. i could go on an on, and almost wish i was a gaming journalist just to bash this game. But, i will try to enjoy the story and play threw it.

I agree! ME2 just feels boring in a way that ME1 never did. At least in ME1 you could choose not to do many or most of the mako "sidequests". And I am still mourning the removal of the inventory.ME2 is more polished than ME1, but hardly an improvement.

NO WAI! MASS EFFECT IS ACE LOL! BANHAMMER THIS GUY! ... Okay so I agree with some of your points. Like the scanning; that was bullshit. I even found the first game's method of scanning more enjoyable; because it was quicker. And they did dumb down the inventory system a little too much for my liking. But, come on. You just attacked every point of the game; as if you wanted the whole thing re-hauled! Well I disagree. I enjoyed the game; therefore it must have done a good deal right. Maybe it doesn't deserve its 96% on metacritic; but compare it to the other games that are up there too. Games like MW2. 94%. Mass effect 2 is miles better. Out of Park baseball even scores highly. Why? It's a basic and quite frankly rubbish sports simulator. What I'm saying is Mass Effect 2 is, relatively speaking, at the top of the board, and deserves to be. Sure, we could give every game 20% because we know in the future a game could come along that improves every single aspect; or that another game has done some aspect far better already. I mean I think Fallout 3 was much better in terms of mixing the RPG with the shooter. But the conversation system in mass effect 2 blow's Fallout out of the water. But honestly I didn't buy the game because of the company that made it. Frankly some child-murdering nazi could have made it and I'd still have praised them for this game. As a whole, and comparing it relatively; It's l33ts4uc3. Massively Effectively awesome. Sure if you play through it hoping to criticise everything to proof the critics wrong and make yourself feel better and gain more traffic to your site; you are going to enjoy the game less. Fair enough dude. But c'mon it's like; just no. We can't punish a company for having the gall to make a game this awesome; sure maybe the critics should be criticising more 'cas it's their job. But don't blame the company, or the gamers. They have a right to make and praise (respectively) a rockin' ass game like this. You know I blame the critics. And because you're criticising, I blame you. And myself, because I'm criticising you and being a hypocrit. P.S. the sex in Mass effect 2 is great, but i think we all want to see MOAR. Complete freaky alien genitalia including. Aight Peace

Well this article is mostly nitpicking. You can always find ways to improve a game, but compared to other games sold nowadays this one looks pretty polished (and I am not just talking about the graphics here).I agree with most of the specific points but not the interactive environment complain. I think pixel hunting like in classic adventure games is a game mechanic better left in the past. Deus Ex had an option to put frames around interactive objects, and I thought the game was better played with the frames on. You somehow need to give the player some good UI feedback about what elements of the environment are interactive and which ones are just pretty background.

A lot of the complaints are entirely justified, and the entire last section is a blatantly necessary critique of the current game industry that praises any highly anticipated game and utterly dismisses any criticism as "elitism"

I've purchased nearly every Bioware release and enjoyed both Mass Effect games; this article is entirely accurate and anyone who would even begin to argue is either deluded or simply unqualified to be talking about video games.The gaming industry is a mess right now; a major issue being multiplatform titles. Way to not play on the strengths of each individual system, but force everyone to settle with garbage devoid of any depth and complexity, catering to the lowest common denominator.

THANK GOD FOR THIS ARTICLE.Retarded forums can really make a guy question himself.

Amazing review. Mass effect 2 was a below-average game for me. I expected so much more from Bioware - I hope ME3 is better.

Terrible article. All you did was nitpick and claim these are failures, yet the game is amazing. All the other reviews pointed out faults you'll trully notice while playing, not ones that you have to think about for a half an hour that brings no point to the article at all. I loved the game.All I got from this was: "Hey! Read this! This makes a good game look bad! Despite I am being overly serious about the dumbest points!"

Finally a fair review of the game.(While I don't agree with everything)

Have to say that I also agree to a lot of what is said here. The game is still a good game but its very far from any perfect scores and way below ME1 or Dragon Age: Origins for that matter. It's been a long times since I trusted any gaming press when it comes for reviews. On the forums of gaming sites like neoseeker or gamespot you generally find more nuanced views. Hyped games that don't hold up generally get a lot of "what is this shit" kind of threads and ME2 is getting them. More than I expected so far and that is good. Just hope someone at Bioware is actually listening instead of just laughing all the way to bank.

I agree with much of this, but I don't think Bioware gives a shit. Most of the criticism in the article applies to KOTOR, Dragon Age and Jade Empire too. Lame combat. Check. Good looking but otherwise lifeless non-interactive environments. Check. Homogenized NPCs. Check. That's what Bioware does.They tell decent stories and the games are fun enough, but I wouldn't call any of them great RPGs. There's little actual roll playing in any of their games because they are so linear and repetitive. They're much closer to interactive movies than they are to true role playing games. But the same could be said of the Final Fantasy games and no one criticizes them for it either.

Well said! And you were too soft on Bioware. They need a good roasting for this, as do the big games sites, who only give the rave reviews and scores because scores are 90% based on a perceived reception. Nice to see someone has the balls to call ME2 for what it is.

Thank you,You're 100% accurate in your take on Gaming Journalism and it's interesting tendency to give any large company's games a free pass to the high scores.I also think that you've been pretty generous in your assessment of ME2, I would've also taken it to task for it's very inconsistent writing.Regardless, if this honesty is how you review games, you'll be the only site I read. All of the other ones have clearly given up integrity.

BREW I GUESS YOU JUST TRIED BE THE SORE THUMB THAT STICKS OUT. I GUESS THE WORLD WORKS IN THIS FUNNY WAY WERE, WHEN A LARGE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE SAY SOMETHING IS GOOD AND JUST 1 DISAGREES ITS NORMALY RATED AS GOOD. I KNOW YOU ENTITLED TO YOUR OWN OPINION BUT COME ON GUY WHY WOULD YOU WANNA DESTROY SOMETHING THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE ELSE IF YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME WERE YOU GOING TO BE FIGHTING FOR RESOURCES SEARCHING ENDLESSY FOR CLUES READING SUBTITLES FOR ALIENS THATS FINE BUT DONT F@#*k UP A FRANCHISE ME AND THE REST WORLD LOVE.

