Mass Effect 2
System: Xbox 360
Creator: Bioware
By Jake Vanderlinden, Associate Editor
An avid fan of RPG games since I first played A Link to the Past on my SNES system when I was a kid. Bioware launched me into a new galaxy far, far away when they released Knights of the Old Republic on the Xbox. I instantly became a fan of the developers, as well as the fresh take on Star Wars. And as the years passed and consoles got better they showed me that my devotion to their company was not misplaced. Mass Effect exploded onto the scene in 2007 and gave me a reason to switch out my light saber for an assault rifle, and to change my force powers for a fist full of biotics. Even the lightside/darkside affiliation got a revamp, becoming paragon/renegade.
This highly anticipated sequel has taken the franchise to new heights, and brought the RPG game to all the die hard shooter players out there. Taking what Mass Effect started and improving in nearly every way, it was not hard for me to instantly fall in love with this game.
Mass Effect 2 follows Commander Shepard as he systematically hunts down the Geth following the attack on the Citadel at the end of Mass Effect. While many may know what happens next, I would be remiss to say any more as Mass Effect 2 delivers the drama and surprises from the first ten minutes on. Enter Cerberus, a black ops style organization looking to keep humanity the front runners in a galaxy where we are highly outnumbered. Led by a highly intelligent and well informed individual known as the Illusive Man (voiced by Martin Sheen) he sets Shepard onto a path of assembling a team to find out why the inhabitants of human colonies are disappearing. As you explore the galaxy and build relationships with your crew the game impresses upon you that the end will bring either a crushing blow to your enemies or absolute catastrophe for the people aboard the Normandy, Shepard’s advanced warship.
The driving force of any Bioware title is the story, which no one will find lacking here, brings the player an understanding and an intimacy with the characters that sets a new standard for RPG’s. As you make your decisions and build loyalties, or choose to leave crew members singled out, the sense of ownership and connection with Shepard really makes the game unique for every person that picks up the controller. This one-ness with our hero is really the heart and soul of the game, where your decisions can become truly discomforting but with pay offs as visceral as any combat situation. The innovative “interrupt” system brings a dynamic to cut scenes that “interactive” cut scenes brought to games like Resident Evil 4, allowing a player to stop a random encounter individual from entering a combat situation that could potentially kill them or to throw an insolent mercenary from a high rise window, gives the player the freedom to control the drama not just intermittent decision making.
To anyone that played Mass Effect or any other Bioware title for that matter, the story telling will be the least surprising part of ME2; if anything it will be the revamped game play, combat systems, ability trees and inventory (or lack there of) that will be the true shockers. The combat system is all real time, removing the pause and issue system of the first Mass Effect, allowing for combat to continue at a steady pace and forcing the player to find a comfortable hot button set up for specific powers. The squad based dynamic of the game is stronger than ever and the AI control for the NPC characters is great, a player could go through an entire play through having to never once issue orders to your companions, and at times they almost seem more capable of taking out hostile enemies more efficiently than Shepard ever could. With weapons being tailored to each class and not carrying anything that your class can’t use the selection of the appropriate tool for the job is made extremely simple and micromanagement of squad members almost nonexistent. To put it simply the game has phenomenal shooter combat, very reminiscent of Gears of War, lovers of multiple genres of games can enjoy.
Tech and Biotic combat skills have a great new look as well, starting right from the beginning when they are low level, by bringing a robust dynamic to combat; while using cover fire to keep an enemies head down you can unleash a biotic shockwave to hurl him into a bottomless pit. This time around though they have a more reasonable cost in that the use of one power puts all powers on cool down, thus keeping for you a reason for using the “conventional” weaponry. The variety and choice in powers gives more than enough reason to want to play this game over and over just to see all the special powers each class has to offer; from a cloak that renders the player invisible for a brief period, to a charge attack the slows down the combat allowing the player to rush across the field and stagger an opponent to deal the fatal blow, each class brings surprises.
Building a personally-designed Shepard has been simplified in ways that would make any seasoned Mass Effect player want to kiss the hands of the game designers. Rather than having a huge list of improvements that you can build upon ME2 has brought it down to much more manageable proportions. Giving each skill a 4 level tree and with levels being immediately noticeable in combat the game keeps the player from staring at the screen trying to determine where to allocate the gained points and more time into the actual playing of the game.
With so many praises to sing of this game only one fault comes to mind and its form comes in the guise of planet scanning. While traveling throughout all the planetary systems you find weapon, armor, and skill upgrades in the form of research projects. All of these enhancements are paid for with minerals and resources you pick up on missions and from scanning planets and retrieving them with probes. The scanning is extremely tedious, not to mention the fact that it is not based on toggle abilities so hand cramping can become a problem, even after purchasing the upgrade to increase the scanners speed. This necessary evil I can understand since they don’t want players having all the advancements in the first fifteen minutes of the game, however I think it could have been better implemented with a larger scanning reticule or a mineral tracker.
