Games and movies have been doing this a lot lately: streamlining. No More Heroes 2, Mass Effect 2 and even movies, like the Star Trek reboot have done it. Streamlining elements to make it easier to understand and take in. They all took out the parts of their respected franchise that didn't work, instead of fixing them. They made things like the story and game play simple, to appeal to a mainstream audience. Let me explain what I mean by using Mass Effect 2 and Star Trek as an example.

Lets start with the new Star Trek movie. Star Trek was known for being a Science-Fiction movie that catered to nerds and geeks. It dealt with real issues and future babble, and was more a drama than action show. It was never flashy or sexy: hell, to a lot of people Star Trek was boring. They rarely featured a fight or gun scene; it was mostly ideas like "What if we had clones?", or "What if there was a being who could see the future?". Pure pulp B Sci-Fi. No fights, unless you count that time Kirk fought that Lizard in the suit. The new Star Trek kind of got rid of all the boring stuff and made it sexy and action packed. Younger and hipper and less deep, and with more sex appeal. Basically it went from psychological to pop corn. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I for one never particularly loved the old Star Trek. I thought it was ok, but lacking the fun and it was really second-rate stuff: low budget, cheesy acting and effects. I liked some of the ideas and characters, and as such I really liked the reboot. I thought it was kick ass little film. But some fans didn't like that they had taken this niche title and made it a big movie that a jock could even enjoy. It wasn't just for the geeks anymore -- now it appealed to multiple groups, ages, heck even a ton of girls liked the new Star Trek. There's no real right answer for this: they alienated some of their original fans while making it a completely different beast and bringing in new fans. But they did keep a lot of elements and at its core it's still Star Trek and I think both hard-core Trekkies, as well as the mainstream audience, were pleased.

Let me just say that I think Mass Effect 2 is a better game. The combat is a lot smoother and the game, overall, is punchier, faster, more violent, and sexier. Mass Effect was kind of like a bad ass Star Trek (before the new Star Trek 2009 movie came out) -- but it still was kind of a geek RPG, with a lot of talk and story about the universe, culture, races, moral dilemmas and hot topics. For the sequel they kind of scaled back on the overall story and made it feature more action: get your squad of bad asses, go on a suicide mission ... that's it. That's basically what Mass Effect 2's story boils down to. Sure, there's a bunch of side stuff and character exploration but the universe is smaller and more to the point. Everything is darker and more shoot-first and don't ask any questions. Conversations are shorter, areas are smaller to explore -- heck most of them you can't even walk around and talk, it's jut a level. Shoot shoot and you're done (or as Jake says in his Mass Effect 2 review, "You run for cover, you aim, you shoot, you reload, and you repeat". Talk on your ship, have sex) ... Ok it's a little deeper than that but it's still far less old school Star Trek fans and more new school Halo fans.

It's obvious that when Bioware was bought out by EA they wanted the Mass Effect brand to be bigger. They had more money and a bigger advertising budget. This game couldn't just hit the Sci-Fi RPG nerds; they had to tap into the Halo crowd.  Now Mass Effect is 10x deeper then Halo will ever be, not that Halo is a bad series it just focus more on gameplay then story, its more like a popcorn film then a drama, and that's not a bad thing. It's just different especially for Mass Effect. Again being something that is just popcorn or action packed is not a negative, its just a different category than drama. Mass Effect 2 stripped away inventory, upgrading weapons and armor, and Mako side missions.

Sure the Mako wasn't great in Mass 1 but really it wasn't so horrible that it shouldn't be in the sequel. Maybe a little less like one or two missions, I'm glad they decided its not like Mass 1 where every empty plant you explore you have to drive around in this boring car. But a couple of the main story missions where you just drove and shot things weren't that bad. They gave a little variety, and it's nice to have variety. I mean sure Mass Effect is all about talking to characters and the story but the gameplay is just on foot shoot, shoot, shoot. I would have liked one or two vehicle sections.

Don't even get me started on the waste of time scanning mini-game. It's not even a mini game - it's just a distraction or time waster ... there is no game there ... you don't play against a clock or anything, it's not point driven and you can't lose. It just serves to extend the game to a longer length and to be honest, it's pointless. Again, I agree with most people...It's better than driving around a empty planet with the Mako. Because that was also pointless, but I somehow feel like more time and energy could have been put into this since you do it so often.

With Mass Effect 2, they streamlined the game and made the story a little more Star Wars than Star Trek, despite still having a ton of dialogue and character story. I mean there's a lot there for people who still want the real Science Fiction and RPG. If this article comes off as if I'm saying "Mass Effect 2 sold out" I'm not. Mass Effect 2 is still a deep and rich game, and like Star Trek reboot it did more right than wrong with the franchise change. Both series got rid of stuff that was broken and fixed more than they broke. But they both still tried really hard to make themselves liked by more people and when you do that you lose some things. It's just less what the niche group liked and more that everyone else liked. Again, neither is bad (it's not a bad thing for more people to like Star Trek or more people to like Mass Effect), it's just obvious they lose some things in the process, and I think it's worth noting. I feel both franchises made the right decisions... this time. I just don't want Star Trek 2 to be just an action movie; and I don't want Mass Effect 3 to just be a Gears Of War clone. They both need to remember where they came from and keep the core and minor elements that make them who they are.