Soooo....Mass Effect 3

[Wyrm]

When I go back to ME1 and 2 (and I've finished both games more than once in the last two months), the thing that drives me craziest is the inventory in ME1. The customization is worth almost nothing in terms of gameplay, but takes enormous amounts of time. How much omni-gel do I need, exactly? Why do I need eight choices of manufacturer, distinguished only by a sliding bar of stats? A couple of choices of weapons plus ammo powers is a much more sensible way to approach the problem.

I liked ME1s inventory system. My only problem with it was that everything dropped stuff so you had to go through a lot of stuff, most of which I sold or turned into omni-gel, something you can never have too much of. You also had a lot of stat options, so it was more of an RPG than a shooter. I could play my vanguard version of Shepard different ways each time, as opposed to the ME2 version where you had 1 option of play-style. Also, the inventory from ME2 was laughable at best. You had, what, 3 different weapons to choose from each line? Each weapon upgraded the same. Why even bother having multiple weapons at all when every single item acted exactly the same? In ME1 you had to choose between a highly accurate rifle that had fewer shots per heat clip or less firepower. You also had to choose which upgrades you wanted, did you want to increase your damage at the cost of heat dissipation or give that super-accurate rifle the ability to hit a dime a mile away? In ME2 this was nowhere to be found. The resource collecting on the planets was a joke, I wound up with more than enough of each resource to fully upgrade everything without doing much.

Look at Biowares recent games before being taken over by EA: Dragon Age 1, ME1, KotOR. The games give you a lot of customization options so you can play each character the way you want, even within their pre-determined roles. In one playthrough of KotOR I made Bastila use all the Stasis powers. On another I made her a speed demon. In DA I could give my characters nothing but passives or max out their weapon abilities. It was all about choice. In ME2, you have almost no customization options. Is that all EA's doing? I don't know; maybe, maybe not.

I don't think you do see a steep decrease in overall quality. I think you see one low point - DA2 - and business as usual otherwise.

I've never played Dragon Age 2, so I can't comment on that. Also, please don't assume to know what I do and do not see.