Interesting article.First of all, ME2 is a very good game. It's not perfect, but it's a very solid and fun game. The reviewers might be biased because of the brand, but there is an undeniable quality to this product. If you refuse to acknowledge this, you can't expect your opinion to be taken seriously.However, I also think you're right to question some of the design choices, and commend you for at least trying to highlight the negative sides of the game.I agree with most of what you say, especially the degree of predictability in the game. Every mission is laid out the same way, and takes the same amount of time to play through.The art design is brilliant and consistent, but it becomes very repetetive after a while. This goes for the gameplay in general, be it scanning of planets, hacking mini-games, or strategic combat.I also think it's a shame that the classic rpg-elements have been so toned down. The character development of the game has been stripped to a minimum; you have less skills to choose from (compared to ME1), and fewer tiers within each skill. There's no real inventory anymore, items distribution is non-existent, and the difference between items in general is minimal. The game is essentially a shooter with a couple of very shallow rpg-elements. While this might be ok for most, I think it's a stretch calling it a classic RPG (this isn't really criticism I guess, but I think the accessibility detracts from the game's potential)A couple of more things I dislike that I won't elaborate in great detail on are the renegade/paragon system, and how every single conversation you have make you a "better" or "worse" person. It sucks having to be a dick to everyone to make sure you have the dialogue options later in the game.In conclusion, predictability and lack of complexity are the two things that dissapointed me the most about this game. But even this couldn't stop it from being an amazingly entertaining experience for me.

While some point in the article are valid, I do have to disagree with the overall negative tone it takes.While the combat is the same from the previous title, it is a little predictable at the later stages of the game. I challenge the author to name a game where that doesn't happen. Level design does need some work, but then I believe that alot of games could do with a few extra days spent to clean up a level, stage or map.Gameplay has been somewhat simplified, and going back to the previous example of maps some of the time it feels like with the Mako levels they forgot the decimal place when they were deciding how high the mountains should be. I don't mind rough terrain, but that level of tectonic activity would require a different type of world as to what they had shown in the design.I would certainly appreciate the aliens, being more alien, but in this case I think the hand waving and translation into English is a good thing for player immersion. If you want to deal with unusual cultures and risk major accidents there are other games that offer that, or pen and paper games.About the only other complaint I have with ME 2 is the hacking. The minigame mode was well thought out, but one shot unless mission specific? That seems a little tough. The same applies to the Bypass minigame. Rather than having to have the skills trained up to a state where you can access it everyone can do it from the get go was a good idea. I just feel that the tight restrictions do somewhat let this change down.In comparison, a title like the Witcher where you have to have text on screen to find somethings vs ME2 and the boxes, I'll take the boxes any day of the week. I don't have the time to have to dig through an entire virtual room of garbage to find one item. If I did, then I would be rather worried and spend some time outside in sunlight.My advice to the author was that your expectations were not what you got, and so you should find another title that suits what you want. Failing that perhaps it's time to offer your hand and try to put together a game concept and see how much survives the creation process. You will respect those people who do it more once you've lost 15,000 words or more to a single edit.

Happy to see this article even though I do not entirely agree with every point.The game did not merit the glowing reviews it got.

Well, I'm sure that if BioWare would ever address all those issues the way you propose, ME3 will become a piece of really stinking crap, man. You haven't obviously tried to play ME2 on any difficulty harder than normal; you would surely notice that those tips come in handy. But you may be right at some points, especially that player should NEVER know what will he be doing next. But then, the game - to be really playable - have to have a structure that is CLEAR for the player, so he will - in this or another way - know what has he done, what is there to do, etc.

An OK article, though the written style is a bit basic; still, that's a problem with all gaming "journalism". Your comments are hardly truthful, though - and that's not because you haven't sugar-coated the game.No, the issue is that you just don't go far enough. The last decent game Bio made was "Neverwinter Nights", a game which, since 2002. That was the last time Bio wrote anything even vaguely original. And it was still a dreadful game at release.What, precisely, are the design or narrative shifts between KotOR and Mass Effect One? None. The games are effectively identical, with one small change: Mass Effect 1 is less fun.

Literally the worst review ever. You want to spend 500 hours to find simple datapads? You want the other species to speak in a different language? Great so then we have absolutely no clue what they're saying.

Way to commit career suicide by trashing one of the best games released in the last 10 years. Journalists are supposed to be objective. You criticize others for their biased 'glowing praise' but this is nothing more than pre-rendered slander. You went in attempting pick apart this game and what you got was a terribad article.

It's all about preferences. I did like mass effect 2 whole a lot better than dragon age, but I agree with what he says. It's just that those flaws don't bother me as much as they bothered him. Yea, the plot sucked with, and the last boss fight was far fetched. Bioware simplified certain things, like items, and maybe such curtailment was necessary to hasten the development process.But was it a mess? Mass Effect 2 looked 10 times better than Dragon Age, and its dialogues were way more convincing. (In Dragon Age, everyone you talk to will spill their guts, telling you every secret of theirs.)But anyways, I agree with him for the most part, except when he said, it's a complete mess. It is not. It has some flaws, but other bright moments that shine make me more generous and forgiving.

LOL. Love how everyone's calling this a FAIR review or SPOT ON! How can this be fair when it's not even remotely balanced? He's just bashing the game, throwing a tantrum because his high (and weird) expectations were not met.

[...] just author Jack getting started, and he doesn’t hold anything back. Follow this link to read the rest of it – or even just to browse through some of the surprising responses made [...]

Well, at least you didn't go off on how "1T'5 N0T 3V3N N RPG!!1!" like so many others out there.I really enjoy how you frame this article. You go out of your way to insult any who enjoyed this game, and make people who feel like they enjoyed out as if they're part of "the problem," whatever that may be. So now you've got dozens of kids going and nervously agreeing with you, because they worry that if they disagree than they'll be seen as immature and not "real" gamers in the eyes of the elite. Awesome.Most of your issues with this game are warranted, if minor. I disagree that the Mass Effect universe lacks culture; every race speaks and acts in distinctly different fashion, albeit all in English. I think they techno-babbled explained that reason away in the first game as some sort of "universal translator," but again, minor issue, I digress.Planet surverying? Dumb. Cookie-cutter story structure? Yes indeed. Obvious combat environment transitions? Of course. These are all real problems, but in the overall context of this game they are all completely tertiary.What offends me is when you start insulting the video game journalism industry in general. Speaking as an individual who would've definitely given this game a 5/5, when you start heaping accusations and insults on all who would, and start playing with your childish tropes of "the last honest man in (video game) journalism," you do come off as needlessly argumentative and little more than a troll.The funniest thing about this review however is in your own contradictory nature. Granted I haven't read many of your other articles and reviews, so my lack of research on this may hurt my argument, but if this is article shows the rubric you hold up all games to than you must have never played a game you really enjoyed in your life. We both know this isn't true, so what this must mean is that even you hold Bioware up on a pedestal, just in a different way. In your mind this may be a great game, but not a great BIOWARE game, and therefore worthy of your derision. If any other dev team brought this game out you'd probably write a positive review and be finished. But since it's the golden boys over at Bioware, anything but perfect is unacceptable, neh?