System: Xbox 360
Creator: Bioware
By Jake Vanderlinden, Associate Editor
An avid fan of RPG games since I first played A Link to the Past on my SNES system when I was a kid. Bioware launched me into a new galaxy far, far away when they released Knights of the Old Republic on the Xbox. I instantly became a fan of the developers, as well as the fresh take on Star Wars. And as the years passed and consoles got better they showed me that my devotion to their company was not misplaced. Mass Effect exploded onto the scene in 2007 and gave me a reason to switch out my light saber for an assault rifle, and to change my force powers for a fist full of biotics. Even the lightside/darkside affiliation got a revamp, becoming paragon/renegade.
This highly anticipated sequel has taken the franchise to new heights, and brought the RPG game to all the die hard shooter players out there. Taking what Mass Effect started and improving in nearly every way, it was not hard for me to instantly fall in love with this game.
Mass Effect 2 follows Commander Shepard as he systematically hunts down the Geth following the attack on the Citadel at the end of Mass Effect. While many may know what happens next, I would be remiss to say any more as Mass Effect 2 delivers the drama and surprises from the first ten minutes on. Enter Cerberus, a black ops style organization looking to keep humanity the front runners in a galaxy where we are highly outnumbered. Led by a highly intelligent and well informed individual known as the Illusive Man (voiced by Martin Sheen) he sets Shepard onto a path of assembling a team to find out why the inhabitants of human colonies are disappearing. As you explore the galaxy and build relationships with your crew the game impresses upon you that the end will bring either a crushing blow to your enemies or absolute catastrophe for the people aboard the Normandy, Shepard’s advanced warship.
The driving force of any Bioware title is the story, which no one will find lacking here, brings the player an understanding and an intimacy with the characters that sets a new standard for RPG’s. As you make your decisions and build loyalties, or choose to leave crew members singled out, the sense of ownership and connection with Shepard really makes the game unique for every person that picks up the controller. This one-ness with our hero is really the heart and soul of the game, where your decisions can become truly discomforting but with pay offs as visceral as any combat situation. The innovative “interrupt” system brings a dynamic to cut scenes that “interactive” cut scenes brought to games like Resident Evil 4, allowing a player to stop a random encounter individual from entering a combat situation that could potentially kill them or to throw an insolent mercenary from a high rise window, gives the player the freedom to control the drama not just intermittent decision making.
To anyone that played Mass Effect or any other Bioware title for that matter, the story telling will be the least surprising part of ME2; if anything it will be the revamped game play, combat systems, ability trees and inventory (or lack there of) that will be the true shockers. The combat system is all real time, removing the pause and issue system of the first Mass Effect, allowing for combat to continue at a steady pace and forcing the player to find a comfortable hot button set up for specific powers. The squad based dynamic of the game is stronger than ever and the AI control for the NPC characters is great, a player could go through an entire play through having to never once issue orders to your companions, and at times they almost seem more capable of taking out hostile enemies more efficiently than Shepard ever could. With weapons being tailored to each class and not carrying anything that your class can’t use the selection of the appropriate tool for the job is made extremely simple and micromanagement of squad members almost nonexistent. To put it simply the game has phenomenal shooter combat, very reminiscent of Gears of War, lovers of multiple genres of games can enjoy.
Tech and Biotic combat skills have a great new look as well, starting right from the beginning when they are low level, by bringing a robust dynamic to combat; while using cover fire to keep an enemies head down you can unleash a biotic shockwave to hurl him into a bottomless pit. This time around though they have a more reasonable cost in that the use of one power puts all powers on cool down, thus keeping for you a reason for using the “conventional” weaponry. The variety and choice in powers gives more than enough reason to want to play this game over and over just to see all the special powers each class has to offer; from a cloak that renders the player invisible for a brief period, to a charge attack the slows down the combat allowing the player to rush across the field and stagger an opponent to deal the fatal blow, each class brings surprises.
Building a personally-designed Shepard has been simplified in ways that would make any seasoned Mass Effect player want to kiss the hands of the game designers. Rather than having a huge list of improvements that you can build upon ME2 has brought it down to much more manageable proportions. Giving each skill a 4 level tree and with levels being immediately noticeable in combat the game keeps the player from staring at the screen trying to determine where to allocate the gained points and more time into the actual playing of the game.
With so many praises to sing of this game only one fault comes to mind and its form comes in the guise of planet scanning. While traveling throughout all the planetary systems you find weapon, armor, and skill upgrades in the form of research projects. All of these enhancements are paid for with minerals and resources you pick up on missions and from scanning planets and retrieving them with probes. The scanning is extremely tedious, not to mention the fact that it is not based on toggle abilities so hand cramping can become a problem, even after purchasing the upgrade to increase the scanners speed. This necessary evil I can understand since they don’t want players having all the advancements in the first fifteen minutes of the game, however I think it could have been better implemented with a larger scanning reticule or a mineral tracker.
All in all I cannot seem to get enough of this game, and with so many options for endings I think it will keep me busy until the third and final installment of this epic trilogy comes out. I give Mass Effect 2 a 5 mercenaries thrown to there death out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment