Mass Effect 2

Aazealh

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Alright, I've been expecting this game so much that I just have to make a thread about it. For those who don't know, Mass Effect 2 is the sequel to Mass Effect (no shit), a widely acclaimed Action-RPG by BioWare that came out on X360 and PC a couple of years ago. The game is set in a futuristic universe involving space travels, alien species and artificial intelligences in which you have to fight to save the galaxy. Its release is slated for Q1 2010. There isn't too much information available yet, but we should learn quite a bit about it during the coming E3. What we know so far is that the developers have been working on making this game better than the first (which was already awesome) in every way they could. Combat, graphics, story, it's all been ameliorated. And of course, the choices the player made in the first game will matter in the sequel, so for example if a character's dead, he or she will stay dead.

Obviously, to those who haven't yet played Mass Effect: do it now. It's available for cheap nowadays and is really worth looking into. And now, on to the videos:

- Early Teaser
- Leaked footage showing some gameplay
- A long interview: Part 1 | Part 2
- Prelude to E3 Trailer

Tons of cool wallpapers can be found here: http://masseffect.bioware.com/media/wallpapers

Official website: http://masseffect.bioware.com/

So, anyone else excited about this game? What are you guys expecting from it?
 
From the prelude thing it seems that they will be focusing a lot on the action aspect of the game which I don't care too much about. I hope the story is as good as the first mass effect. Since Shepard is dead, maybe they did the same thing
that they did with Revan were you really are commander Sheppard and your memory has been erased!
If they didn't do it already with Kotor it woulda been awesome if they did it in this. I heard somewhere that this game is planned on being a trilogy and they are going Empire Strikes Back/ Dark Knight/ Prince of Persia Warrior Within/ pretty much every other trilogy in existence style were the second episode is the dark one.
 

Aazealh

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Clawed The Bum said:
From the prelude thing it seems that they will be focusing a lot on the action aspect of the game which I don't care too much about.

Not so, actually. They've said several times that they'd been intensively working on the "digital acting" aspect of things, on making the story flow better and on making the side-quests more dynamic and interesting.

Clawed The Bum said:
Since Shepard is dead

Honestly, I don't believe he's dead. Just seems completely unlikely.

Clawed The Bum said:
I heard somewhere that this game is planned on being a trilogy and they are going Empire Strikes Back/ Dark Knight/ Prince of Persia Warrior Within/ pretty much every other trilogy in existence style were the second episode is the dark one.

Yes it'll be a trilogy, and yes the second episode will be darker than the first. I don't think it's always the same in every trilogy ever though.
 
Sorry for not putting spoiler tags, it's a sorta old game so I just assumed it wasn't necassary. I personally think that Bioware has yet to top Kotor, none of the other games like Mass Effect or Jade Empire have been disapointments, but none of them left me as satisfied as much as the first Kotor has. I think that Kotor is going to age as well as the first Super Mario has. The only sequal to a Bioware game that I've played was Kotor 2, which was made by a different company and they weren't able to capture the mood and story that the first one was able to. Btw, the whole darker part 2 of a series is very common among movies and games.
 

Aazealh

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Clawed The Bum said:
Sorry for not putting spoiler tags, it's a sorta old game so I just assumed it wasn't necassary.

It's alright, and I'm not the one who added the tags actually.

Clawed The Bum said:
I personally think that Bioware has yet to top Kotor, none of the other games like Mass Effect or Jade Empire have been disapointments, but none of them left me as satisfied as much as the first Kotor has. I think that Kotor is going to age as well as the first Super Mario has.

Aging as well as Super Mario Bros might be pushing it a bit; I don't think people will still be playing it 20 years from now. I have to admit I never finished KOTOR myself, though by all means it was a good game. I ought to play it again. But if anything, the Baldur's Gate series left a bigger impact on me. Still, I'm more excited about Mass Effect 2 than I am about Star Wars: The Old Republic or Dragon Age: Origins.

Clawed The Bum said:
Btw, the whole darker part 2 of a series is very common among movies and games.

Sure, it's the case for some series, I don't disagree with that, but it's not something I remember seeing in "almost every" one of them. Aliens wasn't darker than Alien, Matrix Reloaded wasn't particularly darker than Matrix and was definitely not as dark as Revolutions, Metroid 2 wasn't darker than the first, and the list goes on: Terminator 2, Mega Man 2, Gears of War 2, Yakuza 2, Rocky 2, Star Wars Episode 2 (they claimed third one would be the darkest all along), Zelda 2, MGS2, Resident Evil 2, First blood part 2, GTA, etc.