XC. My point being he was bashing away as if he could have done a far better job filling the developers' shoes. It's just pretentious, at least to me.

you're focusing only on the negative and your comments are focused only on the game from a pc, serious gamers perspective. mass effect 2 is a unique, intensely emotional, personal, and flawed game. but the flaws are outweighed by the positives. combat is amazing in this game by the way. get an xbox 360! XD

[...] di ME2 ed al contempo indica quelli che dovrebbero essere gli ipotetici miglioramenti in ME3. The Many Failures of Mass Effect 2 | InfoAddict Ubi Roma cadit, ita orbis [...]

It's funny how most of the kids who disagree with this article are taking it personally like you have insulted their mother. First off, this is a great game, wayyy above average. But, I think it could have been so much better! I agree with your assessment with the lack of skill needed to succeed in this game. I feel like Bioware is relying too much on the romance subplots (which actually i'm rather disappointed with as well) instead of the action and suspense (or lack thereof) of the game. The main storyline is really short aside from recruiting characters, and even the sidequests are few and far between. Scanning planets is rather boring and monotonous, although I do not miss driving that dinky vehicle from ME1 for one second. I know, they're saving more story for ME3 but I think they could have easily added 20+ more storyline hours into this one. Lastly I'm slightly disappointed with the romance aspect of the game. It seems almost too easy at times. I think the "romance" is rather shallow, with the end being a cheesy sex scene. Where is the actual romance? The courting process only consists of completing a personal mission for a character and they're pretty much at your will. On ME3 add more intimate moments, make us feel like we're really falling in love with someone else. Make me feel like I'm cheating on my wife! In the end, this is a very entertaining game, but it's not perfect! I think if Bioware pays attention to some of this criticism they can come closer to making "the perfect game". And by the way, stop taking someone's opinions about a video game personally. There's gotta be bigger grievences in your life.

Excellent points! Glad someone else can see the faults also. I think most of my hate towards Mass Effect 2 comes from the fact that I really would like to love it, and I have to admit the first moments of gameplay I almost did, the story, the art, and the cinematic directing is very nice, even the conversations most part, but then the dumbed down interface and gameplay hit me to the face so hard, that I haven't yet recovered. I guess I'm a old school gamer , and I really feel big charm of RPG's for me is the strategy and micro-management, building character, comparing & using items, comparing statistics of weapons etc., and of course the tactical combat aspect. Of course they don't make a good RPG alone, quests, conversations and the feel of an adventure are equal as important aspects as well. I think Dragon Age nailed both quite well for me. (minus the quite boring and usual fantasy setting.)

Well said, CJ! (4 replies up from this one). That was very well written. I think you hit the nail on the head with the "last honest man in journalism" comment. The writer of this article comes across as a crusader that won't give up the good fight unlike the rest of the ethically bankrupt journalists who gave this game glowing reviews. The writer's last stand against widespread corruption! This was a "Hey! Look at me!" article. Congratulations: mission accomplished.

I agree that's it's kind of silly to be entirely in the English language. I guess i always thought that in any sci-fi space game the "babelfish" was a base assumption.

Remember kids, it's cool to hate.Reading the first paragraph made me throw up a little in my mouth, and consequently I just couldn't stomach the though of reading the others. You may have had valid points, but you come off as yet another twat who's trying too hard.

I agree with most of what was said here, mind you, I enjoyed Mass Effect and its sequel for what they are.While playing, I felt a constant hunger for more combat situations because of the lack of enemy numbers (besides husks, which just pissed me off) and large tactical fields. The sniper rifles were completely useless except for the viper (because it was a good accurate rifle) because of the lack of long range combat situations. There were never good opportunities to take enemies by surprise and there were never any true surprise ambushes that made my mouse arm jerk out of surprise.I personally believe that if Bio-ware wanted help with Mass Effect, they should have turned to Valve or Bungie.You can physically see and predict the seams between bio-ware's decisions and EA's suggestions. The two developers I previously mentioned could have helped bio to develop a higher quality of combat areas and diversity, but instead they wound up having us play the same game for every mission. It's comparable to going into a dungeon in oblivion, playing it through and killing everything, then waiting till the enemies re-spawn so you can go back inside and do it agian.It is a belief that games with a non-linear approach have better chances of success, however, this is only true to a degree. Game developers need to think about how their non-linear approach will affect gameplay, and they need to keep their learning material for review, so they may refresh their minds as to WHY their previous games were so good. Games need to keep some small level of linear level design, but keep the decisions and playstyle up to the player. Mass Effect only lets the player choose what linear puzzle piece they want to play next. This is wrong. What they need to do is make the player choose how to deal with a forced situation, instead of allow the player to choose the situation.For example, The PC needs to get from one end of a colony to the other. The colony needs to look like a town with homes, and not just facilities and empty buildings. It needs a wide open centre, and a multitude of ways of getting to that centre and continuing to the desired location. Avoid showing the player where to go, and instead, tell the player to figure it out, and put clues instead of plot in places that are not so obvious, then fill it with different situations that force the player to explore different options, push or pull the player around the map a bit using danger. Want them to go this way? either give the player defeatable enemies in the direction you want them to go, or send them an overpowering force of destruction coming from the direction you do NOT want them to go, and they might take cover in the direction you want them to go. or they might choose to stay and kill and even throw in a nice big reward for fighting off the indestructable force and making their way in that direction. It gives the player a choice, challenges them to think, AND gives them TWO ways of getting from point a to point b or even point a1-3 to point b1-4, but be sure they always reach point c. Even if it all leads to the same place, the player still feels like THEY made the choices.Either way it must seem NATURAL.Mass Effect is very fun, but predictable, and unnatural.

Right on, someone with cajones.

Some of these points are definitly true, still, this post seems kinda like a publicity stunt to me...

Yeah this is just a stunt to get traffic.

Good points! In short, it should be as complex as Dragon Age.

Im getting Mass Effect 2 today,i played Mass Effect 1 and i loved it. As far as this ,,review'', to each his own i guess, you made some points i agreed with,if they are true, but only 1 or 2 the rest is just stupid, you find every little bad detail and bash on it. As long as the story is good,i dont really care :D

I agree w/most of your points.. It seems it went from an RPG w/shooter elements to the reverse. Fine tuning the "complaints" would have been the way to go rather hack n slashing. All opinion of course.

