Post by brendur on Jan 29, 2010 12:29:17 GMT -5
So, I don't know about the rest of the world at large, but I anticipate sequels with a healthy dose of caution. Two signs are immediately hoisted by the opposite sides of my brain when I hear about a sequel announcement, and they say "This is gonna be awesome!" and "This is gonna be shit.". While I try not to wave the latter around too much, it reminds me that we HAVE been dissapointed in the past. Franchises can strike gold with an idea (Neverwinter Nights as an example 8) ) and then in their attempts to either bring this idea up to speed or out do it, they can just as easily turn that gold into lead with weird science (Neverwinter Nights 2 :shock:). That being said, nowadays whenever I hear the phrases "improved combat and character creation", "New and exciting challenges", and my personal favorite "as you've never seen it before!" I remember that just as easily the opposite can be true for this new cast of a game I loved.
When the game starts rolling, I can almost certainly tell you the first 2 minutes (the average length of a game's intro movie) are spent in awe. Ever since Diablo 2 good game intros are simply must haves in the industry if you really want to hook your audience, and Mass Effect is no exception to the rule. However after the noise and explosions die down and I get to playing, the next hour is going to be spent comparing the sequel to it's predecessor. I'm ashamed to say it, but I nearly let bias turn me against this game within the first 15 minutes. I didn't see any of the familiar equipment lists, I saw fewer character skills, I also saw that Bioware had retreated from the idea of a weapon overheating and back to the too familiar feel of "You have this much ammo" in the corner. These details I think jumpstarted the little shitkicker in my head with his sign, who immediately started jabbering that this was the beggining of Mass Effect's exodus from the RPG and into the realm of Halo wannabes. I dunno, perhaps the table top player in me has somehow equated more complicated to a better game. Nevertheless, as I was ranting in my head, I realized combat was still fun and indeed challenging, and I wasn't hating this game, I was caught up in it. I WAS Shepard, and I was a galactic badass with a sniper rifle and an agenda.
Yes, Bioware has instated numerous changes to it's sci-fi rpg juggernaut, and while at first they might seem like over simplifications, I found them to be wonderful streamlinings of what players had previously found frustrating about the game. As I'm sure a good load of you have played Mass Effect (If you haven't, something is wrong with you. Drop what you are doing, find the nearest video game store), I won't go into a full review of the game, at it's bare bones this IS Mass Effect, it's just evolved and realizing it's potential. SO instead I'll be listing changes that I've noticed to the game.
Character Creation and Customization
Our baby in this respect has gotten something of an overhaul, and all I think in the right direction. When I imported my character from Mass Effect 1, I immediately noticed that damn it, he looked good. Which was odd because I distinctly remembered making him ugly as sin. So I went back to my old Mass Effect game out of curiosity, lo and behold, the character appearance models have been improved to such a degree. Moving on you'll immediately see that character classes are no longer just indications of what combination of the skill set that your character has access to, now everyone's got one skill to boast over the other classes. Infiltrators can cloak themselves to make a sniping shot unharassed, Engineer's can drop a turret to make life hell for the enemy, and all sorts of other nifty little tricks that ensure Shepard brings more hurt to the fight than the rest of his team.
As I said before there are less skills that you have access to per character, while I'm going to miss Shepard being able to drop a sheild overload, then a weapon jam, at the same time you're still givin enough tricks to make combat interesting and keep it challenging. In this vein Bioware has made a strange little switcheroo, you no longer have weapon skills, you have ammunition skills, you no longer collect aummunition upgrades, you collect weapon upgrades. Strangely enough, this new upgrade system works fine, one of the chief complaints about the old Mass Effect was the shear amount of weapons you had to sort through just to find the better one. Gone is the bogged down inventory that you had to spend hours sifting through at times and towards the end of the game would fill to max capacity within 20 minutes of the mission. Now upgrades are passive and effect the team as a whole, or just Shepard once they're collected. Shepard's armor is the only armor you get to adjust in the game, but it's all completely customizeable and very easily managed with a slider option screen. Over all a very neat package to what was once sloppy.
