Mass Effect 2 first impressions and also SPOILERS
okay
so
first things first
Dear Bioware,
Why in the world is your in-game text so goddamn tiny. I mean seriously.
No fucking love at all,
Me
The font in ME1 wasn't anything to write home about, but at least it was readable. I had such a bad headache yesterday, and I think it was from trying to read what was on the screen. I can barely make out what's on my updates, and sometimes the subtitles are difficult to make out. The TV I play on is fairly big, so I don't know what's going on here. Maybe it's meant to be on a HD TV or something.
That said, the graphics in this game are so gorgeous a;sdklfja;sd. And the armor actually looks like armor! No more are the days of wearing barely disguised space marine fetish gear and motorcycle helmets -- I actually look like I can take some damage in these things. Character models are occasionally subjected to some hiccups (there are several times where it looked like part of my character's hair was blinking in and out of existence), but there aren't any weird mid-cutscene graphics loading like in the last game. Everyone has a face when they're supposed to.
Combat is. Uh. It's different. It feels like it was made by smashing CoD and GoW together and distilling the resulting horrifying, gory mess in a calcinator. Ammo is once again an issue for reasons currently unknown to me especially since they devoted an entire codex entry on how ammo is a non-issue in the last game. Shooting also feels more tactical; in the last game, once you hit a certain level, you could just hold down the trigger button and soak up damage until everything within a hundred feet of you was covered in smoking bullet holes, but you actually have to pay attention to what the hell is going on around you because enemies will mess you up. Which is okay, I guess, but I'm terrible at shooting games. There are less abilities in this game, too, which I also guess is okay because I definitely had more skills than I ever actually used, but sometimes I really wish I had more options.
hnnnng the voice work in this game is fantastic
i mean, it's bioware, so this is to be expected
but it must
MUST
be said
I am especially in love with Mordin's VA. His rapid-fire delivery is just amazing. Salarians are normally very fast talkers, but Mordin sounds like he took speed, often dropping articles, pronouns, conjunctions, entire parts of speech in his haste to get his main point across, especially when he's theorizing or talking about science. Also he sings. MICHAEL BEATTIE YOU'RE FANTASTIC I LOVE YOU.
You know who else I love? The salarian manning (salarianing?) the video game kiosk over at the Citadel. He has some of the funniest lines in the game. There's this one bit of dialogue I listened to where he said that human sports games were popular with krogans, and now I can't get the image of two krogan teenagers wearing popped collars and sideways hats brofisting each other on a game of Madden 2154 well played.
Actually, the entire Citadel is great. I love listening to the advertisements, especially for the recording of the elcor version of Hamlet.
(Gertrude: Uneasy: What wilt thou do. Thou wilt not murder me. Help. Help. Ho.
Polonius: Shocked: What ho. Help. Help. Help.
Hamlet: Startled: How now. A rat. Dead for a ducat. Dead.
Polonius: Agonized: O. I am slain.
Gertrude: Horrified: O me. What has thou done.
Hamlet: Shaken: Nay. I know not. Is it the king.
Gertrude: Horror gives way to anger: O. What rash and bloody deed is this.)
AND BLASTO THE HANAR SPECTRE
WHY ARE YOU NOT IN MY PARTY, BLASTO? /sob
hnnng I am so proud of Garrus
He basically went vigilante after the events of the first game EVEN THOUGH HE TOLD ME HE'D GIVE C-SEC ANOTHER SHOT WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME so he went to Omega out in the Terminus System and saw what a terrible gang problem they had, so he took a page from Shepard's book and started recruiting a group of like-minded individuals to start kicking ass cleaning the place up -- which is how he got his codename Archangel: people took to calling him that because of all the good things he was doing (awwwww ♥).
So, when you first hear about Archangel on Omega, it turns he's holed up in his base, and all his teammates are dead -- he's completely alone.
(^^^ keep this in mind, it is very important)
Three gangs who normally hate each other with the fire of a thousand suns have actually teamed up to take him down. It didn't work, though.
He's blown up all the entrances into the base other than this tiny, narrow bridge that basically funnels the gangs into a killing field.
They've taken so many casualties that they had to recruit other mercenaries to act as a meat shield/distraction while they try to infiltrate the base.
They tried a more direct approach once, but he shot the gunship down. With a sniper rifle.
And to top it all off, they've barely hurt him, in all the weeks -- WEEKS -- they've been fighting him. When they finally do hurt him, it's with a rocket to the face. Which HE SURVIVES.
garrus please marry me
okay I think that's all for now, time to get back to playing
p.s. scanning is the new mako driving. asdaf;sdk goddammit i hate it