He's right. They do need to improve everything he mentioned. I'm not gonna lie, the game was awesome but it has potential to be so much more!! The story got so interesting I can't wait for part 3 but I hope they take this into account. This article is definitely right though they need to go back to the drawing board on a lot of areas.

While you do bring up several good points. I find that I cannot agree with you completely. A lot of your arguments strike me as elitist "hardcore" gamer commentary. (This may not have been your intention but that is how it came across to me). The so called "hardcore" gamer is no longer the target audience of game developers. I note that the majority of your complaints were treating the game as either an RPG or as a shooter. This game is neither yet it is both. As the companies 2nd attempt to meld the 2 genres I find it an admirable attempt. Did it fall short in places? I am sure it did for some. But keep in mind blending RPGs and shooters is a new concept so a learning curve is to be expected. Not all RPG players play shooters and vice versa, so a happy medium has to be found between the two. Has that happened? No but the Mass Effect series has come the closest so far I feel.

I agree for the most part with this article's author. I found ME2 very short, the game can be summarized into: -find out who's abducting humans throughout the multiverse -recruit all possible companions and complete their loyalty missions, if you want. -go and destroy/preserve collectors' base of operations - say to yourself: "Huh, that's it?"

ME2 is not a "RPG", hell it's barely a "G". It's more of an interactive movie.Look at it this way....take out the dialogue, leave EVERYTHING else the same. What's left?....space crickets.I don't consider myself "role playing" when sitting in a theatre. Sure, there are minor things you can do to nudge the story one way or another, but in the end you're just sitting back and drooling like you would watching a flick..."OMG!!...you can save the galaxy from being blown up!!!...you call that minor!?? Our galaxy is 5.8 * 10^ 11 solar masses!! Yu r teh troll!!...buddy, you clicked your mouse a little to the left, and then twice to the right FTW.It did tell a nice story...so it deserves points, and it had good voice acting, so again...points, but as a RPG (keyword: game) I'd give it a 5. With Fallout 3 being a 10 and Fountain of Dreams being a 1.

I agree with almost all these points, but they really don't break the game. All you did was make a big deal out of a bunch of minor things. In my opinion you missed upon some of the game's greatest faults, such as the lack of party interaction and attachment to the characters that would have resulted, and the lack of RPG elements.Your complaints are mostly nitpicky. Mineral scanning is easy to get around as there are a few tricks that immensely speed it up. Text based information is only there because you can only record so much dialogue before going bankrupt. The combat system is a vast improvement from the first, even with the predictable cover system that you mentioned. The tactics are definetely there, just unnoticeable when playing on normal difficulty (my first playthrough was veteran and I definitely found myself using tactics and building my team/character with strategy in mind).I could probably provide a counterpoint to all of your points but I don't remember them all. The point is you have made a number of minor nuances seem like gamebreaking faults when they really are just what I said they were: minor nuances. I do agree however that this game isn't a 10/10 (metacritic) or a 9.6/10 (IGN). I'd give it a 9.5, slightly better than Mass Effect. I simply could not put this game down until I finished it.

Yes, you are correct in many ways but unfortunatly this is what the casual gamer loves! We hardcore gamers and rpg fans will just have to take what we're given... money talks I'm afraid.As half hearted as it was, I still enjoyed it for over 20 hours ;)

Mass Effect 2 is a great game. I'm on my third playthrough.That doesn't mean it is perfect. There is always merit in discussing what you see as shortfalls. There is no such thing as a perfect game, because there will always be ways to improve something. The day we stop trying to improve our lot is the day we die, or might as well do.There are ways in which ME2 improves hugely upon ME1, and there are ways in which I'm a bit disappointed. But there you go, Bioware didn't tap my brainwaves to create the experience that I and I alone would enjoy the most.It's incredibly sad that people start frothing at the mouth when someone levels a criticism at something they like. I'm sure those people have never disliked something others like. No, not ever.I look forward with great anticipation to Mass Effect 3, and I hope to be playing ME2 right up to the release date. I might adore the franchise, but I also have a modicum of sense - if there are flaws, man-up and be brave enough to admit it.

Jack--I salute your willingness to put up with the "Ass Effect" resulting from your well written criticism.Very refreshing break from fanboys and hate-mongers, neither of which ever back up their extreme views with valid points and facts.-Rick

This has got be one of the stupidest articles i've read. If your saying that Mass Effect 2 is a failure and in order to be good it needs to make these changes then you've obviously must have missed out on the dozens of bad RPG's that are already out.This article is trash, uses faulty logic and should be ignored.

So the merchant system is bad? Buying fish, models and upgrades to personalize your game and upgrade your character is a bad thing?Hitting the Escape Button to bring up a menu is an interface failure? So just about every game on the PC failed?Having crates and cover to signal combat ahead is a bad thing? Then most shooter games just failed to you.Overall your criticism is faulty. Claiming critics need to be harder on Bioware and other major companies because they're better? That's a faulty argument, doing that would mean people read that the games are crap and no one would buy them. So you would suggest that critics ruin Bioware, Bungie, Bethesda, Infinity Ward and any other major game company I can think off the top of my head. I write for my towns local newspaper, I'm the movie reviewer guy. I thought Rotten Tomatoes had some pretty crappy critics but you take the cake. I've played Mass Effect 2, I've played Baldurs Gate, I've played Dragon Age, i'm in no means a fanboy but these games are all very great entries into the RPG genre.Mass Effect 2 deviates from the norm by going to a more "personalized" game. Your claiming it's giving us a false sense of complexity when it actually is.And your last few words of "Okay, I’m done. Please feel free to demand my firing, call for my head, swear you’ll never read us again, claim it’s just a stunt for traffic, and call me a dumbass (or worse) in the comments below. Or, perhaps you are one of the lonely few who happen to agree?" your calling us out. That is your one big mistake, your no better then "An Internet Troll" arguing for the sake of arguing albeit you definitely try harder then most "Trolls". I'm going to close my statement with a phrase my co-worker once read off of 4chan.Unsuccessful Troll is Unsuccessful.

There is such a thing as "Too much criticism" and that's what this article is full of. I think there's a reason people use Ign, Gamespot, Gameinformer, and Gametrailers over you. To all who agree with this article, read reviews of Mass Effect 2 from other sites then compare them to this one. Now tell me who's over analyzing.

