Mass Effect 2 is the second installment in a huge epic science fiction trilogy, it continues were Mass Effect 1 left off. This is even more story and dialog heavy than the first and is as long as the first. This is my review of Mass Effect PC version.
The Review:
Just like my Mass Effect game review I'll be using my scoring system again, this is how it works! I cover the game in 4 areas; Story, Sound, Graphics and Design, give those a score from 0.0 to 10.0 (just a geeky way of saying 0 to 100% really, but using floating point, *laughs*) and sum those two for the total score. My reviews are biased, subjective, and totally unprofessional. In other words this may be the most honest Mass Effect 2 review available. (I truly hope that statement is false, but these days, who really knows huh?) I will break this into 6 parts, a small introduction (plus some ranting on forums, DRM, cheating etc.), then cover the 4 score parts and then a afterword.
The Mass Effect Saga:
Mass Effect is one of the most epic games available. I avoided spoiling anything about ME1, but reviewing ME2 is twice as difficult so if I slip up, forgive me. If possible I'd suggest that you read the first novel as it is a sort of prequel, read it then play Mass Effect 1, then read the second novel, then the comic mini-series if possible (still not completed) and then finally play Mass Effect 2.
Forum whining and DRM wars:
Now, reading the BioWare support forums for Mass Effect may seem like a horror story, DRM issues, tech issues, activation headaches and much more. I read all those posts, expected the worst. And...no issues at all. Go figure. Maybe I just know how to take care of my PC, get rid of junk, I do not overclock my PC's components. My system is the same as when I played ME1, only now I play at 1920x1080 instead of 1680x1050 as I have a new monitor, and everything on max, and ME2 actually plays better than ME1 did, wow. I did not have a single crash or game stopping bug (well I got stuck in a ceiling but that only happen once), no DRM issue or activations issues, is the world still spinning? Note! Since I live in Norway and got the European edition, there might be some minor changes in the installation. Only thing that annoyed me was having to have the DVD in the drive when playing, I wish it had been needed during install only.
Preparations for the Dirty'ol cheater:
For ME1 I was prepared, I took a lot of time to read the forums posts, note down ini/config file tweaks and much more. So upon getting the Mass Effect PC box in my mail I did the following: Plop the DVD in, install, approve install (installed under Vista standard user account, what no UAC install/play issues? wow), wait, wait, wait. (why is installing/copying files to the hard drive always so slow?) Then I got all my stuff handy, a guide website ready in the browser, my notepad with console commands/dev cheats. (long story short, I hate dying, my focus is on the story exploration and atmosphere of a game, I still get a rush in action scenes, I do not need death as a incentive at all to "duck".) Now, that is just how I play however. So maybe just ignore all that cheat stuff, it seems other people get upset when you cheat in single player games, I got no clue why however. For ME2 it was almost the same, only the command console was more difficult to get working, to rescue was a modified config file. Common BioWare, don't make single player cheating on the PC so hard, command console is much more stable than say a trainer.
Sound: 9.9
The audio was almost perfect, as I play with headphones I'm particularly sensitive to directional sound. Most of the time it was spot on, better than ME1. There were still a few situations where directionality seemed off, but not in any way you would notice during normal play. Character dialog and comments could be slightly louder, it seems silly to keep voice at 100% while music and sfx set to 70%, the default was all at 100% I think? And still there was situations where NPC chatter was a little too low, maybe something was odd with the sound priority (was all spoken dialog classes as voice or where some classed as sfx maybe)? But again, not something you normally notice while playing.
In ME1 if you run and then come to a full stop...your feet can be heard running for another second or two, we're not talking echo here, but ghost shuffling feet coming to halt. It's like there's too much feet going on. In ME2 that seems to be fixed. I guess whomever fixed it changed the triggers or something as now it's possible to take a slight step without sound at all. But that's ok, we can pretend that is Shepard just being sneaky. *laughs*
Everything else was perfect. Lip syncing was good, voice acting was at the same or better level than ME1 and Knights of The Old Republic, The Longest Journey/Dreamfall and so on. I dare say that Mass Effect 2 has some the best voice acting of any game so far, with Dragon Age: Origins a close second, and ironically BioWare is the devs of that as well as many of the same voice actors. It seems to be like BioWare has a stable of Sci-Fi/Game VO all-stars on retainer or something. SFX, great. Music even better though I wish the Mass Effect aka Shepard theme could be more noticeable, but since ME2 is darker I guess that's ok.
Although not actually a sound thing, I did mention in my past review that the people heard in the background did not match what you saw. This time around you'll see several inaccessible areas with background people, which totally makes thing more real as a room that sounds crowded also looks crowded etc. I also wanted more incidental character dialog when poking your squadmates, instead they removed that ability and replaced it with a mix of points of interest (usually selectable scenery) that certain squadmates have something to say about, not to mention a whole lot more on ship dialog.
