Mass Effect 2

I've just finished Mass Effect 2. My game clocked in at 35 hours, which is slightly more than the 30 I spent on the prequel. I think my playstyle is fairly common; I'll finish all the sidequests I can find but I'm not averse to skim-reading through some of the more uneventful dialogue, and I'll draw the line at exercises in tedium like planet mining once I feel I've taken what pleasure I can from them.

My thoughts on Mass Effect 2 are largely positive. It's a better game than Mass Effect 1, with shooting and cover mechanics that do a passable job of emulating Gears of War. The graphics are better. The overall tone is grimmer and edgier -- everything screams "serious business," with goofy humour rare to non-existent and, gasp, even an occasional "fuck" here and there. Anti-heroes predominate; Jack is a darker character than any in BioWare games previous.

However, the story is weaker. The first game played like an entertaining space opera with lots of twists. This one presents a very straightforward scenario and plays out with few surprises. The critical path, that which progresses the main plot rather than companion stories, probably represents less than 25% of total content. In that sense, it's much more like Dragon Age. In fact, I'd go further and say it reminded me somewhat of Storm of Zehir. As one of the (apparent) few who appreciated the merits of that game, I'll explain why I enjoyed this approach.

After a fairly short introduction, the player is given the task of assembling a team of the galaxy's biggest bad asses for an assault on the Collectors, who are kidnapping humanity and turning them into genetic paste. The player is given a ship, a list of names, some credits, and is basically told to go and get the job done. The missions can be tackled in pretty much any order. The endgame goal is clear; you'll need the best the galaxy can offer to stand any chance of survival, and even then, it's unlikely all of you will make it out alive.

With this in mind, the whole game is structured towards resource-gathering, not only teammates but weapons, armor, upgrades and anything else that can boost your chances of survival. In addition to expanding the gameworld's lore, sidequests provide credits that can purchase new shields for your ship, additional rifle damage, a new helmet to grant a slight health boost -- in short, everything you do ties in to your eventual goal. BioWare made sure fans knew that Shepard could die in the final mission before the game was released, and this nagging concern lends a relevance to every minute the player spends building their team and resources.

And then you have the loyalty missions. Each companion has a backstory that resolves itself in one of several ways depending on how Shepard handles these quests. While the way these are presented is somewhat mechanical, they are generally interesting and the desire to keep each companion alive during the suicide mission forces the player to approach them carefully. Or not, depending on how much you like a particular companion.

What you have, then, is something of a sandbox that is nonetheless populated by an intriguing cast of characters and with an ever-present threat of failure spurring the exploration, gunplay and resource-gathering. To use a somewhat apt analogy, it's like going to back to one's childhood days and the urge to build a sandcastle so grand that it'll resist the eventual tide when it comes to wash it away.

As far as choice and consequence go, it doesn't get much better than this. Oh, you can argue that it all boils down to the same section of game playing out slightly differently depending on a bunch of variables. You'd be right. But given the impact of those choices and consequences -- companions that don't only fail to survive this game but the entire series, if you import your save to ME3 -- your decisions weigh heavily.

Of course, the praise above doesn't invalidate the very real criticisms about Mass Effect 2. Mining planets gets old fast. Most of the sidequests are threadbare. The variety of enemies and environments is not sufficient to support the game's length without monotony setting in. The game is too bloody easy by far, which makes a lot of the weapon and armour upgrades fairly worthless. I played a Soldier class, so maybe I got the easiest ride. I'm pretty good at popamole shooters.

Mass Effect 2 is probably a once in a generation RPG in the sense that this kind of structure is unlikely to be repeated to the same effect. Frankly, Mass Effect 1 laid the foundations for this, and even then Mass Effect 2 just about scrapes by without exceeding its welcome. I can't imagine Mass Effect 3 going a similar route. But it was fun and memorable. Also, the writing was mostly good. (Jacob and his quest were pretty flat, and I've ranted about Ashley elsewhere). Dragon Age fans, check out the script for an example of game dialogue that is written to be acted rather than read.

 

Did I mention I've returned to Dragon Age? It's only been 18 months or so. I'll finish it eventually. I'm kind of interested in the sequel for reasons I'll talk about later.