So the merchant system is bad? Buying fish, models and upgrades to personalize your game and upgrade your character is a bad thing?Hitting the Escape Button to bring up a menu is an interface failure? So just about every game on the PC failed?Having crates and cover to signal combat ahead is a bad thing? Then most shooter games just failed to you.Overall your criticism is faulty. Claiming critics need to be harder on Bioware and other major companies because they're better? That's a faulty argument, doing that would mean people read that the games are crap and no one would buy them. So you would suggest that critics ruin Bioware, Bungie, Bethesda, Infinity Ward and any other major game company I can think off the top of my head. I write for my towns local newspaper, I'm the movie reviewer guy. I thought Rotten Tomatoes had some pretty crappy critics but you take the cake. I've played Mass Effect 2, I've played Baldurs Gate, I've played Dragon Age, i'm in no means a fanboy but these games are all very great entries into the RPG genre.Mass Effect 2 deviates from the norm by going to a more "personalized" game. Your claiming it's giving us a false sense of complexity when it actually is.And your last few words of "Okay, I’m done. Please feel free to demand my firing, call for my head, swear you’ll never read us again, claim it’s just a stunt for traffic, and call me a dumbass (or worse) in the comments below. Or, perhaps you are one of the lonely few who happen to agree?" your calling us out. That is your one big mistake, your no better then "An Internet Troll" arguing for the sake of arguing albeit you definitely try harder then most "Trolls". I'm going to close my statement with a phrase my co-worker once read off of 4chan.Unsuccessful Troll is Unsuccessful.

This is exactly the idea I've been trying to get across on the bioware forums to little effect. You worded it all much better than I could. I agree with everything you said, and I even have a little extra to add.The aliens all have human mannerisms because they are have a humanoid body. Why? So that they can all hide behind walls and shoot guns, thats why. All the enemies in this game behave the same which prevents Bioware from introducing some truly alien creatures, like something that has six legs or whatever. They could fix that by redoing the combat system from scratch, because it sucks anyway.The galaxy map promises tons of exploration and mystery. But in reality it is nothing more than a level select menu. They could fix it by making fuel quantity more of an issue, and new fuel harder to come by. By making more planets to explore and bringing back the vehicle. Also, they could throw in random space pirate attacks or other random space vessels too for good measure.

Jack Devore, I'd wish this gaming industry would have more game journalist like you... I really mean it.

I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite article on InfoAddict.

While the game has some flaws (like every game), it's not nearly as bad as you're putting out. Most of your points are either inane, insignificant bullcrap, or outright untrue.While this is a somewhat-admirable attempt to get traffic by giving a crappy review on an amazing game, try to express a little more professionalism next time you try to review a game.

As one of the commenters pointed out already, "the essence of any role playing game is the story, plain and simple".This is another thing that really bothers me about all the undeserved praise the Mass Effect games got - it seems no reviewer out there seems to even be able to recognize that Mass Effect is a perfect Cliché Storm.Any self-respecting critic could not possibly let any game get away with such. Even writers considering themselves mere peddlers of consumer advice should at least point out that only people either- almost completely ignorant of SF literature and film (say teenagers) or- of exceptionally bad taste (like those spouting phrases like "deep Sci-Fi IPs since Star Wars" unsarcastically)could possibly enjoy the story being told in Mass Effect.

I agreed on all your points, mostly. The combat is definitely weaker than it should be, for the most part it doesn't seem to matter if you upgrade your weapons or your health. It's still fun, however, and hopefully with Mass Effect 3 they will find a balance between the frustration of situations that are unnecessarily difficult, and the routine and easy battles that rely entirely upon your ability to use the readily available cover. Thought I'm enjoying ME2, I was more challenged by ME1 because there were situations I wasn't prepared to deal with, it was more difficult to find the safe way to deal with a battle... For the most part, in ME2 it seems like you just stand behind a wall and rapid-fire targets. I'm not even done yet, but I just encountered my first difficult battle at about 20 hours... in Grunts Rights of Passage, your cover disappears, enemies come from multiple directions, and you have to think about how you want to handle everything that comes at you... but after you figure it out, it is pretty easy too.I like scanning planets more than i like landing and driving around blindly. However, I do like the opportunity to explore and earn the things that I need for currency or ammo or whatever it is that I need. Pretty unsatisfied with either game's approach to finding minerals. Especially in ME2 since the minerals only seem to be needed for upgrades, and I have yet to find any value from the upgrades I'm getting. There should be more game to the planet scanning process than looking at a graph, moving the mouse around, and launching probes. There's no challenge to it, just patience. I'd be happy if it switched to a galaga-style shooter for this, just anything stimulating without the tedium and over long process of going out of your way to explore whether by car or by scanner.The spoken English... whatever, I'll read or I'll listen, doesn't matter, probably just makes it easier for the developers to make it all spoken in English.The way quests are introduced and progress the story is alright, it's just frustrating that rather than move the main plot along you spend so much time gathering characters and doing their "loyalty quests."Regardless of any complaints, I'm having a lot of fun playing the game. More than anything else that comes to mind. If they improve with the 3rd, it will be a truly incredible game. I think most of these issues are minor quibbles, and the game is deserving of a lot of the praise it has received. Looking forward to the 3rd.

‘As one of the commenters pointed out already, "the essence of any role playing game is the story, plain and simple".’ – No, no and no. The essence of a role playing game is character development. A story here is not truly dynamic, (no matter how many plot twists you can click A, B or C on) so it’s not really a “game”. It’s more of an interactive movie. Sure, the story and immersion are important elements of an RPG, but they are not the “essence”. Again, the essence of an RPG is charater development. Leveling and obtaining new gear/upgrades/etc. develop your character. Inventory and economics offer choices with your character development. This game is a painfully dumbed-down version of ME1. I only hope that ME3 learns from these mistakes or we may see a “game” which seeks to remove the remaining “tedium” by eliminating all those annoying choices you need to make when watching the movie… I thought the story was actually pretty decent. There was a certain boss late in the game which left me rolling my eyes a bit, but overall the story and substories were entertaining.

Mass Effect 2 sux and Mass Effect 1 was boring as well.

I came here with a pitch fork in my hand after reading an article about this very article, then I read the whole thing. Gotta say, your arguments are fairly valid and well thought out.My biggest problem with the game was that I felt it ended just as soon as it was getting started. That and the planet probing thing of course.

Im relieved you wrote this article, i thought i would have to do it since there was not one review addressing everything you brought up, which is just absurd. I was playing the PC version, and going through the private terminal menus i kept thinking... the year is 2304 or something, mass relays shoot you to far away galaxies in a blink of an eye... but they still haven't invented the "double click"?

