REVIEW: MASS EFFECT 2
Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also on PC. Developed by Bioware. Published by Electronic Arts.
In 2007, Bioware released Mass Effect on Xbox 360 (with a PC SKU coming soon after) just after being purchased by EA. It was a decent size hit for a new RPG franchise and despite its problems, many felt it was a great first stab at a Sci-Fi RPG game from Bioware that wasn’t a Star Wars game. Some of the perceived issues with the first game: cut and paste side missions, complex RPG stat screens, poor shooting mechanics if you weren’t a hardcore RPG fan, boring first few hours, terrible MAKO driving missions, long loading screens when you’re stuck in elevators, poorer 360 version, and static conversations. I don’t agree with all of those but that’s the collective wisdom. It was also a lot of fun, had great characters and a great story and felt like a cool Star Wars game without having to pay royalties to those fuckers at Lucasfilm.
Mass Effect 2 sees Shepard (who may be imported from the first game if you wish) return literally as a new man/woman after something big that happens in the first cutscene that people may or may not decry as a spoiler but it is in the opening cutscene, dammit). With a new ship and crew, and with a mysterious new paymaster voiced by Martin Sheen, Shepard sets out to build a core team to take on the new big bad for this game. You visit planets, mine them from orbit for minerals used to power up upgrades for your skills, weapons and ships. Then you’ll land on a planet/dock with a vessel to carry out a mission or visit one of the more fleshed out locales where there are multiple missions. There aren’t that many main story missions but each member of your team has at least two missions you’ll want to undertake. The first is to recruit them to your cause, and the second is to secure their loyalty. Recruitment and loyalty missions of course are the meat of the story-based missions. Along the way you’ll encounter a few survivors from the first game (if you’ve imported a save game from ME1, it does depend on what you decided back then). Some will come with you and and some will recoil in horror from you and your new boss but in the end your team is as much a part of the game as Shepard. The team you assemble is generally composed of fairly interesting people, even if most of them are damaged in some way. And almost all of them are killers with a twist (ie crazy, semi-autistic, calm).
The action parts of the game consists of squad-based shooting (or magic if that’s the way you roll), with you and two compatriots (chosen before the start of each mission) tackling an objective that seems like something out of a shooter from a simpler age. Missions are generally short, much much shorter than the first game. Shorter than a midget at a dwarf convention. You can tell Bioware went out of their way to make the game more accessible to shooter fans than the original by the way anything screaming ‘NERD!’ is flashed by on screen quickly so we can get back to the sex and shooting. Even so, you still have to select a team that is balanced. If you’re a soldier, it makes sense that at least one member of your away team is a biotic, etc. Choose unwisely and you’ll find you’re having to take down an armoured boss all on your lonesome since your selected team only have pea-shooters unable to pierce armour and with the wrong powers levelled up. Selecting teams correctly really makes itself felt in the big climax and it’s quite possible to return to the ship with a few empty spaces if you don’t give it some thought. You can of course play as a male or female Shepard, import your character from the first game and choose to play as one of a number of classes from soldier, scout, magic user, tech, etc, but the game for me is third person so how does it play as a Gears-lite game? Not too badly. It still seems to be doing a lot “under the hood” but not as overtly where you can’t do anything in the early stages of the game (like the crime of the original). When you’re not shooting you’re exploring and talking. The exploring (on foot) is a lot simpler and navigation of the more populated areas is simple since few of the environments are all that large. Think of it like GTA but when you go to a mission-giver and accept the mission, the game whisks you straight to a loading screen and voila, you’re at the start of the mission. There’s a lot less back-tracking, fewer “Go to B talk to someone and then return to A and have a conversation” than the first game as well, which is always welcome. While I’m on the subject- Fuck GTA!
