The Shrine

Dante's Inferno: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/arts/ ... ferno.html

Mass Effect 2: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/arts/ ... ffect.html

I haven't played ME2, but judging by what you all and many others have said, the author didn't realize how much impact his decisions had. Otherwise, I don't think he would have called it "safe."

Haha play it safe? EA hasn't owned Bioware for long enough to influence a game that began development, what, years ago? Also - role playing shooter being coined by Borderlands? Christ, I don't even know where to begin with that one. Have these people ever heard of Deus Ex? And I'm probably forgetting something that came out before that.

And as for the game being much more of a shooter with less skill options... Okay, YES, he's completely right, but I very much doubt that the skills can be used as infrequently if you're playing on harder difficulties as he makes it seem.

I'm not quite sure what his gripe about thin role playing game standards comes from. If they fucked that up I know I'd be up in arms about it. Maybe the hours of dialog and the 2+ dialog responses for each incredibly tiny user input isn't enough for him? With games it doesn't get much better than that. If his main argument against it being a good role playing game is the use of skills and gear having more of an effect on combat... Is this a complaint about not enough loot? While skill options for followers are depressingly meager, Shepard gets enough that by late game there's rarely any time to have the thought "What should I be doing right now?" Their gear decisions seem a little odd though. Two types of pistols and three types of the more powerful weapons (shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle) and once you unlock the second version there's absolutely no strategic reason to use the first. And you can only unlock one of the third types per game. He's got them there.

I get his shakiness on the side quests for followers and their loyalty but how else do you really expect these people to follow you on a suicide mission?

Also I feel like I could smoke all of the pot in the world and still not see his connection to Apocalypse Now. Jesus Christ.

I get the impression from this review that he hasn't played the original since its release in 2007, isn't much of a gamer (or began gaming recently (past 5 or so years), and actually isn't that much of a fan of role playing games.

Yeah, they've been doing game reviews for a while, but judging by reviews like this, they aren't doing a very good job of it. Anybody who thinks ME2 isn't a good game clearly has their head up their ass.

Yeah I was hoping he was new or wrote for them infrequently but according to the link to him via the article he's been writing for them since the 90s. I didn't put the the time into whether or not he's been writing reviews for several years.

Did you read the review? I don't think you did. He liked it, but that one criticism seemed strange. I actually thought the Dante's Inferno one was a good review.