I concur with this article and would like to add that among the already named defects there's also the terrible way recruitment and loyalty missions were handled.The majority of the game is spent gathering squad members and gaining their loyalty rather than actually USING the squad members. You fight the collectors like three times and for at least two of them you're manhandled into going to the mission regardless of your wishes. Lame.The missions and planets were also far too linear with zero exploration involved (is there really only a refinery on Zorya? Where do the workers live, eat, play? Do they have families? What about the rest of Cerberus' Pragia base? Must we be lead by hand towards the conclusion? etc.).There was also hardly any interaction between the characters. You'd think there would be some conflict between Jack and Miranda when you bring them on missions. Or that Grunt would speak up on Mordin's loyalty mission.Boring, boring, boring.

Finally!!! I thought that I was the only one who thought ME2 was definitely not an improvement on ME1. It became painfully obvious to me by about hour 5 that ME2 was designed and executed to have broader mass market appeal than the usual excellent RPG goodness they are known for. This game was definitely more of a shoddy Gears of War knockoff than the sequel to one of the better scifi RPG's out there. That's right; I am no hater. I loved the first Mass Effect, warts and all. Bravo to you for having the cajones to speak your mind. I am beginning to fear that EA buying Bioware will have more painful repercussions than I originally thought.

This article was not about Mass Effect 2. Any sapient being who feeds the hamster running on the wheel in his head three squares could identify the issues this blogger mentioned. It instead focuses on noodle whipping the mainstream video game review syndicate for the crime of sweeping the games failings under a rug stamped with the Bioware logo.

An amusing article that points out the inherent flaw with it early in the piece: While the author feels that the game has major flaws that render ME2 into a "complete mess", the game has done well in all major areas: commercial, critical, and fan appeal. Fundamentally, the game has SUCCEEDED in what it is supposed to do.Notice how that any example of disagreement with the writer's opinion is dismissed. Reviewers who love the game are "rabid fanboys". Gamers who enjoy the game are on par with those who like Transformers, or casual gamers who need everything pointed out to him. The writer's bias has a formal TV Trope Name: It's Popular, So It Sucks.The complaints he has, in many cases, are argued poorly, or make value judgments that are incongruous. Aliens in ME2 don't speak alien languages because "People can’t stomach subtitles" or "Have low reading comprehension". Aliens in ME2 (or in many OTHER mediums) speak English because it's usually a better idea to have actors speaking (or voice actors speaking) than babbling one or two lines of Simlish that is repeated whenever an alien speak. In a personal anecdote, I can 'quote' the alien voices in Knights of the Old Republic, because I've heard them thousands of times during playthroughs.Another issue the writer brings up is the one of UIs. His solution is simply to redo it. The problem here is that no suggestions are made. One of George Lucas's directorial problems, from what I've read, is that he often tells his casts "Okay, do it again, but a little differently". Without precise suggestions, the person cannot change.Next, he wants to disable things which alert players to objects in the game. While an interesting suggestion, unfortunately it shows an ignorance in gaming. Read many gamasutra postmortems, and you'll discover that unless these sort of eye-catchers (be it brackets, glowing, or item names), players REGULARLY miss items, which punishes them.The writer then critiques the fact that each member of ME2's crew has a backstory mission. I fail to understand the problem, seeing that this is a staple in Bioware games, and one that I would not want to be removed.In short, this article is clearly written by someone who has an opinion that is the textbook definition of a statistical outlier. Rather than internally ask himself why his opinions are so drastically different than many others, he insults and demeans everyone else for having a different opinion. He believes Bioware has gotten away with murder; that Bioware has somehow robbed us of a great game. In fact, Bioware has done MUCH to give us a better game than Mass Effect (and in many ways, a much better game than many others), and it has been rewarded for that with commercial and critical success. The writer hates this, because his opinion is not being reflected by reality.It is a shame, but ultimately, it is not Bioware's problem.

Genius. 100% Right. Great Article. I hope Bioware sees this. I think Mass Effect 2 is awesome FYI, but I couldn't agree with this article more.

GREAT ARTICLE, JACK DEVORE!!! DEAD-ON.

I'm curious if you had any response from Bioware

I HAVE TO GET THIS OUT OF MY CHEST! Cerberus had spent over 4 billion credits rebuilding Shepard and god knows how much on rebuilding Normandy 2. BUT! I still have to go and fight with same amount of ammo that I carried over from my previous engagement. There are guns, lots of guns in the armory but no bullet crates? Shouldn't I have a fully equipped squad just before going planet side instead scavenging the battlefield for ammo? And why do I have go and look for credits and resources for upgrades? Early in the game Miranda said the Elusive Man has unlimited resources and he would do anything at any cost to serve mankind but he wouldn't even give me a nickle to buy a new barrel for my sniper rifle. And what's up with the members' personal problems? A justicar having problems with her nympo daugther, an assassin looking for a disgruntled son, a son discovering his lost father's harem, a twin sister who is actually a clone of a genetically modified woman who hated her evil rich father....Nothing wrong with sidequests, just that I felt like watching a whole season of Brothers and Sisters...in space....Anyway, it's still a great game, just some of the things in it don't feel right.

I found Mass Effect 1 to be a good game; but not great. It was not a break through game. It did have a number of very frustrating flaws and bugs. Very Frustrating!! The side quests were redundant and contrived. BUT I still thought it was a good game and I enjoyed it and felt satisfied when it was completed.What it did do right was introduce a new concept in first person / third person shooters; a plot thick storyline with engaging characters that I cared about and enough interest that mae me want to finish the game. It also lingered in my head. I loved the Paragon / Renegade concept. I loved the romantic element although it could have fleshed out better with a more detailed and emotional investment. It would have been nice to have the romance carried forward in a more rewarding way. It felt a little "cheap" to me.To call this a RPG game is wrong, though. It's a "shooter / RPG" hybrid that is not particularly inventive in any convincing way. It is not a break through game. It is not Morrowind or Oblivion and it is not Half Life 2. But it is a little better than the other "hybrids" out there such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. I'm waiting for a hybrid that is going to have the full immersion of a RPG (Oblivion) with the intensity of a pure shooter (HL 2)...but that still seems to be a long way away. Much code would have to be compiled and much core dialogue and plot to be derived to make that happen.But it is possible...

I agree with all the points made in this article (to various degrees, alien languages... not so much).Personally, I'm a hardcore FPS gamer (RTS and "action RPG" take 2nd and 3rd). So I'm not the target audience of this game clearly. However, I actually enjoyed ME1 a lot (played it through 3 times, including hardest difficulty) despite the fact that it had serious short-comings in terms of graphics, bugs, level-design, AI, bugs, collision detection, lots of bugs, etc. The gunfights were good and plentiful and the Mako was even fun at times.In my opinion, ME2 is better than ME1 at everything... except for the FPS experience which the combat overhaul has reduced the toxic puddle of goo. I mean *curse* it's so bad in ME2 I'm going to wait another month for a magical "make it not suck" patch and delete the game when nothing happens (yep, I'm a pessimist). I think it's pretty awesome that the developers managed to break the one thing I enjoyed in ME1. That will teach me to be stupid and: a) Buy a sequel without a demo because the first game was good b) Buy a sequel from Bioware when I already got burned by them on Neverwinter Nights (another game I deleted 3 hours into it)I won't make the same mistake again. I'm pissed enough that even if they release ME3 with an awesome demo, I'm not touching it.

