Mass Effect 2: Effective Improvement

To sum up my thoughts of the first game in this series would be to call it a blithering pile of doggie doo would probably be giving it far too much praise. The game had issues ranging from the AI to an unholy inventory system, with a bad overall plot that wasn't fully realized and characters that I couldn't give two shits about and couldn't even remember half their names.

Thankfully Mass Effect 2 improves in most of these areas but still retains some glaring flaws keeping shy of being a decent RPG. If there's one thing I have learned about playing Bioware games it's that I find I like them only when reflecting on the characters in the game. It seems to me that the more I like the characters in a Bioware game the more I can overlook issues I have with it, and enjoy my time with the game. This is true of Knights of the Old Republic 1, but not 2, Dragon Age 1, but not 2, and in this case Mass Effect 2, but not 1. Bioware games as I have noted all have pretty lame overall plots and setups but relatively great characterization depending on the game.

With that said, let's dig into Mass Effect 2.

Story:

The story of Mass Effect 2 is you are Commander Sheppard...and you just died! But then you are brought back together by Cerberus who apparently was some evil doing organization in the first game that I must have completely ignored because I really didn't recognize them here...But your main character knows them and doesn't trust them one bit! You meet up with the "Illusive Man" who might as well be the cigarette smoking man from X-Files, or the G-Man from Half Life. We never learn one goddamn thing about him, who's side he's on, how he's so well informed, or...well...anything at all and that becomes a MAJOR disappointment for me at the end of the game.

Needless to say the Illusive Man is your tour guide giving you all the vital info you need to get to your next mission. Bioware's formula if you haven't already been privy to it yet is go here, here and here, collecting this, that, and the other thing until we have them all to finish the final level. In both Mass Effect 1 and 2 that "collection" of things are people and spells out your entire mission list for the game. That's right, your main mission in this game is to recruit a crew...

In a good game I'd expect the crew to join as the plot develops, but nope, not in the Mass Effect series! Instead of actually completing important objectives, learning about the enemy, and all the while gaining support for your cause along the way in some natural story arcing pace, Mass Effect's formula is thus: create characters, give them wacky back-stories and call it a day. It becomes so tirelessly formulaic that it becomes really hard to care about the overall goal of the game which you learn is to stop the "Collectors," which is a mysterious alien race who has been capturing Humans.

Just as in the first game you are constantly told about the imminent threat of the Reapers and how dangerous they are and you never actually fight any, in Mass Effect 2 you also hardly ever fight any of the Collectors. Thankfully, at least you do fight them once and a while but the larger threat, the Reapers, make ZERO appearances in this game. All the while you are given hints that the Illusive Man is the real danger, but he never presents himself as evil in the game despite our heroes assertions. Once again I'm playing a game without a real antagonist and it bugs the shit out of me.

So the "story" boils down to go here, recruit this guy, and then solve some problem he's having. Those are the main missions, and takes up 90% of the game. The rest is just the last level where you take out the Collectors. The entire mission of getting a crew then killing off what is essentially the B team of evil all feels like it should have been done with as a mid-point to the game...not the whole damn game! I mean you just don't care enough about the "Collectors," they aren't that threatening, and really never play out as final boss material.

It's just so weird that with TWO games now telling us again and again how badass and evil the Reapers are and to never really have us confront them is entirely too annoying and pathetic. It's like if I played Final Fantasy 7 and never once fought Sephiroth, barely heard about him or saw him, then was told at the end of the game that he was so stupid evil he will wreck your face in Final Fantasy 7-3 coming out in 8 years...oh and never shows up at all in Final Fantasy 7-2. I just can't understand a series where it's central villains are played down SO much and yet remain the topic of imminent threat to our heroes. Oh, but hilariously the galaxy doesn't seem to give a shit about the Reapers because there is no evidence of Sovereign's attack in the first game which was so ridiculous I had to leave my chair and punch a defenseless baby sea cow. I mean honestly! The entire Citadel ran in panic of it, it blew up all sorts of shit, and has it's own goddamn action figure for sale in a local market. YES YOU CAN BUY something called Sovereign in the game, but OH the Council denies Reaper existence. What a load of shit.

