Mass Effect 2

Over the weekend I beat Mass Effect 2 and was surprisingly disappointed.  I'd heard a lot about the series, especially with the third installment just recently releasing, and figured I'd test my mettle against it.  I mean, it's made by BioWare and it's hard to pass up any of their games.  I expected something like Dragon Age, really, and that's what I got.  The problem is that it felt like it was dumbed down more than it should have been.

Looks like it's pretty epic, right?

My main problem with the game is its length; it's just too damn short.  I beat this game in under 20 hours, and that's just barely the minimum for today's RPG standards.  Yeah, this isn't strictly an RPG, but hey, the genre is RPG-Shooter so I'd expect at least 20 full gaming hours.  This includes the main storyline AND all of the side quests that I could get my hands on, not including the paid DLC.  Part of the problem may be that I had the game on Normal, but I died a few times, and if I'm being forced to turn up the difficulty to get myself to die more often so that I can play the game longer, there's something horrifyingly wrong.  One good thing about the short game is that you can beat it once and then load your character back up at the start for round 2.  In my opinion, though, that's not a replacement for a longer, more robust line of main and side quests.

This gets really old, really quickly.

Exploration is such a waste of time in this game.  In most RPGs, when you explore you discover new fights, new items, and a myriad of new quests to begin.  In this game, however, you go from planet to planet and your exploration only gets you the occasional surface mission and some resources.  Resources are great, and are required to get the best upgrades, but the process to get them is so damn slow and boring that it's not worth it.  You have to use a scanner to look over the surface of the planet and then launch a probe when you find a significant source of materials.  There are so many planets to explore that this gets tiresome; it was fun the first few times, but I found myself wishing for something more exciting very quickly.  There's also a few times that you zoom around on the planet in a vehicle and gather data, which is fun, but there are less than ten missions involving that.

The character customization is decent and reminds me of Dragon Age.  Since the two games came out at roughly the same time, that's not surprising at all.  There's also a good array of characters and classes, giving quite a bit of replay value.  I'm disappointed that you can't swap classes when you start your second run-through with a character that you've beaten the game with.  You can retrain your powers using your resources, but there's no option to retrain class that I've seen so far.  The game play is akin to Gears of War or Operation Raccoon City, and the cover system is pretty smooth.  One thing that bugs me about it though is when you need to move over cover: you need to get into cover and then climb up.  Why not just have a climb button or a vault option?  I don't want to get into cover when there are no enemies around, I just want to get up to the next platform!

I like all of the different species in the game; they add spice!

One final thing to gripe about are the planets that have towns.  There are just a few of them, and each one is really small.  It is relieving to not have to fly your ship around and scan for things to do, though.  The shops allow you to buy upgrades, and the townspeople usually give you some side quests to perform.  The inhabited areas are also where you will find all of the missions taking place.

This game has its flaws, sure, but I still had fun playing it.  It has a good story and addictive game play; it just falls short of being a great game.  The exploration mini-game can be unbearable, some of the controls are awkward, and the areas you can explore on foot are just too small.  It's possible that the DLC would increase the game time and world considerably, but I don't know that I want to shell out the Microsoft Points for them.  All of that being said, I think I'll still check out Mass Effect 3 to see if they fixed any of the flaws that I found.

PS Store or Xbox Live Marketplace?

In recent months I've been able to experience the PS Store.  Since my main console of choice at the moment is still the Xbox 360, I can't help but compare the two online stores to hopefully come to a decision on which is better.  It also has to be said that the version of the PSN that I'm using happens to be on the Vita, so the features of the network are limited by a mobile version so I won't be comparing the Xbox Live features to the PSN ones, that just won't work with the discrepancies in the versions.  Hence, we'll just talk about the shopping experience.

I think the biggest item on everyone's mind when it comes right down to it is the price of the games.  Full-fledged video games, those released in stores and as a downloadables, are priced the same as what they are in stores.  A brand-new 360 game hits the $60 price range while a PSVita game lands at about $40.  Since both networks seem to price their download games at the same rate, equal to that of a physical copy, neither have an advantage.  However, when we come down to the prices of other games, things change.  Advantage: Neither

On the Vita there's the option to download full PSP games, the prices on these range from $5-30 depending on how recent the release was.  The most common games hit the $10-15 amount.  When we look at how the 360 compares, we see that the original Xbox games that are out there don't get quite as low priced as the PSP games.  Though we're looking at the difference between a console game and a portable game, I still think that the PSN gets the advantage here.  I'd much rather get FFT for $10 than some crappy original Xbox game like Prince of Persia.  Advantage: PSN

PS Store on the Vita.

I want to talk about Apps even though the Xbox 360 is a console and the Vita is a new mobile device.  Essentially I'd just like to compare Netflix, since both systems have that as an option.  Neither really beats the other, Netflix is Netflix, and I'm sure we'd see the same when we compare the two Facebook apps to one another.  Advantage: Neither

Let's now talk about Safety and Security...  The PSN track record is awful, we all know that.  I've had my Xbox Live account hacked into though, while my PSN account is still perfectly fine.  Even though my Live experience has been worse than my PS Store one, I have to give the advantage to the Marketplace here.  Even when I had problems, my issues were resolved successfully with my money being returned within a two week time period.  On top of all of that I got a free month of Xbox Live for the issue.  The PSNs recurring issues and vulnerabilities are just too much.  Advantage: Xbox Live

How the Marketplace is organized is pretty aggravating.  You have to figure out what category the game you want is in; Indie, Arcade, full, etc; and then navigate there to find it.  The PS Store is essentially the same way, so there's really no deviation between the two.  I find that both frustrate me unless I know exactly where I'm going, and browsing is usually out of the question.  Advantage: Neither

Last, but not least, let's talk about content.  What do both of these network stores contain?  Obviously we're looking at games the whole time, but what kind of games?  The PS Store has cross-play, PSP, PSVita and Mini games.  The Marketplace has Arcade and Full.  Now, the PSN may have some more variety, but the Arcade for Xbox Live is a powerhouse for games like The Simpsons and X-Men.  However, both systems have a large amount of Indie games, and I hate Indie games...violently hate them.  So with the Indie games balancing out, I have to give the Marketplace kudos for content; bringing back awesome Arcade titles just can't be beat.  Advantage: Xbox Live


Okay, so I can't come up with a clear winner, but, hey, who cares?  I'll have fun getting demos and games from both of the networks and take advantage of the best of both worlds.  Did you really think there'd be a different outcome?