@haggis: In some aspects you are right there, the sidecontent in ME2 is all an improvement to the sidecontent in ME1. But the main story still is a big step down, at least in my opinion. The resurrection of Shepard is one of the things annoying me, cause it's so damn inprobable, in a universe where they try to keep it somewhat real.
Also, for some of my Sheps agreeing to work for Cerberus is a big out of character-move after seeing all the shit they pulled on various planets across the galaxy.
I suppose that in order to appreciate the improvements to the combat-system fully you would have had to thought the first one as broken, which I didn't. I thought it was an enjoyable game to play. The improvements to the powerwheel? Afaik it's the same, a circle where you select powers.
As for enemies and friends multiplying, that's all fine, lets hope it will have a bigger impact on ME3 than the decisions you made in ME1 had on ME2.
Didn't particulary like the concept of loyaltymissions either, even if they're interesting in some cases. But here they are in the midle of trying to fend off an alien invasion that might destroy the entire galaxy and you're supposed to run off and take care of some dumbass personal business. Imo they could have focused less on that and made a more compelling main storyline, or kept Shep as a spectre / alliance navy-guy and he could have run some missions for them. Can't say that sidemissions in ME1 is more out of context than the loyalty-missions are. Most of them are stuff you do to help out alliance navy, for whom you've been working your entire life. More or less.
In the end though, it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks about any of this, my thoughts are the same regardless. :) Resurrecting Shepard is a bull move. The main story is incredibly short. "investigate" "find IFF" "go bonkers" and as a game I enjoyed ME1 more. ME2 while being techincally superior, having better animated dialogues and even more interesting partymembers, still fails to offer me more satisfaction than ME1! :D
Edit: Might also add that I felt that the whole last section of the game in ME1 was superior to ME2, so much more intense from the moment you drop out of the conduit with your Mako and start climbing on the outside of the citadel seeing Sovereign off in the distance. The intensity in the collector base might have been there, but all the menus and character-switching and different portions with new stuff going on all over the place really broke the pace. Final battle in both were just sad however, a bit more sad in ME2 though. Giant terminator-reaper no thanks. Give me cyborg-resurrected Saren any day!
@haggis: It was way worse. Really, Shep dies and gets revived. That's ridiculous right there!
Also, I don't really think the gameplay in ME1 was that much worse than ME2s. ME2s gameplay is certainly an improvement, but not as big of an improvement as the improved movie-like dialogues or more detailed and less generic mission-areas and loot.
Alas, despite all these improvements, the story just didn't engage me at all. Way too straightforward. There was alot of interesting side-things going on though, talking to Thane, learning more about the Geth from Legion. Bringing Legion onboard on Talis sidequest!
I wasnt even aware the finishing that quest added me to some contest. :D Good that I didn't win though, Halo Multiplayer I can do without. I'm all dota!
@MystDragon3k: If you don't like talking to the council, do what I did and hang up on them. My Shep answered to no aliens! Which is one of the reasons I don't like the Illusive Man, you can't really treat him like shit, second reason being he's Martin Sheen, it's annoying.
As for the sidequest carry-over, my main beef is that the major decision you took made such a microscopic difference. The biggest effects I noticed were the Noverian secretary/internal affairs-lady. Helena Blake and ofc. the Fan, can't remember his name but I shot the sucker. Dont really mind the downplay of Ashley and Kaidan, but they're parts of all the things they took out of the equation in order to make your first game have less of an impact on the second one. The line of mails is just another thing to break immersion for me (together with loadingscreens), where do they mail to, commandershepard@cerberus.com ? Did Shep make a televised statement with his mailadress as soon as he got revived?
Samara wasn't very interesting for me. Nor was Miranda, Mordin, Garrus, Jacob, Grunt, Samaras daughter, dont remember her name(Moridin?) or Jack. Loved talking to Legion, Thane and Tali though. Which is more characters than I liked talking to in the first game. :D
I can't believe how you can prefer loadingscreens with hints over partybanter/radiochat in an elevator.
But, all I gotta do to make ME1 surpass ME2 is say "Dear god, resurrected Shep" and "Giant terminator Reaper"-fight!
Also if they're gonna keep the mineral for research thing in the third game, I hope you'll be able to set someone on prospecting and mining during your missions instead of doing it yourself. Kinda like in Dune, would be nice I think, could have shit happening at your mining-installations now and then and you'll have to go there and take care of it as some subquest.
@End_Boss: Love the both as well. But I think that ME2 gets praised a bit more than it actually deserves. Mostly because of the story that is much worse than ME1s. (not a big fan of the whole come back from the dead-approach!)
@wolf_blitzer85: Yeah, took a bit longer here on my first playthrough. But I think I did just about everything that was possible to do and the loadscreens on my PC were insane. And ME1 could be breezed through pretty fast if you skipped all of the badge-collecting. But I guess about 12 hours is what you'd get if you just did the main quest and skipped all the side-stuff.
Might as well add that I think casting Martin Sheen with his very Martin Sheeny voice for a major character such as the Illusive Man was a big miscast in my opinion.
Improvements in ME2 are these: Gameplay, Dialogues, Sidequests, Removal of generic loot and sidemissions like collecting badges and shit. Does anyone like that crap?
But the entire premise of the game is so much worse than the first one, that I simply cannot enjoy it as much as the first. It starts of in an awesome way with the whole Normandy-sequence, but come on... Shep dies and gets revived... that's a load of crap.
Also, who thought loadingscenes were the better option compared to elevator-sequences? They could improve the elevators instead, have your partybanter a bit more sociable, better radioreporting about what's going on. And not just reports on what the hell you just did, but about something entirely different going on, maybe some hints to sidequests etc. anything is better than loadingscreens.
Reporting to the council was one of my favorite things about the ME1, disconnecting them was a hoot. Talking to Martin Sheen however is just sad in comparison. Illusive Man, more like IlluZzzive Man. Provoking him doesn't even result in any interesting replies.
The impact from the first game on the second was also a bit thin, I realise that they can't do too much, but to just remove all of the major elements of interaction from the first one just seems cheap. (Major elements being Kaidan, Ashley, Council, Anderson, Udina) Just sad that your interaction with your 'loyal fan' had a bigger impact on your game than letting the entire Council die.
I still love both games, that's for sure. But I feel ME2, while being an more enjoyable game to play, removed too much of the soul of ME1 to surpass it.
Well, usually you can buy digital games and gift them, but for some games you can just add a CDkey to your account and it g ets tied to your account and you can download the game via steam just like the digital version. Makes sense that it would work for all of valves own games. It doesn't work for Mount and Blade, but it worked with Unreal Tournament 3. And that's all the experience I have of that. :D
Hope you find some lucky deserving guy who didnt already by the awesome game that is L4D2! I was fortunate enough to buy it two days before they lowered the price with 33% :D
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