Combat
Combat surprisingly got very few changes, the same real time battles with the freeze-time option screens. As I mentioned before they've reinstated the tried and true ammunition meter that we've come to recognize in shooters, which is fine I suppose, but it just feels so odd that they slip back into this method after taking so much trouble to explain in the first one why guns didn't really have to worry about ammunition. Each weapon in modern warfare has solid block of ammunition matierial in the base of it's handle, using the zero mater principle the gun then "shaves" the exact amount of material it needs for a shot off this block and then fires it providing for tens of thousands of shots being stored per gun. Honestly, I found that the coolest explanation ever, but now they state a gun cannot fire without coolant charges...which brings it straight back to the thing they were avoiding in the first place....ammunition. Let it never be said ret-conning has gone out of style in the sci-fi community.
Another definate change to combat is the way grenades are utilized. In fact you are no longer given grenades but instead different heavy weapons such as grenade launchers, missle launchers, and if what I've seen in the trailers are accurate...minaturized tactical nukes. Personally I was a bit dissapointed in this change, I was fond of the old grenade system, you pressed select in combat and you either threw it, or slapped it on a wall for some joker to set off as they passed, it had a very commando feel to it, and it was easy to use. Now you have to drop whatever your weapon of choice is to pull out the big bulky weapons of mass destruction, and go Duke Nukem on the enemy. Certainly a case of where less is more in my opinion.
Story
We still have the same story telling tools as the first game, the radial menu of conversation choices, with the occasional Paragon/Renegade choice tossed in for shits and giggles, with one new player on the field. You now have the option to perform Paragon/Renegade "interrupting actions" during conversations. During conversation when your character spots something particularly noble or devious to do, the Paragon/Renegade icon flashes in the corner and you press the corresponding button to do it. Now this is a double edged sword as I've come to understand it. On one hand, pulling one of these actions off just kicks ass. For instance a certain acquaintance of yours hands you his sniper rifle and tells you to see what the enemy is up to. The following conversation ensues:
Archangel: Looks like mechs to me.
Shepard: Yeah, quite a few...
*Renegade icon flashes, which I press with glee*
BANG
Shepard: one less now though...
Now, the downsides to this new system? For one it's distracting from the actual action taking place on the screen, sometimes you'll miss the icon flashing because your jaw is dropping from the action or you're focused on the dialogue. Another is that while sometimes it's painfully obvious what Shep is going to do once you hit that button, other times you haven't a damn clue, so you're pretty much taking a gamble with how he acts, which has caused me to reload the game more than once
The story itself keeps in pace with what we've come to expect from Mass Effect, a mix of sci-fi wonder with the axis of moral choice in the background. Though apparently "Shady Government Op" wasn't a dark enough possibility for Shepard this round, the Alliance has pretty much cut you loose and now Cerberus (didn't I kill enough of those guys last time to populate Asia?) is footing your bill. You take your orders from a guy known only as "The Illusive Man" and every time he contacts you on your ship, you have this annoying expectation for him to say "Good morning Girls" and for Shepard to respond "Good Morning Charlie" with girlish enthusiasm. The decent into darker territory doesn't seem to end with Shepard though, even your crew in it's entirety seems to shift slightly towards the dark side. Granted you HAVE signed up with the shadiest organization in the galaxy, but so far I haven't seen much moral balance in the party, you have people who kill and sleep fine at night, and then people who kill, and then kill in their sleep because there's not enough daylight hours to get all the killing they need done. Then again it's still relatively early in the story, and I have only half of my team assembled...perhaps there's going to be a galactic pope in there somewhere to offset this team of homicidal maniacs I've surrounded myself with? :shock: As individuals the cast does show potential, with a few character templates we've come to expect in the Sci-fi genre, and a few we haven't. Above all else though I think this game has nailed nostalgia to the wall, the best moments in my opinion are when Shepard reunites with his old crew, resulting in either good tears or damn fine laughter.
So there you have it, Mass Effect has a new face, and it works for the old gal I think. If you're a fan of the game, you'll definately enjoy this lastest mutation. If you aren't a fan of the game...why do I know you?