To round off the sound part. ME2 is very close to a perfect 10 on audio, my guess is that ME3 will get a perfect 10. Now if only all other story based games could use ME2 as a benchmark. Almost every game out there is horrible in comparison. Impressive, most impressive BioWare. I am truly looking forward to the sound of Mass Effect 3.
Graphics: 9.6
First of all, the texture "pop-in" is gone, the loading is improved, higher quality textures more details and so on, I was able to run the game with all maxed out at 1920x1080 a higher resolution that I did with ME1, better quality at less system load, well done devs.
The cheekbones need more polygons, this was a issue in ME1 but more so in ME2 due to the way the excellent cutscenes are shot. Cheekbones looks pointy at several angles, especially Shepard, and more so "my" Shepard", so more cheekbone polygons please. It almost looks like his cheek is made up of only 3 points, so if it was say 5-7 points that would solve it, it's especially from the side this is really bad.
The film grain feels improved, it's as if light level or z-level is taken into account, not using the film grain is not an option for me at least, despite good lighting the walls feel way to clean, the film grain avoids that, but I think calling it film grain is wrong it's more like a dirt filter. And I'm also wondering if maybe using a xor of light AND z level and using that as a modifier for the film grain shader might given even better results, something worth testing maybe?
Ok this time around it seems like 16x Anisotopic is working, still no Anti Alias though. (what is up with Unreal engine and AA?) I'm surprised that games aren't required to be made for 2xAA as minimum these days, I'm no faulting the devs here, it's just frustrating me as 1920x1080 with 2xAA would more or less hide most jaggies, and at 4xAA I doubt I'd notice them at all. Heck, games don't have to do AA, just some form of built in pixel smoothing or something, I don't care what method is used just get rid of those darn jaggies, you'd think that we'd have solved that efficiently over these last 10 years right? This isn't a BioWare issue, more like a engine issue I guess.
The game feels good now graphically, other than the minor things above everything else seems to have taken a step up even, it's far too easy to just take the same "stuff" and re-use it, BioWare seems to have at least looked over everything they re-used and enhanced or improved it where possible, so unlike ither sequel games out there it does not feel dated despite using the same (albeit tweaked) engine. And is it just me or does Tali look hotter than I remember her? *laughs*
And despite me disliking Bink video used in games, once again just like in ME, BioWare has managed to pull it off smoothly (or is it Demiurge as they did the ME1 port I assume they are doing the ME2 port as well?), I normally hate Bink video cutscenes as they always run buggy on all games I try for some reason, and I prefer fully game engine cutscenes for consistency anyway. But in this case BioWare manage to make it run flawless, not a single Bink stutter or audio/video sync issue. As I said in my ME review, you guys really need to make a small How-To guide for some of the other game devs out there on how you pulled that one off. Then again that would be helping the competition so maybe not so smart! *laughs*
Story: 9.8
Like I said last time for ME1, I really wish that character development did not mainly take place on the ship. I remember in KoTOR the character parts unfolded a lot "in the field" as well. But in ME not so. Yes there was the elevator the odd Mako vehicle rides, but not being able to initiate dialog when walking around felt odd in a way. I understand that chatting during a mission would be out of place. But walking around the Citadel the 2nd main location besides your ship and not being able to converse with your fellow travelers just seemed odd and stuck out for me. And it really dragged the score down due to this. This time the threw in a whole lot more shipboard dialog, so the majority of character development takes place on the ship which I kind of like as it's more private that way. You can't talk to your squadmates at all when out on missions or exploring, but instead they got more scenery selectables that trigger character specific comments, some even tell small stories, there is also more character dialog during missions now that may deepen a character even more.
In fact that seems to be the main focus on ME2, the characters. If you romanced Liara or Ashley or if female Shepard, Kaidan. Those characters will take a major backseat, I doubt this is a mistake but intentional and I can only assume the spotlight will be back on them in ME3, at least the devs mentioned that cheating during ME2 will have repercussions in ME3. Which is why I ended up playing through Mass Effect 1 without a romance at all, just so I could romance Tali in Mass Effect 2. I must say that Tali is perhaps the best written character, her relationship with Shepard seems to evolve very natural unlike some of the others. (I guess a female Shepard has Garrus though)
And I truly hope that Tali and Shepard's ME3 ending is just as good as say Shepard and Liara's ME3. Would be amusing with a Human/Quarian hybrid. "Tali (holding a bundle in her arms while standing infront of a window looking into space): Look Shepard, your eyes. (strokes the cheek of the child, we can't see the face or any features just the bundle). Shepard: And your legs. Tali: *laughs*" Then again, there is the potential of other characters, Samara and Shepard would be interesting, though she does turn you down in ME2 if you try (two different responses possible too).
