Author Topic: Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2  (Read 2642 times)

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Offline Paul M (OP)

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Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2
« on: February 23, 2010, 07:27:54 AM »
Well it seems appropriate to give a bit of a blurb on these two games here, especially since the main reason I've not made much progress in my Aurora game is ME2.

Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are "action" RPG's by Bioware, a company from the capital city of the province of Alberta where I lived while attending the University of Alberta there.  They make the RPGs I enjoy playing and I own most of their games but I have a love hate relationship with some aspects of the company.  I play both games on my XBox 360, and they are in fact the only games for the Xbox 360 I own as no other one I have seen interests me.  I'm an old foggie with no twitch reflexes and my console skills pre-ME were non-existent.  I also played it on a SDTV.

Mass Effect I played through 5 times for a total of about 350 hours (avg 70 hours per play through).  I played through the first 2 games (Male Soldier, Female Infiltrator) on Vetran (the highest difficulty you can start on) and then 3 games (Male Adept, Female Sentinal, Male Engineer) on Hardcore (I liked this difficulty level more than Vetran).  I never tried "Insanity" since I think combat in any RPG ends up being "long and tedious" and ME is no exception.  Insanity only makes "long and tedious" into "longer and more tedious" so far as I could see.  I died 6 times in the first encounter in the training section of the game the first time I played.  I took me till try 3 before I even figured out how to shoot and what to shoot at.  But I am a console "newb."

The story is that this Renegade SPECTRE has teamed up with the Geth, a race of sentient machines, to destroy human colonies.  You as Lt. Commander (insert name) Shepard, an alliance special forces commando, are out to stop this.  To do that first you must save the human colony of Eden Prime, followed that by convincing the Council to make you a SPECTRE and to let you attempt to foil Saren's plan.  The Council is made up of 3 races that have had space flight for over a thousand years (Turian, Asari and Salarian) and they view Humanity as pushy Johny come lately's.  To accomplish this you have to visit planets, recruit your team, explore planets uncharted and known and basically solve a mystery that is quite old.  As you do this you make a variety of decisions both major and minor, meet interesting characters you can interact with in a large number of ways and acquire skill at driving the Mako, an APC.

I'll leave the plot at that.

Technical things are for the Xbox great.  No bugs of note showed up in my play.  With a proper SCART cable the game looks absolutely stunning visually.  I really wished for some way to take screen shots.  There are a few issues with "pop-in" but I almost never experienced them since I walked rather than ran.  If you walk the game has enough time to seamless load and the pop-in is only apparent on sudden transitions.  The music is incredible...there was some that nearly made me cry when taken in conjunction with the events of the story.  There are mini-games but they involve punching the buttons of the controller in sequences and luckily for me there is a bug in the game where it would fixated on the first one of these games you play...so if you play an easy game all the other ones are easy.  Good as my controller skills were terrible, so I actively took advantage.  You need someone with hacking or electronics skill with you in the party to do this though.  People complained that the elevator rides (especially in the Normandy) were tedious but I never got so upset about them...usually you heard news reports, and had some intersquad banter to keep you entertained.

Driving the Mako was a bit of a pain but eventually you work out how to do this and it become quite enjoyable.  I think most peoples issues with the Mako had to do with not being able to read a Topo map.  If you planned a sensible route not only was the driving much easier but you found all the neat minor encounters.

