 An instant classic |
| Review Date: February 3, 2010 |
| Reviewer: VA Gamer, Norfolk, VA |
SUMMARY
The long awaited sequel to the much lauded, though admittedly flawed, Mass Effect is finally here - and it's already consumed over 30 hours of my life. In short, Mass Effect 2 is the most refined and presented action RPG I have personally played. The narrative is perfectly paced, guiding the player through a well-realized world that isn't exactly an open ended sandbox, but certainly isn't restrictive or linear (you're free to complete the major missions/story points at your own pace while you pursue other content, and your decisions along the way will shape the story). The game play has been calibrated to remove almost all tedium associated with the RPG hybrid genre. Combat is real time and plays smooth as butter. The visuals, especially at 1080i or 1080p, are nothing short of spectacular. This is an incredible game, it might just end up being my favorite.
Aspects that I enjoyed are preceded by a (+), things I disliked a (-).
GAME PLAY
(+) Bioware (the developer) has taken many of the elements common to the "RPG hybrid" genre (which they themselves have greatly forwarded over the years) and stream lined and calibrated the experience to better suit the action-oriented focus of the Mass Effect series. Itemization and character customization have been made less bulky, and yet magically remain robust and even more rewarding. Just as in their past games, there are still various vocations you can pursue (soldier, engineer, etc) and many ancillary skills to learn and improve. Each vocation feels wholly unique (though many abilities share similar animations), and there are no wasted skill points or useless abilities.
(+) Combat is a blend of third person shooter (Gears of War) and tactical RPG (Dragon Age). Damage is area-sensitive (head shots hurt humanoids more than shooting them in the leg, etc), various damage types are strong against certain defenses, etc. It plays perfectly well and rewards the thinking player as well as the twitcher.
(+) It feels like Bioware took a step back and acknowledged many of the tropes common to the genre, particularly the variety that lead to tedium, and provided replacements that integrate flawlessly into the game world. These refinements vastly improve the quality of the gaming experience. For example: the process of sorting through incoming information and managing your crew. In past games you had to laboriously check your messages after each mission, run from NPC to NPC trying to figure out if they were ready to offer new dialog, etc, etc. In real life, if you were the captain of a starship, you'd have people around to help manage these tasks for you - right? Secretaries, yeoman, that sort of thing. Well, that's precisely what you get in Mass Effect 2: within your command center is a NPC that audibly informs you whenever something demands your attention. For example, you might be jogging past the helm on your way to the lab when she mentions to you "Captain, you have new messages". Or "Captain, Miranda would like to see you, she seemed upset". When engaged in conversation she will offer advice and relay information regarding the crew and the ship - just like a real yeoman would. And though she was created to fill a niche, she feels doesn't come off as artificial: she's a NPC like all of the others, with a history and personality to explore (as well as a relationship, if you choose).
There are many such refinements that make Mass Effect 2 such a joy to play. From combat to exploration, customization to character interaction, you can take every thing you hated about past games and throw them out the window. Well, almost - I'll get to that shortly.
(+) You're always an active participant, even during the conversation and cut scene sequences. Not only are they complex and responsive, but there are points in the action where you can intervene with either a "renegade" option (typically more forceful actions) or "paragon" decision (the more traditional good guy action or response). These prompts to intervene happen in real time, and they can be ignored if you so choose. This transforms the task of merely listening to dialogue and selecting responses, or watching a villain monologue, into an actual engaging experience for the player. It pulls you in and makes you feel like you're a part of the game world, instead of merely someone navigating through a series of predetermined choices like in previous games.
(+/-) Resource gathering. This will be a point of contention for many players. In your journeys through the universe, you will discover and/or learn about various technologies that you can research - such as weapon or armor upgrades, additions to your ship, new weapons and skills, etc. The currency for these research projects are elements - one of four, to be exact. You come across small amounts of these elements while you're conducting missions, but your main supply will come from scanning and probing planets. It works like this: while you're flying through space in your ship (The Normandy 2) you will enter various solar systems. You approach a planet, enter its orbit, engage scanners, and then move a radar over the surface of the planet with your mouse. A graph will alert you when a certain element is found, you launch a probe to obtain it, rinse and repeat.
