User blog comment:Aleksandr the Great/Bioware HAS Written Themselves into a Corner/@comment-1503545-20121112224821/@comment-3399608-20121114115934

Personally, I think the Didact on his own is a greater villain than the reapers. He has an actual motivation (and none of that "you couldn't possibly understand my motivation" stuff), is relentless in his efforts and has the resources to pull off his plan (and I think it's fairly obvious that he hasn't even pulled out all the stops yet). The reapers were just the Big Bad. While they were menacing, once you see the Didact and what he can do, the same can be said for him. Really, to me, what seprates them is that the Didact has an actual personality. While I understand why the reapers don't have personalities, it really ranks them lower on my list of villains. They're fairly cliched villains. Saren and the Illusive Man? Typical well-intentioned extremists.

All that said, I've always found Mass Effect's lore more interesting. It just appeals to me more, what with their galactic society and different cultures (I'm a sucker for that). However, I will admit that, in terms of the overall conflict of each game, Halo wins. That said, Halo doesn't depend on player choice, which is where Mass Effect really shines. Also, Mass Effect has a lot more memorable characters. I prefer Mass Effect's story, if only for the lore and characters. However, I will admit that the original Halo trilogy did a good job of making me care for the characters, whereas in Mass Effect, I probably didn't care about some characters as much as BioWare had wanted (I absolutely do not care for Tali, despite three games).

Gameplay... well, they're both good and play differently.

I've never considered Halo to be Mass Effect's "rival". I never thought of Mass Effect of having a rival. There haven't been any especially notable RPGs recently, aside from maybe Final Fantasy, and even there, I hate the direction the games have been headed in, as do many people.

Oh, and I genuinely dislike Halo: Reach's story. Generic characters and bland plot. I hope the new Mass Effect works out, though, because I love the franchise.