ÆON Community

As most of you know by now, I love me a good RPG and I hate me a bad console to PC port. The original Mass Effect had me raging due to its console-ish feel and its supreme bugginess that basically made the game completely unplayable unfortunately.

But dammit, I’m a sucker for torture…so I got Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 for the PC

Two words: Fucking Love.

At 11gbs unpacked, I had high hopes for this game content-wise and it didnt disappoint. Lets do this in an orderly fashion:

Story:

When it comes to RPG’s, you expect a solid story with unique gameplay to back it up. If it fails at achieving this then its simply not worth playing (obviously).

Mass Effect 2′s story can be a wee bit dodgy and thin at times but mostly it holds strong. A quick summary is as follows (spoilers inside):

You are the Legendary Human “Commander Shepard” who led the assault against the now infamous Geth in Mass Effect 1. Some time after the first story you are floating through space in your ship the “Normandy” when suddenly some half asteroid/half ship appears belonging to what are known as the “Collectors” which are a forcefully evolved ancient Prothean race. The collecters blast you clear out of the sky but most of your crew escapes through escape pods, Shephard however is not so lucky.

You are killed.

A company who’s sole focus is the dominance of humanity in the galaxy appears and spends a fortune reviving you back to health by basically turning you into some sort of super-human android. The company is led by an individual known as the “Illusive Man” who is fucking awesomely acted. Seriously, out of all the conversations I had in this game, the ones with the Illusive man were the best. The Illusive man needs Shephard to gain a team to take back the Galaxy from the threat of the “Collectors” who are harvesting human colonies.

And away the fights go.

Combat:

At first the combat sucks, its tedious, boring and does not add anything to the game. Enemies have a combination of Health, Armour and Shields. It is up to you to tactically decide in battle which ammo types, powers and guns you and your team should be using to try combat the diversity of the enemies. Its frustrating as you run out of ammo on the guns you like and are forced to use guns you dislike just to get through a mission.

Oddly enough, the game gives you the option of focusing on “tech” (engineer powers), “biotic” (Force powers) or “Combat”…but the combat is almost useless, you increase the damage on your guns…FOR WHAT?! The assholes have shields, your super powered heavy pistol is USELESS until you remove it…its hugely frustrating as you have about 25 shots only on your pistol before you run out of ammo if you are unlucky and dont get any ammo drops.

I have not tried “tech” gameplay simply because I never used tech teammates and I was a Biotic specialist myself so I really cant speak for the gameplay there. The powers I granted myself was some teleport leap at the enemy to get me nice and close and powered up guns (I was a class known as a “Vanguard”). Here lies the biggest flaw in the game I played. I could teleport at the enemy, presumably so I could nail the pricks with heavy pistols and shotguns…but NOOOOO! Shields stop pistol and armour stops shotgun, you have to change guns in melee range against 3-4 enemies with more spawning to kill them efficiently…so Bioware…Why oh why did you make such a useless skill.

I look to Halo (God forbid) for a good example here, if you cant kill an enemy with the guns you have, you simply go and get bigger guns. Sure you could be more stealthy and go snipe him for a bit, but its preferable to shot him with rockets and then get nice and close and blast the shit out of him with shotgun. Its tried and tested combat…if people want to be a brute, let them be a brute…let them have dickloads of ammo and big guns but no powers…its their choice.

The biotic powers are kinda fun to start with but turn out to be game winners by the end. In the end I maxed out loyalty on Miranda to get her “Slam” biotic attack. Couple that at heavy level 4 with heavy level 4 shockwave and I didnt use ammo at all in the final mission…Husks die one hit and the end-game collectors died one hit or were knocked of the edges…it was too easy. So max out dem biotics…especially Slam and Shockwave…Slam for many enemies scattered as its spammable and shockwave to hit those spawns coming in.

The Ship:

The “Normandy” (rebuilt by Cerberus to keep players happy) is deceptively large as once you get in it, its rather small. But its still large enough to keep you entertained without making travel between crew mates tedious. It looks amazing and has some cool features like when you walk from the main floors terminals around the side, it will change the image in the centre from a galaxy map to a ship map…its neat and really adds to the atmosphere.