Game Play is a mix of RPG elements and 3rd person shooter elements.  The RPG elements were intended to be "cinematic" and "emotion invoking" and the game succeeds on both counts.  With film grain on it is like watching a film, the acting by the digital actors (including emotions on faces and such) was often better than some live actors manage.  I laughed, I cried, I had my hair stand up...you can't help but feel for the people in the game.  The game drags you through highs and lows, good times and bad.  As such for me it succeeds extremely well as an RPG.  The more mechanics oriented aspects of the system.  You have levels, and character classes.  After a particular mission you can pick a speciality for your primary "class" skill line.  Soldiers can elect to become commandos or stormtroopers, gaining more damage or increased hitpoints basically.  You don't have statistics which only makes sense since basically there is no need for it.  You have a choice of skills with each class, often you have to have so many points invested in one skill to unlock another one.  You get a fixed (and over time decreasing) number of skill points per level.  There are two skills for NPC interaction: charm and intimidate.   These skills get bonus points based on events in the game, and the maximum value you can have in them is tied to you "paragon-renegade" score.  I considered these valuable skills and usually had both maxed out even at the expense of other more "combat" oriented skills.  Paragon and Renegade tracks you moral stance of the actions you take.  There is a substantial miss-understanding of them.  Paragon, charm and paragon choices (any choice made on the top of the wheel) are basically choices involving actions intending to be group building.  Renegade, intimidate, renegade choices (and choice made on the bottom of the wheel) tend to be a lot more difficult to catorgize: they range from extreme, to tough love, to expedient, to (in my view) absurd.  But it is not good or evil, and all of my characters had some renegade since it often gave a more satisfying result.  It is not in my view "bad ass" it is just that sometime in leadership you need to be supportive and empathic and sometimes you need to kick the person in the butt.  Paragon is the supportive empathic approach and Renegade is the kick in the butt approach...which is the best is a matter of the situation.  You can gain both so it is not a KotOR like Light Side-Dark Side meter.  Inventory is a mess, there are dozens of weapons, mods, armour, armour mods, gernade mods, and after the mid part of the game it becomes Monty Haul in the extreme, money begins to have no value.  As it turns out it doesn't matter that much what amour or weapons you or your squad mates use...you will use the SPECTRE weapons I suspect as they are just that much better.  The RPG mechanics are so so and frankly I have played so many RPGs over the 30+ years I've been playing them I barely note them.  They work, they have issues but then so does every system.  It is important to remember that the mechanics determine if you hit or miss so aiming is more target selection, bur frankly you don't miss very often even with relatively low levels of gun skill.

The combat mechanics are 3rd Person shooter based.  Largely "run and gun" with cover mechanics.  I can't hit anything while moving except by dint of the combat mechanics being to hit based and certainly can not hit a moving target while I am moving.  So combat was often "exciting" for me.  Each character class is different so each play through you find that the relative difficulty of a particular encounter will vary.  The biggest issue is that if you tell your squad to go somewhere (there are 2 characters you bring with you) they both go there.  This means your heavily armoured Marine and the lightly armoured scientist end up drawing fire...not so good for the scientist.  Powers are interesting.  Biotics is gravity manipulation and for the most part is realistic:  you can throw people, you can levitate people, you can create a singularity and the people are trapped orbiting it, you can create oscillatory gravity and rip stuff appart, etc.  Engineering skills involve hacking, electronics overloads, weapon disruption etc.  Combat skills give you increased toughness, better chances to kill with a sniper shot etc.  It all works well together I think.  The AI is mostly brain dead but the battles often devolve into swirling battles of manuever which I found very hard to do.  The other thing is that there exists things which can no matter what level you are, what armour you have, or anything else...can one shot you.  So a moments lack of situational awareness can result in death.  Most of them you learn to avoid or deal with but well accidents happen.

The bad:  there isn't that much actually.  Being one shotted was the worst, as it often dragged you out of an emotionally charged section of game play.  The monty haul nature of the game making credits meaning-less.  Some of the story elements had aspects that for me personally I felt should have resulted in a "game over" scene since you should be cashiered and charged with war crimes.  I found the fact you were the captain of the Normandy although sensible from a game design point of view absurd when you consider that you are special forces commando and the attempts by Bioware to make this seem sensible fell flat.  There is a lot of wailing and nashing of teeth by people over things which aren't that important so far as I can tell.

The details to the game are astounding.  The codex reads like a hard sci-fi novel, the descriptions of the ship systems are very close to Attack Vector Tactical.  For me this was a high point.  Even biotics is sensible.  The details of the universe are astounding.  It is hard not to get into the game from that perspective.

