Apologies for posting this in two places, I didn't notice this tread.
A Fair and Level-Headed Review of Mass Effect 2
Ultimately, the best and worst thing about ME2 is that it’s a lot like ME1.
Mass Effect 1 is one of my favorite games of all time. It was a strong mix of story, characters, action, and sci-fi goodiness. I still enjoy replaying it more than 20+ times later. It had its flaws, mainly the inventory system and side worlds. Overall, the biggest problem with ME1 is that it felt, at points, that Bioware got scared and hit the brakes rather than going full-steam ahead. While playing Mass Effect 2, I found myself being impressed and dissapointed with the same things I did in the first game.
Fortunately, that means that Mass Effect 2 is still one of the best games I’ve ever played. The characters are as good or better than the first game, the action is outstanding, the sci-fi experience is just as strong. As of this writing I have completed the game three times, and am looking forward to my fourth. However, during my playthroughs, I still had that nagging feeling from the first game that Bioware just-didn’t-quite-reach the full potential in a lot of the same areas.
For the rest of this review, I am going to break the game down into major sections. Within each section I will discuss the positives, negatives, and give my recommendations on how to improve for Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect 2 is a very complex game, and all of these particular sections interact and overlap each other, so I will try to do the best I can at remaining focused.
Story/CharactersWhoo, there’s a lot here to cover. Many things comprise a story: setting, characters, villains, pacing, etc.
Positive
If I were to pick one of these as my favorite, it would be the setting. Those who have taken the time to study the Codex fully, or explored all the planets and sidequests know how deep the Mass Effect universe truly is. The lore rivals that of any other major sci-fi franchise, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. I was very happy to see, while walking around the various locales of ME2, that the writers of Mass Effect were just as fascinated and in love with their universe as I was. Even while just walking around Omega, Illium, or the Citadel, the magic of the ME galaxy worked its way into my play experience. The overheard conversations, the little sidequests, all of them were consistent with the Codex, the lore; there was no doubt that the writers poured over every piece of detail from the first game in crafting the second. Anyone who plays this game can tell the people of Bioware put heart and soul into their creation. The universe of ME is a living, real, place.
Teammates are the focus of the game, this has been stated multiple times by Bioware. Not only are they important for the suicide mission, but these are the characters that are going to take up the majority of your time. If you are to spend 20, 30, or 40 plus hours with a group, you better be able to get along, or at least be able to like the individuals within that group, otherwise it’s going to be a very unpleasant time. The characters in ME2 are up to the challenge.
While I missed my old team from ME1, I grew to love my new crew as much as the original. It did take some time to adjust, and during my first playthrough I wasn’t as impressed. They are less talkative than the first crew, and that gives the initial impression that they aren’t as deep. After my second and third plays, I had an epiphany, and I realized what was being unsaid in ME2 were things I didn’t need to hear again. If you look at the characters from the perspective of a newcomer, then they seem to be leaving out quite a lot of backstory and information. No discussion about alien culture, explanation about the genophage, quarian life, etc. But when you put the game in perspective of it being a sequel, then it makes sense. ME2 is designed for you to start up immediately after completing ME1. Mass Effect 1’s job was to introduce these aliens and backgrounds, it fits that Mass Effect 2 wouldn’t spend time repeating what has already been said. After 5, 10, 20, times playing ME1 at 20, 25, 30 hours each time; you, both the player and Shepard, know about quarian culture, the genophage, turians, biotics, and are a comfortable citizen in the Mass Effect universe. Would you really want to pop in the sequel and have characters telling you everything all over again? This time, we learn about our squad by action. We don’t listen to Tali repeat stories about the Migrant Fleet, we go there and see it ourselves. We don’t hear stories about the Krogan Rebellions again, we go to Tuchanka and see the results. Mass Effect 1 was about explanations: “Here’s how things work/happened”, Mass Effect 2 is about interaction: “Now go there and see for yourself.”
