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Locane
Joined: Mon May 21, 2007 7:13 pm
Posts: 644
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Mass Effect 2
9/10
Jesus H Christ. What a rush.
Game summary:
Mass Effect 2 is a hybrid RPG / FPS that continues the story line from Mass Effect. The game and controls are very similar to Dragon Age: Origins and other Bioware games of this type.
Mass Effect 2 gets awesome points for delivering:
- A gripping, compelling game experience that borders on cinematic and movie-like
- A plot and storyline that is complex, hard to predict, and drives the game forward constantly
- Superb music and sound that compliments the visuals, moods, and story events in the game perfectly
- Excellent voice acting that is not just believable, but is likely to affect you emotionally (As always with Bioware)
- Pulse-pounding action sequences that deliver challenge and good pacing
- A complicated network of social interaction among the characters that impacts the plot in major ways
- The scrubbing out of the "why can't I say 'this' syndrome", whereby there are questions (or solutions) you've thought about that don't show up as options to say in the dialog
- The blurring of the line between "good" and "evil" and even letting you explore what the terms actually mean to you
- Plausible and even semi-realistic technology explanations that define a system within the world and stick to it (Trek fans appreciate this one a lot)
- A good, thought out user interface that lets you play the game without hampering you
- The "hacking" and "security bypass" mini-games as different, somewhat plausible, and even fun for awhile
Mass Effect 2 gets lame points for having:
- Keyboard-eating frustration level movement controls. I can't even believe how bad this was, I almost docked the game down to a 6 or a 7 just for this
- Bugs, bugs, bugs. While I wouldn't use the word "plagued" or the phrase "ridden with", I would certainly call it "hampered"
- Being in general not polished well enough. It was obvious that some content was simply not written out or done well in favor of getting the big stuff right
- Animation that shies away from something that would require collision detection. Why can't games get this right, especially in the important cut scenes?
- Clipping planes on armor and buildings that run into (and through) each other a lot in movement
The long explanation
All in all, Mass effect 2 is the kind of computer gaming gold that you expect to get for your hard-earned $60. If you like story, exploration of complex moral choices and their consequences, FPS action and game play, then Mass Effect 2 is the game for you.
The delivery of the game is superb. Hearing the main character speak the choices you make in dialog (and being surprised by the choice of words) really makes this feel more like a playable movie than it does a computer game. Voice acting, music, animation subtlety and body language, all contribute to that overall package. This is probably one of the only games that I would be content to sit and watch someone play as much as I would like to play it myself.
The story sequences (and especially the ending) were compelling, emotional, and often times complicated. I like depth in my games, and Mass Effect 2 delivers that in spades.
All this praise aside, I had some pretty major technical concerns that hampered the game and experience.
The biggest and most present was the movement system. I played the game on Veteran because I played Mass Effect, and have the benefit of a mouse instead of an xbox controller to aim with. The mouse loans itself well to the view and aiming of Shepard and the weapons, but the movement controls are absolutely abysmal. I felt like my character was wearing one of those fat "sumo suits" every time I tried to run somewhere, and when I did run my stamina dropped off so quickly that I may as well have been a contestant on The Biggest Loser.
Lots of times I couldn't get out of fire fast enough, but worst of all was the "stun" effect that explosions have on you - they stop you cold in mid stride, regardless of their placement, direction, or how fast you were going before hand and force you to do a little "stun" animation. This killed me so many times while I was trying to run for cover that I started using my quicksave and quickload keys to get around it. Really, as a gamer, nothing is worse than holding down buttons for the movement commands while yelling "Gooooooo! GOOOOOOOO!" at the screen, watching nothing happen for about 3 seconds, and then dying as a result of your efforts, still completely stopped.
If you're going to make an explosion stun me, at least have the decency to knock me down in the direction that I was traveling or in the direction that the blast would have thrown me instead of making me stand there like a retard with a popsicle and getting shot in the face.
Next is the cover system. Largely, this worked well for the "run, stop, shoot" mechanic, and was a nice way to inject some strategy into the FPS game play. Unfortunately, it is far from perfect. Some obstacles look like cover when they aren't, causing you to get shot and blown up while you stand their stupidly hitting the space key. Other times the cover is too "sticky", where you'll want to get OFF the effing wall (crate, barrier, rock whatever) in a big hurry and won't be able to.
The worst part, though, is the "wall hop". Why, if when I'm running from 2 heavy mechs in a cargo bay, do I have to first lean against a low wall before I can climb it, or hop over it? Could we really not spare a button for "jump the eff over"? And while we're on the topic, why can't I crouch? I can't count the number of times I've wanted to simply crouch to get a more accurate shot or dodge enemy fire, but couldn't.
Moving on.
Bugs are pretty apparent in Mass Effect 2. First and foremost is an obvious sound stuttering issue that I wasn't able to fix - dialog would skip words or syllables and it was really jarring, throwing off the immersion of the game in a big way. Shepard's "I might do more than just catch you, Kelly" turned into "I ight do more than j catch you, elly", and it really took away from the feel of things.
Next is the pathing and collision bugs. Allies in a party would take forever to get to a place or disappear completely. Characters in cut scenes would teleport or disappear completely. Several times I ended up walking in air on an invisible shelf of some kind and once had to reload because of it. Character animations would seem to float above things rather than touch them, or go too far in to them. This is probably more a symptom of the Unreal 3 engine than anything else, but really I'm tired of this crap. It's time we got something new in that actually does collision *right*.
I have a handful of other minor nitpicks (characters sometimes seem cross-eyed, Krogans run stupid, allies activate powers instantaneously without regard to line of sight or target acquisition), but they're not game breaking, and don't detract from the experience in a way that is extremely detrimental.
All in all, Mass Effect 2 should probably have been in the play testing and bug testing phase for another 6 months before it got released. I would imagine a large number of these issues would have been dealt with by then. EA can take a page from Blizzard's book in this case - polish, polish, polish.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 9 out of 10 because it's an awesome experience to play through, even while being hampered by annoying bugs and frustrating controls. It really speaks to the quality of the writing and the delivery that Bioware puts out in all its games, time and time again. I can trust that if I spend money on a game by Bioware (for the most part) my money will be well spent.
--Locane
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