Late 2007 Bioware released it’s original sci-fi IP title “Mass effect” and was greeted by praises for melding a third person tactical shooter with Bioware’s trademark RPG excellence, a cocktail of a gripping storyline,amazing script and an arsenal of excellent voice actors. The result was a great succes, despite several gameplay bugs, which overall didn’t stop the game from being widely enjoyed. Now, a little more than two years later we finally see the heralded and much hyped launch of Mass Effect 2, this time around a simultaneous release on both the PC and Xbox 360; again, Bioware neglecting the Playstation 3 despite having released Dragon age for all consoles and PC merely a few months back. I have played both the X360 and PC version; so the differences which there are, will also be discussed.
On a side note; spoilers are kept to only what’s found in trailers: So unless you’ve been stuck under a rock this is just fine.
After the introductory dialogue; ME2 starts out backtracking what had happened after the events of the first game. After fending off the reaper; Shepard and his crew aboard the Normandy have been assigned with a search & destroy mission for any remaining Geth. However, in an utterly dramatic scene, the Normandy is persued and destroyed by a mysterious ship, leaving Shepard stranded in space; dead. Fortunatly for us, it’s the far flung future and reviving a dead person seems technically possible so long as somebody is willin to pay massive amounts of money to do it.
It is here, that Bioware inguiniously provides the player with the option to alter Shepard’s appearance and even re-class yourself if you’re importing a ME1 character. Nothing however goes as planned, and your awakening was rather abrupt, having to yet again fight for your life to escape the medical station your aboard. Quickly you learn that it was the Cerberus organisation that paid the bill to get you back from hell, yes the same Cerberus you’ve been thwarting in several of ME1’s sidemissions. In a twist of things, after your “death” the council feigned ignorance to the reaper threat, all that you’ve worked to accomplish have been undone and the popular belief is that the reaper was merely a new Geth ship led by Saren. Cerberus however does firmly believe in the reaper threat; hence you’re given a second chance to finish what you started.
What inmeadetly becomes apparant for anybody that has played ME1 is just how much the graphics have improved. Not only are the character models and various machinery/armor more detailed, but the lighting is way more complex and adds inmensely to the atmosphere. But it’s not just the graphics that have improved, oh no; I’ve never seen such an extensivly re-tooled game before in a sequel than this. Cause we’re not talking minor tweaks of things that were broken, the entire combat system has been revamped. Gone is the overheating mechanic and various pick-ups for ammo effects; instead there’s a universal “thermal clip” pick-up that serves as spare magazines. The good news is these are universal so they work for everything you have with the exception of heavy weapons, which have their own seperate magazine pick-up.
Aside from the weapon types already found in ME1 such as pistols, shotguns, assault rifles and sniper rifles ME2 now features the heavy weapon which can turn the tide of battle.These weapons range from missile launchers,flamethrowers even to this weapon that has the same effect as a micro tactical nuke. Whilst there was cover in ME1, it was annoying to use with having to push the directional stick against it continiously, now that’s replaced for a one button press to snap in, or out of cover much like Gears of War. People that weren’t a big fan of the Mako explorations can now be relieved that this element is gone. There is however going to be a DLC out soon called “Hammerhead” which gives you a Mako esque vehicle; only time will tell what you can do with it; as off-world exploration is now solely done trough a rather monotomous mini-game where you can scan worlds, find minerals to upgrade and possible side-quests.
Probably the biggest change, or more accuratly the biggest substraction is the inventory system. Alot of players complained about the inventory system in ME1 how it was unwielding and ineffecient or a chore to manage. Bioware improved upon this inventory system in the PC port for ME1 which was released some time after the console version; however the improvements were never patched back into the console version. Personally I didn’t mind the inventory system in ME1 and I loved the customsation options it gave you; in ME2 however you do not have an inventory system at all; period. You need to chose your loadout such as armor and which weapons to carry pre-mission, there basically is only one set of armor; which can be upgraded with research. Each upgrade produces a slight optional variant to chose from, and there’s only 3 versions of any (regular) weapon type; once found each ally can equip them negating the use to shop for more than one gun. There’s usually one weapons locker in each of the levels, these lockers allow you to equip different kinds of weapons if you find the need for something else. However you cannot re-fit your armor; that’s something you can do only in your personal quarters on your ship. At first; I was really taken back by the complete lack of an inventory and loot,
I loved the wide range of customisation you could perform, outfitting different characters with a wide range of weapons and ammo. However after time, I started to appreciate the much improved action due to the lack of the inventory. If there’s one gripe that I have to have with the re-tooling of the game, it’s that character skills have been drastically simplified. Each character starts with 4 skills with a maximum of 5, and that’s it. You level them up by assigning points, each character sticks with the weapons he or she is initially good at; so you can’t re-spec a character to your wishes either. Again, this is minor because it still doesn’t attract from the action and intense storyline.