The characters are humorous, thoughtful, and well-written. Mordin Solus is one of the greatest characters I’ve ever met in a videogame. Beyond that, the secondary characters have been expanded. Doctor Chakwas, Joker, the Normandy crew have much richer plots than in the first game. The Joker and EDI relationship was well done, and the gradual friendship that develops between the two feels natural. It was joy to be able to go around and interact with my crew, assist them, and grow to be friends. Additionaly, the secondary NPCs across the various mission worlds were as memorable, funny, and deep as those from the first game.
There are only two main complaints regarding the Mass Effect 2. The first is that I just wish there was more of this interaction. I’d gladly pay for a DLC pack that included further missions for the Normandy and her crewmates (*cough* Chakwasromance *cough*). The second complaint is with Kelly Chambers, not with her character itself, but with her function. While Kelly will inform you when the team is ready to discuss their loyalty missions, she doesn’t inform you when they are willing to talk normally. My hope is that Kelly would remove the hassle wandering around the Normandy between missions and checking on the crew to see if they had anything new to share. Unfortunately, you must still perform the “dialogue tour” every time.. It can be a bit annoying to keep track of all the crew in your head. “Ok, Garrus has 1 conversation, Miranda has 3, Tali is 1, Jacob’s another 3, Grunt is 2, Mordin is 2, etc.” Having Kelly be able to say “Miranda and Jacob look like they want to talk” would have been convient.
Negative
While Mass Effect 2 succeeds in crafting just as strong a group of individuals and setting as the first game, it stumbles badly with a critical piece of the story: the villain. A villain, or some other type of obstacle, is the foundation of a good story. It’s the whole point of why you are doing what you’re doing. Mass Effect 1 was blessed with not just one, but two strong villains: Saren and Sovereign. The collectors in ME2 are, sadly, never given enough story or screentime to develop some type of emotional response. The collectors do more to you in the first 10 minutes of the game than Saren or Sovereign ever came close to accomplishing: they kill you, slaughter your crew, and destroy the Normandy. Yet the ironic truth is that the chase for Saren felt more personal than getting revenge on the collectors.
During Mass Effect 1, Saren and Sovereign were the anchor for the plot, everything you did in ME1 involved hunting them down. Most importantly, they were just as much a character as your crewmates, you knew them, spoke with them, you had a personal connection with them, and that’s why it felt great when you finally hunted them down and killed them. The collectors have little character development, and what tiny story time they receive is unevenly paced and sporadic. All our knowledge about the collectors comes in one large glob during the main quest aboard the disabled collector ship. Outside of this quest, there’s no revelation, discussion, or development of the collectors. Every main quest in ME1 revealed more information about your villain, on Feros we learned about indoctrination, on Noveria we learned about the Mu Relay, on Virmire we discovered the krogan army, and the truth about Sovereign. In Mass Effect 2 all the writers focused on making the quests all about the teammates, which is a good thing in itself, but they forgot to tell us about our enemy. In ME2 it is possible to do all the main quest missions and only have “collector” mentioned in conversation once.
Furthermore, the information you do discover about the collectors only weakens their character. Instead of the collectors having some insidious motive or plot, it turns out they’re slaves: mindless, undead, unfeeling slaves. As Mordin himself says, “They’re worse than the geth”. They’re un-characters, they have no goal, personalities, or emotions. Another irony: the race so focused around biotechnology is even more bland and unnatural than the AI race. Saren was a compelling villain because he was a racist, egotistical, sadistic, ruthelless killer, and most importantly, he was responsible (both directly and indirectly) for everything that was going on. The collectors are puppets on strings, the blunt weapon of the true threat. You never speak nor interact directly with the villain in Mass Effect 2. Let me repeat that: you never speak nor interact directly with the villain in Mass Effect 2. He’s a faceless voice that appears during combat that repeats taunts towards you. That is a serious flaw in the story. As I said above, fighting Saren was emotionally engaging (*gag* I couldn’t think of a better term) because it was personal, the destruction of the collectors felt like a hollow victory because I just-didn’t-care. Overall, the writers did a good job building the setting and teammates, but they cut corners with developing the villain, and that is a character that needs to be as strong or stronger than the good guys.