Which brings me to the writing, damn there is a lot of alternate dialog choices and responses. Unfortunately things seem kind of messy judging by peoples responses around the net. Like Shamus Young's plot review of Mass Effect 2, I pretty much disagree with him on all points. Although I know he's played ME1 he still speaks as if he was someone who picked up ME2 only without playing ME1 first, which is kinda the issue here. Another issue is the 2 years+ story-wise between ME1/the intro of ME2 and Shepard waking up, it seems many players have as much issue remembering that 2 years have passed just as Shepard might forget.
I just really hope that ME3 will make sure that things that did not make sense in ME1 and ME2 suddenly make sense in the overall story. I hope the Rachni Queen return as an ally in ME3. Legion is damn impressive character hope to see more on him in ME3. tali is a sweetheart and the performance of the actress is stellar, if there was a nomination I'd nominate Tali/the actress for best supporting character/actress.
I dare say that if Mass Effect 3 is as good as or better than Mass Effect 2, then the Mass Effect Trilogy easily rivals the classic Star Wars Trilogy. Mass Effect is truly the most epic space opera saga of the last couple of decades.
Design: 9.7
As this part is also partly covered by those above I will focus on the larger picture here. anything from the DVD box to savefile location to the placement of a tree in the game. Kidding, those where just examples and partly a joke. The DVD box is "meh" it does what it's supposed to do and that's fine. Money saved if you ask me. What's on the DVD itself is much more important, in other words the game.
ME1 could have gotten a perfect ten here if not for a few things. The ship was great, but there was not that much interaction with the "other" crew, those nameless ones that just "stare" at you on the ship. Just some stock "Hi commander" would have been enough plus a entry in the codex (in-game journal/guide to the universe for those curious and it's brilliant) just a paragraph each on those people would be nice. And boy did they fix that, you can talk a lot more with key crew, heck a few of them even have mini quests. You can also overhear background conversations about you your team or the missions/plot. And there are now bathrooms, I never missed that in ME1 but it's cool they are there, just don't go into the ladies room, the Ship AI is keeping an eye on you.
It is somewhat silly that the commander of the ship is not "allowed" access to parts of his ship from the start, the commander should have been able to fully explore the ship at once instead of gradually unlocking doors, so what if a room is empty with nobody there? So I hope in ME3 the ship is fully open. Would also be nice if the commander knocked or something before entering a room *laughs*.
A shame that you could not drag Legion around everywhere, well actually you can you probably do not want to due to, well I'm not gonna spoil that. In my opinion the end plot should have advanced only when all loyalty quests have been completed.
I'm impressed by the amount of messages and characters you run into from ME1. Carrying a save game over from ME1 to ME2, and ME2 to ME3 must be a logistics nightmare, but BioWare seems to have magic powers.
Now that BioWare has finished Mass Effect 2 they are getting really got a the game engine, and shown they are able to push it further, and I assume they will push it a bit more in ME3. They hopefully have enough time to deal with some of the things pointed out in this review, in which case I'm sure ME2 will get a full ten on design and possibly a full ten in the individual areas as well. I'm suspecting a possible February 2011 release, if not then an early fall 2011, but we'll see. Let's hope BioWare don't run into time issues like Valve did. A 1 year cycle between games should be doable between ME 2 and ME3 since the same game engine with improvements is being used, voice actors directors, artists and so on knows the Mass Effect world pretty well too now.
One major issue that I really hope they fix, and that is the dialog/cutscene skip key, It should not be the same as dialog select key, because it is far too easy to accidentally select dialog when skipping a cutscene or previous dialog, ESC key for skipping dialog and cutscenes would work fine. As it is now space act as both select and skip, gah! At minimum make the two configurable.
Total Score: 9.8
This is rare for me, if I was to clarify to you if this is a good or bad score. Let me just say that I suspect if I where to review Knights of The Old Republic, I would probably only give that a 9.0 which pains my heart as I'm a oldschool Star Wars fan. But that ain't bad either, heck I'd probably give Half-Life 2 a 8.0 or something. So in my book a 9.8 is pretty damn good, if not one of the best games I've played...but?
But, there is still room for improvement. I pointed out a few issues or annoyances, hopefully BioWare will address most or luckily all of those. And I just maybe, may have to give Mass Effect 3 a perfect ten total. I truly hope so, because a perfect 10 game in my book, means a game where I can find no flaws with at all. And seeing what I've seen and experienced in this first installment, BioWare may just pull that magic trick off in my lifetime with the next installment, now that is a mass effect in and of itself right there.
Roger "Rescator" Hågensen, EmSai.net |
