As a matter of fact it's just about as pure as roleplaying gets. Never before has a story hinged so much on how you play a role than this one. Bioware did not dumb down the rpg parts, they got the other shit out of the way. Inventory and skill trees are not the keystones of roleplay. Stepping into an immersive fiction and crafting your place in it is. 

Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it.

Agreed. It focuses much more on the actual role-playing and less on the baggage that comes with said aspects when put into video game form. Don't get me wrong, I love me some loot, but loot doesn't make role-playing a central aspect of gameplay.

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

Okay? Have fun missing out on an amazing RPG. "

I agree with your sentiment, though it all comes down how you define RPG.  
 
If you look at non-computer/console RPG's there is a vast spectrum of types of RPG systems, ranging from games that have almost no game mechanics (like Amber) to games with very involved game mechanics (like D&D or GURPS).  The former becomes more of an acting  exercise where you get into the role of a character and play off of other characters, whereas the latter can have that, but more often than not is characterized by more stat keeping for damage, experience, skills, levels.
 
Both are very valid forms of RPGs.   It just depends on what you and your friends are into and have fun with.
 
To that end ME2 is moving more to the rules light type of RPG, freeing you from the minutia of tweaking character builds and the like to focus on the characters and stories.  That said, I don't feel it makes it more of a RPG than any other RPG out there, just a different kind of experience, but just as satisfying.

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

Okay? Have fun missing out on an amazing RPG. "

I hate RPG's. Hearing ME2 is more rpg than the first just makes me not want to play it.   It was a genuine thank-you for telling me, as now I won't waste my money on it.  Cool for people who like that stuff though. "

" @Cube said:

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

Okay? Have fun missing out on an amazing RPG. "

I hate RPG's. Hearing ME2 is more rpg than the first just makes me not want to play it.   It was a genuine thank-you for telling me, as now I won't waste my money on it.  Cool for people who like that stuff though. "

If you hate RPGs then you were never interested in the ME franchise in the first place. "

I think they really fucked up the inventory system. There's no sense of progression in terms of gear, which to me is a huge part of any good RPG. I realize this is a requirement for the more open-ended world that Bioware wants you to explore, but it still makes me mad that there's such a paltry amount of equipment.
 
Other than that (and the fucking planet scanning), I love the game though. I'm doing my second playthrough on Insanity now.

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

Okay? Have fun missing out on an amazing RPG. "

I hate RPG's. Hearing ME2 is more rpg than the first just makes me not want to play it.   It was a genuine thank-you for telling me, as now I won't waste my money on it.  Cool for people who like that stuff though. "

If you hate RPGs then you were never interested in the ME franchise in the first place. "

Wrong. I bought the first Mass Effect. Thanks for telling me what I'm interested in though. "

Actually, stats and skills are exactly what makes it an RPG. It's called a "Role-playing game" because it has game mechanics that were made popular by pen-and-paper tabletop games.

I hate RPG's. Hearing ME2 is more rpg than the first just makes me not want to play it.   It was a genuine thank-you for telling me, as now I won't waste my money on it.  Cool for people who like that stuff though. "

" @Cube said:

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

Okay? Have fun missing out on an amazing RPG. "

I hate RPG's. Hearing ME2 is more rpg than the first just makes me not want to play it.   It was a genuine thank-you for telling me, as now I won't waste my money on it.  Cool for people who like that stuff though. "

If you hate RPGs then you were never interested in the ME franchise in the first place. "

Wrong. I bought the first Mass Effect. Thanks for telling me what I'm interested in though. "

Then you lied about hating RPGs. "

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

 @extremeradical: It's called a "roleplaying" game not a "doing math and shit" game. Last time I checked, playing a role was more about the experiences.

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

you lose. "

" @Cube said:

I hate RPG's. Hearing ME2 is more rpg than the first just makes me not want to play it.   It was a genuine thank-you for telling me, as now I won't waste my money on it.  Cool for people who like that stuff though. "

I'm going to chime in here as an RPG hater myself. Although Mass Effect 2 is, "more RPG" as the OP argues, it's also less of the busy work I hate from most RPGs. They've cut down on the "RPG crap" and simply focused on story and choices. It's a shooter, with a ton of dialogue and intriguing situations with difficult choices. It's less management, less skill building, less stat comparing, etc.  I wanted to clarify that as it has less of what makes RPGs a bore. "

To be clear I am not on about "the RPG genre" and more about the RPG idea. It is my estimation that what people consider to be RPGs most of the time are quite far from the idea of roleplay to begin with.

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" @CL60 said:

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

Okay? Have fun missing out on an amazing RPG. "

I hate RPG's. Hearing ME2 is more rpg than the first just makes me not want to play it.   It was a genuine thank-you for telling me, as now I won't waste my money on it.  Cool for people who like that stuff though. "

If you hate RPGs then you were never interested in the ME franchise in the first place. "

Wrong. I bought the first Mass Effect. Thanks for telling me what I'm interested in though. "

Then you lied about hating RPGs. "

I didn't lie.   Just because I hate RPG's doesn't mean I haven't tried to like them. I just gave up on trying.   Thank-you. "

gah none of you know what rpg's are.
 