It’s a real shame, because if Bioware had taken the Prothean-collector connection and run with it, they could have made something interesting. It’s one of the examples of what I mentioned in the introduction, Bioware started a good idea, but hit the brakes before it got up to full speed. If the collectors had retained their Prothean identity and culture, they would have become far more interesting characters. It would have presented an interesting choice to the player: do you punish them for siding with the Reapers out of desperation, when it was the only choice they had left? The Protheans were one of the greatest mysteries left over from the first game, yet we learned more from Vigil in the first game than we do from actualy MEETING them in the sequel. If the collector general had been a sympathetic character, a reflection of Shepard-trying to save his race any way he could-there could have been an interesting character dynamic between the two. But the general, like all the other collectors, is just a hollow shell, and all the story potential goes to waste.
Secondly, the plot suffered because it didn’t feel as though any progress was made towards our ultimate goal: destroying the Reapers. Yes, we destroyed their minions and interrupted the creation of a new Reaper, but in doing something to the actual Reaper fleet, not so much. I’m not saying I expected to take on the fleet in the second game, I knew we wouldn’t, but I was hoping that we would discover some new information, something that would be directly useful in Mass Effect 3. In game one, we found Vigil and learned about the Conduit, the Citadel, and how to prevent the invasion. After Mass Effect 2, we have nothing, no new info, no new weapon, no new hope. I felt like I had done a great deal to help humanity, but accomplished nothing great towards saving the galaxy.
The weak villains were also hurt by the main plot not feeling as important or dire as the first game. Here’s a test, say these phrases out loud: “I’m racing to stop the destruction of the galaxy which is going to happen any minute now!”
“I’m racing to stop human abductions which would eventually have led to the destruction of the galaxy a few years from now!”
Yeah, the second phrase doesn’t quite pack the same intensity of the first, does it?
I’m willing to give Bioware a little slack on this, though. Why? The reason is simple: Bioware made the first game too well. Think about the ending to Mass Effect 1, it could easily have passed for the ending of a major game trilogy. During the final hours of Mass Effect 1, we discovered the truth behind a race of seemingly invincible warship AIs known as Reapers, fought along the outside of a massive space station in the midst of a titanic intergalactic space battle, fighting against time to prevent the entire galaxy from being blown to pieces any second, killed the most elite special agent in the galaxy, decided the fate of the galactic government for centuries to come, then managed to defeat the Reaper in single combat just in the nick of time.
How the
HELL do you top that?
The problem is you can’t. The only ending that could be larger and more epic is the defeat of the entire Reaper fleet against the Milky Way galaxy, but Bioware needs to save that ending for the trilogy. Bioware made the mistake of putting all their eggs in one basket. The story has three villains: Saren, Sovereign, the Reapers, we already killed the first two. Sovereign and Vigil revealing the truth about the Reapers and the Citadel was Mass Effect’s equivalent of “Luke, I am your father”, and we got it in game one. The plot and enemy in Mass Effect 2 was doomed to be flimsy because they had nothing left. At least, they had nothing left they could use without ruining ME3.
Furthermore, the reaction, or should I say “inaction” of the key players from Mass Effect 1 didn’t make the story seem as important. In the first game, I was an elite Council special operative, I reported directly to the galaxy’s most important people. I was famous, I could throw my Spectre status around, impress people. Everyone was keeping tabs on me, checking that I was making progress. In Mass Effect 2, they’re reaction is more like “Huh, whatever, go away.” It was a real disappointment when I returned to the Citadel and the Council wouldn’t give me the time of day. True, the original Council will give you a holo-meeting, but I’m not even allowed on the Presidium anymore, or the honor of a face-to-face meeting. No matter what, I’m given my Spectre status and told to shut up. I didn’t feel like an important badass secret agent anymore, and as a result, it made my mission not feel as critical. If no one else in the galaxy cares, why should I?
