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Mass Effect 2: Final Smack

Mass Effect 2 is a solidly good game. I enjoyed it a lot and didn’t really want it to end, which is pretty impressive. Nonetheless, I still don’t think that Mass Effect has completely lived up to its potential. There’s interesting decision making that’s undercut by cheap powers that let players dodge hard choices; there are really good plot missions next to surprisingly bad side mechanics.  The net is good, but could be so much better. Details within.

Pros

– The narrative is good. There are lots of great characters with interesting plots and deep conflicts. The alien cultures are well-explored with complex identities. Even minor characters on the ship have stories they can tell. And there are moments where you have to make quite hard decisions about the direction of the story. Despite what I’ve said about Bioware in Dragon Age, in this game they deliver above the hype.

– The Gears of War style combat is fun. I enjoyed the basic fighting, and the losing of the complexity in equipment selection from ME1 was very welcome. Beyond this, there are variants of the missions that add some nice strategy to the game.

– There are some really nice cutscenes in the game. They are mostly clustered around arrivals and departures, but they are very evocative. The models are pretty good — a little uncanny in places but the art is solid overall.

– The references to the old game work. You feel like it’s a consistent universe. There were all of these callbacks to the last game, many of which I didn’t remember from my save game, and the story is great for them. I can’t wait to see how they use these in ME3.

Cons

– The plot feels a bit formulaic. Without spoiling, it gets really obvious how the missions are structured and the game ends earlier than you would like. It would be nice if they deviated from the formula more and if the side missions had more interesting plot to them.

– The planet scanning stuff is terrible. It’s a boring waste of time that you only do because you have a strong inkling that you have to. Here’s a simple rule for designers: if you have a power-up whose effect is to speed up a boring activity, ask yourself why you have that activity at all. Kill the scanning and just bring back the Mako with a decent set of controls please.

– The paragon/renegade thing is still wonky. The quick-time events are a very nice addition, but the paragon and renegade choices in conversation are often ways to dodge otherwise interesting and challenging choices. I really wish games would stop tying morality to powers and let me be a powerful character regardless of how I decide to roleplay. Keeping these things connected just perverts the fun of both.

Overview

Mass Effect 2 is fun. It’s definitely worth playing if you like RPGs at all, and a good buy especially if you want to play through a second time to see other plot. On the other hand, the game has so much potential that you are disappointed when it fails to rise to the heights you can see within its reach. Good writing with good combat is no small feat, but this game could have OSSIM story with great missions, and I doubt I’ll be totally satisfied until a Mass Effect reaches that. Still. you’ll have fun and get some good story, so it’s worth your time.

Posted in Hardcore, Reviews.

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6 Responses

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  1. Michael Hartman says

    What is “OSSIM story”?

  2. Matt says

    RE: Michael — OSSIM is the hip, new way to say “awesome.”

    And Nick, now that you finished the game, I can comment that the Liara quest with finding the Overseer actually requires all 5 data fragments; the last one is up in the nightclub, hence it’s easy to miss. When you get the 5th piece and call Liara, a new option shows up, which is to tell her that none of the suspects match, because the Overseer is a female, and all the suspects are male.

    However, even figuring this out doesn’t actually get you anywhere (that I know of, anyway). instead, it just gets Liara “one step closer to the Shadow Broker,” and then that’s about it. Nothing behind that aside from some credits.

    Agreed on the paragon/renegade choice. I could see keeping track of things like that if they are used to open up options on how others react to you (assuming they know your rep, anyway), but when I play mass effect, I feel like I’m handcuffed to always being all good or all jerk all the time in order to maximize the options I’ll have for conversations.

  3. Heath says

    I agree with a lot of this. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and made it through 2 playthroughs. The negative for me was how direct the main plot was. You are going to attack this thing in the center of the universe so make sure your ready. It gave all the side missions a feeling of rat killing to me as a way to XP up your ship. Overall a lot of fun but a bit too short and a bit too direct of a plot. Game play was excellent IMO however.

  4. Michael Hartman says

    Heath, don’t you think all “epic” storyline games suffer from that problem?

    As soon as your main mission is to save the world or universe, then just about every side quest seems almost like you are ignorant of the larger problem in the world/universe.

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  5. Heath says

    I do feel that way to a degree…. but it felt more linear to me than the last one somehow… no twist really. From a story perspective there was no real “surprise” in it. The first game intoroduced the “reapers” and a deep history. This one felt like “yep we found where the latest reaper assault is coming from… go get em.” Last time you had the Geth and the Rogue Turian Spectre…more interaction and decisions that seemed to affect the universe (who controlled the council, the rachni, the plant thing (forgot it’s name)). It just felt less deep to me somehow. everything was much more straight forward.

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  6. Alastair Johnston says

    I do feel that way to a degree…. but it felt more linear to me than the last one somehow… no twist really. From a story perspective there was no real “surprise” in it. The first game intoroduced the “reapers” and a deep history. This one felt like “yep we found where the latest reaper assault is coming from… go get em.” Last time you had the Geth and the Rogue Turian Spectre…more interaction and decisions that seemed to affect the universe (who controlled the council, the rachni, the plant thing (forgot it’s name)). It just felt less deep to me somehow. everything was much more straight forward.
    +1

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