Mass Effect 2: Hands On First Impressions
Having gotten my grubby mitts on one of this years biggest and highly anticipated games it would come as no surprise that straight away I had to sit down and play it; however I have barely even scratched the surface of the main story or any of the mandatory sub-plots for extra characters and so on. So in this instance I’m not writing a review that weighs up the pros and cons of the game, just something short to whet your appetite for its Friday 29th release, and hopefully I shall reveal no spoilers in the process.
So to just set the scene for the game; as you may know if you have been following the trickling stream of news regarding ME2, Shepard has disappeared for 2 years and been confirmed as KIA by the Citadel council. You join the action 2 years after the end of the original Mass Effect and are now tasked with investigating random sporadic attacks on human colonies on the outer reaches of the galaxy; this all leads into the potential ending of Shepard embarking on a complete suicide mission to save humanity. Story wise the game is now broken down into mission segments with reports at the end summarising the story and any items and experience you gained. Although this is helpful to see your progress moving onward it does bring an uncomfortable jarring to the gameplay flow; as does the loading times, which is a completely petty point to make but for a high profile next gen game it seems like it takes longer than many other games to load areas, even though the loading screens have interesting animations to bide your time with.
Mass Effect 1
Mass Effect 2
The actual gameplay runs so smoothly compared to its predecessor, which ran like a dream most of the time, and the combat has a lot more weight behind it. By that I mean that it doesn’t feel erratic and inaccurate, which it could in ME, and when you pull the trigger the force feedback you get has a hefty blow to it when using a heavy weapon or a lighter faster response depending what weapon you use, its just a nice touch that adds an extra layer of interactivity to the game. Visually it is stunning; I was running this on my 360 and only occasionally did I notice textures looking flat or objects vaguely angular, It doesn’t look as good as it would on a high spec PC or if it ever managed to end up on the PS3 but it does a very good job of coming close, and the subtle film grain effect helps soften any of the rough edges on show.
Garrus is back for more
Once again the dialogue wheel is back in play and really does show off the quality of the animation and voice acting; however it may just be me but, the conversations feel wooden and sometimes completely detached from the situation, where the original seemed to create such flowing and intriguing conversations, this may just be because I’m in the early stages of the game so far. Overall despite a few niggles, that will no doubt become more seamless as the story progresses, ME2 is brilliant fun to play and improves vastly upon the already near perfect original. With more playtime, interactivity with your team mates and charachter expansion would be easier to evaluate, currently all I can think of right now is going back to my comfy chair and spending a good solid day or two working my life away in front of Mass Effect 2.
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