Dont get fish either, you need to feed them or they die apparently…

Anyway, you use the Normandy as your home and its your battlestation, your upgrade centre, your personnel carrier, your miner and your mission centre. Lets talk about mining:

What you can do in this game is fly to planets all over the show in various systems throughout the Milky Way galaxy and essentially scan them for 4 minerals that you require to upgrade your ship, guns and equipment. Element Zero, Iridium, Platinum and Palladium. Palladium is by far the easiest to obtain, and Element Zero is an absolute asshole to find. Heed this advice, when you come to upgrade, don’t upgrade things you dont need like ship fuel, its a waste of Element Zero and you will regret it when you suddenly can add 40% Biotic damage instead. The mining itself is made thousands of times easier on a PC with a mouse that has a sensitivity button, I was able to scan through planets at very fast speeds due to the speed I could move my mouse. Oh yea, on that point…in typical console port style, even on the lowest sensitivity, you still zap around so damned quick you cant see what you’re doing…I had to go down to 400dpi on my G9 to be able to play which is just annoying.

The upgrade centre is straight forward, spend resources, get cool shit…Nuff said.

What I loved about being on the Normandy though was that it was a social hub. Every person you help on missions will mail you to your inbox which you can read on ship and you can chat with your team members while on board about various events in life and whatnot and gain a real feel for whos who…Eventually you will come to love 2-3 people and just take them everywhere. Mine (and Budda’s) was Miranda and Grunt/Garrus. Miranda’s full level Cerberus Operative skill offers a 15% bonus to squad damage and Grunt fully upgraded wont die (I managed to kill him in the last mission, he solo’d 2 Collector Scions in the open…goddamn it was funny).

The team:

Major spoiler alert here as I will be listing all the available characters. You start with two humans Jacob and Miranda, two Cerberus operatives. Miranda is a vat born super Biotic human and Jacob is a biotic in his own right specialising in combat. Jacob loves doing things the military way and following orders, Miranda has a tortured past as she was not born, but created to fulfil a legacy for her power hungry father. From there you gain Garrus and Mordin.

Garrus is a Turian Guerilla specialist. He uses snipers and assault rifles to basically be a heavy firing pain in the ass. He’s also as tough as nails and is the man in every right, if you dont like him from the moment you meet him, then you’re a pussy. You also pick up Mordin, a Salarian Tech doctor. He’s a massively intelligent genius doctor who has an odd way of talking and struggles to get what he is thinking into words, I loved talking to him because of it. Then theres Jack and Grunt.

Jack is another Biotic test subject. She is known as Subject Zero and was part of a rogue Cerberus operation to create a super-Biotic, basically they tortured kids with biotic experiments and the ones that proved useful would be pumped into Jack. Unfortunately they hit a point where they had too many powerful Biotic kids and they broke free, Jack included. Grunt on the other hand is an instant favourite. He was a vat-born pure Krogan warrior and he IS the man. He will kill anything and will not die as well as be purely loyal. He is a must have on the team and he will make even the hardest mission seem survivable. Next is Tali’Zorah, Legion and Thane.

Thane is a Drell Assassin/Monk thing. He’s awesome in every way and you will only understand this once you get him. Tali’Zorah is a whiney little teenage Quariann bitch who will make your life a living hell but use her for the tech mission at the end and she will survive, as it happens, Mordin will not. Also its worth noting at this point that “Legion” is Geth…Thats right, Geth. As it happens, the Geth you fought in the first game (and throughout the second) are a rogue sect of the original Geth and Legion (a hiveminded Geth Tech warrior) informs you that Geth also wish to stop the plight of the rogue Geth on the galaxy. Legion gets his name from the quote: “We are Legion for we are many” (I think it was) as he represents all Geth, not an individual…He’s also very cool.

The graphics:

Pretty, beyond belief. Seriously I played on high graphics and am fortunate enough to be able to get a tolerable frame rate out of it. Each planet landing gave me a new spectacle to marvel at, and each new city boarding would stun me with its visuals. Its the sort of thing you would just drool and stroke if you had it in your own house. Unfortunately this game cant escape bugs…from graphical glitches like my green haze getting stuck on permanently even when I went back to the Normandy to the bonus mission where you have to do a lazer puzzle…ALSO NOTE: If you come across this mission, move the mirrors first, then activate the lazer…Then LOOK AWAY. This way the game will not crash to desktop…its basically the only solution at this stage. Also at many points you will randomly get stuck walking, its annoying as fuck, moreso when you cant escape. So save often.

Anyway, I’m not going to write too much more. This game was awesome, the combat might suck in the start but its such a small part thats its barely worth mentioning as you will master it and conquer all. The end mission is fucking amazing (nothing else describes it) and is based on how you did throughout the game. If you upgrade your weapons and hull it will make sure to have cutscenes showing this…you will also have to lead several teams at the end which is awesome as pretty much all of your team will come in handy.

This game easily gets a 9/10. If they had a handle on combat and simple PC controls like mouse movement, it would be a 10/10. It was an amazing high quality experience that makes me want to go back and play again. RPG games in 2010 have a huge marker to step up too if they want to overcome this machine of a game.