Cross-posted from my other blog.:)
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There just isn’t any stopping the BioWare juggernaut. Hot on the heels of their critically-acclaimed RPG Dragon Age Origins that was released just a few months ago, Mass Effect 2 – the second in a planned trilogy of sci-fi CRPGs – was just released for the Xbox 360 and the PC.
The second game in the series sees players back in the role of Shepard, ex-Spectre and commander of the space frigate Normandy. The opening cut-scene though sees the destruction of the Normandy while on hunting for the remnants of the race of sentient machines, the Geth, from the first game. Shepard is technically (?) killed, but his body is reconstructed and consciousness restored by the powerful pro-human group, Cerebus, and headed by the secretive Illusive Man, voiced by the veteran actor Martin Sheen from The West Wing TV-series.
Convinced that the Geth were acting as proxies for a more dangerous threat, the newly restored Shephard is tasked with first finding and recruiting companions, most new but some old and returning from the first game, then investigating the disappearance of human colonies that eventually reveals the galactic threat.
Most of Mass Effect 2 worked well for me. The voice-acting is back in top form, with a couple of easily recognizable voice actors, including aforementioned Martin Sheen, Battlestar Galactica Reimagined alumnus Tricia Helfer and Michael Hogan, and even Michael Dorn from the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. Funnily though, Jennifer Hale’s voice delivery of the female Shepard is more nuanced and make for better listening and story immersion than Mark Meer’s delivery of the male equivalent. So, if you have no compunctions playing the female version of the hero character, that’s the way to go for a better overall experience.
Several of the old companions are back in the story too, though not all will join your party. Old favorites include the ex-Turian C-Sec operative, Garrus, and also the Quarian Tali. It’s somewhat of a mixed bag as for the new characters who can join Shepard’s squad. Some aren’t terrifically interesting, like Grunt, the Krogan super-soldier who’s born out of lab, or ‘Jack’, the tormented product out of Cerebus’ bio-experimentation. But that’s balanced by others which are: including the pick of the bunch, the Salarian Professor Mordin Solus. Solus is one of the most engaging and consistently fun to listen to characters in CRPGs. He’s fiercely logical yet eccentric and hyperactive at all times. Sort of like a Star Trek Spock on Steroids and in overdrive mode. There’s also an Asari Justicar named Samara, and a loner but religiously-inclined and dying assassin Thane. Both get really interesting story arcs and character side-missions.
Combat has also gone through an overhaul, and this aspect of Mass Effect 2 plays more like a third-person shooter than the previous game. Much of the combat is duck-behind and pop-out of cover to fire fests. If you’ve played the recent Uncharted games, this is familiar territory – and it works pretty well.
No qualms with the story too – which while is all space opera-ish sustains its tension well from start to end. During character dialog, you can choose between ‘good’ (which I took on my first play-through) and ‘evil’ dialog options, though the effects of those dialog choices seem less story-changing than what I observed in Dragon Age Origins. And some of the most irritating elements from the first game – specifically driving in vehicles – has been removed.
There’s stuff though that’s either changed for the worst or hasn’t improved. Inventory is significantly dumb-down. And the game feels… shorter and linear. Most of Mass Effect 2’s missions involve member recruitment of your squad or their individual member side-missions to gain loyalty. These can be done in any order once they are triggered, with the actual story campaign missions comprising just a small number of the overall game mission count. Map zones also feel somewhat small, with missions mostly comprising heading from point A to B with minimal sideshows, albeit with clever scripting at key locations.
You can also import your old save games from Mass Effect 1 into the new game, which will result in story references as you play to decisions you’ve made in the first. I didn’t exercise this option though as I’d deleted my old save games – duh – so can’t tell exactly how different is the experience in this regard compared to beginning a totally new game in Mass Effect 2.
On balance though, it’s still all good, and I enjoyed the about 30 hours I spent in this game (space-key advanced through some of the dialog LOL). Enough for me to replay the game all over again, this time exercising all the ‘evil’ dialog choices.:)
Pictures from Gamespot.
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