Does anyone actually prefer ME1 to ME2?

[Jools]

I -do- prefer ME1 to ME2, by far, and constantly get insulted because of such preference. :D

 

[SoupNazi]

Funny, I felt the exact opposite. Case in point? Kaiden (ala Carth Mark II). Liara (in the second game she grew up). And everything else, really. Even ME2's opening is far more interesting. That and the Reaper ship when you go to rescue your kidnapped crew has far, far more atmosphere in it than anything in ME1 ever did.

I liked Garrus, Wrex, Tali and Liara. I also liked Saren and Matriarch Benezia. David Anderson, Udina, and even the council were also all interesting characters. The minor characters in each of the hubs also made sense; like the administrator of that ice cold planet and the undercover cop working as his assistant.

Saren gave the evil some face, and even though it was clear that there was something else behind him from the very beginning, it gave the character something to care about, someone to hate. Even Sovereign wasn't as bad as a completely anonymous horde of "Collectors".

In ME2, all this goes away in exchange for - yeah - Collectors - who come out of nowhere and represent exactly what the Reapers hate (organics) yet they're working for them ... to collect bodies ... from which they make a giant Reaper who looks like a funny skeleton but is made out of bodies but really is a Reaper so he's completely mechanic ????
ME2 has no interesting characters in the hubs other than Liara and Wrex (guess what, they're from ME1) and the only companions that are interesting are Garrus (ME1), Mordin and (for me) Legion. The Illusive man is a fucking joke and Shadow Broker is completely ruined by the sequel.

Yes Kaiden is completely retarded and so is Ashley Williams (fortunately you can kill them both) but they are nowhere near as annoying as Jacob and Miranda or as boring as Grunt, Samara and Morinth.

 

[circ]

Well, it boils down to this: would you rather play an RPG that's a shitty, shitty RPG and a shitty, shitty game--or would you rather play a corridor shooter that's not shitty?

I know what I'd go for, every time.

Except ME 2 is shitty even as a corridor shooter. I can't say I have any love for either game, but I think I'm going to re-install ME 1, ignore the shit story and characters, and get rid of ME 2 again. I couldn't get past the tutorial this time, it's so shitty.

Anyway, optimally, ignoring the story altogether, ME 3 should be somewhat like Karma described.

Namely, bring back customization from ME 1. That's always a nice thing in RPG's or derivatives. Hell, it's nice in any game.

Keep to the more interesting characters from ME 2, not to say they were all good, but Miranda had her moments, Jacob I had no major problems with, Fishman was good, Garrus improved from the whiny cop he was in ME 1. Krogan was nothing special, but he never was. Tali, uh, I dunno, is passable I guess. Wouldn't mind the accent 'disappearing'. Jack, uh, fuck off.

Improve party AI. Or just give them AI routines, which they seem to have forgotten to do in the first place.

Delete all aliens from ME 3, except maybe returning groupmates. BioWare can't write aliens. They're just humans in mole/bird suits. I felt a little alien mannerisms from Fishman in ME 2, but that's about it.

Yeah, bring back Mako. First time I played ME 1 I thought I was going to get to play some kind cross of a bad shooter and Starflight. Well, that wasn't the case. But well, improve the shitmissions on planets featuring Mako, and I have no probs with it. And just remove the Mako drive-to-shoot-stuff-up pre-missions. What is the point?

Rip-off the face gen code from DA 2. If nothing else, the face gen certainly had better skin textures and more, than the custom choices you could create with the ME 2 one. ME 2 gen was just ass.

Let the janitor or hot dog guy outside write the story. Guaranteed to be better.

There, GOTY.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Well, it boils down to this: would you rather play an RPG that's a shitty, shitty RPG and a shitty, shitty game--or would you rather play a corridor shooter that's a shitty, shitty shooter and a shitty, shitty game?

I know what I'd go for, every time.

Fixed. It boils down to this: would you rather play a Diablo clone or a game with gameplay similar to Diablo but without loot and levelling system? Mass Effect, while different from hack and slashes in many aspects, shares the most important characteristic of the genre - it has monotonous gameplay and forgettable story so the only reason it can be mildly entertaining is that it rewards you with random items and experience for destroying waves of monsters. Mass Effect removes even that so it's obvious it's an inferior game. Well, there's also cheesy, B movie feel to it and romances if that's what you like (I kinda like the former and ignore the latter so it doesn't bother me) but it's present in both games.

The notion that ME2 is in any way less shitty gameplay-wise is ridiculous. It still got awful cover system and horrible level design. That's pretty much everything you need to know about its gameplay to be able to judge it. As long as this shit is in the game, there's no tweak to shooting mechanics that Mass Effect 2 could introduce to make it significantly less retarded.

 

[circ]

David Anderson, Udina, and even the council were also all interesting characters.

Udina was ok-ish. But Keith David, oh man. Just give him any kind of shit to read and he will turn it into magic. MAGIC, 100% PROOF!