I don't care much about this so I don't want to argue but I'm not sure there's much weight to the argument that the creators are going for a "traditional" second episode in their series just because they've announced that it would be darker than the first. The notion of being "darker" itself is pretty vague to begin with.
 
Can't wait for Mass Effect 2 to come out. I wonder how much a difference it will make to the story which characters you kept alive on your ME1 save.

On another note I doubt Shepard is dead, even tho it didn't matter much for KOTOR I would like to see the hero go through the whole triology and have some closure at the end dead or alive.
 
Ya, thanx I didnt even know they were doing a Mass Effect 2 becuase I heard Bioware was working on a Star Wars Old Republic MMORPG. Those interviews and such were bomb!
 
I've beaten Mass Effect with 4 different characters, just so I'm sure I covered all the decisions that have happened in the game. I'm wondering if they're just going to take the last save for that character, or are does it need to be the last autosave that happens in the game? I'm just saving it all of it, just to be sure.
 

Aazealh

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yota821 said:
I've beaten Mass Effect with 4 different characters, just so I'm sure I covered all the decisions that have happened in the game. I'm wondering if they're just going to take the last save for that character, or are does it need to be the last autosave that happens in the game? I'm just saving it all of it, just to be sure.

I think we'll be able to choose from the auto-saves created when you finish the game. Whenever you finish it, a save file is created (that you can use to play through the game from the beginning while keeping your stats), even if it's with the same character. I probably have over 10 of these myself, and I remember having trouble distinguishing them since I'd finished the game several times with the same character.

I expect that along with keeping Wrex in or not and deciding which one between Kaidan and Ashley is still around, your choices at the end like recommending Captain Anderson or Ambassador Udina to the Council will make a difference.
 

SimplyEd

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I think the main plot line was pretty solid. At least, i had a whole lot of fun completing the main objectives but i have to say that the side quests, and locations for those, were severly lacking in design and commitment from Bioware.

On a whole, i'd say that ME1 was very well fleshed out, as far as the grand scope of that particular universe is concerned. Quite a lot of beautifully crafted lore and quite a bit of relevant exposition through that vast encyclopedia. The different races are believeable and feel fresh enough to hold their own against other, well established fictional races throughout various other types of media. So much, in fact, that i'm curios enough to get to know them even more.

So there's my most pressing hope for more exploration of various alien worlds and cultures. In particular, i'd like to know more about the Quarians, since i liked Tali and her background story quite a bit (even though it was not all that detailed as it could have been). If i could name one wish, it'd be to for Bioware to cut short on some of the more meaningless sidequests in favor of more detailed interaction with various species. Also, even though it was a major part of the game, i could do with less action and more role paying (and relevant impact of choices throughout the game).

Concerning the ongoing romance subplots of the first game, i'd say that i'm looking forward to how they will play out. Especially with Shepards mysterious MIA status.

Also, i hope Bioware can sort out its own code a bit better. Meaning that i'd like the games performance to end up a lot more streamlined. If there was one thing that plagued the first game from beginning to end, it would be that poorly optimized engine performance. That really took a lot from an otherwise beautiful piece of software.
 

Aazealh

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SimplyEd said:
If i could name one wish, it'd be to for Bioware to cut short on some of the more meaningless sidequests in favor of more detailed interaction with various species.

Apparently they're doing a real effort on the sidequests this time around, since most of the negative feedback for ME1 concerned them. Personally the one thing I hope for (aside from everything else :ganishka:) is that the game will be longer.

SimplyEd said:
Also, even though it was a major part of the game, i could do with less action and more role paying (and relevant impact of choices throughout the game).

Aww, I love the action sequences in the first game. And the battle music is just so epic... Gets me pumped just to think about it!

SimplyEd said:
Also, i hope Bioware can sort out its own code a bit better. Meaning that i'd like the games performance to end up a lot more streamlined. If there was one thing that plagued the first game from beginning to end, it would be that poorly optimized engine performance. That really took a lot from an otherwise beautiful piece of software.

Really? What problems did you encounter exactly? Aside from the "texture popping" problem of the Unreal Engine 3 I didn't have any complaints myself. There's one thing however that I hope they will ameliorate and it's the inventory system. Purchasing, equipping and modding equipment was kind of a chore because of the clunky menu navigation.
 

SimplyEd

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Aazealh said:
Aww, I love the action sequences in the first game. And the battle music is just so epic... Gets me pumped just to think about it!

