Oh god ME2 was consolized trash, where was my jump key, crouch has anyone seen that key? Wait i have to cross over a box let me see first i hit space so i can crouch taking cover behind the box then i can spring over the box. But wait it gets even more assinine, in that sprint, cover, use are all tagged to the same key, so if i want to move quickly i might get glued to the wrong side of an object because the game is decideing for me what my tactics will be. This is necessary because the developer designed POOR combat senarios where the enemies are not difficulty using a keyboard and mouse is.

I can not believe you guys call yourselves gamers. You are completely willing to be led around by nose relinquishing basic decisions to the game engine. Loot or attack YOU DO NOT GET THE CHOICE the game engine decides for you what you WILL do not what you want to do. It was the same in ME2 and is the same in TW2 as well. YOU WILL DO WHAT THE GAME ENGINE HAS DECIDED FOR YOU WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT, that is sloppy lazy cheap programming. But considering the ADHD of the audience it is not suprising. You guys will sit here and trash ME where you were in control and laud ME2 as the best thing since sliced bread with half the functionality. I can not decide if it is sad, or disturbing that the dumbing down of TW2 is considered good. It is a sad day indeed when gaming is driven by the balloon chasers who want a simple trite on rails experience and it shows.

I just need to stop preordering games and wait until the price drops if i am going to get half a game compared to what games used to be i might as well limit the hemorage of cash in that regard. I would not be as pissed off at the dumbing down of the games if i did not get soaked for full price. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me and as far as TW2 goes i should have waited like DA2 until it was about 30 bucks half a game is worth half price.

Asai

IDK... I like the combat in witcher 2, I wouldn't call it simplified because you have to think during combat. Compared to the Group Style of the first game where you can just go in the middle of the mob and decapitate them all, I think this is better. It just takes a little getting used to.

NO....! You'll infect your PC with SecuROM #$% if you install DA2...NO. Seriously if you want to preserve your sanity and your system from a possible reformatting after frustration with possible broken OS (and broken DVD optical drive in a few cases), don't install ANYTHING with SecuROM. It is truly the Devil of DRM. I know the DVD of witcher 2 has SecuROM so I got the GOG.com version. Were it not for that I'd not have purchased the game at all.
Story good...but not as soul searching I feel as TW1. The opponent selection mechanism needs some serious tweaking as if you aren't careful it can get you killed. Also the door quirk really sucks. I'd say we were testing what I'd consider semi-beta at this point. Probably getting paid help ( as in we Pay to help them...see Tom Sawyer, whitewashing chapter when Tom gets his friends to pay him to help him with their chores...Clemens would be writing about this too...) to assist CDR to get an Xbox version out where the audience are much less tolerent of the bugs/issues we've been seeing and patchers are harder potentially harder to apply.

there are ups and downs compared to TW1, but the one BIG up is graphics and combat UI. It does make you think but it too needs tweaking. I've listed recommendations as have others and many have had the skill/guts/guile to make mods to fix interfaces issues themselves so you may want to check the mods forum. Some really cool people out there (who should be PAID I think for doing what CDR should have done in may cases). There is a commnity forming who will make BIG contributions to this game. I hope we all get a free TW2:EE (enhanced edition) 12 months from now for our hard work making it feasible to make this game work onan Xbox with the pain we've gone through.

ME2 sucked and your opinion has no more or less value than mine as i paid for both games under discussion. I will not go away you can kiss my rump punk tweaker, and if you or anybody else here does not like what i type IGNORE ME as i will you from now on.

thanks have a craptastic day
Asai

I'm glad everyone here is being mature.

Maybe we can agree that different people have different tastes and go our separate ways? Or we could just continue insulting each other to feel cool on the internet. Whatever works for you guys.

The problem is people today think that a valid substitue for debate is to attack the individual and not thier idea. The issue at hand is that even though my opinion is in the minority i have backed it up with valid points to be discussed as opposed to the drift of the discussion which seems to be centered around whether i am allowed to continue to breathe. Refute the idea not the individual. Like the Steam forums there should be an ignore list here, which in my case is pretty long as i am also sure i am on quite a few lists there as well.

Asai

Totally agreed. You went down to the same level when you called him a "punk tweaker," though.

Let's just keep it civil on all sides and avoid the name-calling, okay?

Fair enough.
Asai

BioWare is definitely one of my favourite developers. KotOR, Dragon Age, ME1 and ME2 has all been absolutely fenomenal. Havn't played Dragon Age 2 though, only the demo, in which the combat had been vastly improved.

And yet, The Witcher 2 is also one of my favourite games. You don't have too pick and choose. ;)

I have to agree with you about fights in Mass Effect: they are sub-par. Once again, that's not for the same reasons. ME uses Unreal Engine, which is a very good fit to make a good FPS and therefore, provide a solid fighting experience. However, the level design is a epitome of laziness and a great how-to about making crappy levels. Not once I had the feeling to be in anything but a film set, you now, the stuff you see in the making-ofs which reveal that the Galactica is in real life a few neatly arranged rows and rooms but not a 2 kilometer-long capital starship. Worse, these levels are filed with crates, the preferred way for a level designer to express his/her utter lack of imagination. And on top of that, we have to shoot wave after wave of mindless critters. But I'm not playing and loving the Mass Effect games for their fights, except when I want to disconnect my brain and go for a mindless shooting session.

Now, there is one thing you should never forget about games: they only let you do what the developer wants you to do. Yes really. To a point that it was the main plot device in Bioshock and that was wonderfully thought out. Worse, every single program in the world is still bound to do what its programmer told it to do and will never be able to break this boundary. There can be some emergent gameplay happening from time to time, but once again, that because the developer took time to think about it and tried to simulate some kind of real-life.

Meanwhile, most core gamers happen to be in their 30s, which mean they have some families, which translates into less time to play and enjoy games. Thus, they become shorter and simpler, as the core audience is not only growing in age, but in number too. And this audience may not be willing to have to spend an hour learning how to play before enjoying the game. Hence, using a single button to perform contextual action has sense. Since a Mass Effect will never be a military-simulator requiring an accurate simulation of all body movements, that doesn't matter that much, except if you're some kind of mutant octopus.
While sometimes simplification indeed goes to far (see Fable, best interactive screensavers I've seen so far), it's not always a bad thing in itself.

To sum it up, I think you made valid points, but they're misdirected and yes, in the message I 'quoted', I saw some hint of personal attacks too.

Mass Effect 2 is a 3rd person shooter, and it does this beautifully(if you arent into shooters you shouldnt even be bothering with it). It's not a cRPG in space(ME1 wasnt either). Not real sure why it's being mentioned in a forum about an RPG.

What was the topic discussion again? I think it got lost in some crazy flame war.....

how did it became my fault? read post 31 and 35. and compare them to my posts, who started name calling? who started coming in here high and mighty and thought his opinion surpasses all others? the cocky piece of s#$% stain needed to be put down a peg or 2, but I refrained from doing so to avoid a flame war. if only I care enough :P

my god, if you are gonna take sides, at least read both sides before you make a decision.

Yeah, I thought that was a little weird myself. Asai has just been ridiculous since he first posted in this thread.

ME 1 & 2 was a RPG. Of course the definition of RPG differs from person to person but the majority of the players felt it was a RPG.

For the record I liked W1 & 2, ME 1 & 2 and DA 1. I did not like DA 2.