Story – Overview and Recommendations
I will give Bioware credit for doing the best they could with what they had. A lot of the key elements are there, and they’re strong, the writers succeeded in the majority of what they set out to accomplish: strong setting, good characters, deep consistent lore, but the lack of a memorable villain and the lessened feeling of importance in the main story hold it back from its true potential. That being said, I still had fun with the game and enjoyed my time with it. I may not have been blown out of my seat like in the first game, but I keep coming back for more. The plot of ME2 is like a master portrait painted on onion paper, it’s thin and flimsy, but you still enjoy it.
My suggestion for Mass Effect 3 is for Bioware to keep doing what they’re doing, but give us another in-your-face nemesis. We need another Saren or Sovereign, someone to egg us on and give us a personal reason to bring them down. We need to speak to them, know them, feel some type of emotion towards them. Don’t hide the villain in the background, put them out center stage and let them steal the show. The best villains are those we love to hate.
Importing & ConsequencesWhile this is deeply related to the story, I decided to give this its own section. Not every player will be importing, and each import is unique, so I will be focusing on what I noticed in my imported characters, and how I felt about what I experienced.
Positive
Let me start by saying I think the importing system is a stroke of pure genius. Being able to craft a completely unique story across an entire trilogy is something long overdue in the video game world. While many series have continued a central story with the same characters, they have never escaped the bottlenecking that results from having to begin every new game from the same place. This caused multiple problems: it invalidated the whole purpose of including multiple endings and choices for each game by “canonizing” certain endings or outright ignoring them, or the writers were reduced to bizarre and illogical deus ex machina at the beginning of each new game to account for all the previous possibilities. Deus Ex: Invisible War (oddly appropriate, no?) and Bioshock 2 are perfect examples. The importing system fixes all these problems, it’s the godsend we’ve been waiting for. No more canonizing, no more ignoring, no more bottlenecking. You make a choice, that’s the choice you live with for the rest of the story. If it were up to me, I’d require every RPG to include this system by law.
There is a very large problem inherit with this new system: balancing player choice with maintaining a consistent story. The developer must allow the player to make serious choices so they don’t feel boxed in, yet the developer must also keep all these choices within boundaries. No writer can anticipate nor accommodate every possible outcome that a gamer can choose. Thus, the system will always tend to err on the side of limiting the player. A true master of the system can, however, create such a strong illusion of free will that the player doesn’t feel that they are being forced along a set path. The question is: did Bioware manage to pull this trick off with Mass Effect 2? The answer is mostly yes.
One of my fears going into Mass Effect 2 was that only a handful of choices from the first game would carry over, resulting in a minimal change in dialogue in very few scenarios. I am happy to report that almost everywhere I went, there was something unique to my character. What most impressed me was the sheer volume of choices that I was reminded of in some fashion in the game. Everything from the very large choices (Virmire) to small side-quests such as the arguing couple, the morality specific quest, Toombs and Dr. Wayne, Conrad Verner and more. Bioware didn’t cheapen out with rewarding you for playing the first game; I liked the fact that, in the sequel, there were these little pats on the back, as though I was being told “Thanks for playing, we’re glad you’re still here.” It was nice, and it made me feel good.
Negative
While I was very pleased with the import system, there were just a few flaws that are still bugging me. While the sequel does a good job of making it seem like “your” game, it still suffers from the inevitable bottlenecking at certain points. While these are handled well, I wish there could have been a smoother transition from one game into another.