Many people will find this boring and tedious. I -kind of- do. However, I enjoy the aspect of exploration and this itch is scratched here: each planet is accompanied by a brief explanation and history, such as its scientific properties, geographical anomalies, the history of the civilizations that have inhabited it or how it plays into the mythology of some alien race. Being a science and history buff, this is a lot of fun for me at times. In addition, many planets will have side missions you can find by scanning them - they range from simple exploration to search and destroy and rescue. They're all unique, and take between 10-30 minutes to complete. If you don't visit and scan the planets, you miss out on these side missions.
I gave it a mixed score because, well, it's the only repetitive task heaped upon the player during this otherwise perfectly stream lined game. But don't worry, it doesn't kill replayability: after you successfully finish the game, you'll be rewarded with 50k of each element each time you start a new game. The costs of research projects are also reduced. So even if you don't enjoy this aspect of the game, it is vastly alleviated during subsequent play throughs.
STORY, PRESENTATION, AND SETTING
(+) I mentioned that the pacing and narrative were exquisite. I'm going to go ahead and reemphasize that here. The story is so well told and presented that I could envision myself sitting back and watching someone else play it and still enjoy myself a great deal.
(+) The cast of characters are truly memorable and interesting. It ranges from prosaic space marines, to sensational bio-engineered clones, ninja-like alien assassins striving for spiritual peace, and more. The voice acting for each and every character is the best I've heard in a video game.
(+) The setting is kind of a mixed bag, though overall it's still amazing. Many locales are well realized exotically creative, and appeal to all of the players senses. There are plenty of planets and stations to explore and no two places look alike.
(-) But, on the other hand, many mission areas feel artificial - in regards to their layout. They look great, and you can tell that a great attention to detail was employed during their creation, but many things are just kind of "there". Such as obstacles and walls that facilitate combat but otherwise have no practical use. That kind of thing. And many are noticeably and artificially linear.
PERFORMANCE
(+) I have a middling system (three year old video card, one year old middle-grade CPU). However, I am running 64-bit Windows 7 and have 6 GB of RAM. I play at the highest settings - it's beautiful and flawless. Load times between zones range from 5 - 15 seconds. In one complete play through and now ten-or-so hours into my second, I've experienced no crashes or game breaking bugs. Every glitch is transient (doesn't force you to stop playing or reload).
In short, I firmly believe that Mass Effect 2 just might end up being the game of 2010, and the year just started. |
Fantastic sophomore entry in the series
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| Review Date: February 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: S. Fuentes, Houston, TX |
I must first admit that I believe the first Mass Effect to the better game. But don't take that to mean that this is a bad game. Far from it, this is game in of itself is a masterpiece of game play and story telling. The combat is more enjoyable this time around with an overhaul to the cover system that both you and the enemy AI utilize. In addition you get the standard Bioware squad members who you recruit and can do missions for (if you want the mission to succeed this is imperative). These characters are for the most part wonderfully structured and along with the old and new faces you will meet along the way make for another great sci-fi adventure. Plus how can you not like Martin Sheen playing the Illusive Man?
While I do miss the old Citadel, the old upgrade system, and some former squad members these are small issues in the scheme of things. Did Bioware maybe take a safe approach to the sequel? Perhaps but lets not forget this is a buildup for what promises to be an epic finale in the trilogy. Finally a tip of the hat to EA for not including DRM in this title. 2K games opted to do continue using this ineffective and intrusive copy-protection method in Bioshock 2. I would encourage folks to buy this game to support publishers who don't use DRM as well as to support developers that make good games. |
Chillin' at Afterlife
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| Review Date: January 31, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Mike the Cat, |
This game seemed off to a somewhat slow start for me until I got to Afterlife on Omega (my first stop after the intro).
18 hours in so far. I've played just about everything Bioware has offered and this is good stuff too.
The atmosphere is very Blade Runner like which I dig.
Music is great (particulary at Afterlife). My experiance is you have to learn a whole new combat system but once you start to get the hang of it, it is fun.
The ArchAngel storyline was pleasing. Voice acting is superb and I like the new characters.
The new hacking system and planet scanning system was a pain until I got the upgrades for both and now they are no bother and I never bypass an opp for either. i actually like scanning the planets after the ship scanning upgrade.
The game runs outstanding on my 4 years old XPS system, not a single crash, no problems at all installing and dowloading DLC. I have the NVIDIA GEforce 6800 and only 1 processor. I have not seen a single incidence of slow frame rate in game or at a cutscene. Blown away how well it runs. This system is clean clean clean though and only connects to Internet when absoultely necassary. Rig is dedicated to games only and it shows in spades with Mass Effect 2.
If you liked Mass Effect and Dragon Age I don't see how you could not enjoy this.
