Given that Mass Effect 2 came out over a year and a half ago… yes, I’m a little late in finding this out. But bear with me.
I didn’t have an X-Box 360 when the original came out. I was curious, and already had an appreciation for Bioware’s work thanks mainly to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire. Still, while I was curious about Mass Effect, I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to play it.
Some time in 2009, I decided to pop in Mass Effect and give it a go. And, to be honest, the game just would not click with me. I liked the level of customization in the character creation system, to be sure (haircuts could use a little more variety though), both for aesthetics and backgrounds.
But once the game started…
I suppose I should say first that I abhor the idea of the Spectre. It’s not to say I didn’t throw my weight around whenever I saw fit, but the idea of awarding individuals that much power with no internal affairs group to investigate their actions was absurd to me. I could not fathom how several advanced and intelligent species thought this was a good idea.
Now, to be fair, the game does start to acknowledge the problem with the Spectre system, though I don’t think I ever got that far when I first picked up the title. Moreover though, the fact that the plot is catalyzed by a Spectre going rogue and the question of his guilt is resolved with a ten second audio clip (which I’m surprised the council doesn’t accuse the player of doctoring) just makes it pretty implausible all around.
The second problem I had was the characters. The majority of the humans were uninteresting or downright unlikeable (though concerning Ambassador Udina, I suspect that was intentional) and most of the aliens you meet feel like they’re meant to be archetypes of their races rather than unusual and interesting people.
I’m tempted to attribute some of the blame to Mass Effect being such a new universe that most of its first entry has to be spent setting people up. There’s certainly a greater degree of freedom in exploring the unusual people once we’ve established what is expected of the average individual.
So why were the humans so bland? We know what humans are already (tending towards being human ourselves), so why couldn’t Williams and Alenko be more interesting characters? Most of the personalities that were placed before me were not particularly clever or compelling enough that I wanted to keep talking to them.
In short, I wasn’t exactly compelled by the people or events of the galaxy.
The third problem I had though, and this was the coup de grace, was the gameplay.
I’d tried playing a hybrid soldier/biotic class at first. Some misconception is to blame on my part, since my experience with Bioware and science fiction boiled down to KOTOR, I had some notion that Biotic abilities might be a bit more like playing with the Force.
The problem came down, though, to the fact that I was just plain squishy. I never really got the hang of my biotic powers and so I barely used them, and I didn’t really “get” the weapon system, and was mainly relying on my shotgun which was, in retrospect, pretty lousy.
And I died. A lot. I didn’t pump much of what EXP I gained into my defense and so I tended to get dropped quickly and regularly. The horrible cooldown time on the healing items really didn’t help.
Upon leaving the Citadel, I decided to pursue the story at a far-off ice planet. After enduring some particularly awful vehicle sequencing I made my way to the boss and died several times.
At this point, I set the controller on the table. I knew, with enough tenacity, I could overcome this and anything else. The question, I asked myself, was did I even care?
I decided I did not, and shelved the game. “Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s you,” I told it and we did not speak again until a few weeks ago.
So, cut to a few weeks ago. I finish Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I find myself oddly in the mood for something a little more sci-fi. I’d been planning to give Mass Effect another go for a while, partly because I’d heard number 2 was an improvement and partially because I wanted to experience the whole story.
I pop in Mass Effect 1. I start over, rebuilding my character from scratch. I keep her look almost exactly as it originally was, but just make her a straight soldier. I go through the tedium of running around the Citadel, I bolster my defense. I rely mainly on my handgun instead of my shotgun.
And to be honest, it’s better. The game needs a decent tutorial at the beginning, the vehicle sequences still suck and most of the characters (except the humans) do turn out to be interesting once you talk to them.
By the end, I would daresay I’m actually enjoying the game, if only a bit. I’m almost shocked.
It takes me about 3 days and fifteen hours of gameplay, and a number of people die. I knock out the tenacious final boss and earn instant celebrity status. My system file is created and I switch right to number 2.
What blew me away was how much better it really was. Within the first twenty minutes I was having more fun than in those fifteen hours of the original game. Everything had been refined, everything looked better and played better.
The opening of the game surprised me (I went in knowing next to nothing about it) and I found myself surprisingly more attached to my crew members in this game than I did in the original, so much that I was worried about them. Some of this I owe to sharper writing (okay, a lot of this), and some of it I owe to the novelty of actually having a continuing plot in a game, something one doesn’t normally see.