The largest, and most annoying, problem is the bottleneck of how you dealt with the Council from the original game. After playing two characters, one which saved the council and one who did not, I was very sad to see that the decision just didn’t matter. In either situation, the Council doesn’t want you around, and shoves you out the door. That felt like a true kick in the crotch. The whole reason for being a Paragon and saving the Council was that it finally earned you the respect and support of the council. Seeing that turian ****** councilor admit he was wrong at the end of Mass Effect 1 and admire you for your sacrifice was the reward for sticking to the Paragon path. But the first line out of his mouth in the sequel rips all that out from under you. It’s like nothing happened, why was I given the choice in the first game if nothing is going to come out of it from the sequel? It felt like Bioware was telling me “Bad bad Paragon, you’re not supposed to like the Council or save them! Now let’s make them all jerks again so you won’t make that choice anymore.” Yes, individuals on the Citadel will react differently to you, but those people are just there for flavor, the reaction of the Council was the main goal of the choice. To use an analogy: imagine if you went into a ice cream shop and ordered a vanilla sundae with rainbow sprinkles, and a chocolate sundae with chocolate sprinkles, only to find they gave you two vanilla sundaes with different sprinkles. Yes, they’re not identical, but the part I wanted different is the same.
My second problem with the import system is how little the background and military history choices came into play. Besides the initial talk with Jacob in the shuttle, I can’t recall a single time my spacer, colonist, sole survivor, or ruthless statuses were mentioned. I received one email from my mother on my spacer character. An email, that’s it? If your child died, and then two years later suddenly reappeared, would all you do is send one email? Not a phone call, an attempt to meet in person? Just “You’re alive, that’s nice!” You’ve got a communications room, you called her in the first game, don’t you think she’d like to speak to you again? Additionally, the whole point of choosing the “Sole Survivor” background is that it’s the Cerberus background, the one that gives Shepard a direct link to the organization. But do you ever get to mention it to anyone? Nope. Why the hell not? You are, thankfully, able to get unique dialogue options if you completed the Cerberus quests from the first game, but when challenged by Miranda regarding the ethicality of Cerberus, I was never able to pull out the Akuze card, or the Kahoku card, or the Toombs card. Once again, why choose that background over another if I’m not going to see any unique rewards for it? There was an opportunity with the backgrounds for Bioware to build some interesting side conversations and unique situations, but they just didn’t take the chance. To put it bluntly, it came off as lazy writing. If you aren’t going to make the choices truly matter, don’t give them to us.
My third and final complaint with the import system was the overreliance on the email system. I don’t consider it as great a problem as the two above, but it did bug me just a little bit. For one, it only works one-way. Not a big deal, but some characters and plot continuations you receive would have been nice to be able to continue. The second problem is that some of the bigger and more interesting choices from the first game get “thrown away” via the system. The Toombs quest is an example: one email about how he’s angry at you for joining Cerberus and that’s it. Talitha contacted my Colonist character and said she was doing well, that was nice, but seeing her in person would have been better. Overall, I’m not really upset, but it was another example of how Bioware didn’t take the ball and run with it when they could have scored a touchdown.
Importing & Consequences – Overview and Recommendations
I think Bioware did a good job with pioneering this new system. I also think they could have taken it even further. There is a good sense of establishing uniqueness for each player’s character, but at the cost of some bottlenecking of important points and dropping some of the larger plots from the first game.
My recommendation for Mass Effect 3 is simple: don’t-hold-back. Make every choice result in a completely different outcome. Minimize overlapping and bottlenecking. Bring back more interaction with former characters, and don’t rely on the email system. Use the communicator room instead, let us see and talk to people, or at the very least make the email system two-way.
The deeper and more complex you build it, the better it is.