Not sure how much left to go but hope it is not over too soon. |
Mass Effect 2 - Better In Almost Every Regard
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| Review Date: February 3, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Jeff Peterson, |
Cinematics:
I think the strongest draw of the Mass Effect games are how cinematic they feel. During this game, it feels more like watching a sci-fi epic rather than playing a game. The characters and environments draw you in, especially if you've played the first game and are already familiar with most of the background and returning characters.
It's also a lot more fluid than the first game, both in terms of conversation, gameplay, and the cinematic cutscenes. During conversations, characters (including your own) will move around a lot more and seem more realistic in how they move and gesture. This enhances both the dramatic moments and the humorous moments. Facial animations are also a lot more animated as well, able to convey more emotion than before. There's also a new interrupt feature, that lets you take a paragon or renegade action to end the conversation early.
The game is a lot more 'gray' than the first one. It's really hard to tell what's the right decision and what the wrong decision is. Speculation is running rampant on what kind of effect decisions will have on the final game in the trilogy, but due to the nature of choices you make and the subjective viewpoint, it's really hard to do. All I know is that even though I played through as a Paragon, it was almost impossible to avoid doing some of the Renegade interrupt options, so I have to give credit to Bioware, which is usually known for having only blatant good and evil choices.
Controls and Combat:
It took me awhile to get used to the gameplay in the second game, but that might be because I was playing the first one before it arrived so I would be refreshed on what happened. The controls, at least for the PC version, have been shifted around. E is no longer the 'use/action' button, it's been changed to space. The pause button is no longer space, it's the left shift. It took me a few hours to finally get used to the new system (and ironically, this makes going back to the first game hard).
The combat style also takes awhile to get used to. You have to rely on cover a lot more than before, which I learned the hard way. There's also a new ammo system in place. I don't really care for the ammo system, but opinions seem to vary with people on how effective it is. It seems like an unnecessary regression from the first game, but that's an issue of personal taste.
Story:
The overall story is probably what I like most about the Mass Effect universe. However, for as strong as this game is, I did have some problems when comparing it to the first game.
First, the plot isn't as straightforward as the first game - that's both a good and bad thing. It's good because it keeps you on your toes in the sense that you don't know what's going to happen next. There's no real set order in how you have to do things - you are forced into certain missions at some points, but the bulk of the game is spent wandering around and doing missions in whatever order you feel like doing them. It's nice to have such freedom in a game, but at the same time, it weakens the story slightly by making it feel less focused. You don't really have much contact with the main villains of the game until the latter part. You also lack a direct nemesis plaguing you throughout the game. In the first game, it was much more focused - you had Saren, a rogue Specter with an army of geth that you had to track and stop. In this game, your enemies vary greatly and you don't have that personal nemesis that you track through the galaxy.
Like I said, it's not a bad thing, and that's for a specific reason - the strength of the characters and their personal side missions.
Really, the strength of this game lies in your quest to find allies in the galaxy. They are a diverse, interesting bunch. Everyone is going to have their own favorite, but they all have a diverse background and an interesting side quest that fleshes out their personality and the world around them. It felt that the bulk of the game was really about gathering the team to make sure you're ready to take on the final mission, and the strength of the characters you gather and their interesting dialogue makes up for the lack of focus in the overall plot. If you take the time to get to know the people you recruit to your team, it'll make the ending of the game that much more heartbreaking or triumphant, depending on how well you do.
Overall:
This game is a lot of fun. It's superior to the first game in almost every regard (though I do like the overall plot in the first game better). It's a worthy sequel, and the ending of the game has me REALLY looking forward to Mass Effect 3! Here's to hoping that we have it sooner rather than later! |
A very good game with some minor but infuriating flaws
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| Review Date: February 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Richmix, |
Stupidly important note that must precede absolutely everything: Mass Effect 2 does NOT have the same DRM as ME1. This game has a disc check that makes sure (and only makes sure) the game's DVD is in your drive. That is all. There are no limited activations, and the other "features" of Secu-ROM are gone. This game uses the same method of DRM as Dragon Age: Origins, and it is non-invasive.