In the future, in the year 2009 (which was the fashion at the time), the year was one of releasing sequels to hit 2007 games that slavishly listened to criticism of the first game and jettisoned the stuff people hated. Uncharted 2 mixed up the gameplay more, ACII ejected the by-the-numbers repetition of missions and ME2 cut anything that got so much as a column inch of hate on a message board. So you need to scan for minerals as an upgrade imperative which is the one area this game has actually made much more boring than the first game. It may have been a bit monotonous to drive around the planets looking for blips on your radar but moving a cursor over a globe is 1000 times more boring than sitting in a dentist’s waiting room with only copy of CoD: Modern Fisherman magazine for reading material. I have spent about 38 hours playing ME2 and I would estimate a minimum of 5 hours has been taking up with scanning planets. It’s sort of zen at first but as you go through the game it really slows you down. When I felt the end was near I stopped scanning even with two dozen planets left since I still had so much mineral wealth strip-mined from various planets (some inhabited) that I felt safe I could stop and concentrate on the story and side missions. It’s money you are likely to run out of before the various minerals, and missions don’t often net you all that much. It is said that you need a fully upgraded team in terms of their abilities and your ship’s upgrades to beat the game but it may on the higher difficulties. I played on normal and found I have died much less than the first game. There are no lifts. If the game needs to load, you get a loading screen. The hub areas are much much smaller than before and moving between areas is a loading screen away rather than a long corridor. The streamlining extends to the micromanagement issues of the first game, but don’t hurt the game in any major way (unless you’re a hardcore PC RPG fan). The actual missions are a lot shorter compared to the original, which had many sprawling story missions in amongst the legion of cut and paste side missions. Really only the last mission feels long and then it’s not so long that you’re hoping for a swift death in order to use the bathroom before your bladder leaps up and chokes you from inside.
It’s a highly directed experience, albeit one in which there is a lot of choice. In giving you the choice, Bioware have learned from the rather static staging of many conversations in the first game cinematics are a hell of a lot more dynamic, both in terms of animation and how choices change the flow of action. It’s almost a quick time event but without seeming like a cop out or having David Cage’s lawyers on the phone. You can follow the various prompts for Paragon or Renegade actions. The difference between Paragon and Renegade conversation options is a choice between touchy-feely and snark. The difference between Paragon and Renegade actions will stop someone being killed or something less lethal.
This being a Bioware game (and it has the hallmarks of almost every Bioware game of the last 10 years), there are romances to be had- at least four ladies are open to the idea of a relationship with Shepard (mine, as you can tell from the pics, is a smooth talking newspaper man from the 50′s). I was able to score with two difference ladies in the game. Well, at least I think they’re ladies. One looked like Natalie Portman from V for Vendetta who got drunk one night and now spends her nights looking up Laser Tattoo removal in the Yellow Pages; and the other looks like, well I don’t know. It was kinky with masks and antibiotics and such like.
The presentation is excellent with this being an incredibly polished title. So many of the rough edges that made it to the first game have been polished down so much they shine brighter than a sun surrounded by giant mirrors. On 360, there are few textures that look a little blurry , usually on minor character’s uniforms in cutscene close-ups but apart from that the game is smoother than a bottle of smooth peanut butter dropped from a plane. The frame rate is constant, slowing slightly in cutscenes but never lagging like a first gen 360 title (or even the first game could sometimes do).
Audio is also great with fantastic sound effects and a stellar voice cast. Yes, the trait of having every alien speak with standard US accents is a bit annoying but the impressive voice cast: Martin Sheen, Tricia Helfer, Adam Baldwin, Carrie-Anne Moss and of course Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski (not only the voice of Miranda, but providing the basis of her character’s visuals, with Dat Ass added through CG magic) joining the lesser known but equally impressive cast filling out the major roles. The only audio disappointment is the JMJ/John Carpenter-esque/early 80′s horror synth soundtrack of the original has been replaced with a more standard semi-orchestral score. It’s good, just not as memorable.
One thing to note. The game comes on two discs which will take 12 gigs on your HDD if you install both discs. I installed but I did have to swap discs twice in nearly 40 hours. There’s a serious amount of content here. EA has also added a sweetener to buy this game new instead of used. New owners have the option to download an extra mission, as well another playable character (who’s ok but superfluous) and a free gun and some armour, none of which is all that earth shattering (but if it’s free, why not?”) but not worth the money EA will charge people who buy used down the track. Installing is recommended if you have enough space. I would have preferred if disc swapping wasn’t necessary but you do this less than if you bought three separate games that took the same time to play.
There’s a lot in this game and there’s much I’ve glossed over. It’s just a great experience (no pun intended) for a game. Mass Effect 2 proves Bioware’s still got it. If you like RPG’s of a western bent, you will like this. If you like shooters with a bit more than fragging noobs, you will like this. If you have two lungs, you will like this. Perhaps not you, Raspy One-Lunger with your ventolin, but two lunged creatures will find much over which to be breathe heavily.
Controller1.com rating 3/3
