Mass Effect had its flaws, sure, but I’d give Bioware some credit. They do abuse certain tropes, but I’m sure they must have gone over the problems you mentioned a dozen times over when they were brainstorming.

As for the reapers, I think they have a sufficiently well-crafted backstory- this is just the first game in a trilogy, after all. All the game really tells us is that the Protheans never got around to uncovering the Reapers’ motivations, not that they’re unknowable.

The “Humans are Superior” bit was a bit irking, yeah, but so was the fact that every race was biped, humanoid and thought just like humans. On the other hand, I’m not sure the game would have worked at all if all the races were as strange as the Elcor (Grunts) and the Hanar (Jellyfish).

ME2 looks like it is going to address a lot of these concerns. I’m just hoping the geth companion you’re going to have in the game (Legion) proves as fun to play with as HK-47 was in KoToR.

After 4 years of work, KotOR2 restoration project seems to be close to release ( http://team-gizka.org/index.html ). This will definitely make me install the game again and try it out.

I agree with your views on the story, but these seem to be symptoms of planning a trilogy of games. They kept stuff hidden so that the next games actually have something to reveal, but it was not done very gracefully. They could have hidden all the reaper’s involvements behind Saren’s hunger for power and alliance with the Geth, only having him mention them on his dying bed at the end, or better yet not at all. Instead, at the middle of the game they turned the BBEG into a lackey of some other villain we will know nothing about until the second or third game.

The story is short, but given the past experience of their writers (based on previous Bioware games), I think it’s because they’re used to write stories lasting about one game’s length (typically 20-30 hours for the main quest) and not epic sagas spanning multiple games. My guess is they wrote their story, then cut it in three. Which would give about 7 hours of story related elements per game. This explains all the padding with boring, repetitive, and uninteresting side quests.

That’s not to say ME2 will only have 7 hours worth of story too. After all, they had time to read criticism (although scarce) and update and expand their story. They’ll probably include a few more foes along with the main one they planned to fight during the second part of the story, and maybe reveal a bit more about act 3…

@ faemir: Dragon Age: Origins is lengthy but not because of its story. It takes a long time to play through because the dungeons are huge (each area goes like this : 1 hour in the city, 4 in the nearby dungeon, fight sub boss, go back to city for 15min, go to another 4 hours dungeon, fight final boss). The story only picks up in the last act and by the time you get there you only have a few hours til the end.

I started playing Dragon Age and you guys are right. It seems much bigger and the quests seem much more flavorful. It seems that Bioware has learned it’s lesson and is not going to repeat it.

@ faemir:

I fully intend to pick up Mass Effect 2 after I’m done with Dragon Age. Again, the game was not bad. It was entertaining and fun – just flawed. If they fixed all of the above complaints, chances are that ME2 will be an exceptional SF RPG.

But, the game itself acts as if it was stand-alone. It does not end on a cliffhanger of any sort and thus gives player little clues that there will be part 2. So I was inclined to comment on the plot as if it was a stand alone product.

(disclaimer: I love Mass Effect)

Dragon Age is longer, and it is silly of you to say just because you didn’t think ME was long enough that Dragon Age isn’t either. Dragon Age is easily 60 hours doing a nice thorough playthrough, while I put my Mass Effect play throughs on normal around 17 hours.

Also, you should look at the details of ME2 if you want fixes for lots of your annoyances:

– many more enemy races (that annoyed me too)
– going from [ME1] an /okay/ combat system to a combat system that rivals modern shooters [ME2]
– 10 companions, which you don’t all get right at the start :P

And then awesome things like:

– great voice actors (hello trinity and Jayne and Martin Sheen)
– more explanation of the Motives of the Reapers.

In fact yes. I think you being annoyed at the lack of reaper explanation is crap, to be honest. It’s a trilogy of games, and the first game is about initial encounter, while the second will be learning teh details, and the third will be kicking some serious reaper butt. It then makes sense to not divulge much, especially when the villain in ME1 is not the reaper – it’s saren, even if he’s just a puppet.

@Dragons Age: I am now playing the third Week at this nice piece of Software, while it took me only about 1,5 for completing Mass Effect. This while really searching for every side-quest in both games (even the masseffect ones, while they are stupid, few and still anoying).
Even if i count things like “searching for Minerals on Planets” at MassEffect and just the quests you will recieve from your companions, then DragonsAge STILL has by far more sidequest-playing-time.

Dragons Age is really a nice Piece of Game and not by far compareble to this shirt waste of money.