The ending edged out KotOR for best video game RPG ending ever.  Don't...don't take the renegade option...that was gut wrenching...seeing hope die like that...gut wrenching.  Lance Heinrickson as Adm Hackett in the voice overs at the end were enough to make my hair stand up and tears well up.  It is worth pointing out that degree of coherence to the codex is rather small due to the fact that the cinematics people made the thing up and then the designers saw it and said "Err guys...that isn't how it works in the game world."  To which the cinematics people replied..."Do you know how much we have to do...so do you want us to put the project behind or can you live with this?"  Well apparently they could.

I am a huge fan of Mass Effect and was initially bouncing when I heard the second part of the trilogy was about to come out.  Then details were revealed and I was appalled.  I gave up on the game as it appeared that every single thing I liked was about to be improved out of the game.  Plus I have no twitch skills and going to a more or less shooter based combat system I figured screwed me to hell and gone.  Plus my interest in shooting the left pair of testicles off a krogan was non-existent.

I left in my pre-order and when the game showed up, expecting the worst I fired it up.  I have to admit I was astounded by how good the game is.  The combat system is in my view not better but it is different.  So you can like one or the other but only really based on personal preference.

The story picks up 2 months after the first one.  The Normandy is attacked and destroyed, you die.  You wake up feeling much better 2 years later.  You are then told human colonies are vanishing and are set up with a ship to go investigate.  You gather a team and go on a suicide mission to stop the kidnapping of human colonists.  You can die on that mission, your team can die on that mission but really neither outcome is random and for the most part avoidable.

The RPG system is mostly the same.  The cinematic feel is improved by "interrupts" these allow you to do things...either paragon or renegade in reaction to the NPC.  The one they show is the stupidest one in the game where you kick a prisoner through a window but frankly the others are better and I've never chosen one without feeling it was appropriate.  The same character classes exist but they have been changed somewhat to incorporate a different skill progression.  I don't view it as "dumb-ing down" but others do.  It is like complaining that Traveller isn't an RPG as far as I can see.  Also they employ a global cooldown rather than an individual cool down but again I don't see it as an issue.  Anyway the one thing that isn't so obvious is that increasing levels don't increase your health.  You have to get upgrades (either find or buy) to do that.  Inventory management is reduced due to replacing most of the inventory with a much more limited subset so you will have a version of an assault rifle but except for one change will carry the same weapon the whole game.  Your armour is customizable by buying upgraded parts rather than changing the whole set.  Overall it is basically the ME system with a few streamlining elements added to accommodate changes in the combat system.  I have played too many RGPs to get excited (or not) about the mechanics but clearly there was as one character says "political smegstorm" over it...I even contributed to it when the changes were first proposed but frankly I don't think it makes the game any less an RPG.

The combat system was the most changed.  It is basically a cover based 3rd person shooter.  What you aim at you hit based on your finger skills.  There are head shots, and leg shots and arm shots etc.  At the end of the day I prefer it...not because it is better, I frankly think it is different but not improved...but because I can do it better.  Run and gun I haven't the controller skills for, moving tactically and using cover I can do much easier.  The one thing that is a negative is the addition of "heat sinks" which are thinly veiled ammo clips.  They violate the lore, and frankly add nothing to the combat since you find lots of spare clips, it is just a matter of policing the battle site after most battles.  Only  a very long battle might leave you with problems.  The other thing is they add the BFG...heavy weapons.  I found myself using the missile launcher all the time.  But I have the achievement for a kill with each weapon...the nuke gun is a classic BFG and renders a lot of battles over with in a single shot.  I could live with out either of these two changes but the missile launcher is useful without being offensive.  Basically you can be rapid about one system or the other based entirely on personal preference or you can just accept it is changed, it is different and it works with issues...which describes ME's combat system.  This time, however, you can individually order your squadies around which helps somewhat.

I have done 2 playthroughs and am on my third (just go through the list in order for ME), including the difficulty levels.  Some of the changes to the combat system impact the character class.  An adept still controls the battlefield but...first you have to scrub off shields and/or armour.  This means gun play is mandatory...but once their defenses are down you can go full on biotic.  Singularity is impressive in this respect.  It is almost sickening how effective it gets.  One shots are gone, but death is a constant companion due to mostly being overwhelmed, loosing situational awareness, or controller issues (springing out of cover while injured is the most common thing I do to get killed).  The healing rules work now but just forcing you to take cover to let your health and shields rebuild while medi-gel is used to return your squadmates to fighting order (and incidentally you).

