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.

The former marks one of the best RPG’s ever made that even spawned an anime, the latter you all know about so I wont talk about it.

The game itself features in much the same as every other old school RPG you can think of…you gain a party of mixed individuals and skills, you pick the group you like the best and you go off to kill everything and save the world from impending doom.

The doom in this case is a meteor-thing which contains and powerful and sinister power. It smashed into the planet and is causing chaos and turning people/creatures into demonic beings and naturally it’s your goal to save them all!

You can start the story as either Rena (pictured above on the very left) or Claude (again but on the very right). I’ve played this game twice through as each character but this time around I started as Claude again which means I am a space traveller under my fathers stern rule travelling about the galaxy surveying planets under rule of the Earth Federation. He ends up on Milocinia studying an alien ruin which he, in his retardation, thinks is a playground. So he jumps on it even though his commander and father says no.

So he gets teleported to the aforementioned planet named Expel who apparently speak the same language as he. He finds Rena being attacked by a demonic creature and rushes to her aide using his Blaster pistol which spurts out huge rays of light as it shoots. Unfortunately for our poor lost hero, the townfolk believe in a prophecy where a “hero with the sword of light” will appear which means he’s now going to be raked into helping these poor sods look after themselves.

(The above picture is part of the anime not the game…but w/e…ACTUALLY! I just found out its from the PSP version of the game! I NEEDS THAT VERSION!)

Anyway as it turns out Rena isn’t from Expel either and that she was found and adopted by her “Mother”…which explains why she has mystical healing powers…powers which make her a highly useful companion. So the town tells Claude and Rena to go fix the world…you can probably fill in the blanks from there…GAMEPLAY TIME!

The outdoor areas are about as indepth as you’d expect a game this old to be, they’re mostly empty with simple paths and forests and you control your main character as you run between cities performing various quests. As with most JRPG games, random encounters feature heavily in this game…everywhere you move outside and in dungeons, you can expect to encounter various groups of enemies who can either be pathetically weak or could severely out number you and on top of that they can enter battle from behind, front or even above you in some sort of fucked up air assault or something. Naturally these surprise entries can force you to move your characters out of certain danger lest your weaker spell casters and healers get eaten alive making combat highly difficult.

The map itself is very simplistic and chances are if you are like me you simply wont use it other than to get your bearings (ie…head north)…I just remember where towns are and map it out in my head as it seems a hell of a lot easier.

Inside towns you will meet NPC’s and be able to traverse through buildings by walking straight into doors that give way when you faceplant them. NPC’s show emotion by using speech bubbles which you can see with the whistling kid above. Moving around is pretty easy but occasionally you get stuck on objects/cant find a way to a particular place you need to go which can prove highly frustrating as you cant move the camera.

By now anyone that has played the game will realise that these Screenshots that I have are from fairly early on in the game…Anyway the combat is very JRPGish, click a button to choose your attack (you can set up to 2 special attacks to be used on L1 and R1 buttons) and then choose your target. The major problem you will come across in this game when it comes to combat is the AI.

You can program your teammates to follow certain routines when it comes to attacking, the problem lies in that the commands lack diversity…I like Celine (my spellcaster) to blast the living shit out of mobs while I go through and mop up…what I dont like however is when she waits till I kill off most of the mob and approach the last living creature where she casts a full screen aoe attack…when I can easily kill it without trouble. Note: This scene is pictured above.

Oh yea…at the end of every combat your heros will say something based on how the combat went…ie: “That was TOO easy”…It seems so trivial…but really when I picked up this game and heard Claude and Rena claim their victory I was taken aback at the onslaught of nostalgia…the voices and the music stuck in my head for years between play and I could still remember the names of most of the characters which made for an awesome nostalgia conversation on xfire with Fireryda who also played the game.

To sum the game up I cant really go much further than to say its very typical of a JRPG that is to say the gameplay is familiar and the game focuses highly on the characters, music and dialogue over the actual story line. But to an extent I like that, in fact I would say that I enjoyed this game far better than the Final Fantasy series (albeit I’m not a huge FF fan really but I still enjoy it).

Anyway, that is my gaming experiences as of late thrown into a quick summary of the game. Time to go find some cash to get Global Agenda…somehow