I could probably go on a laundry list about why the second game is better, but given how long it’s been out, I’m sure someone’s already done this. I will suffice to say that aside from every little technical improvement, the second game has a personality and tries to make every character interesting, even ones who in the previous game were not.
The most enjoyable thing to me became finding my old comrades and finding what they’d been up to since the first game, finding a sense that the world of the first game and this one actually has real, substantial connections.
Hell, one of the biggest surprises came when the few odd side quests I did in part 1 had little repercussions in part 2, leading to me chatting up with or killing off characters I’d helped before. The world of Mass Effect had finally come together for me, and I went from rushing through the first game to wanting to do every little thing in the second game, to the point that I snagged every DLC mission available just to extend the game experience.
But all this that I’ve gone on about is not why the game is truly awesome, oh no. It’s probably enough, but it’s not the reason for all this.
Understand, something happened while I played Mass Effect 1 & 2: people watched.
With the first game, it was a passing interest. My wife, who had found the first game intriguing but the gameplay distasteful, was happy to at least see all the little things she read about in action. My roommate, who was home from work one day, ended up sitting down and watching me play through the ending sequence.
They saw quite a bit of it, from the occasional awkward death to those awful, awful vehicle sequences, to that rather dynamic climax. They saw me switch to Mass Effect 2, the remarkable transition in quality.
My roommate, who is fairly busy, is a bit selective about what he plays. Sometimes he’ll watch what I’m playing, occasionally he may express an interest or at least an appreciation, but it still seems to take the right kind of game to get him to play. He prefers racing games and bullet hell shooters and doesn’t pick up many RPGs.
As such, when he started playing, it was at least a little unusual. Tending to favor magic using types, he went for straight biotic while I’d played a sniper. My actions were Renegade with altruistic intentions while his solitary goal is to make the universe a more terrible place while saving it, perhaps reaching for some ironic conclusion where one must ask who did more killing: Shepard or the Reapers?
This was probably positive enough by itself, but the real oddity came when my wife started playing.
To explain, my wife has a love for games but very seldom plays much, let alone for very long. I’ve seen her pick up the intermittent title, play for a while and never quite get back to it. While it would be a stretch to say she’s disinterested in the medium, she’s also not the type to usually get very far into it either.
As a second point, she’s not as big on the Western RPG. Obviously there’s a few permutations on what this can mean, but I suppose in more extreme cases, you’ll never see her playing Fallout 3.
The fact that she picked up the game was already pretty remarkable. The fact that she’s one mission away from the game’s culminating suicide mission, the end-game experience, is phenomenal.
I’ve been married since late 2008 and our current roommate has lived with us since late 2009. I’ve never once picked up a game and seen it inspire such fervor in the household. The fact that at one point three people were actively playing it (I finished about a week ago and have mostly stayed away from the system out of courtesy) is unprecedented around here.
So I suppose to sum it up, after putting both games off for quite some time, I’ll be there when Mass Effect 3 launches, and I won’t be alone. While I’ll most likely will still be going first, I don’t expect the 360 will see much off-time when that fated day rolls around.
It’s like you’re trying to troll me or something. First your post about Deus Ex, and now this?
Joking aside, I would actually like to know how you have the patience to play the insane grindfest that is the landscape of the JRPG (Megaten related stuff in particular) and somehow lack the modicum of patience required to get into and enjoy Mass Effect.
I mean, personal taste and all, but Mass Effect basically defines this generation of consoles and is the picture in the dictionary next to ground-breakingly massive and epic RPGs.
For specific issues: I’m surprised you’d stomached previous Bioware RPGs then took exception to the concept of a Spectre. It’s your standard “bioware protagonist in a unique position to travel anywhere and do anything” setup. Within the fluff, obviously Spectres are vetted through years (or decades) of military experience and dozens of recommendations, not to mention the deeper considerations of the council — not quite empowering “anyone” to do anything.
That aside, the power arrangement between the Council (who Spectres answer to) and the rest of the Citadel races is somewhat informal; they don’t actually have any authority over any of the races or governments, though all the races tend to respect their decisions and follow them. To this end, while Spectres answer only to the council, no one really answers to Spectres (how many doors are closed in your face over the course of the games? No-one’s kowtowing to the Spectres). Still, I agree that at best it’s a silly idea that strains credulity, and at worst suggests a level of unaccountability that we should all shudder at.