Space Exploration & SideworldsLet me begin by saying this: I liked the Mako and side worlds from Mass Effect 1. I know there were complaints about the driving (which I never understood, considering it drives exactly the same as the vehicles in Halo and everyone was drooling and raving over that game until it made me want to puke... wait, I’m getting off the subject), and the repetitive nature of the levels. I agreed with the criticisms that the interiors were ridiculously recycled, and that many quests were unsatisfying and bland. However, I still enjoyed the experience of finding mysterious worlds, landing, and being able to come across some interesting people. I was very worried that Bioware would cave into the mobs of short-sighted naysayers all crying out “It sucked, take it out!” I was relieved to find that world exploration remained for the sequel. Did Bioware improve all the flaws of space exploration from the first game? In some ways, yes; in others, no.
Positive
The first bit of good news is that one of the largest complaints from the first game has been completely addressed and improved: the repetitive levels. Each and every side world has a unique layout and design (THANK JEEBUS!). The variation is well done, with levels ranging from the inside of spaceships and space stations, to feral jungle worlds and caves. The enemies you meet are less recycled as well, you won’t run into the same group of mercenaries on every base. There are also some boss fights and unique encounters. Another improvement is that there are now entire plotlines for various worlds. Exploring a crash wreck on one planet will lead to another quest in the same cluster, which will open up a new world in a different cluster, and so forth.
Another aspect of space exploration that I enjoyed was the new Galaxy Map. Being able to pilot the ship across star clusters and within solar systems was much more immersive and entertaining than the point-and-click system of the first game. I know there are disagreements with the fuel system, but I like it. It made exploration feel like, well, exploration. Piloting your ship in the first game was just too bland, this was fun, and it made me look forward to going to the Galaxy Map to continue to my next objective.
Negative
While the unique layout of the individual planets has been massively improved, I was disappointed to see that the strongest element of space exploration from the first game had been removed: character interaction. Playing quests in the first game would get boring because you would land on several planets in a row and not meet anyone, it would be several hours of: land, fight, repeat. However, the monotony was broken by a few worlds where you met and interacted with individuals. These were the best side levels of the game, and what made space exploration worth the time investment. In the sequel, they are gone. Why? There is no dialogue on any of the side planets, anywhere. Remember some of the events and people from the first game: Elanos Haliat, Major Kyle, Helena Blake, Dr. Saleon, and the uniquie moral choices you had to face with them? Well, you don’t get anything like that in the sequel. The closest is a Bring Down the Sky based quest in which you must decide whether to detonate one of two missiles heading towards a human colony, but you don’t speak to the terrorists, nor any civilians, there’s no face to the crisis, and it makes it feel unimportant. That is a huge step backwards. Bioware fixed what was wrong with the space exploration, but they threw out what they got correct the first time! We didn’t want character interaction OR unique levels, we wanted character interaction AND unique levels. I was personally hoping that the side worlds would be on the level of the crew loyalty missions, such as Jacob’s loyalty mission: each world having a complete story from landing zone to ending with multiple dialogues and characters. Instead, the run-to-the-goal-and-hit-the-computer layout is returned. Yech.
The second disappointment with the system is the empty solar systems you’ll come across. I stated above that I enjoyed the new fuel system and Galaxy Map, but it was still annoying to spend time exploring a cluster to find that only one system had a quest world. It seemed completely pointless, I would enter a cluster with three solar systems and only the first would have anything to see. Why should I burn the fuel or time? Exploration costs money this time around, and if a player is willing to sacrifice the money they could have spent on a new weapon or armor piece to fly around, they shouldn’t be punished. The one-world-per-star rule from the first game should be put back into play with DLC.
Space Exploration & Sideworld – Overview and Recommendations
If I were to pick the one thing in Mass Effect 2 that I was most looking forward to, and that ultimately let me down the most, it would be this. This is the aspect of Mass Effect 1 that had the greatest untapped potential. For the sequel, Bioware fixed a great deal of problems, but left out what had been done properly. The Galaxy Map and Normandy control is much improved, and the new fuel system works well as both a functional game element and serving to add “realism” to exploration. The levels aren’t boring or repetitive anymore, but at the cost of any memorable characters and only one compelling moral choice.