 

[Jools]

Well, it boils down to this: would you rather play an RPG that's a shitty, shitty RPG and a shitty, shitty game--or would you rather play a corridor shooter that's not shitty?

I know what I'd go for, every time.

Except ME 2 is shitty especially as a corridor shooter.

This, but fixed.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Both are great games, but I suppose ME1 is slightly better purely because there is so much extra stuff you can do. I'm sure my longest playthrough of ME1 came over 50 hours because of all the planets you can explore. Most of them have a mission tied to them.

With DLC ME2 comes closer to matching that, but it is still shorter.

 

[KalosKagathos]

ME1 is a terrible action/RPG. ME2 is a decent shooter with light RPG elements.

 

[Gord]

I cannot tell which one I prefer, as I haven't played ME2 yet, guess I'm waiting for some sale on Steam or such.

But don't worry, you still get to hear my ramblings about ME1

Customization and rpg elements:
Ultimately poorly implemented. All characters play more the less the same, whether bionic, soldier or tech, there's no real difference in combat or otherwise. You always shoot at bad guys with weapons and every once in a while you use some special ability. The differences are negligible.
Same goes for weapons and armor. Mostly incremental upgrades of stuff you already have. Each type has one or two good brands, the rest is just filler. Would have worked better if there had been any discernible differences, e.g. Pistol A fires fast but does not much damage, Pistol B is accurate but slow, whatever.
And why not include some uniques?

Side missions:
Do about five and you have seen all, after that it's only recycling of the same quest structure (find planet -> mako -> exploration -> bit of shooting in recycled building -> return to normandy).
On my second playthrough I just ignored those completely.

I did enjoy the story (not exactly the execution of your hunt for Saren, but on a whole) and the setting, nothing extremely creative but they still pulled it off pretty decent imho.

 

[Serious_Business]

What? Is someone spamming votes or is there really that much retards on these forums? Must be all the new biofags. Get the fuck out, your company is getting better and better


Well, honestly since I've stopped caring about what I play lately, I'll say this : I like the cheesy plastic overly serious tone of ME1, while ME2 goes for grimdark-stupid action without all the boring "this is serious" exposition. There are actually some decent characters / locations in ME2 though. I'm not sure why you wouldn't prefer it to the first one, unless you really like all the setting exposition. But the setting is fucking ridiculous and inane either way. I'm not talking about all the superfluous gameplay elements of the first game too - I guess some people just really like dressing their dolls or something. Faggotry

 

[hoverdog]

ME1 is a terrible action/RPG. ME2 is a decent shooter with light RPG elements.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

ME2 had Cerberus

Your point?

shepard dying and then cloned

Incorrect. They brought him back to life with cybernetics and magic technology. Still, your point?

a giant retarded anime terminator

I don't see what that has to do with anything.

a pimp [racial slur for black man] keeping his former crew dumb for sex

I think you've misunderstood my point.

teen angst in every single characters

Teen angst is this crap expression that gets thrown around a lot, just like hipster. There's remarkably little angst on board the new Normandy. Garrus, maybe, would fit the bill but this psychology student considers it a stretch to write his conflicted nature off as mere angst. Jacob had already buried his father when he found him again. There was no "teen angst" there. Only disappointment. None of them fits the "angst" ticket. Not even Kasumi, whose mission I believe a lot of people were quick to dismiss as mere sentimental bullshit when it was really just about holding on to dear memories and finding closure.

How about Zaeed, Legion, Grunt or Mordin? What "angst" do they display?

...do i really have to continue?

Considering that you can't win when you argue against me, no, you shouldn't.

 

[Big Nick Digger]

ME1 felt like a bigger galaxy to me. The citadel in the first game is much more grand than ME2. I felt like I was walking down an endless hallway with boxes in ME2

 

[Seolas]

ME2 is good and a GOTY edition after Arrival is out will be worth it for those who haven't played. I don't endorse the DLC craze but ME2 is one of the few games which is enhanced by DLC. Kasumi has a feel of Bond to it, mostly interaction and investigation although does end up with the usual firefight. Overlord is creepy and surreal about an AI gone rogue and the vehicle parts are good. And the Liara one is one of the best pieces of DLC for any game I've played and better than most of the stuff in the main game. I like the ME franchise but do wish it was more of an RPG with better stealth options and more dialogue intricacy (asking too much from Bioware these days though).

 

[chzr]

i'm not a storyfag so i don't care which story is more cheesy.

played insanity vanguard in both games and i probably slightly prefer me1 overall (both games are mediocre though).

the thing is, me1 has a lot of broken and undeveloped things, that could have been fixed/improved in me2 but bioware decided to go full retard instead.

mako - lots of planets looked really nice but their content was bland: 1-2 'collectible' items, 2 minerals, and a copypasta base/bunker, sometimes few enemies around.
planet scanning is retarded in every fucking way

combat was retarded that damage was based on skill but 'magic' was actually quite fun (ableit a bit overpowered) and you were able to had quite a lot of different skills. in me2 it all boils down to having one class 'signature' skill and spamming that every 4 seconds. also, all fun effects of powers from me1 are useless since they don't work against 'rock/paper/scissors' shield/barrier/armor, which when you destroy, enemies are as good as dead anyway.

what a shame i guess.