Moving on, I don’t think you can write off any of the characters as being flat or uninteresting, save for the outset. Kaiden is your typical Bioware RPG male, and a whiny one at that, but you do learn what makes him tick and, to taste, might actually respect where he’s coming from. Ashley pretty much hits you right upfront with her racist and religious tendancies, which isn’t something I really expected to see out of a crewmember in this game (and she’s the one to take the shot at Wrex when push comes to shove). And Wrex… tell me he’s not dead in your game.
The vehicle sections are fucking awful though.
The rest of the gameplay …maybe your playstyle doesn’t work with this sort of game. Mass Effect isn’t a difficult game but for one encounter (some biotics on a sidequest, not even the final boss). You get a respectable number of upgrade points such that you should be a great biotic wind, sweeping over your foes like a …great wind of some description. I can’t help but wonder if you were investing heavily in the wrong areas or had different expectations for how to use these abilities and how combat runs (it’s still a cover-based shooter). My brother, too, ran through the game with naught but a pistol on his engineer, ludicously overpowered for all the mechanized foes you face.
Mass Effect 2 does make ME1 look retarded though. Streamlined to a fault, each mission is amazing, offering unique twists and environments, along with your ship full of awesome people and motherfucking Garrus holing up for a week by himself on Omega. Oh man.
Anyway, I personally think that Mass Effect as a series, while obviously not perfect, is absolutely amazing and given the opportunity I will obviously not shut up about it. I’m glad you and the wife and your somewhat ambulatory couch warmer are enjoying it.
DLC?
Trolling accomplished. :-p
In all seriousness though, lemme see…
Concerning grinding, well… I’m not a big fan of it. I don’t mind a little, since usually a little means you’re choosing to push yourself a bit higher now to make things easier later. And yeah, Shin Megami Tensei is particularly bad about it in general, but the flipside is that their battle system usually involves a balanced level of strategy I like.
That said, I do favor those that don’t require grinding. The two Digital Devil Saga games are quite good and tell an interesting story, but can get a bit grind dependent at times, especially near the end of the second games, owing in particular to frustrating party restrictions which are necessitated by the events of the story. Persona 4, on the other hand, was incredibly well balanced and I could spend the whole game proceeding without having to take much time to stop and gain levels.
To answer your point then (or what I believe is your point), I think I just got annoyed with the level of empty footwork the first game demanded. I felt like I was often playing errand boy, running back and forth while not really doing anything else (especially in the Citadel). If I could run faster or if the load times weren’t so bad, it’d have been less of an issue. It wasn’t what made me put down the game the first time, but it certainly didn’t warm me up to the experience.
Regarding the Spectres versus everything else… well, I think my core issue is that Spectre status didn’t feel earned. Performing one fetch-quest in the Citadel isn’t exactly ground breaking action that warrants special status, especially considering the circumstances surrounding it, and while my character was as badass as I could make her, I wasn’t given a clear indication why she stood above the other humans.
By comparison, consider KOTOR which lets you spend some more time in your character’s skin, getting to know who you are and the world around you before turning you into a Jedi, and actually showing a training montage when you do it. Considering it’s generally stated there is a degree of training involved, it’s sort of odd that the first game just gives you an extra stat class after a quick and lofty speech.
With contrast to ME1, ME2 lets you get Spectrehood back, but doesn’t really make much ado about it. Your ability to travel the galaxy and coerce people isn’t really affect in part because, as you said, the exact measure of influence Spectres have (beyond accountability with their employers) is murky at best.
And regarding flatness of characters, well… the outset is sort of the trouble. Kaiden really was entirely unremarkable and as for Williams, her racism and religious views didn’t really seem especially well expressed. Nothing she had issue with seemed any better or worse than anyone else in the game (the XO seemed about as bad as her, and it just felt like a common character trait). And while I noticed that she was religious insofar that she evoked God a couple of times, it never really became something that was discussed beyond that point.
By contrast, Jacob and Miranda in ME2 were just far more compelling early on. Jacob was surprisingly pleasant for a man in his position and background, while Miranda’s arrogance was interesting because the game took the time to explain why it was founded while simultaneously bringing that foundation into question.