My criticism may sound as though I consider it a complete failure, I want to make it clear that I don’t think that in any way. I still had fun and enjoyed exploring the galaxy, and I eagerly await the Hammerhead DLC. It’s just that this is the area I wanted to see the largest difference from ME1, and it ended up being still very similar. So no, I don’t hate it, and it wasn’t a game-breaking disappointment, but I still see a great deal of unused potential, and it didn’t meet my expectations. If Bioware were to release a DLC pack that included multiple planets on the level of Jacob or Tali’s loyalty missions, that alone would be enough for me to forgive all the game’s other faults and give ME2 a perfect score. Just in case someone important at Bioware ever actually sees this, I’m going to repeat that in all caps: If Bioware were to release a DLC pack that included multiple planets on the level of Jacob or Tali’s loyalty missions, that alone would be enough for me to forgive all the game’s other faults and give ME2 a perfect score.
Combat & Inventory SystemAlmost done folks, this is the last area I’ll be covering.
Positive
The combat in Mass Effect 2 is solid and fun. There really isn’t much else to say here. I felt that everything clicked and worked well. The new control setup is very functional and intuitive. I also approved of the focused weapon specialties of the teammates and Shepard. Having all weapons equipable on all characters in the first game was clunky and illogical, and ruined the balance between classes.
The inventory system mechanics are much better as well. The new menus are smooth, and all of the annoying item juggling is gone. You no longer have to pick a character, scroll down all the unfiltered weapons, find the one with the better ratings, equip it, move to the next character, scroll down the random list, go to quartermaster guy, sell them, notice he has a better weapon, buy it, go back to the lockers, pick the character, scroll down the list, go to the other characters and see if they can use the rifle you just had replaced, go back to quartermaster guy, sell it off, notice you forgot a modification slot, go through the buyback list, find the mod, go back to the lockers, scroll down the list and GAH, ENOUGH!
Negative
Let me restate what I said above: the new combat and inventory system work fine, there isn’t anything “wrong” with them. That being said, it could be argued that the systems were changed a tad bit too much.
The only thing I disliked with the new combat is the lack of powers for teammates. There are four slots on the power wheel, yet the most they can have is three? I’m not getting it. Worse, this causes some squadmates to be much more useful than others. Take Jacob, his setup of pull, incendiary ammo, and barrier just can’t compete with Jack’s pull, shockwave, and warp ammo. If he had one or two more powers, such as warp or throw, that Jack didn’t have, then there would be more need to be tactical in planning which team you took to which location. The Mass Effect 1 squadmates were specialized, true, but they had enough powers that overlapped with other teammates that they would always have one power that was useful in a situation. You could take any two people and you would be able to do something to the enemy, but picking the right team made it easier. In the sequel, there are some situations where the wrong person serves no purpose than being an extra gun and target, and Shepard ends up doing all the work. Hopefully, future DLC will fill out the power slots for our team.
The biggest point of debate is, no doubt, the ammo system. Was the old system fine? Yes. Is the new system fine? Yes. Which is better? That’s a matter of opinion, and each side has valid points. It was true that in the first game you could mod your weapons to give you essentially unlimited ammo. A Spectre X rifle with heat sinks could be fired for a minute straight with no overheating, making it very overpowered. On the other hand, the new system introduces annoyances of its own. The one I found myself bothered by the most was the fact you could now run out of ammo. Being caught in a boss fight with only 6 shots left in your pistol is frustrating, to say the least. There’s also the additional issue that the entire ammo system requires a retcon. I give the writers credit for trying to present a logical in-game explanation for the change instead of just ignoring it, but no matter what explanation they use, it’s a jarring shift in lore.
How would I have designed the system? I feel a hybridization of the old and new would have been the best compromise. Set a limit on how long a weapon could be fired continuously, but not allow the player to run out of ammo and be unable to fight back. Considering that most of the problems with combat in ME1 were with AI and squadmate control, I don’t feel they needed to gut the entire weapon system from head to tail when they fixed the larger issues. But, it didn’t bother me to the point of hating it or pounding my fists in anger. It works, it’s just debatable if it needed to be changed as much as it was.