All I see these two games as is super filler. Stuff we don't need to see or hear about, it's padding. Bioware wants this series to be a trilogy, so they avoid a climactic battle with the villains they set up until the final game just so they can have three games. This just proves a severe lack of creativity. There's no reason we couldn't fight the Reapers in the first two games, or learn more about them, or give a shit. Plenty of good trilogies allow the main villains to play a central role in the conflict throughout. It seems to me like Bioware avoids it because they are horrible writers and think that if a conflict occurs with the Reapers at ALL then it has to be the last one too. I mean, how can I, an audience member care in any way about the Reapers as a threat when I am told essentially nothing about them? Well I can't...and they had TWO FUCKING GAMES to tell me about them!

Graphics:

This game is jaw dropping beautiful. Great set pieces, textures, ambiance, everything is really well done. Character models are really neat too. I was on the PC version so I do have a few complaints. Firstly, you are given nearly no customization options which is terrible. I couldn't set the anti ailising at all so I had to deal with jaggies until I told nividia to override the game and force AA in. So happy nividia lets me bitch slap games that won't let me customize.

My other issue is character reactions. This is more of a programming compromise Bioware made than graphics but hear me out. Every conversation you have with anyone in the game plays out generally exactly the same way. You both stand and get over the shoulder shots, then the other character with step back a bit, then in the next dialogue sequence he'll pace back and forth. Granted this doesn't happen with sitting characters or ones in a small room but anywhere else in the game you will see this crap over and over again. It bothers me that different races and species will pace exactly the same as all the others! They would have been better served to have species act differently during conversation than other species. Reminds me of Star Ocean 3 where Cliff would ALWAYS pound his fist into his hand regardless of what he was talking about. He could be like "Let's go!" *fist pound* or "My name is Cliff" *fist pound* or "I like cheese" *fist pound* It just comes off as unnatural and irritating.

Gameplay:

Ok, here is where I saw a ton of improvement. Enough to make me actually enjoy the game. First and foremost the inventory system is gone, literally. They scrapped the idea of having items at all in this game which is fine because clearly they couldn't get it right in the first one. No more having to sift through unsorted guns, ammo, and upgrades for hours on end ensuring you have the best shit equipped, now you have universal upgrades, ammo is used as a sort of bio power or selectable on the fly, and there is nothing really to keep track of. Sure, some may be annoyed that your customization options are a bit limited now and that may be true but honestly you only lose a SMALL amount of customization for a vastly improved and streamlined inventory, ie none at all. I found it very refreshing to play an RPG where I didn't have to eyestrain at every little tiny stupid fucking item. It made me very happy.

Gunplay is improved and at the same time confusing plot-wise. The game has a better cover system in general, the AI is greatly improved on both sides, and being able to select the type of bullets you want on the fly is a godsend. Everything here I feel was an improvement. I would only like to see a bit more command options for your allies. Selecting the AI to use a bio power for instance I lament that I also cannot select the target they use it on. Often they will hit nothing at all, or not the enemy I want them to hit. It's a small complaint, but an odd omission from the team that gave us KoToR which let us choose what enemies we wanted to hit with all AI allies.

What I do NOT understand about the guns in this game is why they have bullets. This is set in the future of ME1 where there was no ammo and guns shot forever with a cool down. Here...you run out of ammo? How is that an improvement? Like...what gunsmith two years after ME1 decided infinite ammo was worse than finite ammo? It makes NO sense!!!