And don’t worry, Wrex is fine. :-p The only person who died was Kaiden, in what I’ll admit was one of the more interesting choices in the game, albeit I feel undermined by the fact that the game didn’t succeed in making me care one whit about who I had to choose from. Ashley lived solely because her name was an Evil Dead reference.
Concerning the gameplay itself… like I said, I did go in with some flawed expectations, particularly concerning biotics. I sort of wish the game could have provided some sort of crash course for them, prior to character selection, but what’s done is done. I do recall minimal use of cover when I played the game the first time, which can likely be blamed for a few of my deaths (though the healing system still sucked), since I don’t think I was used to cover based shooters back then. Coming off Deus Ex certainly helped put me in the mindset, and may have contributed to me “getting” such a mechanic better, since I was using it in conjunction to stealth. It’s probably a weird thing for one not to “get” even a few years ago, but I will remind you that I don’t play many shooters in general, let alone ones that require a modicum of strategy.
It also didn’t help that the weapon system didn’t really feel thought out, as some of the equipment doesn’t handle well, and the cool-down system (while interesting) gives the player little reason to switch around their arsenal if one thing is working well.
To accentuate one point, the sniper rifle was nigh unusable in the first game. The amount of wobble the scope suffered was unbearable, and made long-range shooting frustrating. For comparison, Metal Gear Solid recommends lying prone or using tranquilizers to steady one’s hand, while I believe Splinter Cell would allow the player to hold their breath for a few minutes to concentrate. Mass Effect did none of these things, essentially requiring the player to stand erect and try to snipe in that position.
ME2, on the other hand, allowed the player means to slow down the action in order to line up a shot, making the weapon usable (and indeed, my favorite). Placing an ammo system, meanwhile, encouraged the player to switch their weapons around and conserve better weapons for tougher enemies, placing a level of strategy in the game that was missing in the first.
So, yeah, my opinion of the sequel is much higher. It’s probably one of those games where I’d love to see the original retooled with the mechanics of the sequel, just to make it a little more playable.
Oh, and I cheered when the Mako was destroyed. And yes, DLC. Why the question?
The “Normandy Crash Site” DLC shows the XO’s stance on the filthy xenos, down to acknowledging that he unfairly disliked them and grew to disregard his own prejudices (which was neat). But mainly I was seeing if you’d also played through Overlord (meh), Shadowbroker (yay!) and Arrival (railroadrailroadrailroad), or gotten to play with the two DLC characters (both of which were neat, but I never got to use Kasumi much as I got her after finishing the game).
I will say that I completely understand your issues with the pacing of the first bit of Mass Effect. You get a cool mission on Edem Prime then TONS of boring footwork on the Citadel, before jetting off to the rest of the much more well paced game. Previous Bioware RPGs suffer from this kind of “tutorial” area that exists to throw low-level conflicts at you while setting up the broader backstory (even though the rest of the game is nowhere near as broad, open-ended or quest filled as the station).
The important thing to remember about the Spectre status is that Commander Shepard was already confirmed to become a Spectre before the game began, based upon her illustrious military career. The incident at Eden Prime was a hiccup that might have derailed this if not for the evidence against Saren. As for the evidence itself …either you can assume they already checked it to verify its integrity (it is a geth data core, no easy way to fabricate that), and/or you can take the fact that Garrus has had a mounting case against him for a while, much of which has been dismissed probably for not being enough of a reason to question a Spectre.
And even still, this just allows you to become a Spectre to basically go after him; it’s not like the council brands him a traitor or does anything beyond asking you to take care of it.
The Snoipah Roifle is probably the hardest weapon to use in ME1, but it can also be used to one-shot bosses (with the weapon power stabilizing your aim perfectly and boosting the damage). The game clearly wants you to use pistols or assault rifles as your main weapon though. I liked the fluff of the overheat mechanic but wasn’t sad to see the mechanic itself go in ME2 (why, yes, I do enjoy firing a shotgun MORE THAN ONCE THANKS).
The decision to kill off Kaiden or Ashley is undermined if you’re romancing the alien chick. If you’re with one or the other, you either get called on playing favorites (by sacrificing the one you’re not boning) or some odd looks for knocking off your boot knocker.
Yeah, I played all the DLC. In fact, I grabbed it early into disc 2, and was pleased how well it integrated into the game experience as a while.