The same could be said of the new inventory system. I’m happy that the old system was given the boot. The menu mechanics were rubbish (huh, channeling a bit of England all of a sudden), and that damn running back and forth and up the elevator and down the elevator again, uuuuughh. Like the ammo system, though, it’s debatable if everything that got removed needed to be removed. All the annoying crap is gone, so did the modification system and numerical values of weapons need to go too? I don’t think so. I think that the new menu system combined with the old stat-based and mod slot weapons would have been a match made in heaven. The new system is very clean, but there’s really no need to use it. Once you find an upgraded weapon, you’ll never downgrade your squad to the old weapon, so why have an inventory screen? If you could upgrade everyone to the new model and then give each squadmate a unique modification for their weapons, or if there were more weapons and each one had differing stats, that would also be more useful.
My biggest disagreement is the lack of armor for squadmates. I don’t so much about the aesthetics, although being able to customize the look of your team would be entertaining, but rather the combat bonuses from armor. The armor you can find for Shepard can be very useful, and helps you to compensate for class weaknesses, or boost class strengths. Why can’t I give my biotics some power-boosting gauntlets, or an increased accuracy eyepiece to my snipers? Better yet, why not some armor-boosting chestpiece to my more fragile characters, or a tech-boosting mod to my engineers? It could be argued that the research system serves this purpose, but I counter-argue that if Shepard can use the research enhancements and still benefit from armor bonuses, why aren’t the teammates important enough to be just as customizable?
Combat & Inventory – Overview and Recommendations
The combat and inventory systems in Mass Effect 2 are well designed and work well. The amount of change from the old systems is a point of debate, and both sides are correct in their criticisms. This issue is really a matter of personal preference. All I can advise is that for Mass Effect 3, Bioware should try to meet somewhere in the middle. I know it’s impossible to please everybody, but I think that a hybrid of old and new would be the most appealing system for largest group of poeple.
ConclusionWOWEEE, how the heck did this end up being 10 pages?!! I was just going to type this up in an afternoon, and now the weekend is over. I didn’t even cover everything I wanted to talk about! Well, I guess this just goes to show how much I love the Mass Effect universe and the game series. I’m willing to spend just as many hours writing about it as I do playing it. I suppose that’s the best compliment I can give Bioware: I genuinely care about what they’re doing and I want to see the best come out of their work.
Mass Effect 2 is very much a continuation of the original Mass Effect, for better or worse. What was strong in the first game is strong in the second, what was weak in the first is weak in the second. The majority of people who enjoyed the first will enjoy the sequel; the majority of those who did not enjoy the first will not enjoy the sequel. As a fan of the first game, I can say I am happy with my time with the second. The game is well designed, thoughtful, and has a true soul. It was entertaining, and I look forward to playing it for years to come.
The worst I can say about the game is that it’s not perfect when it could have been, which is not a terribly bad complaint. It almost makes the mark, but falls just shy due to a few poor design choices. For such an ambitious project, it’s a shame they didn’t pull out all the stops. But there were still those little irritating points where you could feel the designers holding back when they had a golden opportunity. If you were expecting the next Ocarina of Time, Deus Ex or *insert your favorite game of all time here*, then you will be somewhat disappointed. But if you can let those preconceptions go and appreciate it for what it is, then you’ll find you’ve played an outstanding work of art.
Thus, I conclude this review by telling Bioware that when it comes to ME3, go full steam ahead. Don’t second-guess yourselves and limit your potential, if it’s done well, people will buy it. Go three, four, five DVDs long if you need to, have a hundred different quests, worlds, and characters, just do MORE!!
Mass Effect 3 can go down in history as a legend, and I can’t wait to see if they pull it off.
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