REVIEW: MASS EFFECT 2 (or "The Thing That Could Kill STAR TREK")
|
Feb 1 2010, 11:02 PM
Over two years ago Bioware's MASS EFFECT changed the landscape of console (and PC) role playing, and now last week's release of MASS EFFECT 2 continues the story of Commander Shepherd and his/her mission to defend the galaxy against an ancient technological menace. The first MASS EFFECT impressed with a strong narrative and imaginative, visionary execution, but it was hampered by stiff action elements and a cumbersome inventory that hampered team progression.
We know science fiction fans will flock to MASS EFFECT 2, but outside of the die-hard fans of the genre, is it worth the average gamer's time and money?
In a word: YES.
In more words: MASS EFFECT 2 is the best science fiction experience I've seen in years. It's better than J.J. ABRAMS' and STAR TREK. It's better than BSG. It takes the sting off of STAR WARS running off the rails post-Jake Lloyd.
Yeah, I said it.
Right here on GeekWeek I said it. Now here's why with NO SPOILERS.
THE GOOD
The Content of Character. Writers Drew Karpyshyn and Mac Walters have created a narrative world that is as rich and defined as anything I've seen. The game asks you to find and recruit a crew for your ship, the NORMANDY, and head into what Bioware's been calling a "suicide mission" for months of marketing. Among this team you have aliens and humans, but they all have stories and dimension and real depth. The game has a TON of spoken dialogue, but you want to listen to it. You want to talk to these characters and learn about their worlds and histories.
It invests you into each of your crew members, and by the time you embark on the game's final mission you will want to protect them as every action set-piece unfolds. For some you are a friend, others a redeemer, but above all else, you are their Commander. I've never felt the weight of leadership from playing a game before, and by the end of my playthrough I was carefully weighing every decision, trying to find the choice that did no harm...and with credit to the writers, there are very few harmless choices to be made.
Seamless Action. The first MASS EFFECT was a "3rd person shooter" but you frequently had to pause the action to use either your firearms or your biotic powers (which are essentially Jedi force push/pull powers if you're not up on the lingo). The result was action that never broke free with momentum. In MASS EFFECT 2, Bioware has tweaked the action engine and now you can assign your special powers to controller buttons and you can seamlessly switch between weapons and Jedi--I mean biotic powers.
You don't feel like you're playing an RPG. You'll feel like you're playing a 3rd person shooter backed up with one of the best stories in gaming.
It's Pretty, It's So Pretty. This is the Olivia Wilde of video games. Every location has brilliant usage of color, and frames layered with beautifully rendered elements in the foreground, middle ground and background. Whenever a science fiction property is dimly lit with well-placed lens flares people compare it to BLADE RUNNER and most of the time they're overreacting, but here the comparison is apt. This is one of the best looking games I've ever seen on the XBOX, with a butter smooth frame rate and virtually no screen tearing even when the screen is filled with characters and action.
THE BAD
...And the Player Created Man/Woman. "Commander Shepherd" is nothing more than a name. You have to decide if your character is a man or a woman, and you can customize their appearance via the character creator. That's great because it bonds you even more to your character, but the character creator is still an awkward tool and despite my best efforts from some angles my "Shepherd" looked like Gillian Anderson, but from others she sort of resembled Alec Baldwin in The Shadow.
Since we're on the subject of gender, I strongly suggest playing through as a female character because Jennifer Hale's voice work for the female Shepherd is quite a bit superior to her male counterpart.
Enemy Mine. In order to build your team properly, you have to mine planets for resources that you'll use to forge weapons and armor etc. That's fine as an idea, but if you want your crew members to survive, then you MUST equip them properly and that means you're going to spend a LOT of time scanning planets and the act isn't very exciting. Imagine playing an awesome game that was great on so many levels and then occasionally having to stop and dig a hole in your backyard.
It kind of feels like that.
