If ME 2 is any indication, bioware certainly shares that opinion. They are dumbing down their games to appeal to the greatest audience. So, apparently, the future of rpgs is to become FPS with story type games. Fact of the matter is there will always be people who prefer Arcanum and Fallout to Mass Effect. Or people which are perfectly fine with both. And even if I am starved for a deep character development setup I would not play avernum; the series hasn't progressed in any way in over a decade.

Comparing DA:O and ME2 is a bit like comparing apples and tomatoes - they're both fruit, and they're both red, and the comparison ends there. DA:O is a game; ME2 is a movie with some bits where you click the mouse a lot. They're both entertaining, but in very different ways.

What this guy does is criticizes the rpg genre from an user point of view instead of a subjective point of view, this guy takes all his frustrations while playing past rpgs and transforms then into a vision of what future rpgs should be like. What bugs me the most is that with the merging of the genres in games like mass effect there's an increasing number of fps players that feel like they are rpg players now, and with that large number of people it might well be that the rpg genre will indeed be changed in the future for good. A dumbed down future awaits us all...

Yeah I have also noticed the ME bashing going around this site. However, I feel they have a legitimate beef with ME2.

While I absolutely love ME1 (in my top 5 all-time favs) ME2 was a substantial disappointment (though I still enjoyed it).

What has been said around here, that it is RPG-Lite and a shooter with some RPG elements is essentially correct.

If they had not kept the conversations, the story and the expansive universe with all the cool planetary entries (all holdovers from ME1 mind you) I would have gone ahead and proclaimed it a Borderlands type game. That is to say, a Shooter with RPG elements.

As it is, it is still RPG-Lite, but has enough of what made the first game so fun in it for it also to still be enjoyable. Just is a step down IMO from ME1 and eliminating the MAKO in favor of Planetary Scanning is one of the worst "innovations" I have ever seen in a gaming sequel.

I surely hope that ME3 comes back more towards the middle, the sales were so high they can do whatever they wish with ME3, but I hope they re-establish it more firmly in the RPG side.

I mean the lack of excess inventory SEEMS good (streamlined!) but it is a real pain in the azz. I played ME2 with my imported ME1 lvl 60 character, and I was able to get every achievement except for 1!!! in a SINGLE go. But even then I was always short on cash, which I find a real annoyance.

that is one of the things that never gets mentioned in the reviews when they mention the inventory/upgrade system: since you only get XP and Creds (at least enough to actually buy anything) on missions, it means you never get to be "Rich" (an achievement of the first game).

To me this is a staple of RPGs. By the end of the game, you have saved the world yada yada, but in doing so you have become one of the most powerful individuals on your world, both physically, politically and economically. This makes sense to me!! all the items you procure off of your vanquished foes SHOULD be hot commodities at local shops, since they are more often than not (intended) to be upgrades.

Also, I am not a fan of the gimped level cap. I made 30 in a single play through because of my Import character, but since I COULD do that, the game should be like the first where it unlocks extra levels that extend the LC to 35 or 40. Even then you could not max out every power you have, but could at least have a maxed Ammo power without having to forgo one of your biotic powers (as a Vanguard like I was).

And I do not know about anyone else, but if you spend your time to painstakingly do EVERY mission in the game, visit EVERY planet, read EVERY codex entry etc there should be a reward of some sort!! Even though I did that (and likely wasted money early on on those worthless armor upgrades and too much fuel/probes) I was still at least 100,000 credits short of being able to buy all the upgrades available in shops in ME2. That, to me, is really annoying.

I mean there is not even a method in the game to make an extra couple thousand creds, like Quasar in ME1. I was stuck on 48,000 going into the last mission, with no way to get that extra 2,000 to get one last weapon upgrade! it was annoying, tried gambling on Varren fighting on Tuchunka, but that is rigged against you making too much, ugh!

I was honestly disappointed in both DA and ME2, though I still enjoyed both games and felt I got my money's worth (moreso with ME2 since the DLC with DA so far has been lackluster), they did not meet the (admittedly HIGH) expectations I had for them.

Both games would get a 4/5 from me, but honestly, as much as I loved ME1 the fact that ME2 is not a 5 star game is a major disappointment.

Well... it's not like there are no 'purer' RPGs being made anyway. It's ok. If in the future every action game features a decent amount of dialog and some kind of skillsystem and calls itself an RPG we could probably just come up with some other genre name - like those Interactive Fiction games that used to be Adventures...

(Maybe ME is the future of action games? that wouldn't bother me either)

I'm getting increasingly tired of Western mainstream gaming sites and their stupidity. They are staffed with hardcore FPS fans and no other. They complain about everything that isn't an FPS, complaining that those games are stale and old. They conveniently forget that FPS is one of the oldest genres in the videogame market.

I hate it when they say that Mass Effect is the future and that Dragon Age is the last game of a dying genre because it actually is more of a real RPG. I found it ludicrous when they treated Diablo 3 keeping the isometric perspective as some crime against videogame design when Blizzard wouldn't change it to first person view.

I've seen complaints that many JRPGs are turn-based. I even see complaints that the Civilization series is turn-based. They're even claiming that Pokemon is old and tired unless they change it so that you're running around as Pikachu firing thunderbolts using a targeting cursor.

BTW I just realized that the game where you run around as pikachu firing thunderbolts using a targeting cursor already exists.

Only pikachu is a bald infamous delivery guy.