I do not miss the lack of a rover to traverse planets either. What a pain in the ASS that was. It was fun at first, but after doing just that for 20 hours I was ready to kill myself. Mass Effect 2 instead just lets you scan planets for minerals, which is also really boring but far quicker. Personally, I would just say screw all of that and allow the player to buy the needed materials, or do something fun like manage a workforce dedicated to mining those minerals and you could decide if you want slaves or an actual paid team. It would be simplistic and not overbearing in any way. Also, it would be totally non-intrusive as you would get minerals automatically on a periodic basis. And those periods can be controlled by the player if you put more of your resources into your staff you get more minerals sooner, and so on. So instead of gambling your time with needless mini games you actually invest your money into it giving it a much more strategic and satisfactory feel.

But I digress...

The game itself becomes very formulaic even by Bioware standards. You get essentially 2 missions per character and you don't have to do both. One mission you save the character, or recruit them, the other mission you complete some objective or tie a loose end they want tied. Every mission is exactly the same though. You go to a place with long hallways and kill shit until you get to the end. Sure some have mild creativity peppered in like solving a murder, or luring out an assassin, but none of that is ever fully realized. But that's it, that's all your missions.

Characters:

I really enjoyed the characters of Mass Effect 2 over 1 by a longshot. They were much more interesting this time around. And yeah there were a few duds, but mostly I cared more for them here than anyone in the first game. My favorite character was probably Mordin followed by Jack. Mordin was more interesting than all of ME1's characters combined. I just really loved how he was behind the genophage, and the justification of doing it. The political comparisons can be made today easily. How our country (USA) decided to go into Iraq to prevent war, the idea of attack them now before they attack you later mentality despite Iraq never being an imminent threat of any kind. Much like the Krogan not posing a threat to the galaxy but they decided to play god and lower Krogan fertility to control their population thus removing their perceived "threat." While Mordin's choice was more scientific than ours it still raises the same questions and brings up wonderful points and things to ponder.

There were plenty of other characters in this game with similar interesting plots, but I don't need to go into them. It's just nice that more care and attention went into thinking about these characters than the ones from the last game who felt way more stereotypical and boring than anything else.

Music:

This was another large improvement. Mass Effect 2 had some pretty dramatic moments where a good score was needed and the music came through here. ME1's music was often lacking, or just not there as the majority of that game was very slow and plodding with nothing going on. ME2 has moments of danger with large set pieces crumbling and many things going on which helped allow for more music.

Conclusion:

Mass Effect 2 had many much needed improvements over the first game but it was still heavily lacking in story and pacing. This is something I still feel western developers are struggling with in gaming. I mean how can you justify having TWO games where your entire goal is to assemble a team and then have the final conflict be against something that isn't perceived as the main enemy? I just don't get it. If Mass Effect 3 is entirely about collecting various characters to do your bidding as the Normandy slave driver Commander Sheppard then I'm going to be pissed! He is a well established mother fucker and there is NO reason he has to do his own casting calls every fucking game. I just don't find that to be compelling use of gameplay, I really don't.

In a good RPG you have your cast of characters early on and you are always in pursuit of your overall goal with your allies in a similar mindset. With Mass Effect the main goal is totally ditched in favor of gathering allies and solving their completely unrelated issues. Hell, basically NONE of the cast on the Normandy could give two shits about the Collectors or stopping them. Grunt just wants a good fight, Mordin wants to study them, Jack owes Sheppard a favor, Tali owes Sheppard a favor, Samara...owes Sheppard a favor, and Thane gets contracted. The two Cerberus members and Legion are the only characters with an honest to god reason to go after the Collectors and the Reapers. It makes me believe more and more that all Bioware does is sit in a room and come up with characters to put in their games and main story be damned.

I will say this though, the ability to kill off or save your squad is greatly improved in this game. The choices you get endgame are FAR greater than anything ME1 gave you and your choices there really do feel like a "Mass Effect" will occur from what you did. I applaud that.

*ME2 is like stepping in dog shit only to discover it was just a clump of mud, so it's not that bad after all*