HATERS GONNA HATE

Just ask for a pony already.This is the kind of review I loathe. The author assumes infinite development time, infinite resources and flawless QA. Do you even have any concept of the amount of resources necessary to put together a constructed language? Did it even occur to you how little effect it would have relative to the financial investment?Also, anyone who thinks that people *want* to scour every square inch of an open world environment for unmarked critical items clearly hasn't noticed that NO ONE PLAYS ADVENTURE GAMES ANYMORE. You're suggesting the game needs more repetitive searching just like planetary scanning, except you want to bog down the combat sequences with the same crap. This is the same kind of vestigial JRPG crap that I'm glad to see Bioware moving away from.

It's nice to see some solid crtitics. It's also fun to read comments criticising the critics by means like: - "ME2 is good because it sells good and ratings are good." - "You want a smart, unpredictible and complex game, but ME2 is not supposed to be so, so don't say it is bad because it is stupid, it is stupid and so we like it like that". - "Don't say it is bad because it is hard to create smart and complex games". - "You don't create games yourself so you can't say if a game is good or bad, dumbass". - "You are a minority". There are others that have even less sense but they sort of fall in basic categories. People tend to grow tastless and they want to remain like that. However, there is an interesting one - "The main thing in an RPG is a story". I don't even know how to put how wrong it is in one humble comment.. well, the first thing is - the main thing in RPG is an INTERACTION with a story and a WORLD where it happens. And second - there is no MAIN THING in a game such complex and deep as a good RPG, as virtually everything must twist around the main idea of a game. And this is where ME2 fails miserably.

Oh my God...THANK YOU FINALLY. I'm quite tired of all the drones, who give in to mass media, taking a shining to Mass Effect. The first game, though not exactly my taste of a game, was ok (mainly in terms of story, combat was a joke). But to see this bastardized version of a sequel that merely cuts away at the things that worked in the first game and slaps a numerical sticker next to it brings me to tears that reviewers praise it for its genius and innovation. Seriously, some reviewers need to pull their heads out of their asses. I see people bitching at you for pointing out the bad in the game and not the good, but for them I have one piece of advice: QUIT POINTING OUT THE GOOD IN THE GAME AND NOT THE BAD! Developers encourage it, they need something to improve on. And when I see a game that has more bad than good, there's clearly something wrong. That does not mean someone should be forced to ignore all of the bad things because they happen to have an idiotic philosophy based on video-games. People are merely pouring out their money to drivel like this due to mass commercialism and embellished praises from totalitarian-esque big-name reviewers that seem to send people running to the store shelves for a copy and appear to be straight from a George Orwell novel (Don't get me started on IGN). Sooner or later a reviewer from one of these sites is going to say how much greater Mass Effect was in comparison to Mass Effect 2 and you're all going to be running to the message boards to agree and metaphorically crap over anyone else's opinion because they are "fanboys" and do not agree with the bolded headline a mere 15 scrolls upward; sure, and Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and allies with Eurasia. I'd like to end this rant with certain praise to this bold critic, who wasn't afraid of what pointless blather would come spewing out of the keystrokes from a certain pissed off prepubescent child who is up way past his curfew, and simply state..pull your heads out of your asses and start playing games and reviewing them based on YOUR opinions, start looking for the bad and stop logging onto countless sites that have a general bias to consoles/games/developers etc. If you think anything got done by mindlessly following another person's opinion that didn't involve the genocide of a race, then you might want to try out communism, at least then you can bitch about how much of a "fascist fanboy" the other side is when you're one in the same on the extreme sides of the political spectrum.

Well said. I was blown away by Mass Effect - but the sequel is pretty underwhelming for me. Simplified... somewhat pointless plot... Maybe it will get better? Maybe not.Good point about all aliens acting like humans. The novel SPHERE is great for this - showing how in all likelihood a human being could not even communicate with an alien life form.

[...] Quite the contrary, I am usually more critical when my own money is involved, like when I ripped Mass Effect 2 a new a-hole. I was fully prepared to feel regret and remorse at the purchase of my iPad. I salivated at the [...]

This guy is just pissed he doesnt have a 360 to play this game on :D playstation fanboy...

A Plot Analysis of ME2. 1 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR558wTjOUU

Well, I have to agree with almost all of the things that you say, except for one: that the game sucks.IT DEFINITELY IS AN AWESOME GAME and I really enjoyed playing it. I think almost everyone who played it will agree with me (with exceptions like you).You shouldn't be criticising games man, your opinions are to far extreme for being good at it. Instead some smart company should hire you as game improver, because you do make some good points in here of which I self though that they could be upgraded.The biggest ones are:-The simple base line story; for such a well written and detailed galaxy the story itself is pretty straight forward (like you said: recruit, loyatyl, final). I hope they do something in ME3 with the choices you made in ME2. Otherwise it would suck pretty bad. I mean, the story makes this game great, but there aren't as much variations as it says. Also it would be nice if the side missions could affect the main storyline to. There are tons of variables to add, this are just some quick idea's to make it way more complex. I know it's a heavy task for a developers team to make lots of parallel scenario's, but that's what makes this game great and also makes it worth it to replay the game.-The shooting and the environment is pretty one way indeed. There should be multiple ways to get to (or around) your enemy and more things should be able to get destroyed (I mean, with such heavy powers and heavy weapons you would think that you could shoot away simple creates and break a walls). More things in the battlefield should be use-able, for instance: throwing things at your opponents so they get smashed, or even better: throwing gas tanks that explode on impact at your opponents like big giant grenades would be awesome. Basically it comes to this: you should be able to make your own way though the battlefield and know that there would've been lots of other (and maybe better) ways to get to your goal. And you should be able to "rebuild" the battlefield.Also, it isn't hard to find anything in the game. I remember playing max payne and opening every drawer, searching every corner, opening all doors,... I just mean: you could do better at this to.-And of course the worst thing in the game: the mineral scanning. This is really boring. I was the happiest man on the world when I saw that I got 50.000 of each resource in advance because you can go a pretty long way with that. Rebuild this minigame please. Replace it by establishing businesses, pillaging the bases of rouge gangs (like blue sons, eclipse and blood pack) no one cares about. Or do it the ol' fashioned (renegade) way: demand protection money /resources from small colonies. So many options left laying around here. Actually, every minigame sucks pretty hard, hacking is easy as hell and the bypassing isn't worth that much to. Good tries though, but after a time it's pretty boring. But I'm sure they can find a great solution for this.- Another thing that wasn't literally mentioned above: the effects renegade/paragon on your mission and the effects from being a spacer/earth born/... They could've done more with that than just giving you more renegade or paragon and one slight mission change. Also, I'd like to know what's going on on earth, you can visit the home world of all other species except you own, and you hardly know anything about it. What's up with that? Even though it's a space game you're still human and your home world is earth.For the rest: -It didn't really bother me that the aliens speak English, it's strange, yes. But it smoothens up the game a lot. It's not a novel like LoTR were playing here (although it's pretty well documented to) where every species has it own language. -The log book didn't annoy me at all. It's a good pass time if you're not feeling like playing for a second but you don't have to actually read it if you don't want to. And video's would make the game only bigger and heavier with not much different to offer. Allright, there are some things that might be put into a short movie. Like the species and their homeworld might be nice to be presented in a short, but not much more than that. - The merchant system didn't really bother me. That's how it works in real life to. Although some other nice upgrades or special items would be great to. What annoyed me more was that there was no way to trade in you resources for money and vice versa. And there wasn't an other way to make money than just find it in the battlefield and get funds after a missions. Pretty lame in my opinion for a game that profiles itself as a very complex game with lots of strategy and thinking involved.Conclusion: a little but more of puzzle and variables would be great (check everything I said, it pretty much comes down on those two things).BUT IS WAS STILL AN AWESOME GAME!!!

