Mass Effect 2 - impressions

Mass Effect 2 was recently released and you know what that means. That's right - the bitch is back! Unfortunately, Liara is no longer a playable NPC so I had to pick someone else to round out my bitch brigade but my femshep is definately back in business and kicking ass!

Anyways, some quick impressions below before I go back to the adventures of Aladuchar next week.

The Good
Combat much improved
BioWare clearly listened to a lot of the complaints about combat in the first game and really went all out in making this game a much better shooter. The action in this game clearly kicks it up a notch compared to the relatively poor shooter action in the first ME. For ME, my comment was that the gameplay was better than I expected. However, for ME2, I can honestly say that the gameplay is actually quite good. Admittedly, its still not as good as some of the dedicated shooters, like Gears of War, but the story and RPG elements easily make up for the difference (although this would clearly depend on your personal preference).

As an aside, there is a very interesting article about this on The Escapist which talks about how shooter games should copy the story elements from games like ME2. Worth a read if you have time as I would love to see more games like this.

Characters
The characters are also a good mix of interesting personalities. Although its subtle, I think the characters in ME2 are a bit better than those in ME. This is no surprise though considering that character and dialogue have long been one of BioWare's strengths.

Having said that, I still would have liked more conversations with the characters as it seems that they run out of things to say a bit too quickly.

Continuation of Shep story
I love the fact that this is a direct continuation of the Shepard that I developed in the original ME. A lot of the decisions that I made in the first ME game are reflected in ME2.

What makes this element stand out though are the quests which arise directly as a result of decisions made in the first game. There are a couple of instances where I ran into people from the first game and they had a quest for me which would not have been available had I made a different decision in the first game. At times like this, you really start to feel like you are playing a personalised trilogy with your character as the main hero (or heroine as the case may be).

BioWare humour
I bet you didn't expect this.

This game is hilariously funny when it wants to be. There are a couple of spots where something is done for comedic effect and surprisingly, BioWare was able to pull it off really well. I'm not going to give any specifics here as the humour in this game has to be experienced (any retelling of it by me just wouldn't do it justice). Admittedly, ymmv depending on the type of humour you enjoy.


The Bad
Storyline
With all the praise though, I have to admit to being a little disappointed with the story. Maybe it was because I just finished playing DAO which had a similar theme in terms of you going around getting allies, but the bulk of the story in ME2 revolves around you going around the galaxy putting together a team who can take on the Big Bad. After getting the team, you then go on a (optional) mission for each team member which makes that team member loyal to you if you resolve the mission in a satisfactory manner.

This just didn't feel very epic especially compared to the storyline in the first ME and makes the game feel like it lacks intensity. In fact, the game only really ramps up in intensity when you take on the main storyline missions in pursuit of the Big Bad. In defence, the end missions when you finally take on the Big Bad are frakking superb and really left me leaving this game on a high and looking forward to ME3.

Mission end screens
One of the things I really didn't like was the mission end screen. At the end of every mission (be it main quest or side quest), a screen will pop up telling you that you have completed the mission. This mission end screen details the key decisions you made during the mission (just in case you forgot what you did 5 minutes ago) and also tells you what swag you collected during the mission (just in case you didn't notice the huge pop-up informing you of this at the time).

The mission end screen also serves to remind you that you are playing a game and that you aren't really Commander Shepard. Thanks BioWare.

Planet scanning
Yeesh - where do I start with this! Just in case you didn't know, BioWare introduced a planet scanning minigame which you have to go through in order to get enough resources to research upgrades. You have to do this as you can fail the game if the Normandy (your starship) isn't upgraded enough to survive the final battle with one of the Big Bad starships.

The problem is that the planet scanning minigame is so tedious. On the X360, you have to move a cursor slowly over a planet looking for a spike on your resource radar. While moving the cursor, you have to pulse the left trigger (as the left trigger starts the scan). While scanning, the cursor moves at a snails pace. Hell, even without scanning, the cursor moves at a snails pace! Even on my first playthrough, I was getting bored to tears after scanning several planets.

Why can't an aide do it? Or the onboard AI? I mean, I'm supposed to be the Commander of the Normandy, tasked with saving humanity, and I can't get someone to scan a planet for me?

As an aside, the comments by the OP in this thread are hilarious in how true they appear to be.

Helmets
Another incomprehensible decision here.

In the buildup for ME2, one of the things that BioWare put emphasis on was how much effort they put into building facial expressions for characters. Instead of just relying on words, they were now able to express emotions with the faces. And in many cases, this is true - my femshep spends a lot of time scowling at people. Great idea which really adds to the RP right?

Bearing in mind the above, you have to wonder which moron approved the game mechanic design around helmets in this game. In ME2, you have customisable armor which allows you to mix and match your armor. The headpiece, chestpiece, arms and legs can all be mixed to give you different bonuses. Unfortunately, if you pick any helmet which covers the head, that helmet doesn't toggle off for cutscreens (something which they did for DAO). This in itself isn't a big deal as you can just forgo the minor bonus for the helmet.

However, BioWare then decide to inflame the fan base even further by releasing loads of bonus armor. All of the bonus armor to date are designed to look really cool but aren't customisable in any way (apparently, this is to avoid clipping with the models in game) which is no big deal as the bonus armors have special bonuses of their own anyway. The real kicker though is that the helmet is perma-on and cannot be removed. So your choice is to have a nice looking armor with some minor bonuses or instead, you can actually see your shepard talk to people.

In case it isn't clear from my bitching, all of my bonus armor went straight back in the cupboard (although I may pull them out for the insanity playthrough).

The thing is, I just don't understand how you can make such a fuck up in game design considering that the facial expressions was one of the things that the designers themselves spent so much time on improving.

Lots of decisions only result in news or email
My last nitpick with the game is that, although a lot of decisions from ME carry over, most of them only have a minimal impact on the game. For example, in most cases, you hear about the impact via a newscast or an email which you might receive. I would love for more quests to be dependent on stuff which happened in the first ME as, for the occasions where this did occur, I felt really invested in both the character and the game.


Overall
Despite it looking like I have more complaints than praise, you have to realise that a lot of the complaints are a bit nitpicky. The reality is that ME2 is a great game and, in my opinion, a noticeable improvement over the first ME. To be fair, this may depend on your own preferences as BioWare streamlined a lot of the common RPG mechanics in order to make the gameplay flow better and faster. Ultimately though, I found it really difficult to put this game down and go to bed at night (or in the wee hours of the morning as was usually the case).