User blog comment:Snicker/Mass Effect 2/@comment-170990-20110608065406

Combat continues to annoy me. To the anonymous commenter, sniper rifles are not more powerful - before, I could kill things in one shot at higher levels, 2 if I was on hardcore (except perhaps Krogans and bosses). Now, with shields, armour and biotic barriers, it's taking 2-3 shots, and that's a third of my total ammo capacity. I'm not sure what you mean by "look cooler" - but as for accuracy, it's exactly the same accuracy I had before (with mods, I had no sway and very little accuracy loss due to kickback). The only "cool" new thing is the "bullet-time" effect, which any developer will tell you, was an old trope 3 years ago. It's only cool now if you're name is Neo.

But back to why combat is annoying me. In Mass Effect, I had options - I wasn't channeled into playing out each combat in exactly one way. If I wanted to use mostly powers, I could, because most powers worked on most enemies, rather than the opposite in ME2, where most powers are specific for a particular circumstance. If I wanted to just use my sniper rifle, I could - without having to worry about how I was going to take out the second wave when I was out of ammo. If I wanted to run in guns-a-blazin', I could do that, too, because I had sufficient shields to take more than two hits before falling down. In ME2, combats are either so easy that my squad takes them out before I even get to the fight, or so tough I have to reload about 20 times before I finally manage it without dying. And I finished ME several times on hardcore (probably going to go back and do an insanity run later). I play a lot of FPS games - but the combat mechanics in ME2 just don't seem to keep the flow of combat going like it did in ME.

Also in reply to the anon - you are correct, the new mini-game mechanic is more entertaining, and more logical, too - much better than playing some abstract circular Frogger game. But the point I was trying to make was that Bioware had grasped the notion with Mass Effect that not all players enjoy mini-games, and in fact, some just want a quick way around them. ME gives you that option with Omni-gel. ME2? Not only do you not have a choice... you absolutely MUST do the mini-games on several occasions during the main plotline. I can only think of one place in all of Mass Effect that you are required to play the frogger mini-game, and that's at the beginning of Eden Prime. Even so, if you're just starting out, you have unlimited chances, and if you're high enough level to have triggered the limited version of the challenge, you also get free omni-gel right before you get to that lock, so you can bypass it if you want. (I will note that there is also a "Towers of Hanoi" game you cannot bypass on Noveria, and a "memory" match game when you're rescuing Liara, but neither of them give you any real penalties for failing, you just try again). Bioware did not want to gate too much content from the primary part of the game behind silly mini-games. True, if you ignore every locked door and container you will miss out on a lot of loot, but even that isn't really necessary. I'd earned over 10 million credits several times over by the time I hit level 60.

Mass Effect 2, on the other hand, has several doors that are locked or computers you must hack and you HAVE to play the mini-games for those. Yeah, I like them better than the frogger game, and they are more challenging - but for people who hate mini-games and just want to get to the killing and blue alien sex, the mini-games are a major drawback.

Now, once again, because I don't want to end on a series of rants, the best thing about Mass Effect 2 so far:

Joker.

Without a doubt, he has the best lines in the game. True, you never actually HAVE to interact with him, but if you go talk to him after every major mission, he has a lot of interesting dialogue. Kasumi is right - they DO argue like an old married couple ;).