No more Mako, and the unexplored worlds are now mini-missions rather than a ride around exploration.  The N7 missions are a mix of combat, puzzles, with the odd mystery tossed in.  You have a good mix of missions that are plot related as well but combat features heavily in the key plot missions (hardly a surprise).

Two important changes.  The first is that experience is now solely mission based.  No more XP per kill.  This means that grinding is not an issue.  It also seems likely that you can't finish the game at max level (30) until your second play through since I don't think there is enough XP in the missions to go do so but once you finish the game once you get a 25% increase in earned XP so all of your future playthroughs will end up at the cap.  There is still "new game plus" but it is pointless...well it is pointless in ME as well except to get a lvl 60 character which I don't think is otherwise possible.  Anyway this is an improved mechanic as it is more like what a real GM will do, no sensible GM gives XP for anything other than play sessions or missions.  The other change ties money to missions as well, as a result money is a finite resource one which must be watched and considered.  You have to think about every major purchase.  This is a vast improvement over the monty haul nature of ME.  People are, of course, whining about both things.  But I tend to dismiss this as the cries of Munchkin's. Don't feed them is my view.

Both changes are the real improvements to the RPG system.

The codex entries are again good, flying around is made interesting by the planet descriptions.  The mini games are more fun as they no longer require button mashing skills but instead are a connect the dots, hide and seek, or form recognition test.  I found them more doable, less twitch more thought.  

The cinematics are even better.  You get to see the results of your choices in ME.  You get to make more choices that will impact in ME3.  The writing is excellent for the characters.  There were at least three team members I figured I would want to blow out the airlock but they very quickly become "people" to me.  The Krogans are much better done in this game, especially your Krogan who is much more Kroganish then Wrex was.  Wrex had the same mechanics as the other party members and not like a Krogan in game.  The Krogan you get has all the Krogan abilities...watching him charge in close combat is just like watching an NPC Krogan at work.

The story is well weaker, but it is hard to say why an not make this spoiler-if-ic.  Mainly it is because of things that happen in the game, its darker, not so uplifting in the way ME was.  I felt more drained I guess at the end, not exhilarated.  But that is the way it should be given the outcome.  While I would have liked more interaction with the crew and team members there is a limit to that.  I don't know what to expect for ME3 story wise.

The sex...hmmm...ok first off the whole "Sexbox" Fox "news" scandal was absurd.  There is more skin shown in the posters for Blame It On Rio then in ME.  The female-asari love scene is not helped by the awkwardness of the voice actresses, so I don't think it is as good as the male-female or male-asari one.  But the whole thing is basically a "blink and you missed it" moment.  In ME 2 as a male you get romance options with 3 human women and one alien woman (Tali).  The Tali romance is pure FanService and squicked me out since I think of Tali as a kid sister.  As a female you get 1 human male, 1 human female, and 2 male aliens.  You can also remain faithful to your ME love interest.  I don't know what the scenes look like since my first two characters were the faithful kind, and the one I am playing now had to sacrifice his love, and I'm not sure what I will do with him.  I doubt it is anything to get excited about, the scene that is.  I will say this about ME, the one character that didn't have the love interest I found that I missed it.  It added a lot to the game.  There is also a fair amount of male FanService with Miranda...the camera angle they choose for some of the conversations are...spectacular.  Mind you there is a great one liner by an NPC:  "I'm waiting for you to get dressed or does (spoiler) let you whore around in that outfit?"  Damn near fell out of my chair laughing.  

Also the language in ME2 is substantially more adult.  I found it well done.  It is worth pointing out that the "darker", "more adult" aspects of ME 2 existed in ME they just tended to not get in your face.  Criminality, asari pole dancing, drugs, swearing, night clubs, dubious tasks etc all of these things are in ME.  ME 2 mostly just gives you a chance to see them rather than just hear about them.  I don't find it that much more darker simply because you visit Omega and get to see Vorcha street beings as opposed to the trash free streets of the citadel.

