I review what most gamers would call an “actual game”

Bioware was a hit or miss studio for me. I liked Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) but felt it lacked alot of depth, I didn’t care for Neverwinter Nights, Baldur’s Gate was a bit too complicated for me, and Jade Empire was essentially KOTOR in mythical China.

Then comes Mass Effect.

The first Mass Effect was (and likely still is) one of my favorite Xbox 360 games of all time. I was not waiting in anticipation for it, but my friend loaned it to me, and the rest is history.

So of course I was to be excited for Mass Effect 2, which was to continue all the decisions made by the player in the previous game and be more dark and edgier than it’s predecessor.

Yet I did not browse Bioware’s site 24-7, that it was reserved for looking up visual novels.

But it did come out, I pre-ordered it. Finally got around to repairing my Xbox 360 (yes I play it on console, my computer isn’t godly like manga’s), and a week or two later I finally get my Xbox back and finish the game in 3 days.

Gameplay:

Almost everything has been changed from the first game. No longer is there an inventory (thank god, I hated that thing), gameplay has been made simpler. The RPG elements have been toned down, and action elements have been ramped up.

Now there is a worry of ammunition, forcing you to rely on multiple weapons, which are given variety (unlike the previous game in which you essentially had the same pistol, rifle, sniper, and shotgun which you turned in for more powerful versions).

Graphics:

The first game’s graphics were already good enough. Everything was solid. However, there was quite a bit noticeable glitchy effects, referred to as “texture popping”.

Gone is the texture popping, and along with it comes just greater graphics. I don’t think there’s to much to say on this end.

Story and Characters:

The greatest asset of the first game was the feeling that you were “playing” through a movie. The dialogue transitions were wonderful, the main quest’s cut scenes featured some great cinematic camera work, and the characters had character.

The cinematic ideal has been turned up to eleven. Every quest features cut scenes on par with the main quest. It’s hard to describe this, but you just need look at any youtube video that features the Loyalty Missions and you can see what I mean.

Dialogue options are still pretty much the same (you get the: nice response, the neutral response, and the tough-guy response), but there are additional “Interruption events” in which you can apply something cinematic to the situation rather than just saying “I want to fight” or “I don’t want to fight”.

One gripe with the first game I had was that though the characters were believable, only a few of them were interesting. Primarily, the alien characters……and the fact that you could not romance them.

I was one of many Bioware fans who screamed across the internet “WHY CAN’T WE ROMANCE TALIIIIII” (admittedly I was more quiet than the others though)

And apparently Bioware listened to our pleas, and to my greatest joy, Tali is romance-able. And it’s not just a couple sections of dialogue that show off character development, there is actually an element of emotion put into these scenes (or at least I felt). The Loyalty Missions are a great part of the game. Every one of your party members has one of these missions, giving an equal amount of depth to the older characters and the newer characters.

Overall

Mass Effect 2 has revived my hope in the Western Video Game market. That is no exaggeration. I feel that many video game developers are taking the approach of “gameplay-over-story”. I’m not a fanatical person who claims that game’s need good story to be good games, but I have become very dissatisfied with lack of attention that is given to stories.

The finale to the sci-fi epic Halo series left me with annoyance in that there was hardly any story left at all while the first two games had relatively intriguing storylines. Nintendo’s game series (with perhaps the exception of Metroid) have almost no story (ok no one plays Mario for the story, but Zelda could atleast have a nice story built around the characters).

And most often we are left with perpetually gruffy-angry-annoyed-sarcastic characters who you wish you could punch through your screen.

GO BIOWARE!!!!!!