Remastered Games Thread: Classic Edition Redux (Now with widescreen support)

[Vandelay]

Is ME2 one of those Spec Ops / Gears of War style shooters? I only just tried those for the first time this year… and yeah… they’re amazing for about 20 minutes and then the fun wears off.

It is still a Guns & Conversation game, as the first was and as Bioware are now known for. I would say they dial back on the RPG elements with the combat, so it does move closer to those games you mention. Personally though, I would say ME2 doesn’t have the weight or feedback of the combat in those games, so it feels far less satisfying. Being sci-fi, you also encounter lots of enemies that have shields, so many of them are bullet sponges.

ME1’S combat isn’t great either and may well be technically inferior, but it is much easier to just blast through and get to the more interesting story bits, so it feels far less intrusive than it does in 2.

[Skalpadda]

The correct way to play ME2 is as a vanguard teleporting into people every 5 seconds and shotgunning them in the face.The cover shooter mechanics aren’t all that great.

[LexW]

I would say they dial back on the RPG elements with the combat, so it does move closer to those games you mention.

I feel like this is potentially misleading. For anyone who hasn’t played ME2, it’s actually better on conversations, missions and NPC interactions than ME1, particularly dramatic ones (ME3 is a more complex issue - it’s kind of worse than ME2 on this). The stuff that I’d consider to the core of what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game, not merely a game with a lot of numbers.

It puts the focus on these elements and the combat.

Whereas ME1 has a fairly poor weapon/armour system, with a dreadful inventory system, where most weapons are either unusable or merely linear upgrades of other weapons (similarly with armour), which mostly just acts to cause you a problem, by either forcing you into tedious inventory management, or making you overpowered or underpowered. It’s very easy to break the game at higher levels, or to have a companion character (particularly Tali IIRC) become significantly disadvantaged (on harder settings) at lower levels, because decent armour won’t drop or be sold for them.

ME2 also simplifies the character upgrade/level-up system into a smaller number of more significant decisions, rather than spending lots of points which just give +2.5% damage with X weapon or the like. I don’t really see that as “dialing back” an RPG element, though.

Personally though, I would say ME2 doesn’t have the weight or feedback of the combat in those games, so it feels far less satisfying.

Obviously YMMV but I couldn’t disagree more re: weight/feedback, and I think a side-by-side comparison with Spec Ops or, say, GoW2 would show that this isn’t right on a more objective level. It’s also definitely misleading to suggest enemies are more “bullet sponges” than, say in GoW games or most cover shooters. Even on Insanity that is demonstrably not the case. It is more the case than Spec Ops, I think though. The sound design for combat is superb, too, waaay ahead of Spec Ops (which isn’t shoddy here).

However, there is one big difference that may be significant here: ME2’s combat is pretty shallow/crap unless you’re on the top two difficulties. Whereas GoW/Spec Ops play decently on the default difficulty. I’m pretty sure this is a sacrifice to being a CRPG - I can actually see what you’re saying re: it merely slowing you down more on the normal difficulty as compared to ME1. You don’t really have to play it very well or really use your abilities or anything on normal on either, but combat tends to be more mindless in ME1, and you can get to be overpowered much more easily, and thus blow through it - which is a failure of design on one level, but as you say it means you can almost skip the combat.

ME3’s default difficulty is a bit higher, and it’s also better-designed in terms of weapons/guns than ME2, so it can be more engaging. However, the combat arena/level design for ME3 is distinctly inferior to ME2 I’d suggest overall it’s a wash. It does play even better on higher difficulties though, as all classes work well (whereas in ME2 that’s not the case). Interestingly ME3 adds an extra setting to make the combat completely trivial, Story Mode.

[Vandelay]

I feel like this is potentially misleading. For anyone who hasn’t played ME2, it’s actually better on conversations, missions and NPC interactions than ME1, particularly dramatic ones (ME3 is a more complex issue - it’s kind of worse than ME2 on this). The stuff that I’d consider to the core of what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game, not merely a game with a lot of numbers.

Let’s not get into a semantic argument over what an RPG is, for that path leads to madness!

I should be more specific though. Yes, I was referring to character stats having an effect over your combat ability, rather than just player skill. The conversations, missions, NPCs and player agency over those are improvements on the former game (of course, these are equally subjective, if not more so).

In ME1, plug loads of points into your pistol ability and you will be one-two shotting your standard enemy grants without any difficulty. Does that make the combat significantly better? Not necessarily, but it makes it less of an inconvenience to getting to the bits that you are actually interested in. ME2’s combat in some ways can be considered better, but it is certainly still mediocre to poor compared to other games that it is emulating and it takes up much more of the game than it did in the first one. Both put too much focus on combat, but ME2 put even more emphasis on it.

Confession, I haven’t actually played GoW, so can’t really make much comparison. That series is known for its meaty combat though and ME certainly isn’t. Checking some videos of GoW2 and, yeah, that description seems to hold up. Spec Ops The Line was never particularly known for having great combat, but my memories of it hold up better than ME2. Again, glancing at videos, it seems much more visceral and far less stilted.

Pretty certain my recent play was on Vanguard difficulty. I don’t remember it being particularly challenging, other than being mostly grind down the enemies. I did have multiple cases of a single rocket coming out of nowhere and wiping me out from full health. More frustrating things like that rather than actually being a challenge.

[Internet]

I found the combat and rpg elements of ME2 to be utterly ignorable on normal. Every couple hours I would die in combat and realize I should probably be using abilities or stuff. I always viewed ME2 as less of an RPG and better for it. Many RPGs frequently, but not always, give you many gear choices. ME2 narrowed it down and the weapons were more distinct and meaningful. Many RPGs give you many dialogue options some consequential, others less so with many options for characterization, especially based on class and stats. ME2 gave you a good/bad and sometimes neutral wooden responses but these choices are recorded for future games (and Frog Fractions 2). Many RPGs give you open worlds to explore. ME2 gives you choices on corridors to fight in.

If it sounds like I’m being critical, I’m really not. ME2 was far more tightly focused on what it was; the merger between a minimalist rpg and a corridor shooter. It was distilled over time. The opposite of that would be Dragon Age, which always felt like more of an RPG to me but is wildly inconsistent from game to game as to what game it wants to be and what story it wants to tell.