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Bryan, last night I kind of ran out of things to do in DeathSpank so I girded my loins and reluctanly returned to face the Nanny. DeathSpank had gained several levels and I had weapons and potions to help out, so I fought my way to the boss, equipped a poisonous weapon in one slot, an ice weapon in another, then took a fire resist potion, a speed potion, and a critical hit potion, and killed him in less than five seconds.
Anyway, thanks for the help. I appreciate it."
I see Bioware and Bethesda as the two big Western RPG developers. They have both been creating big, expansive RPGs with incredible worlds for quite some time now. But while Bethesda's RPGs used to be kind of flat experiences, they are now incredible. Morrowind for example was an excellent but to me still felt kind of one dimensional, while Bioware's RPGs have always felt more fully realized. But with Oblivion, Bethesda really knocked it out of the park, streamlining things where it counted but making the world more interesting. And with Fallout 3, they finally learned how to tell a better story, make quests much better, and further improved things like character customization and inventory management.
Conversely, Bioware has gone in the other direction. As they become more and more story driven, they appear to be turning themselves into an action game developer. Maybe that's more important to them? Maybe they don't really care about the RPG trappings and what they really want to do is create interactive movies. A modern day Cinemaware perhaps? And that's fine as far as creating experiences that probably sell well and are highly rated.
But as far as I'm concerned, those kinds of games are not replayable. For me they are diversions that help me wait for big Western RPGs. I guess my point is if Bioware continues this way, we'll lose yet another great RPG developer, and there aren't enough around for us to lose anymore."
I almost never use the shield, and as you mentioned, I use the crossbow as much as possible. I love the game and it's good to know I won't encounter a boss as tough as that one again. I was not able to beat him at level 12 or 13. What level should I be at? And please don't tell me to just circle him and block. I tried tha"
1) In ME2 character development for me seems dry and somewhat pointless. One skill seems just as good as another, and I personally don't feel a lot of differentiation between classes, skills, etc., which means one character, skill, etc, is as good as another. But maybe it just feels that way to me but isn't really that way. I have thought about this a lot though, so regardless, there is where I'm at about this.
2) Combat in ME1 felt really stragetic to me. Not every little battle necessarily, but the bigger battles took some effort in terms of character placement, skill selection, etc. Now I almost never changed ammo, and I didn't do that either in ME2 (selecting an ammo type in ME2 felt like just selecting another skill - again, it all had a certain sameness to it), but I did make sure that certain characters used certain weapons or skills, and it all took a certain amount of planning and skill to accomplish. Yes, AI of characters and enemies wasn't great, my party routinely killed itself, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it.
3) Yes, Bioware took player feedback and revised just about everything. I can't see that as a ringing endorsement for the changes. I also don't see the high review scores as an endorsement. There are plenty of games I see as crap that get high scores and vice-versa. My point isn't that the inventory system in ME1 was awesome, but instead that it gave the player flexibility and let them customize the party as they saw fit. ME2 just does it for you and the options you are given don't you me a lot of freedom.
4) You may have been kidding but I don't agree that everything in ME1 was worthless. To me it was a great game with some relatively minor graphical issues, some clunkiness, but I don't think it needed a complete overhaul.
5) The story in ME1 was about Shepard and his realization that a huge intergalactic crisis was in play. ME2 took a small segment of that and made a game about it. It took away an investigation and encounters where I as the player felt like I was in control and instead made Shepard the instrument of what we had assumed was a terrorist organization of some sort.
ME2 as an action adventurish side story to the main series would have been awesome. Something that played differently, was streamlined, but wasn't a true extension of the main story. Then it wouldn't matter that it's story centered on the party members instead of the true center of the ME universe. But to take a huge left turn and suddenly say, "Hey, remember ME1? Well, we don't. Instead let's give you an action game in hopes we can make more money this time around."
And I realize that Bioware can do whatever it wants. I'm not asking for anyone to agree with me. But I am really disturbed by this trend, and as I see Bioware look at Dragon Age and how they can make it more accessible to console gamers, it makes me realize that maybe it's time to return to the PC."
And while I know that most people loved Mass Effect 2, and I personally liked it a lot, I didn't like it as an RPG or a sequel. Bioware seemingly gave us a side-story here, something that takes place in a different game genre and has ltitle to do with the first game. Cameos abound, of course, and the developer does its best to tie it all together and make it relevent. But I argue that they faile"
