The Effect of Mass - Part Deux (GOTY Edition)

By JJWeatherman December 23, 2010 69 Comments

Note: Yeah, I beat Mass Effect 2 a few days ago. This blog is indeed about that (as well as why it’s my GOTY). Don't like it? Don't eat! 
 
**Spoilers below**

So the first time I was able to play Mass Effect 2, it was borrowed from a friend. That was months ago and I only got to pay probably five to six hours before he wanted the game back. So I got a good taste, which had me dying to finish the game for the longest time. Well, I finally bought the game for the low, low price of $9.99 during a Black Friday sale. I feel like I should have paid a lot more, but I won't complain. I've been playing it in chunks ever since, and I finally wrapped up the story a few days ago. I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about what I liked, and didn't like so much about the game. 

I'm a sucker for a game that tells an interesting story. While many people may say that the story in ME2 is a step down from the story in the first ME (and I may agree with that), it's still great. To very quickly summarize: Shepard is forced to assemble a team of the universe's best soldiers to take into uncharted space in order to destroy a collector base that is under the control of the reapers and the Harbinger. Because of the basic story premise, the focus shifts from the more guided experience of the first game, to a free-form, character driven story this time around. I really liked that and thought BioWare pulled it off really well. At no point did I feel like there wasn't anything to do. I was also never confused as to where I should be going. Choosing when to recruit soldiers, whether or not to help them with their loyalty missions, and exploring their back story and personalities was nothing short of amazing all of the way through. Every now and then, big story events will pop up and you'll be off to retrieve some special item vital to the mission. Those events came every so often; just enough to mix things up after I'd been tirelessly recruiting my badass crew. In general I thought the story was handled very well. The premise is exciting enough, and assembling and getting to know my team was the best part. If there is a weak point though, I'd have to agree with the people that said that the end is a bit weak. That may be an overstatement, because the whole end sequence is actually pretty awesome, but the final boss battle didn't quite live up to the rest of the game. To be honest the end of the original ME wasn't fantastic either from what I remember, but in ME2 they just strait up throw a giant skeleton robot at you. I mean OK, it kinda makes sense, and they do explain that the reapers are trying to build giant human reapers. But I just didn't think that that fit in the rest of the Mass Effect universe, from what I've seen. Here I am, battling wave after wave of collectors on this god-forsaken collector base, and I’m expecting a showdown with the damn Harbinger, or at least that collector that he's controlling for most of the story. But no, I get to fight what is essentially a giant robot skeleton. I didn't know that I was actually playing Brutal Legend... or something. I don't want to hate on it too much, but it just seemed out of place, that's all. After I killed that abomination, I blew that base the eff up, and Joker flew us out of there like the ace pilot that he is. (By the way, if anyone chose to go the route of not totally blowing that base up and instead poisoning the whole thing, how did that work out?)

As I mentioned before, recruiting characters and exploring their back stories was the best part of this game for me. I won't go through every character, but a couple in particular were very well done. I really loved Thane Krios (that's a great name). He's the Drell assassin that's supposed to die soon from an illness. The loyalty mission involving his son, while maybe not the most action-packed, was very interesting. There was a nice interrogation section in there, as well as some on-foot tailing. It all lead up to stopping Thane's son from following in his father's assassin footsteps. It was a touching moment when I stopped him. What really made Thane awesome though was BioWare's idea to have the Drell, as a species trait, be able to recall past events and memories with perfect clarity. As you probably remember (assuming you've played the game), the way BioWare conveyed this was by having Thane constantly have flashbacks that were made interesting with cool lighting effects and camera work with close-ups on his face. It really sets the Drell apart from the other races as it happens quite often in conversation. It's stuff like that that makes you realize how much thought goes into every aspect of the fiction in Mass Effect.