Ok, now that that's out of the way, a lead-in for those who played Mass Effect 1: all of the bugs and problems you might have acclimated yourself to are gone. Character models in this game are pretty and unique. Turians, for example, no longer look like humans wearing masks. Cosmetic effects in general are improved across the board, actually. The dreaded terribad face-shadow of doom is gone. So are low-detail textures. The Mako is out of the game entirely (for those who hated its controls), and weapons now use a sort of universal ammo system instead of overheating (for those who experienced the perma-overheat bug). Pretty much every problem I can remember from ME1 is gone in ME2, and that, along with the game having an equally compelling story and far prettier graphics, is a great achievement for the franchise.
Mass Effect 2, for both veterans of ME1 and newcomers alike, offers a refreshing game experience. The general story arc starts out very similar to almost every other RPG out there (including ME1)--recruit a team, do this, do that, save the universe--but as you go about doing those things, BioWare's famous meddling does its work on the plot. To say the least, you won't be expecting many of the things that happen here. I can't elaborate on the story without giving away spoilers, so I will simply say that this game tells a powerful tale, almost like a movie. It is extremely immersing. Combined with the game's fun shoot-em style gameplay, it's a solid bet that just about anyone who likes games will like this one. You'll like the guns, the story, or both, nearly guaranteed.
However, the progression of the somewhat main story arc is, to say the least, annoying. When it comes to party members (Mass Effect calls them team members), you get two freebies. The trouble is there are twelve total characters that can join you. This leaves ten dossiers for Commander Shepard to pursue. Of course, only one of these characters, a scarred mercenary who is acquired by download (not part of the original game), will chin up and come with you straight away. For each of the other nine, you must do a mission to earn their allegiance. Nine missions take time. As if that weren't enough, though, each character has an unlockable power that can only be earned by completing their "loyalty" mission. That means, if you are a power gamer who wants to earn the loyalty of your entire crew, you will be off doing twenty-one missions that have absolutely nothing to do with the galaxy's apparent imminent threat. Besides breaking the player's immersion in the main story arc, though, these missions are all extremely similar. More or less, you go in, shoot stuff, and go out. While I do think that some of this out-of-the-way galloping about is a fun distraction from the main story arc, I also think what ME2 offers is just too much. It's too easy to get distracted from the main, very-dangerous-requiring-immediate-attention threat.
Mechanically, the game plays fine but takes some sincere getting used to. For PC users, you'll quickly notice the game is a console port. This is glaringly obvious, lacking simple control options like mouse sensitivity. (Users with gamer mice, you may have to turn your DPI down to be able to hit anything.) Controls are also non-intuitive for a PC shooter. For all players, one of the game's main selling points is and has been body-targeted shots: the ability to blow and arm or leg off, the improved performance of headshots. This is the case, to a degree. I have never, in all my time playing since release, seen a character drop his, her, or its gun, and I have only seen dismemberment twice. Maybe it's because I'm playing on insanity, or maybe I'm just unlucky. For me, though, the only targeted shots that seem to matter are head shots.
Despite the character missions I mentioned earlier (for your team members), ME2 suffers a very severe lack of world exploration when compared to ME1. In ME2, you no longer get shuttled down to every planet to explore with your Mako and environmental suit. Instead, you have a planetary scanner aboard your ship, and it works in a redundant and incredibly boring way. When you enter a planet's orbit, you will get one or two notifications. The first one, always available, is the planet's resource density. If the planet has a high density, it would be worth it for you to scan the planet with your slow-moving radar circle, which is inanely dull and time consuming since almost every planet in the game is rich in resources. These resources are then used to fund upgrade projects, but not all upgrades are technically required. The second notification is a rather nondescript "anomaly detected" message that appears on planets with points of interest, like mercenary bases. These are rare. You also need ship fuel to get to them. (If you run out of fuel, it costs you resources.) Unlike ME1 where you can find something interesting on almost every planet, ME2's space-faring is a true snore-fest. You won't feel motivated to explore in this game, and that's a shame.
All these criticisms might seem to discouraging to potential buyers, but the bad isn't all there is to ME2. The game, when you have the opportunity to really play it, is more involved than ME1. You can't just sit back and pluck off enemies with a sniper rifle anymore. Power recharge times are brought down from minutes to seconds, and new powers are much more useful than some of ME1's sort-of-useful-when-it's-not-on-cooldown powers. The story in ME2, as I've said before, is powerful. It is much better than ME1's in my opinion, and the game is worth playing to experience that alone. What it all boils down to, though, is fun, and this is a game that I can say in spite of all its flaws truly is (mostly) fun. Fights require tactics and use of cover. You have to think and use powers wisely. If you're on the fence about buying this game, go for it. You won't find a better sci-fi or RPG game out there overall. |
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