Not that i disliked them but i'd like a slight shift in emphasis. Less action more interaction. But yeah, i can relate to that battle music statement.^^

Aazealh said:
Really? What problems did you encounter exactly? Aside from the "texture popping" problem of the Unreal Engine 3 I didn't have any complaints myself. There's one thing however that I hope they will ameliorate and it's the inventory system. Purchasing, equipping and modding equipment was kind of a chore because of the clunky menu navigation.

I had some rather annoying problems with game stutters and framerate drops. As well as that texture popping problem, which isn't quite as present in other Unreal Engine 3 games in my library. I don't know why but for some reason ME1 runs really choppy on my XBOX. I don't have such problems with my other games, so i'm willing to guess that it's not necessarily hardware related. Browsing some other forums, i can see other gamers complaining about similar problems. Who knows.

Oh yeah, i agree on that clunky menu navigation system. A very good point!
 
ME1 and Kotor Spoilers ahead. I did that thing were after you write it you go back to edit a couple of words and when I edit changed those words I realized that much of my sentences stopped making sense. I hope I fixed it though.

I can't help but compare ME1 to Kotor. The thing that ME1 seemed to try to do was make all the party members (besides you of course) equally developed and also ME1 was pretty short so at the end they all seemed underdeveloped. In ME1 there were times were you could kill off a party member on occasion or something like that but it didnt seem as emotional. Kotor didn't develop the characters equally at all (just think Bastilla and Juhani Lol) and the game was longer so by the end about 3 of the side characters were like super developed. Bastilla, Carth, and others were the reason why some of planets were visited and why much of the story progressed. In ME1 most of the party members are simply just given to you at the start of game. You don't have to save them or help them etc. The story had very little to do with the side characters. ME1 spend most of the time simply developing Shepard instead of side character but in a way he seemed less developed then Revan in Kotor 1 because they had to explain the universe they created which I don't blame them. When I chose to kill Ashley or that other guy in ME1 I felt very little emotion as opposed to when Bastilla returned to me as a Dark Jedi to kill me when I spent most of the game saving her from the Sith and bonding with her. Also the time when I turned to the dark side and chased Carth off felt very intense to me. Also by the end of the game this very epic feel was given to me when I played Kotor. After you find out you are Revan you get a couple more hours of gameplay where you get to fight off hordes of darkside Jedi. It was so epic becuase at the start of game they would give so much trouble and by the end you could kill hordes of them easily. It just had a very epic feeling and this is a tough statement but I personally think that the story of Kotor was even better then the new and old star wars trilogies.
 

Aazealh

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SimplyEd said:
Not that i disliked them but i'd like a slight shift in emphasis. Less action more interaction. But yeah, i can relate to that battle music statement.^^

Well I certainly wouldn't mind more interaction with people, but don't try to take my glorious battles away from me!! :chomp:

SimplyEd said:
I had some rather annoying problems with game stutters and framerate drops. As well as that texture popping problem, which isn't quite as present in other Unreal Engine 3 games in my library. I don't know why but for some reason ME1 runs really choppy on my XBOX. I don't have such problems with my other games, so i'm willing to guess that it's not necessarily hardware related. Browsing some other forums, i can see other gamers complaining about similar problems. Who knows.

Really? Weird stuff. Yeah, the texture popping thing was particularly bad in ME and hopefully it'll be fixed with the sequel, however that didn't bother me too much. But I had absolutely no stuttering or framerate drops that I can remember, so I'm a bit surprised. And I never bothered to install the game on the HDD either.

Clawed The Bum said:
I can't help but compare ME1 to Kotor. The thing that ME1 seemed to try to do was make all the party members (besides you of course) equally developed and also ME1 was pretty short so at the end they all seemed underdeveloped. In ME1 there were times were you could kill off a party member on occasion or something like that but it didnt seem as emotional.

Unfortunately I can't really comment on KOTOR since I haven't played that much of it. Mass Effect is short though, no doubt about that, so compared to older games that lasted 3 times longer it's clear the characters might not have been as developed by the time it ended. However they'll still be there in the sequel, so it'll be the occasion to develop them some more.

Clawed The Bum said:
In ME1 most of the party members are simply just given to you at the start of game. You don't have to save them or help them etc.

Actually you do save Ashley, Tali and Liara. Kaidan's the only one you start out with. For Wrex & Garrus it's more of a business thing, as tagging along with them makes things easier at the beginning. And if you regularly talk to your party members, you help Wrex get back his ancestral armor, you help Garrus kill off a criminal he could never arrest, and you help Tali gather up information on the Geth for her pilgrimage.

Clawed The Bum said:
The story had very little to do with the side characters.