Samara, the Asari Justicar, was another of my favorite characters. The whole idea of the Justicar is an interesting one. Basically Samara is a crime fighter with a black and white morality code. If someone does wrong, she kills them. Simple as that. This leads to a situation where Samara is forced to track down one of her daughters and kill her. This is one of the better side missions in the game in my opinion. The way that you have to track her down and then lure the daughter to you by mingling in a club. The way that you then choose in the end to help Samara kill her daughter, or help the daughter kill Samara instead, was a big moment. I chose to help Samara, just because I felt like her never-ending journey should finally be completed. Plus, if this was what she felt like she had to do, then who am I to stand in her way? Shes does do everything in the interest of peace, after all. I'm glad that I helped her complete her goal, because she ended up dying in the suicide mission (oh noes!!). She was the only character that died, and as far as I can tell, it was because of a misunderstanding of exactly what the game plan was. I sent her off thinking that her mission was one thing, but it was really another thing. Oh well, I feel like she had lived a very long time already, and had completed her goal earlier. She died happy.

The one aspect that I felt the original Mass Effect could really improve on was the basic action controls. Of course, as we all know, that aspect was most definitely improved upon in 2. The once troublesome Mako was replaced (in DLC) with another vehicle that was more of a hovercraft. It controlls really well, and just navigating and driving that thing around was a lot of fun, even if everything else about those missions happened to be a bit boring. Most importantly, the on-foot action was great. The shooting in particular feels nice. I didn’t so much care for the cover mechanics though. The shooting could have been even better if the game had less clunky cover controls. To me it felt comparable to the feeling of playing GTA IV. I’m not trying to say the cover mechanics are the same in these games, but I’m saying that both games’ cover mechanics felt sub-par compared to the rest of the action; they could have been a lot better.

A popular complaint that I would hear about ME2 before I got the chance to finish it for myself was that the RPG mechanics had been stripped out in favor of the more action-oriented experience. This is true to an extent; however, it really didn’t bother me as much as I’d thought that it may. The armor and inventory stuff was made super simple. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because even though things like that are common-place in RPGs, they can definitely be annoying. This is the way to move a genre forward. ME2 is a much tighter and less convoluted experience because of these changes, so there’s really no reason to complain. That said though, I wouldn’t argue at all if BioWare found a way to work some more traditional RPG trappings back into Mass Effect 3, as long as they find a way to do it in a new way that isn’t cumbersome. Of course every character still has special skills that you can spec out however you’d like. That meant lots of potential for mixed play styles and combat variation. I always made sure to have a couple of powerful biotics by my side when I went into battle. Powers like Heavy Throw are amazingly useful when there happens to be a bottomless pit just feet behind your enemies.

I was forced to rely on my comrades for biotic techniques such as those, because I chose to play as a soldier. If I had to guess, I’d say most people that played ME2 played through as a soldier, at least the first time. I only say that because it seems like the most familiar and easy way to play. Just equip incendiary ammo, point, and shoot. This was a great way to play; super enjoyable. I did find myself wishing I had some biotic powers of my own though towards the end of the game, if only to mix things up a bit. Immediately after finishing the game I actually went in and started a new game, this time as a biotic using lady Shepard. I haven’t gotten very far into this next playthrough, but I’m really excited to do a lot less shooting, and a lot more throwing dudes around this time. As if one playthrough at a time isn’t enough, I also started another one, this time continuing my soldier with the new game plus option. I’m planning on that game being the one that I use to beat the game on Insane difficulty and get that pesky achievement. I figure at level 30 (or whatever I am at this point) I’ll be ready for that challenge. Being able to keep your weapons into the next playthrough is awesome. Having to choose between a badass sniper rifle and a badass assault rifle in my first playthrough was a tough choice. This time I’ll pick up that sniper rifle.

So, as you can see I’m not at all done playing Mass Effect 2. Even after exploring every side mission and character that I could find, and reading about all of the in-depth details on this amazingly crafted fictional universe, I’m still chomping at the bit to get back into my new playthroughs, and probably play more of a Renegade role this time. This game just compels me to want to know everything about it. That, more than anything else, is the reason that this is my favorite game of the year two-thousand and ten. 
 
<3 
--JJWeatherman

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