Oblarg

There were certainly infinite waves in the basement during Garrus' recruitment mission.

And I can't stand level design based on infinite-spawning enemies forcing you to cross some invisible line to advance to the next segment. It's lazy, boring level design that does nothing but aggravate me.

That was a balance problem, not an issue with the mechanics themselves, which were solid. They could have easily kept the reheat mechanics nearly untouched (except for some rebalancing of the values) and added "thermal clips" in quantities comparable to medi-gel and grenades from the first game, so that if you really needed to keep firing in a certain situation you'd have the option to cool down your weapon immediately.

I'd say the combat overall did improve in ME2, but it wasn't an improvement on all fronts. Firstly, the overheat system was fine and there was absolutely no compelling need to swap to an ammo system (with the added detriment of some truly hamfisted retconning and a few minor plotholes). Secondly, the global cooldown is annoying and makes your powers feel weak. Thirdly, the level design was unambiguously better in ME1 - ME2 felt linear and boring as hell, with the game needlessly divided into "shooter areas" and "non-combat" areas which really made a lot of the levels feel isolated compared to ME1. However, the cover system was greatly improved and overall combat is a hell of a lot more fluid in ME2, so yeah as a whole I'd say it's an improvement. It could have easily been a lot better, though.

I think it was made fairly clear during the first game that Saren *needed* to be on the inside to hand controls over to Sovereign. This is why they could simply attack the Citadel to begin with. They needed to find the conduit, so that Saren could quickly gain access to Citadel control. Without someone on the inside, there'd be no way for the Reapers to use the Citadel relay, or possibly to assail the Citadel at all - with the Keepers unable to follow the Reapers' commands, there'd be nothing stopping the organic races from closing the Citadel arms and making it fairly impregnable, were the Reapers to attack it. Going after Earth is still a bit questionable, but it's one of the lesser issues I have with the ME3 premise.

Do not want.

Eh, not really - as well-written as most of ME2's characters were, I didn't really like any of them.

Yeah, those samples are sounding great - much more like ME1 than ME2, thankfully.

And it was ****ty in ME2, as well.

...This is retarded. Whoever got the idea of turning the galaxy map into a stupid mini-game with a little toy ship you move around the galaxy well should be fired. Way to kill the immersion, morons. Gosh, the ME1 galaxy map was so nice and beautiful. What the **** were they thinking?

DA2 was bad, but I honestly don't think it'd be possible to make a sequel bad enough to turn DA:O into an enjoyable experience. I have attemped to play through DA:O three times now - my first attempt got me up to the final battle in Denerim, at which point I quit out of boredom. I've gotten successively less far along with each subsequent attempt. It's just not a fun game - the combat is clunky, the plot is absent from most of the game, and the encounter design is just about the worst I've seen in an RPG.

I'm under the same impression, that it sold fairly well at first, but then it just stopped, and thus in total falling short of DA:O sales numbers by a lot. Edit: For reference, VGChartz lists DA:O at roughly 4 million total across all platforms, with DA 2 at roughly 1.85 million. Make of those numbers what you will. It initially had a lot of momentum from DA:O's success, but then word of mouth got around that it was crap, and people stopped buying it. Somewhat reassuring that a bad game still won't sell as well as a good game, no matter how much hype is behind it.

http://www.ricksantorum.com/enforcing-laws-against-illegal-pornography I think I'll just leave this here. What nice candidates you have, GOP.

Oh, right. DA2 was so crap that I doubt it'd have been particularly profitable.

If they don't, I won't buy it - but they did this with DA2, so I'm fairly certain they'll do with with ME3, as well.

They lose because they get paid significantly less money.

Which is precisely why anyone who doesn't want to put up with this **** should not give BioWare full price for a non-full product. Buy the whole thing a few months later, when you'll get all that content for less money. If enough people do that, BioWare have incentive not to pull this ****.

I disagree - the difference in profit between a day-1 purchase and a purchase several months later is huge.

I'm going further than that. I'm not going to boycott the game, but I am *not* going to buy it until they release the inevitable lowered-price bundle with all the nonsense that they charge for on day 1 included. The only way you can persuade companies to not to something is to convince them that it is not profitable - for that to work, they have to lose money, and what would have possibly been a day 1, full-price purchase from me is now no longer.

I, and many other gamers, have never voiced anything remotely like this, at all. I'm perfectly happy with buying a game, and getting *that game.* I do not expect, nor do I want, stupid tacked-on ****. If it's game-crucial, it should be there at launch, in the standard game. If it's not, those development resources should go towards other, complete games (or expansions). Cut this entire bull**** DLC trend and I'll be a happy man.

The best possible alternative would be to not segment your game development and withold pieces from people who don't buy a more expensive version of the game. Regardless, it doesn't matter for me - I'll be waiting for the bundle edition with all the DLC for less than the original price of the game down the road. This likely isn't a day-1 purchase for me.

It was made pretty clear in the first game that the Reapers do not wipe out *all* organice life, only all spacefaring organic life. They'd have no way of wiping out all organic life, as they don't search the entire galaxy - this was all explained by Vigil on Ilos. By taking the citadel, they are, ostensibly, then able to interpret all the lovely data the organics have on their own civilization and then proceed to systematically dismantle it. This is why Ilos survived - there was no record of Ilos on the Citadel or on any other Prothean world, and thus the Reapers simply didn't know anyone was there. It thus stands to reason that there could be plenty of other organic populations, even fairly "advanced" ones, that are not wiped out every cycle because they have not yet discovered interstellar travel. In fact, I sort of wish more had been done with this, because if there's one obvious weakness in the Reaper plan it's that they're seemingly not very thorough in their extermination - there are numerous ways a species could "slip through the cracks" in a way that could perhaps allow them to become a threat to the Reapers in the next cycle. It's a pity they didn't go with this idea, and instead brought the reapers down to a much less imposing foe than they previously were. So, yeah, of the myriad plot issues in the Mass Effect universe, the 50,000 year timescale between harvests is not one of them.

Indeed, ME1's balance was ****ing horrid, but that's an easily fixed implementation problem, not an innate flaw of the system itself. And, as far as Nepenthe's complaint goes, it only goes to show he must really not have been trying very hard if he found he didn't have enough powers to use back in ME1.

Last I checked, calling someone a "hipster" in place of actually debating their point is certainly an ad-hominem attack. Keep up the whole smug/superior thing, though, it certainly reflects well on you. Several pages ago? The subject of current discussion was only introduced on the previous page - I don't suppose you'd know that, though, as you're repeatedly showing you're far more interested in verbal ****-flinging than discussion.

Don't have an argument? That's OK, ad hominem works just as well!