 

[Xor]

ME2 is such a different game to ME1, it's really surprising. They both have their strong and weak points, but I liked ME2 more overall.

First of all, I agree ME1 felt like a bigger game. Overall the missions were longer and it felt like there were more places to go because you could land on at least one planet per system. The problem is that ME1 took me about 30 hours to finish (100% completion), where ME2 took around 50 hours (skipping most of the side missions). ME2 is a much longer game. I'm not even sure how that's possible but my playtimes speak for themselves.

I liked the improvements to the shooter gameplay in ME2. Keep in mind that I don't play many (or any, really) corridor shooters so I don't really have high standards for them. But the idea of a separate shield, armor, barrier, and health bar made combat more interesting. Instead of every weapon being largely the same they started having advantages and disadvantages against the different health bars. In ME1 my strategy was to just spam biotic powers until everything was dead, in ME2 I actually had to shoot and change weapons because they made biotics shitty.

Also, ME1 had pretty much the worst inventory system in Bioware history (and that's saying something). I didn't miss it in ME2.

For the characters, I like the concept of many of the ME2 characters but I felt they lacked depth. There just aren't enough conversations with all of them to really get to know them. That's still better than ME1's companions who were boring with the possible exception of Wrex, who was the broest Bioware thug-type companion ever.

Both games have this B-movie sci-fi vibe to them, and I love B-movies and sci-fi. That's what attracted me to the games to begin with. If ME3 still has that, I'll probably end up playing it. Of course, I lost my fucking savegames so I'll probably have to play through both games again. Goddammit.

 

[hakuroshi]

I kinda liked ME1 for the female renegade Shepard's hilarious replies.
ME2 was, well, meh... But it's probably a better entertaiment product.

 

[Raapys]

Both are very poor games, but I seem to remember liking the music in ME1. So that gets my vote.

 

[a budda]

what's wrong with mako? learn to fucking drive...
you also had to use it like two times or so...
and you could drive on some strange planets watching the alien moons and planets and stars in the sky which added +10 to immersion

female shepard was pretty good so no problem here either

character stats and development and skills were subpar but still not shitty

yeah, inventory and copy-paste side-quest areas were WTF?

story was pretty cliche but well-paced and some nice touches with only a few :facepalm: (50ooo years cycle, heh)

dialogues were actually dialogues

different character classes were different

ALL IN ALL: i fucking enjoyed that and think it was the best, heh, bio game ever, even with glaring faults like some story facepalms, no inventory, copypasta areas
the main selling point to me was the believable universe created and the feeling of actually being in the huge universe where no one hears you scream... 7/10 for me
though, vangelis-like music is what actually dragged that game from "might play when bored some day maybe" to "quite good when 50% of brain runs on idle"


wtf with comparing to me2? it's a popamole shooter without a story with idiotic quests and rageinducing minigames

 

[Xor]

Why do you lie?

 

[DragoFireheart]

Haven't touched them personally, however;

The people I know who play CRPG's, even the newer types such as Dragon Age 1, prefer Mass Effect 1.

The people I know who don't like CRPG's normally, prefer Mass Effect 2.

There you go.

I like cRPGs and I think Mass Effect 2 is a better game than Mass Effect 1. Sure, Mass Effect 1 had more RPG elements but i feel it executed them poorly. I fucking hated the inventory system for ME1. God it sucked so hard...

 

[Jaesun]

Sure, Mass Effect 1 had more RPG elements but i feel it executed them poorly

What exactly were these RPG elements in Mass Effect?

 

[a budda]

Sure, Mass Effect 1 had more RPG elements but i feel it executed them poorly

What exactly were these RPG elements in Mass Effect?

save the world

 

[DragoFireheart]

Sure, Mass Effect 1 had more RPG elements but i feel it executed them poorly

What exactly were these RPG elements in Mass Effect?

Stats, Inventory and To-hit-attacks.

The stats were set up similar to Kotor but even with less stats. There is no Strength or Intelligence, just a skill and blocks to fill it to make said skill stronger. It didn't add much customization in that regard.

Inventory was ASS. Too many items, no efficient way to organize said items and it got to the point where your inventory was flooded, making it tedious to find a mod you may need unless you CONSTANTLY broke down items. ASS ASS ASS!

The hit reticule for attacks early on gave me a feel of having an RPGish attack where my characters stats would determine if I hit or not but once you get a skill high enough player skill takes over. Same flaw in Morrowind plagues this game.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Mass Effect 1 was mediocre and tiresome. So I didn't play the sequel. Weird, I know.