Clash of the Titans! -- Half-Life 2 vs Mass Effect 2

[Aldebaran]

Both are very mediocre as far as gameplay is concerned.

However, Half Life 2 tells a story in a far more competent fashion: it doesn't feel the need to explain everything, the story isn't completely redundant (ARRAING TEAM... which you won't use in the next game, STOP RAEPER PLOT... even though they will arrive in a few days regardless), and generally follows a "show, don't tell" motto.

Mass Effect 2, on the other hand, seems to prefer a "tell, don't show approach." Reapers are set up as some kind of unstoppable killing machines yet the game culminates with a battle against a young reaper, an army of (infinitely respawning) bad guys, and the lord of inane quotes himself (also infinitely respawning, and infinitely looping through the worst alien evil one liners ever committed to paper). You, of course, surmount this obstacle with three people, the weapons you carry with you, and some conveniently placed chest high walls. It's not the first time a game has done this, but it always annoys me.

Not to mention, Half Life 2 doesn't force me to hide behind walls and has *shock and awe* health packs. The one thing I will never understand about Half Life 2 is that the Valve clearly wished for the player to explore (some of the lambda caches, the Vortigaunt hidden in the sewer pipe) and yet they constructed their entire game out of linear levels.

 

[Surf Solar]

Both games are overrated turds allright, so I went with the third option.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

BioWare, on the other hand, seems to prefer a "tell, don't show approach."

Fixed. You just described every Bio game ever made.

 

[racofer]

With the exception of DA2, dear horse, when Bioware adopted a new way of doing video games: "don't tell, don't show"

 

[Ermm]

Half Life 2 of course.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

With the exception of DA2, dear horse, when Bioware adopted a new way of doing video games: "don't tell, don't show"

 

[attackfighter]

Also, HL2's plot is not "minimalist". It just doesn't fucking have one. Some scraps of newspaper on a wall revealing totally inconsequential snuppets of info about the seven hour war don't count.

The plot is that Gordon Freeman finds himself in an enlaved society and must fight for his freedom. Various plot points occur during Gordon's quest, such as the capture of his good friend bill cosby and the resulting revolution when you set him free. Don't exert your puny brain too hard while trying to understand this INTRICATE and DEEP storyline.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

With the exception of DA2, dear horse, when Bioware adopted a new way of doing video games: "don't tell, don't show"

That's what they call innovation.

 

[racofer]

Best part of HL2 is when you get locked in a room for ten minutes and assholes you don't care about yammer at each other.

Oh yes, how fondly I remember those moments. That's how you magically turn a 5 hours long shooter into a 10 hours long boring shooter.

But a similar problem pissed me off with ME1/2. There are several unskippable cutscenes on those games, many where you can't even press ESC to bring up the game menu as to quit the game for whatever reason. And many of those cutscenes lasted for quite a while, where killing the game via task manager was my only option.

ME2's intro is also incredibly bad after the first time. I, many times, wanted to roll a different class or import a different save file but enduring a 20 minutes long unskippable intro made me give up before even trying.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Unskippable intro movie

You must've missed the cool minigame where you hammer the spacebar as quickly as possible, but need good reflexes to avoid accidently selecting the dialogue wheel when it materializes from out of nowhere, causing you to punch your girlfriend in the face.

Explain this shit to me.

(You're wrong.)

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Unskippable intro movie

You must've missed the cool minigame where you hammer the spacebar as quickly as possible, but need good reflexes to avoid accidently selecting the dialogue wheel when it materializes from out of nowhere, causing you to punch your girlfriend in the face.

Explain this shit to me.

(You're wrong.)

I made up the bit where you punch your girlfriend, if that's what you mean.

Pretty sure you also made up the part where you are able to skip Mass Effect's unskippable intro movies.

 

[racofer]

You must've missed the cool minigame where you hammer the spacebar as quickly as possible, but need good reflexes to avoid accidently selecting the dialogue wheel when it materializes from out of nowhere, causing you to punch your girlfriend in the face.

Yes, I'm aware of that. However, it doesn't always work. There are quite a few cutscenes where this marvelous mechanism simply does not work.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

But a similar problem pissed me off with ME1/2. There are several unskippable cutscenes on those games, many where you can't even press ESC to bring up the game menu as to quit the game for whatever reason. And many of those cutscenes lasted for quite a while, where killing the game via task manager was my only option.

You must've missed the cool minigame where you hammer the spacebar as quickly as possible, but need good reflexes to avoid accidently selecting the dialogue wheel when it materializes from out of nowhere, causing you to punch your girlfriend in the face.

This is possibly the most immersive and realistic dialog minigame ever. It parallels my real life conversations exactly.

Asshole: Oh hai thar
Me: Hey
Asshole: (meaningless bullshit no one cares about)
Me: (consciousness fades in and out during conversation, only catching a few words of each sentence).
Asshole: (staring at me motionlessly for several seconds)
Me: (Oh fuck I guess I need to say something now. Dunno what he said, lets just say some generic asshole or suck up line.) Fuck that.
Asshole: (continues talking).

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I just wanted to make a joke about the spacebar thing.

I am completely humorless when it comes to shit that annoys me in video games.

 

[racofer]

I just wanted to make a joke about the spacebar thing.

I am completely humorless when it comes to shit that annoys me in video games.

Speaking of that, another thing that really pissed me off in ME2 is the fact you can't use the mouse wheel on any of the ingame menus. Fucking lazy ass port jobs. Even DA2 had this working right.

 

[attackfighter]

You want to know what really pisses me off? The unskippable tutorial in Fallout 2 and unskippable cutscenes in The Witcher. Those games both suck due to those things.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I just wanted to make a joke about the spacebar thing.

I am completely humorless when it comes to shit that annoys me in video games.

Speaking of that, another thing that really pissed me off in ME2 is the fact you can't use the mouse wheel on any of the ingame menus. Fucking lazy ass port jobs. Even DA2 had this working right.

Yes, but it's also the only thing they got right.

You want to know what really pisses me off? The unskippable tutorial in Fallout 2 and unskippable cutscenes in The Witcher. Those games both suck due to those things.

Meh, the Temple of Trials is quickly over with in a matter of minutes. The only "slow" part IMO is blowing up the door. Other than that it's really just a matter of running through it unless you really want the XP. Hardly annoying.