I would agree that the Shadow Broker mission was the best overall, partly because it explored a character from the first game, made her cooler, and felt relevant to the plot overall. Overlord certainly seemed the least relevant, by contrast; I enjoyed the beginning and really enjoyed the end section, but it certainly felt the most disconnected out of the three.
With the extra characters, I actually rather liked Zaeed (nice guy that he is), and found it particularly interesting that you can actually mess his loyalty mission up- having done so myself. Kasumi, on the other hand, while not dislike-able as a person, felt a bit more like a cliche- that of the sophisticated master thief- all while doing some particularly boneheaded things during her loyalty mission.
Otherwise, I’ll say that I didn’t know the sniper rifle could one-shot bosses since I didn’t like using something that couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. As compensations for a weapon being theoretically overpowered go, that’s pretty weak.
And concerning the story kills, that’s why I’m glad I didn’t romance anyone. Made their sacrifice nice and clinical.
Man, you guys seem to have had some problems with the shotgun in the first game. Personally me and the shotty were best buds. I just put a heat sink in it and all was right with the world. Now the second game with it’s inane restriction on ammo and the BS in-game reason were what pissed me off.
That and removing barrier from my power load out and giving me the charge power. They made me crunchier and allowed me to zoom directly into the midst of a group of baddies.
better than being a soldier though.
Well, I used the shotgun intermittently on my second run through, mainly against “zombie” type enemies (husks, those plant controlled… things, and the like) and it worked well enough in those spaces, provided nothing got too close. I’m glad they swapped out automatic pistol whipping for manual.
The assault rifle, on the other hand, I never used. More owing that it’s just not my style.
As I said, I did prefer the ammo system in ME2, in part because it encouraged me to rotate weapons a bit more early on and get a feel for my arsenal as a whole. By the end of the game, ammo really wasn’t an issue for me in most cases, save for managing my sniper rifle (which probably shouldn’t be allowed to have too much anyways).
I will agree that the change is a bit dubious- I never actually caught the explanation, though I recall a joke cracked during the Liara DLC mission about a security upgrade that rendered Omni Gel useless. Which I liked, because I hated Omni Gel. Mainly because all of it went into repairing the Mako, and I hated the Mako.
If I recall correctly the change is due to more efficient geth shields needing lots of hits to take down, so a gun that has overheated gives the shield time to recharge while the gun cools off. If you just drop out the heat sink and pop a new one in you can keep firing. It’s in one of the encyclopedia entries, but I have not the tme to look it up right now.
However the fact that the heat sinks basically become ‘ammo’ makes all the fancy back-story moot. I would not have minded replaceable heat sinks had they actually been that. Give me a heat system and the option to drop them out if I don’t want to wait. Instead they have limited the amount of ammo I can carry, despite a well conceived reason as to why ammo is basically unlimited and my nearly infinitely deep funding (“we have resurrected you, rebuilt the Normandy, and allocated tons of funding to your team…here’s 12 rounds of ammo”), and forced me to switch guns all the time.
I realize we have a difference of preference as far as the weapons go. You enjoyed begin forced to examine each weapon. I enjoy finding “my gun” and sticking to it. Upon starting ME2 I eagerly anticipated finding a shotgun and saving the galaxy again (While you used it on ‘zombie’ style foes I used it on everything, even the big bad). Instead I found that I was forced to use other guns because the amount of ammo was very limited.
I prefer to switch guns due to choice and situation. The incentive for me is that the SMG (which I loved) is best on shields, pistol beats armor, and shotgun shreds tissue. I do not want to enter a tactical situation and have to switch out tactics because my preferred gun has suddenly ran out of ammo. I don’t view it as ‘experiencing all my options’ I see it as “Now I don’t have barrier to protect me and the new pistol kinda sucks.”
Mind you, I’m not meaning to harp or be argumentative, just clarifying my position. These aspects were huge detriments to me upon playing Mass Effect 2, and they forced me to alter my entire process of playing the game. It was not a fun change and I did not enjoy it. I very nearly abandoned the series very early on into ME2. That said, I do love the series and look forward to part 3, I would just like them to fix the problems with ammo they introduced (again, a mixture of overheating and heat sinks is a good way to go) and hopefully allow me a fix for my biotics (ME2 had Jacob’s loyalty mission that gave me barrier back, I worry ME3 won’t have such an option).
Whew, look at that big chunk of text…way more than I meant to write.