Plumbing... in... SPAAAAAAACE!
Okay, "Mass Effect 2" was released yesterday, and I allowed it to suck away a few hours of my time so I could justify posting something about it. And there are, indeed, bathrooms (with wittily-named toilets, as you can see), and your ship's computer will admonish you if you go into the one designated for species of the opposite gender. Anyway, the first few minutes of gameplay resulted in the following reactions:
They always get rid of the old guy, don't they? How does Ashley manage to be the only woman in the Alliance that's forced to wear armor with pink highlights? Why does everyone walk so slowly in a vacuum? Okay, so my armor survived how many firefights in the first game and it decides to crap out now? And I guess the game is over, then, isn't--? Wait, I'm Shepherd of Nine, all of a sudden? Why do my scars glow in the dark? The textures are nicer than the first game, but every character has really creepy teeth. And I don't care if you are voiced by Martin Sheen, you're making this "The X-Files" in space...
And so on. Additionally, while the full-body animation for the characters is improved from "Mass Effect 1," there are a few actions that make our digital actors look like they need to be in physical therapy but have taken a fashion design class by mistake. There's a scene where Shepherd shares a drink with a colleague, and I've seen episodes of "Thunderbirds" that had more natural movement. Also, I wish they'd just not do scenes where someone would give an object to someone else; the whole "our hands are out of camera view, so just assume I'm handing something to you" bit gets kind of distracting after the fifth time.
Then there are the odd bugs. The voice work is uneven, with actors changing pitch mid-conversation. In one case, an "indoor" voice track played for a character's first line, but then it was followed by several "to be heard over the radio" lines without changing scene. I was also able to target objects for interaction from quite a distance away (not that I could pick up a PDA from a football field away, but I could apparently see it), sometimes through walls (which I could interact with, if I got close enough). And then there's the clipping: I know there's a ton of polygons to keep track of, and I'm used to shoulder armor sinking into everyone's chests when they shrug, but when an alien holds a data pad and all three of his fingers poke through the display in a cutscene, that needs to be fixed (though I read this could be due to EA just porting the console version of the game over to the PC without cleaning it up).
Oh, and Electronic Arts requires a sign-up for their digital service if you want downloadable content. It wasn't working when I first fired up the game (and I've no clue if it's up and running yet). Further, one of the key features of this game was the ability to bring the decisions you made in "Mass Effect 1" over to the new game. It took several searches and message boards before I found out you had to run the "Mass Effect 2" launcher (not the game, but a separate program) and then navigate to where your save games for ME1 were located. I would have thought this would have been an automatic process.
From a role-playing game perspective, I do like the game's "alignment" system. You earn points from being a "Paragon" (Lawful Good) or a "Renegade" (Chaotic Good). These give you new dialogue options as well as a new feature where you can interrupt a conversation or cutscene and get a new result thanks to your point tally. But what kind of came off as odd was having one's "Paragon" status able to get you a discount in a space station's shops. You just went into all of them and offered to endorse their store as the Hero of the First Game. Not only did you get away with this (and you may get punished later on, we'll see), but you earned more Paragon points for doing so. No DM I ever had would let me get away with that sort of behavior, at least, not without an unexpected angry mob in my future. And as you play the "Renegade," your facial scarring from the first act becomes more prominent... kind of like if you embraced the Dark Side did something that's totally different than a famous movie franchise. :)
But I do like the game, and I'm probably going to play it more than I should. It's an interesting turn from the first installment, plot-wise. I'm still hearing "The Shadows" whenever someone says "The Reapers," but the game needs an Ultimate Baddie, and ancient all-powerful civilizations are a decent trope. They've re-designed the inventory system (you're not juggling eighty suits of armor an fifty-three kinds of pistol anymore) as well as how you upgrade your gear. There are no space-buggy driving sections, though mini-games still abound for tasks involving "hacking" and "bypassing." So Bioware has probably done it again, sales-wise, and I complement them on streamlining and improving the game engine in places. Though I do think Shepherd needs to be able to jump (not vault, that's different) over small obstacles once in a while...
And now, a public service announcement from the IGN Network: They're holding a charity event to raise money for Haiti by eBay'ing a bunch of gaming/geek swag, some of it kind of weirdly cool. For starters, there's a Capcom cheese board, a Ron Weasley Gryffindor bag, and aHalf-Life Gibson guitar. Why there isn't a "Half Life 2" version of "Guitar Hero" where Gordon Freeman dispatches the Combine with the power of rawk is beyond me.
Now, I'll wade into the comments I've been neglecting tomorrow after putting Joshua down for his nap, so until then:
- A prisoner in Madison, Wisconsin (home to a great many game companies) has been told he can't play 'Dungeons & Dragons', not because he's being incarcerated, but because the game "promoted gang-related activity and was a threat to security." I wholeheartedly agree. I think a gang would gladly beat me up and threaten my security if they found out I was a D&D nerd.
- From the Pages of the Internetonomicon (sanity checks, please) comes this very hypnotic flash loop. If your computer is like mine, you might have to right-click on the image, select "play," and then right-click->play again to get it to start.
- Warner Bros. is looking to reboot the 'Mortal Kombat' movie franchise. This, I can understand, if only because Christopher Lambert was just about the worst choice for Raiden with the exception of perhaps Rosanne Barr. But since even the cheapest "SyFy Original" movie can afford Matrix-style martial arts, the original MK movie looks very dated.
- Here's a musical remix of "Top Gear's" Jeremy Clarkson with a ditty called Things Are Somewhat Different In Japan.
- How about a game of High Speed Chase 2? It's a lot like "Spy Hunter," but without machine guns.
- Weird Al Yankovic has signed a contract to work on a few projects for 'Cartoon Network' starting with a live-action feature film!
- Here's a blog of stark white-text-on-black-squares imagery called Letters to Dead People. Deep, man...
- Maybe the reason we don't pick up signals from other civilizations is because they went to digital TV, too.
- As the former owner of a Toyota Corona that had a giant bullseye painted on the roof (I so wanted to hear my car mentioned on a traffic report somewhere), I am obligated to link to the photo blog entitled You Drive What?
- And we close with Vampire Fever. You are "Viro," the ninja virus-ball, and you're playing a kind of billiards game with the other "living" balls. One tap infects them (turns them into black skulls), but another impact un-does the infection. Infect all of the victims to pass each level.