Symphonic Generic. Jack Wall's score for the first MASS EFFECT was good enough to listen to on its' own, a little Hans Zimmer here, some James Horner there. Wall's efforts for MASS EFECT 2 are just your garden variety drum-drum-strings-digital choir science fiction stuff which is disappointing considering how impressive the visuals are, and how strong the narrative turns are. For a game that clearly wants to evoke the spirit of 1970's and 1980's science fiction, the score lacks real theme work. It doesn't take away anything from the experience, but it doesn't add anything either. Compared to Zimmer's work on METAL GEAR SOLID 4, this is a pretty lackluster effort on Wall's part.
You Must Choose Wisely. Big events sneak up on you in MASS EFFECT 2, and while that's certainly the way life works, when you're playing a game, trying to prepare your crew for a suicide mission, you want to know how close you are to going on that mission.
You know, so you don't get your ass blown off.
This game also forces the character to build skills through either heroic or anti-heroic decisions and there are places in the game where the tally of those decisions will PERMANENTLY affect your game.
And they come at friggin' random.
Again, while that is the way life works, it also makes you play a bit defensively. You spend a lot of time trying to keep things from happening and not moving forward until you have enough of this, enough of that. There is an achievement for keeping all of your crew alive, and it's not the easiest thing to get. Now technically they don't penalize you for not doing side missions and mining all the resources and talking to everyone.
But if you mind your crew getting slaughtered in a hail of bright plasma, then they penalize you for not taking side missions, mining all the resources and talking to everyone.
THE UGLY:
The Space Epic Grows Up. There's actually nothing ugly about MASS EFFECT 2 because it's damn good. What is ugly is the fact that other sci-fi media franchises pale in comparison to the level of effort in what Bioware has achieved. They break all the rules here. One character could be right at home in a Warren Ellis sci-fable, and another could have come from Roddenberry's journal. What's compelling is the combination of these archetypes and how it re-defines what is possible in the world of sci-fi action.
Gone is the STAR TREK cliche where everyone on a planet believes the same thing and looks the same way.
Gone is the STAR WARS failure to make intergalactic politics interesting..or even tolerable.
Gone is the BSG issue of something would be legitimately awesome if it just had a little more money and more design and was able to take that final step away from "budget".
The simple fact is that no Hollywood movie would ever do what MASS EFFECT 2 accomplishes. It's an impossibility. This would be a 300 million dollar film that goes from epic battle sequences to the most challenging characterization of independent film. It would be rated-R and even if they made it 3-D it still wouldn't play safe enough for Hollywood to embrace.
To clarify the article title, STAR TREK, despite its' best efforts, is really a story of a bunch of good people who generally always do the right thing for the right reasons. Their biggest problem is always the same thing, the Federation doesn't agree with whatever the Enterprise wants to do and Kirk/Picard/Janeway/Archer/Sisco/Pine-Kirk does it anyway and saves the day, vindicated until the next movie. Yeah, some people can die, but they never really do anything that changes the way you think about them. The choices they make sort-of matter, but not really.
These are the voyages of the Starship predictable. Our ongoing mission, to never take you out of your safety zone. To boldy go to the same place we've gone before over and over again...
MASS EFFECT 2 is to science-fiction as THE SHIELD was to police shows and NIP/TUCK is to medical drama. It rips apart the genre expectations of the military space epic, and rebuilds them with the safety off.
THE REAL DEAL HOLYFIELD:
It's good. Go play it. If you haven't played the first MASS EFFECT, then I strongly suggest you pick that up and play through it first. It's 20 bucks and the choices you made in that game will carry over into your MASS EFFECT 2 experience.
If you enjoyed MASS EFFECT, then this everything you need it to be. Git you one.
MASS EFFECT 2 was developed by Bioware and distributed by Electronic Arts. It retails for 59.99 and is available now for the XBOX 360 and the PC.
The above review is based on a retail copy of the XBOX 360 version of the game. No copies were provided for review purposes.
About the Author: Bryan Edward Hill is a filmmaker, writer and musician. Currently he is writing BROKEN TRINITY: PANDORA'S BOX (Top Cow) and DRX: VELOCITY(Independent). As always, Bryan Hill asks you to drink responsibly.
