Mass Effect 2 is Overrated

Rather than come up with some witty title to their latest editorial, the editors at Robot Geek strive for the obvious by simply labeling it “Mass Effect 2 is Overrated”. Those of you who have seen me voice my displeasure with ME2 on numerous occasions can probably guess that I agree with much of what’s in this article:

My biggest quip with Mass Effect 2 is its classification as an RPG. The first game was an RPG. Mass Effect 2 is an excellent third person shooter with RPG elements. If it was any other developer besides BioWare it might be forgivable but BioWare is the RPG powerhouse in the industry. To scale back character customization should equal blasphemy. Whether this was done because of a design necessity (which is highly doubtful) or because they wanted to increase accessibility (more than likely) this choice is devastating to the integrity of the game.

The last reason that Mass Effect 2 is truly overrated is because the story sucks (SPOILERS from here on down). It is told in a cinematic fashion but the actual story line is lukewarm at best. The saving grace of the story is the presence of a strong supporting cast. Each character has a very compelling, individual, story to tell. This does not add up to a strong story overall though. If we actually look at the main storyline it contributes almost nothing to the Mass Effect lore. To top it off, the Collectors are a story deficit. The Harbinger is a void that fills in nothing of what we need to know, while being simultaneously boring to fight. We spent the whole game chasing down the middle man. The suicide mission feels like a formulaic gimmick to give you the illusion that your choices matter.