So many people up set by this article, how sad.

Good job. And as you pointed out, that doesn't even cover all of the problems in ME2. It's a fun experience, sure but it's a poor shooter and a crap RPG. Unsurprisingly, people whose gaming experience is summarized in Halo and Gears of War naturally lap it up and clamor for more, never realizing that the game could be so much more better.Of course, let's not forget that the game makes you feel like a king. Who cares about any flaws when you have a huge ego-stroke going on! Just observe OBLIVION for another, identical, experience. And watch how the "gaming press" starts to harp on the flaws of ME2 when ME3 gets close to release. It's despicable.

Dude, you've got issues. AT least other critics sees the positive and negative side of the game. I see you didn't talk about the story or visuals or soundtrack to name a few. That makes the game a failure? How about the character's and their individual quirks and trait's? And having human like aliens which speak English have been a tradition in sci-fi since Star Trek at least. I don't hear any complains there. Mass effect is inspired by Star Trek and a whole lot of other stories. If you've played the game in depth, you'll find out that there exist a universal translator in the galaxy which translate other languages to the one the hearer sets it to. The biggest surprise here is your inability to navigate the menu's. OMG! My nine year old cousin has played the game twice already and laughs at this comment of yours! Is pressing the ESC button a crime now? I wholly agree with the level design and pretend complexity of the tip in the game loading menu and also the planet scanning. Is the future made out of crates lying around? Bioware listened to fans about the Mako and loading times and fixed those problems but then you complain about it. At least they listened. They innovatively stepped out of the boundaries of traditional RPG rules bravely. Look at Modern Warfare 2, it's Modern Warfare 1. Infinity Ward just used the same mechanics coupled with 2 or 3 new gameplay addition. Anyone who says liking this game is allowing Michael Bay to be a better director than Stanley Kubrick is crazy! Mass Effect surpasses any of his movies by tenfolds. But ultimately this game is personal and you care about your allies as well as any NPC's that you have met in the first game as well as new one's. You have a story that is shaped with your choices in it to a massive scale. It's not perfect but damn it's awesome.

i gotta say i disagree with almost everything you said. Sure i admit that your tips for improvement would indeed improve the game. But that doesn't mean that they should do it. I played several games thoroughly from bioware and every game had it's flaws. Mass Effect 2 doesn't have an open world like oblivion, it doesn't have Call of Duty shooting mechanics and it doesn't have the cover mechanics of Gears of War.What it does have is 1 of the best static structured storylines ever. It becomes more than a game, it's almost cinema at some moments. Who cares you have the press goddamn ESC to get to the menu. True value and qualitiy makes that all hardly important imo.Instead of bashing ME2 you can ask yourself why Halo 3 or GTA4 gets such high reviews aswell. Is it deserved that gta4 has got almost a perfect 100% score? I could say definitely NO, if i want to make a point of the crappy shooting mechanics, repetitive voiceacting, or simply because it doesn't strike my kind of humor?ME2 is at frontier of RPG shooters imo. I definetely think they will become even greater at it in the future, for sure if they follow yourtips.

Do I disagree with what you say needs to be improved? No. And yet - I enjoyed the hell out of it. I beat the thing 9 times. I'll preorder ME3 the day they announce the CE. On paper, the way you write it, it does sound really boring. In practice, I had fun - and that, more than anything, is what counts.

I agree with you mostly. Some of your ideas are innovative. Keep writing! However, I feel like you're forcing yourself to hate ME2 even if you know you enjoy it. You might feel that ME2 just lacks stuff. Especially the fact that the game got shorter than ME1, which sucks by the way. You also somehow became redundant in the sense of suggesting the interface. What's missing with your review, essay, or whatever you call it is acknowledging the success of the game and put into the readers an open mind into what you're going to say.I know that some good points got into your head. Let them out too. Don't force yourself on hating the game just in order to force the fans to hate you.

Didn't agree with everything but agreed with enough. The most egregious complaint from me is no journal or codex hotkeys. Way to break immersion Bioware. I would love them to explain how there is a SAVE/LOAD option in Mass Effect lore. It's funny I found this article because I'm looking for a way to disable the hints at the bottom of the screen. Why? For one they're wrong if you've remapped your keys and two they're annoying when the same hint is displayed for the 10th time. Another niggle is the FUEL requirement. Why on earth? Thank god it can be disabled in the ini file. I've got a few more like the 1.5 second notification boxes on the right that you can't or barely read. I've remapped all of the notification timings in the ini. How about constantly getting stuck on the geometry. Happened to me four times near the beginning of the game. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/Sysgen/MassEffect22010-08-2323-15-44-44.jpg More? OK. How about the first time you research Advanced Training and there is one bonus power. Well it costs 5000 EZ to get to choose the bonus power but EVERYTIME you click reseach the game will take 5000 hard to come by EZ from you even though there are no additional bonus powers to swap out. Enough for now, YES there is more.