Mass Effect 2’s out
I hemmed and hawed, but I ended up buying the damn thing anyhow, as you’d probably expect. The intro is pretty badass; clearly I’m not supposed to understand exactly what’s going on, but it’s definitely an awesome hook. I think the last game that hooked me this hard right at the beginning was Final Fantasy 7. Let’s hope this one turns out a bit better, hey? Time for liveblog!
The controls are oddly different from the first Mass Effect. I think they’re better, but I’m having trouble getting used to them right now. It is completely gay that I need to track ammo in this game, though; Mass Effect’s heat mechanic was, like, a lot more fun. Ah well.
Hey, I just met Jacob! In Mass Effect Galaxy, he looked like this. In Mass Effect 2, he looks a lot more like this. Hey, I’ll take it! He is a sweet and refreshing beverage.
Is there a rule that every video game with a science team has to have a hot female lead and a whipped science bitch who does all the real work and then writes mopey fucking diaries pining for her? Because sometimes it seems like it.
Why can video games get the pronunciation right on "Charon" but not on "Cerberus?" Now I think they’re doing this on purpose.
Hacking is way less arbitrary than it was in the first Mass Effect — you’re like selecting code fragments that match a pattern. Still a weird minigame, but less totally random. I mean, Frogger? What? However, Bioware did make it as confusing as possible in one way — what button do you press to select the code fragment? No button you’ll ever fucking guess, that’s for sure. It’s the space bar. And you can’t configure that in the key bindings.
There’s a fairly critical choice at the very end of the first Mass Effect that happens too late to be included in the savefile. I was wondering how they’d manage to smoosh it into Mass Effect 2. Little did I know they’d do it through the most comically hamfisted way possible. It’s awesome!
Why are my scars glowing? That’s creepy. I hope there’s a reason for it, and it’s not just a visual fuckup.
Holy shit armour customisation rocks. Lamely, the bonus preorder armour isn’t customisable. Boo.
Mass Effect 2 runs in a borderless window if you want it to. Thank God. Why don’t more games have that option? It totally rules.
Weapons are different this time around. Instead of playing inventory soup, you appear to get just one of everything. Presumably they upgrade. And this time class restrictions are more severe; you can’t even use any weapons your class isn’t proficient in.
I don’t like the new HUD — it’s way to compressed. Takes up only marginally less real estate, but gives far less information.
As an infiltrator, I get a special power that slows down time when I’m aiming the sniper rifle. Comically enough, it slows down the sound, too — it’s fun listening to voices downshift like I’m in a movie and the hero’s just made the big jump to get the girl out of the way of the exploding nuclear reactor. Noooooo!
It’s hilarious how meaningless the money I’m getting is. Oh, hey, sweet! I hacked a safe! 250 credits! That would be great, I guess, except that the game started me with a hundred thousand credits for being super fucking rich at the end of the first Mass Effect. I also got like a bunch of weird shit I don’t understand, and 190 paragon points. And no renegade points. That’s how I roll!
Naggy fucking henchmen. Ye gods. I hope they relax once I’m out of the intro, but right now they just never ever stop telling me what my objective is until I finally do it. Chill! I’m searching for loot, since I need to find goddamn ammunition in this game.
Well, so far, I like it pretty well. It’s about on par with the first Mass Effect to this point; I’m hoping for a lack of endless dune buggy missions. The only thing I don’t like to date is the ammunition; the heat mechanic was a lot more fun — especially for those of us who prefer to play sniper-style, and are now stuck with foolishly little ammunition.
