Featured Review

Talraen's review of Mass Effect 2 (PC)

You Got Your RPG in my Shooter!

Mass Effect 2 is probably the strangest middle of a trilogy I've ever experienced. The story picks up where the first game left off, continuing to develop towards a dramatic conclusion. More than the story, your character feels like a continuation of the previous game - decisions carry over (if you imported your saved game) and actually seem to matter, and will again in Mass Effect 3. It feels very much like the second third of a complete whole. But at the same time, the core gameplay has been completely revamped. And shockingly, the changes mostly involve the removal of traditional RPG elements. RPG fans, don't panic! It's actually for the best. Mass Effect had flaws - Mass Effect 2 has ironed them all out, leaving only a great game behind.

In my recent review format, this is where I'd bring up the bad parts of Mass Effect 2. Fortunately, there's not much to say! Let's see... I hate space zombies. The big ending plot revelation was kind of weak (at least, it didn't make the previous plot revelations any more dire). I didn't like one of the crew members, and was ambivalent about another. The only real gameplay negative was that they replaced weapon overheating with "thermal clips" (read: ammo). It's not a huge deal, especially since your teammates never run out of ammo, but it is annoying to run out during a heated battle.

Every aspect of Mass Effect 2 has been improved, but most especially the combat. The first game was bogged down in micromanagement, and BioWare has solved that problem by just getting rid of it. Instead of purchasing or finding individual guns, you research new weapons, and can assign them to as many crew members as you want. Everyone has a lot less abilities to level up, with just a few focused active abilities and no more passive abilities. Even your conversation options go entirely by how paragon or renegade you've been instead of separate skills. Your teammates now only carry two weapons, usually one good for synthetics and one for organics, so they're much easier to manage. And the UI in general has been greatly improved for ordering them around. There's more, but you get the point: the combat system is much cleaner, and as a result, more fun.

The one aspect of these changes that is a bit controversial is that the game now plays like a squad-based shooter. It always did, in a way, but now much more so. This is mainly because bullets actually go where you aim now, regardless of skill or level. I don't know if headshots did anything in ME1 (the loading screen tips are another improvement I am entirely behind), but they certainly do now. The combat situations can get pretty hairy, with enemies flanking you, the aforementioned space zombies swarming you, and never enough sniper rounds to get by.

The story, I'm happy to say, remains cool. The endgame revelations aren't nearly as awesome as they were in the first game, but it's hard to really hold that against them. On balance, I'd say the story isn't quite as good as ME1's - but the voice acting and writing are spectacular. I didn't think they could improve on them this much, but they managed it. Your pilot in particular is one of my favorite characters to speak to, and I encourage you to do so after every plot mission. The game is much funnier, the characters are just more solid, hell, the romances are even more believable (not to mention more numerous).

Even the periphery stuff is more interesting. The stock uncharted worlds with their singular building are gone, in place of more sidequests with unique (though small) locations. Like with the combat system, they cut out the fat: the Citadel still exists, but you use rapid transit to get around, and they didn't even bother making all the areas to connect things on foot. The game just plays quicker now, especially without all the elevators that stand in for load screens. The orbital scanning game that has replaced exploring uncharted worlds is different, but liable to get just as boring if you do it a lot. The hacking minigames are more fun, there are more new alien races to see, and so on. It's just a more interesting world overall.

I'm not going to spoil anything, but I do want to touch on the ending sequence of the game a bit. The basic premise is that you are building a team for a high-risk mission that some even call a suicide run. And anyone on your team - even you - legitimately might not come home. Some of the "loyalty" missions that make up the middle of the game are a bit clunky, but the actual final mission is 100% pure distilled awesome. I lost almost half my team, and between that and the general intensity of the whole sequence, it was... well, it was like no other game I've ever played. When you're sitting there making decisions and honestly know that yes, this decision might end with a character you like dying, it's awesome. This is why we play BioWare games. This is why they are the best at what they do.

Realistically, the only downside to Mass Effect 2 is that, if you haven't already played Mass Effect 1, you really have to. You can start a character here, but many important decisions will be made for you, and perhaps not in the way you would have made them. Not that ME1 is a bad game by any means - it's just not quite as awesome as ME2. I would definitely recommend rebinding the keys so both games match (thankfully ME1 does allow you to map run and activate to the same button, so you can get it pretty damn close), because these games are very friendly to multiple playthroughs, and to get the most out of them you'll want to play both games (and presumably all three once the trilogy is complete). If Mass Effect 3 nails the story like the first game and the atmosphere like the second, it could be BioWare's greatest triumph yet.