I recommend (obviously) both to anyone who hasn't played them and enjoys hard science fiction and role playing.  The shooter elements you have put up with for an excellent and addictive story.  I doubt very much that any "shooter" player will find the combat that appealing.  Mostly they are complaining about it on the bioware boards so my feeling is that a dedicated shooter fan will beat the ME combat and probably feel unsatisfied with the gameplay.  Expect that paradigm shift in combat mechanics as well.  As is always the case your mileage may vary.
 

Offline VariousArtist

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Re: Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2010, 06:43:36 PM »
Ive played ME1 and it was a neat experience for just 7,50€ on steam! =)
For my taste a bit too straight forward and a few issues with the plotline ("Hurry, you have to reach the arch enemy before he graps the Weapon of Mass Destruction" - but you have all time in the world - immersion crumbles, hehe).
My personal highlight was Wrex. I love his black humor and sarcasm. As loner I was never sure if hes friend or foe. The point where youre standing point blank with him was outstanding moviesque for a game. Kudos.
Cant wait till I can grap ME2 to continue my char.
 

Offline Paul M (OP)

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Re: Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2010, 03:48:21 AM »
The problem is that if you do apply a time limit you will have people screaming bloody blue murder that they are being forced to do things at a certain time and the munchkins will wail and gnash their teeth and basically the words "Political smegstorm" will be applicable.  So the game company has to compromise and only suggest there is a time limit without actually implementing it.  It is worth noting that changing the order you do the missions in ME can be very interesting as it changes the cut scenes.  One of the best cut scenes is just after Ferros when you do "find liara", "Ferros", "Virmire" and then "Novaria."  I am not sure I have the order right even, basically do Virmire as soon as possible and save Novaria for the end, the cut scene is really well done.  Even "Novaria" can be quite interesting when you do it in a different order.  I know I didn't see everything in those 5 playthrough's the efforts the team did on that game are astounding.

As far as I am concerned giving people the option to visit planets A, B, and C in any order when the game doesn't react to the fact you visited them in a particular order is a cop out.  It isn't a choice unless there is some difference due to the choice that you made.  So if visiting them A, B, then C doesn't have a difference to B, C, then A there is no point to giving a choice.  The game would be better giving you a fixed path and giving you reactions to the fact you have done x, y, and z in the past.  But then I don't even begin to understand complaints about "linear" story's.  You want a non-linear story tear the pages out of a bad book, throw them in the air, pick them up and read them in that order.  That is a non-linear story and it total gibberish.  So is true with an RPG.

As far as Wrex goes I didn't like him much.  Not so much for his personality, that was actually well done but because he wasn't a real krogan.  He gets taken out in Krog-o-Krog combat by the bouncer of (spoiler).  He goes down and doesn't get up with 25% hits.  He can't do a Krog-o-Krog with the (spoiler) while (spoiler).  Basically he is a faux-Krogan.  In ME2 the squad Krogan is a Krogan, and is treated exactly like an NPC Krogan...he charges right through husks in many cases.  Vast improvement.  But it is true that Wrex grows on you, especially after I took him with me to get the Krogan squad mate achievement.

ME and ME2 are intended to invoke emotions in the player, and the stories of the team members do that in spades in ME2, and even in ME there is a strong bond built.  It is hard to be unmoved by most of them in ME2 though.  Even meeting Wrex again in ME2 is pretty emotional...and your character reacts that way.  It is really well done.  

There is a lot of complaining about the games on all sides, and I am guilty of complaining when I heard what was planned for ME2 but I think a lot of it has been taken to absurd lengths.  There are actually people who say neither game is an RPG...based on the fact the character leveling scheme is not complex or the inventory system doesn't have a huge choice of weapons and armour.  I guess none of these people ever played classic traveler.  There was no levels, no XP, a few armours, a few weapons, minimal skills, no obvious character advancement method, a simplistic combat system and yet I've yet to hear anyone say it wasn't an RPG system.

Speaking personally I consider "single player role playing game" an oxymoron.