I'd say Liara and Wrex do play a role, especially Liara since she's the one that tells you about the Protheans, who finds Ilos and all that. Plus she's Benezia's daughter.

Clawed The Bum said:
ME1 spend most of the time simply developing Shepard instead of side character but in a way he seemed less developed then Revan in Kotor 1 because they had to explain the universe they created which I don't blame them.

Yeah, and there's also the fact ME is a lot more "cinematic" in its approach. So there's comparatively less actual content.

Clawed The Bum said:
When I chose to kill Ashley or that other guy in ME1 I felt very little emotion

I have to admit I wasn't sad to see Ashley go. I really disliked her. Her only redeeming feature is her voice actress who sounds very nice, and unfortunately in the French dub I had to play through they went for a different approach where she sounds like a total hick tomboy and that just exasperated me even more.
 

SimplyEd

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Aazealh said:
Well I certainly wouldn't mind more interaction with people, but don't try to take my glorious battles away from me!! :chomp:

I wouldn't even dream of it. Actually, i'm looking forward to some epic battles myself.

Aazealh said:
Really? Weird stuff. Yeah, the texture popping thing was particularly bad in ME and hopefully it'll be fixed with the sequel, however that didn't bother me too much. But I had absolutely no stuttering or framerate drops that I can remember, so I'm a bit surprised. And I never bothered to install the game on the HDD either.

In hindsight, it might just be hardware related after all because even if i do install the game to my harddrive, it still doesn't run all that smoothly. On the other hand, titles like Last Odyssey or Star Ocean 4 run like a charm on my system. No problems whatsoever. I guess i just ran out of luck on that one.


Aazealh said:
Unfortunately I can't really comment on KOTOR since I haven't played that much of it. Mass Effect is short though, no doubt about that, so compared to older games that lasted 3 times longer it's clear the characters might not have been as developed by the time it ended. However they'll still be there in the sequel, so it'll be the occasion to develop them some more.

The sidequests add a whole lot of extra play time to the game. It's just unfortunate that nearly all of them are pretty dull and rushed. Of course, one can simply rush through the main storyline and be done with it very fast. It's just that KOTOR offered a lot more relevant content to be found apart from your main objectives. ME1 has it's free-roaming galaxy exploration but it's just a rather empty gimmick. Only the storyline planets and structures are realized to their inate potential, which is a bit sad. So, what i'm hoping for would be less content in terms of empty locations. I would really like to see the homeworlds for some species, or at least some colonies. Character development is directly tied to the interaction of the team, among itself and other parties. And that's exactly why there should be more opportunities for interaction on different, habitated environments.
Action is all well and good but it just doesn't add very much to your characters.

Aazealh said:
Actually you do save Ashley, Tali and Liara. Kaidan's the only one you start out with. For Wrex & Garrus it's more of a business thing, as tagging along with them makes things easier at the beginning. And if you regularly talk to your party members, you help Wrex get back his ancestral armor, you help Garrus kill off a criminal he could never arrest, and you help Tali gather up information on the Geth for her pilgrimage.

I'd say Liara and Wrex do play a role, especially Liara since she's the one that tells you about the Protheans, who finds Ilos and all that. Plus she's Benezia's daughter.

I'd say that all of them had a lot of potential that just wasn't explored to its fullest. The problem was that there just weren't enough opportunities for serious party banter and dialogue choices outside of the (rather linear) main quest. Don't get me wrong, i like the main characters and their background stories. Oh well, if you think of ME1 as the introduction/prologue to an epic tale, then i'd say they did a good job with the character presentation. There's lots of room for improvement and Bioware usually gets the job done.

Aazealh said:
I have to admit I wasn't sad to see Ashley go. I really disliked her. Her only redeeming feature is her voice actress who sounds very nice, and unfortunately in the French dub I had to play through they went for a different approach where she sounds like a total hick tomboy and that just exasperated me even more.

Heh, i have to say, i'm somewhat interested in getting to know what a french hick tomboy sounds like.
 

Aazealh

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SimplyEd said:
In hindsight, it might just be hardware related after all because even if i do install the game to my harddrive, it still doesn't run all that smoothly. On the other hand, titles like Last Odyssey or Star Ocean 4 run like a charm on my system. No problems whatsoever. I guess i just ran out of luck on that one.

If that can comfort you, a couple of friends and I have had some framerate and stuttering problems with Resident Evil 5 while some other folks I know run it super smoothly. You never know with the X360...