Featured Review

Talraen's review of Mass Effect (PC)

A Fantastic World with a Shitty UI

As a BioWare game, it should come as no surprise that Mass Effect has a great story. It's not great in the personal way Baldur's Gate II's story was, but rather it's a well-written and interesting tale, complete with excellent foreshadowing and plenty of twists and turns. The voice acting is great, the dialogue system is great, and pretty much everything that is unique to western RPG's is as good as in any game I've played. The stuff common to all RPG's, though - the micromanagement in particular - keeps Mass Effect from quite achieving that classic status.

I want to get the bad out of the way right off. Some RPG fans may not like just how much of a shooter Mass Effect is. Your stats affect the accuracy of your guns, but if you suck at shooters, you're still not hitting anything. (On the other hand, if you're good at shooters, you'll still miss a lot at low levels, which can likewise be frustrating.) You don't have to worry about reloading, though your weapons overheat if you just fire them forever. There isn't a whole lot of weapon variety: pistols and shotguns for close range, assault rifles for medium range, and sniper rifles for long range, plus a limited supply of thrown bombs (not really "grenades" in the traditional sense). Every character has access to every weapon even if they aren't trained in their use, which can cause problems if you're not paying attention.

The combat UI tries to do a bit more than it realistically can, even with a PC interface. Theoretically you could play this game like Baldur's Gate, ordering around every team member and micromanaging their abilities, but the first-person perspective makes this difficult. Fortunately, your party members are reasonably competent if you let them take care of their own abilities. Plus, they spring back to life after a battle if you don't bother to resurrect them, so if you really want to, you can just ignore them. And the combat itself is actually pretty fun, for the most part, with plenty of cool abilities to try and tactics to execute.

The real weakness of the game, however, lies in its hardcore RPG micromanaging elements. You will find tons of guns, items, and upgrades, and the interface for assigning them is frankly pretty terrible. You can't sort items, see or change the gear of crew members not in the active party, or perform other simple tasks quickly. There is a hard limit of 150 items, and you can convert any item to resources from the menu, but if you pick up more items than you can carry, the newly found items must be the ones you destroy. Since drops are level-based, this is pretty much an unforgivable UI choice.

On the upside, the role-playing aspects of Mass Effect are second-to-none. The big deal when the game was first shown was its natural conversation system, and it's every bit as impressive as anyone hoped. You don't choose the exact words your character will say, instead choosing the general gist and letting him or her expound on it. You can choose what to say before the person you're speaking to is finished talking, which allows the conversation to actually flow naturally. The "paragon" (goody two-shoes) and "renegade" (selfish badass) options are always in the same places, so it's very easy to have rapid conversations that are entirely cinematic and compelling. The voice acting being top notch doesn't hurt, either.

As I mentioned before, the story of Mass Effect is damn good. There's actually not all that much there in terms of mission-critical plot points, but it is well-paced and totally satisfying. The narrative doesn't rely on any crazy coincidences or ridiculous cliches, and in the end it all makes sense. I particularly enjoyed just how well foreshadowed the late-game revelations are.

Apart from the main plot, the world they've built is huge and convincing. The political climate is somewhat akin to Babylon 5, with humans as the ambitious new species in town, and the galaxy's major races gathered at a central space station (though not one of human design). The three main races are all interesting in their own ways, and even manage to largely avoid sci-fi cliches (well, maybe not the Asari). Other races are interesting as well, and if you're into Mass Effect's lore, the Codex is chock-full of history to read and information to dissect. Some of it is even useful when playing the game.

Many players have had problems with Mass Effect's side missions. There are literally dozens of stars, each with multiple planets to explore. Most of the planets can simply be surveyed, but you can land on uncharted worlds that have nothing to do with the plot to explore. I didn't go crazy with sidequesting, sticking primarily to the main missions, so I never found these worlds boring. However, I can certainly see why doing everything there is to do would get old. There is no compelling reason to do these sidequests if they don't interest you, though, and I strongly suggest simply continuing with the mission if you do get bored. Just be aware that, towards the end of the game, certain areas will be closed off to you, a story decision that irks the completionist in me.

Put it all together, and what do you get? Mass Effect nails the best parts of a BioWare game - story and lore - and has some pretty fun gameplay to boot. The writing and dialogue system alone make the game worth playing, and most of its flaws can be safely ignored. Even the gear micromanagement isn't the biggest deal in the world. The best aspect of playing Mass Effect, though, isn't even part of the game. You can export your character to Mass Effect 2 (and from there, to the end of the trilogy), and it will remember almost every significant decision you made, and some pretty insignificant ones as well. Realistically, Mass Effect is less of a complete game and more like the first third of a huge mega-game that has yet to be completed (as of this writing). This is one trilogy that was obviously designed to be such, and it pays off.