This Old Neon Forum

Welcome to the #BGE2020 Elimination Round of 512!

Each game is seeded based on its performance in the two opening rounds of pools. Every game in the Upper Bracket has defeated multiple other games in 1-on-1 polls to get to this point. These are still the best of the best.

Polls are updated weekly, typically on Sunday or Monday. Check back throughout the week to make sure you don't miss a vote!

HOW TO VOTE

This is easy. You only get one vote per poll. The game with the most votes wins. In the event of a tie, the higher seed advances, so don't get complacent!

I think I voted against this iteration of Carmen Sandiego in an earlier round, because I think the Where In Time version is much better. Mass Effect 2 wasn't as good as the original, imo - they got rid of the Mako and removed some of the peculiarities that made the first game a little quirky and interesting. But, EA's process of gradually homogenizing this series (along with Dragon Age and Dead Space, all of which got worse instead of better, the longer the series went on) hadn't yet reached the point of ME:3 so it gets my vote here.

ME2 leaned into some of the worse aspects of the first - it goes from feeling like a space opera to a space fantasy. Humanity goes from being relative newbies whose main value is a fresh perspective on the galaxy to the main players (both protagonist and adversary), the main plot beats switch from contemplative/rational to emotional, and it gets a lot more shooty. It's still a fun game to play, but much of the appeal of the series and the things that made it stand out are on the decline in ME2. There were shades of what it would become in the original (pretty much everything revolving around the council, for example) but they're nowhere near the level they are on ME2 much less ME3.