SimplyEd said:
So, what i'm hoping for would be less content in terms of empty locations. I would really like to see the homeworlds for some species, or at least some colonies. Character development is directly tied to the interaction of the team, among itself and other parties. And that's exactly why there should be more opportunities for interaction on different, habitated environments.

Man you're crazy, never ask for less content! Ask them to flesh it out instead. :slan: I remember reading that the lack of interesting sidequests was all due to time imperatives for the most part. Same with Therum, where you rescue Liara. It was originally supposed to be a fully fleshed out world (a human mining colony), but they didn't have time to finish it and it was canned. Unfortunate, but given the success the first game had coupled with EA's new policy of making well-crafted games, I'm hopeful with the sequel.

SimplyEd said:
I'd say that all of them had a lot of potential that just wasn't explored to its fullest. The problem was that there just weren't enough opportunities for serious party banter and dialogue choices outside of the (rather linear) main quest. Don't get me wrong, i like the main characters and their background stories. Oh well, if you think of ME1 as the introduction/prologue to an epic tale, then i'd say they did a good job with the character presentation. There's lots of room for improvement and Bioware usually gets the job done.

Yeah that's also how I prefer to think of it.

SimplyEd said:
Heh, i have to say, i'm somewhat interested in getting to know what a french hick tomboy sounds like.

Haha, unfortunately I looked but didn't find any video for you.
 

SimplyEd

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Aazealh said:
Haha, unfortunately I looked but didn't find any video for you.


I found one on youtube and you're right, she sounds a bit awkward in comparison to the english voice talent.
But seriously, the french voiceover seems to be a lot better than the german one. That's something i'll probably never understand because german dubs (for movies/tv-shows) are usually top notch, since we basically dub everything for screening purposes. Yet, and that's the general rule of thumb, game dubs are always horrendous. I just can't stand them. Meh, even i they did a good vo job for ME2 i would still buy the original. There's just too much lost in translation and localization.
 

Aazealh

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SimplyEd said:
But seriously, the french voiceover seems to be a lot better than the german one. That's something i'll probably never understand because german dubs (for movies/tv-shows) are usually top notch, since we basically dub everything for screening purposes. Yet, and that's the general rule of thumb, game dubs are always horrendous. I just can't stand them. Meh, even i they did a good vo job for ME2 i would still buy the original. There's just too much lost in translation and localization.

Yeah I didn't mind the French version of the game. BioWare's always done quality work in that regard, even going back to their first games. Like you say though the real problems usually come from the translation. I've actually been hesitating on whether to get an English or French version for Mass Effect 2.
 
Aazealh said:
Actually you do save Ashley, Tali and Liara. Kaidan's the only one you start out with. For Wrex & Garrus it's more of a business thing, as tagging along with them makes things easier at the beginning. And if you regularly talk to your party members, you help Wrex get back his ancestral armor, you help Garrus kill off a criminal he could never arrest, and you help Tali gather up information on the Geth for her pilgrimage.

Kotor 1 spoilers:

Well as I said compared to Kotor 1 ME didnt have much character development of the side characters. Most of the examples you gave were side quests, and yes there were some things you had to do to get some of the party members but was much less then Kotor. In Kotor there are party members that you literally have to visit whole planets for to try and save and such. Like the first 1/4 of the game was to save Bastilla... twice. You get some party members stolen from you etc. It was just a lot more interaction between party members. When you visit your ship in Kotor 1 you would see party members talk with each other with each other, talk about you etc. Also there were many points in the game where you would talk to your whole party at the same time, sorta like one big conversation. I want to remind everyone that I'm not saying ME1 is a bad game or anything, nothing is perfect so I'm just saying the things that I think could be better. The thing that I think could use the most work just happens to be side character development.

I might be biased in my post becuase I'ma real Bastilla fan! She had a double bladed lightsaber back when double bladed lightsabers were still original and it was yellow!

449185-bastilashankotor_2_large.jpg
 

Aazealh

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Clawed The Bum said:
Well as I said compared to Kotor 1 ME didnt have much character development of the side characters. Most of the examples you gave were side quests, and yes there were some things you had to do to get some of the party members but was much less then Kotor.

Yeah I know that. However this is a Mass Effect 2 thread, not a Knights of the Old Republic thread. I understand that you really like KOTOR but it isn't the topic at hands.

EDIT: New trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-mass-effect/49798
 
Nice looking trailer, that city looks pretty cool, a lot of the first game was outdoors and that trailer showed nothing but indoor activity which could be a good thing. So the Normandy is back hmmm. I wonder if the game is going to stick with most of the party members from the previous game or if its going to have completely new people altogether.

Nice find thanks for trailer ^^
 
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