On the subject of the storyline; it is suberb, possibly the best script in a videogame that i’ve ever encountered, superior to Bioware’s own Dragon age if you ask me, but in terms of character development and character interaction ME2 is inferior to Dragon age. Your allies will never turn on you even if their not loyal for example; unlike Dragon age and there isn’t an intricate relationship/friendship system either so if you’re playing ME2 after having played Dragon age for a long time, you start to wonder why they didn’t chose to have that deep level of character interaction/awareneses in ME2 either, don’t get me wrong tough; it’s not like the characters in ME2 are flat or anything, hell no. Each character is very unique and highly like-able, you feel the urge to talk more to them, and get to know them and preserve them troughout your apaprant suicide mission; you start to care and that’s one of the selling points after all, getting you hooked in the universe.
Mass effect is part of a trilogy, and it shows. We always were told by Bioware that the choices we made in ME1 would carry over in ME2, however I wasn’t expecting that there was SO MUCH that gets carried over if you load your old savegame. You regurarly meet old NPC characters, chat up; find out what’s been happening and get involved in all manners of sidequests trough these re-acquantances, whilst not adding anything to the main storyline it definitly does make you feel like your part of a persistant world. It’s confirmed (and obvious) that all the choices you make in ME2, and believe me these choices can be _very_ hard, as you can already tell how much they will weigh later on; will carry over to ME3 if you have a savegame by the time the 3rd game hits the shelves. Depending on you actions tough, you may not even play as Shepard in the third and final installment of Mass Effect. Aas depending on the choices you make or how much you botch up; you can actually permanantly die at the end ME2 which should come to no surprise as Bioware has always been saying this about ME2 from the first dev diaries.
I have also taken the liberty to play the PC version of ME2, and unlike the first game it runs like a dream out of the box. The framerate indicator was stuck on 60 FPS with max in-game details, and max post processing options turned on from in-game (16x anistrophic filtering , 3cinematic lights, and 8x FSAA) Despite the fact that the PC version uses the same character models and textures as it’s console counterpart; the graphics do end up looking superior due to the post-processing, smooth curves and crispy textures; but also the lighting seems to be even better than the console version cause there’s just more of it. Just like Dragon age before it; Bioware has opted to take full use of the keyboard+mouse interface on the PC, and has also changed the way the combat works on the PC version. On the console version it was possible to hotkey only 1 ability per squad member, the PC version however has all the abilities mapped to the 1-0 keys just like any MMO and can be used instantly without pausing. Thanks to the mouse, constantly keeping your allies moving is very easy and painless using either Q (ally 1) or E (Ally2) to assign cover or waypoints. Weapon selection is FPS style, with the mouse-wheel.
The system specifications aren’t even that harsh for the PC version, any 8800GT that you can buy for 100$ these days can run ME2 on max power provided you do have a dual-core processor of at least 2.2 ghz in there, which also is pretty much the defacto what you get with even a budget machine these days. So if you have the system to run it, the PC version is definitly the way to go .
Despite initially feeling conflicted about ME2 due to the lack of complexity of inventory and character management from the first game; I gradually began to appreciate the simplifications as the combat has intensified. But regardless of pumping more action into the franchise, Bioware stays true to their heritage; creating engrossing stories.
Mass effect 2 is highly recommended; and it’s also _highly_ recommended to play the first if your planning on taking a plunge in the second as it’s truly set up to be played as a trilogy and not-stand alone. You’ll feel the action, but it’s still the gripping storyline that’s the biggest aspect of this game; don’t miss out on it !
ESSENTIAL
This post is tagged action, bioware, Mass effect, Mass effect 2, PC, RPG, sci-fi, shooter, Xbox 360