This is an rpg!

" @tranquilchaos: In Gears of War, you play the role of Marcus Fenix. Does that make it an RPG? "

" @extremeradical said:

" @tranquilchaos: In Gears of War, you play the role of Marcus Fenix. Does that make it an RPG? "

You don't really play the role of Marcus Fenix though, are you the one making all of the decisions? Are you the one choosing what you want to say?   No you are not. You are just shooting shit until you get to the next cut scene that you have no control over. "

"  @extremeradical: It's called a "roleplaying" game not a "doing math and shit" game. Last time I checked, playing a role was more about the experiences. "

" @HatKing: From what he's saying, it sounds like the opposite. He's taking the term role-playing as, well, a term. Not dissecting it as "playing a role by which you are controlling a character". "

I think Casey Hudson from Bioware said it best: "We didn't look to make an RPG.  We looked to make an experience."

" I think Casey Hudson from Bioware said it best: "We didn't look to make an RPG.  We looked to make an experience." "

It's a 3PS with a conversation wheel. That's all.

" @Andorski said:

" I think Casey Hudson from Bioware said it best: "We didn't look to make an RPG.  We looked to make an experience." "

Sorry, I think I just vomited in my mouth a little.  PR speak usually does that to me. "

Is it that big of a deal? Seriously? Seriously?

" @Andorski said:

" I think Casey Hudson from Bioware said it best: "We didn't look to make an RPG.  We looked to make an experience." "

Sorry, I think I just vomited in my mouth a little.  PR speak usually does that to me. "

Your choices impact both the story and the gameplay.  That's fundamentally what defines an RPG for me.  All the other stuff - loot, skill trees, etc. - are just the common mechanics that have evolved to bridge the gap between your decisions and the gameplay.  You can strip them all away and still have an RPG, so long as that fundamental principle remains intact.  ME 2 doesn't go quite that far, it just streamlines a whole bunch of things which had been allowed to grow unnecessarily unwieldy.
 
ME 2 is perhaps a purer, more streamlined RPG, but it is still an RPG from top to bottom.  It is also a TPS.  I wouldn't start calling it some kind of 'hybrid' per se, because I don't consider them mutually exclusive terms - in the same way that a Fast Blue Car isn't a Fast/Blue hybrid; it is both Fast and Blue.  Mass Effect 2 isn't taking 'elements' from each genre - it fully meets the definition of each genre.  Unlike something like Borderlands, which I think you could only reasonably say 'has RPG elements'.
 
I don't consider it more or less RPG than ME 1 - they are just both RPGs.  If it gets to the point where you aren't making roleplay choices which impact the actual gameplay itself, then I would agree with the assertion that you are effectively left with a Choose Your Own Adventure.  
 
A lot of the new structure and design choices in ME 2 aren't so different to Deus Ex when you think about it.

" @Cube said:

" Thanks for the heads up - all but confirming I will never play it. "

Okay? Have fun missing out on an amazing RPG. "

I find the claims that ME2 is "less of an RPG" because they streamlined the stats and removed the inventory absolutely laughable.  Are these things what defines an RPG? 

The inventory in the first game served no purpose at all.  You needed colossus armour and spectre gear, everything else was broken down into medi-gel, it really didn't need to exist.  The stats are more or less the same, with the absence of weapon specialisation, which only served to limit your options in combat.  Soldier Shepard should be able to use all weapon types, it makes sense.  Just as it does for the other classes to be limited to certain others.  It gives you less customisation options perhaps, but I don't see that as being dumbed down or less of an RPG.

I recall an argument similar to this one a while back. No. Sure, we could argue stupid semantics about what an RPG is definied as but in gameplay terms the game is less RPG and more Third Person Shooter. Why? Because in the world of video games calling something an RPG implies "dice rolling and shit like that" which ME2 has less of than its predecessor (which in turn makes it a better game).

I argue that shaping the world and making decisions that impact both that world and your character's personality are the hallmarks of the "RPG" genre, which goes all the way back to the original D&D tabletop game. Under that definition, the Mass Effect franchise is one of the most RPG-y RPGs to ever come out, decisions made in one game impact the next, years later in game terms. Each person's world could very well be radically different from everyone else's. And it's fun to boot.

Some people define RPG as a game where you play a role.  Other define it as the actual gameplay thats in games labeled as "RPG".  Maybe the name of the genre should be changed to "stat based game" or something like that.  The reliance of statistics and manipulating those is the one common thing that all all games labeling themselves as "RPG", whether a JRPG or a WRPG, share in common.   
 
ME2 is indeed a game where you play a role.  That's not arguable.  People who say it's less of a RPG are defining RPG as "stat based game".  ME2 pretty much removes all of that from its gameplay or reduces it down to levels that are less than games that don't call themselves RPGs at all.  That's why those people say it's less of a RPG.

A friend of mine recently asked which he should pick up, Mass effect 2 or Dragon age.  I told him what I think most can agree with (that have played through both) Dragon age is the better rpg but Mass effect 2 is the better game.  Nearly all of you're choices in ME2 were binary, but it just did such a great job in making you feel the consequences.