Over two years ago Bioware's MASS EFFECT changed the landscape of console (and PC) role playing, and now last week's release of MASS EFFECT 2 continues the story of Commander Shepherd and his/her mission to defend the galaxy against an ancient technological menace. The first MASS EFFECT impressed with a strong narrative and imaginative, visionary execution, but it was hampered by stiff action elements and a cumbersome inventory that hampered team progression.
We know science fiction fans will flock to MASS EFFECT 2, but outside of the die-hard fans of the genre, is it worth the average gamer's time and money?
In a word: YES.
In more words: MASS EFFECT 2 is the best science fiction experience I've seen in years. It's better than J.J. ABRAMS' and STAR TREK. It's better than BSG. It takes the sting off of STAR WARS running off the rails post-Jake Lloyd.
Yeah, I said it.
Right here on GeekWeek I said it. Now here's why with NO SPOILERS.
THE GOOD
The Content of Character. Writers Drew Karpyshyn and Mac Walters have created a narrative world that is as rich and defined as anything I've seen. The game asks you to find and recruit a crew for your ship, the NORMANDY, and head into what Bioware's been calling a "suicide mission" for months of marketing. Among this team you have aliens and humans, but they all have stories and dimension and real depth. The game has a TON of spoken dialogue, but you want to listen to it. You want to talk to these characters and learn about their worlds and histories.
It invests you into each of your crew members, and by the time you embark on the game's final mission you will want to protect them as every action set-piece unfolds. For some you are a friend, others a redeemer, but above all else, you are their Commander. I've never felt the weight of leadership from playing a game before, and by the end of my playthrough I was carefully weighing every decision, trying to find the choice that did no harm...and with credit to the writers, there are very few harmless choices to be made.
Seamless Action. The first MASS EFFECT was a "3rd person shooter" but you frequently had to pause the action to use either your firearms or your biotic powers (which are essentially Jedi force push/pull powers if you're not up on the lingo). The result was action that never broke free with momentum. In MASS EFFECT 2, Bioware has tweaked the action engine and now you can assign your special powers to controller buttons and you can seamlessly switch between weapons and Jedi--I mean biotic powers.
You don't feel like you're playing an RPG. You'll feel like you're playing a 3rd person shooter backed up with one of the best stories in gaming.
It's Pretty, It's So Pretty. This is the Olivia Wilde of video games. Every location has brilliant usage of color, and frames layered with beautifully rendered elements in the foreground, middle ground and background. Whenever a science fiction property is dimly lit with well-placed lens flares people compare it to BLADE RUNNER and most of the time they're overreacting, but here the comparison is apt. This is one of the best looking games I've ever seen on the XBOX, with a butter smooth frame rate and virtually no screen tearing even when the screen is filled with characters and action.
THE BAD
...And the Player Created Man/Woman. "Commander Shepherd" is nothing more than a name. You have to decide if your character is a man or a woman, and you can customize their appearance via the character creator. That's great because it bonds you even more to your character, but the character creator is still an awkward tool and despite my best efforts from some angles my "Shepherd" looked like Gillian Anderson, but from others she sort of resembled Alec Baldwin in The Shadow.
Since we're on the subject of gender, I strongly suggest playing through as a female character because Jennifer Hale's voice work for the female Shepherd is quite a bit superior to her male counterpart.
Enemy Mine. In order to build your team properly, you have to mine planets for resources that you'll use to forge weapons and armor etc. That's fine as an idea, but if you want your crew members to survive, then you MUST equip them properly and that means you're going to spend a LOT of time scanning planets and the act isn't very exciting. Imagine playing an awesome game that was great on so many levels and then occasionally having to stop and dig a hole in your backyard.
It kind of feels like that.
Symphonic Generic. Jack Wall's score for the first MASS EFFECT was good enough to listen to on its' own, a little Hans Zimmer here, some James Horner there. Wall's efforts for MASS EFECT 2 are just your garden variety drum-drum-strings-digital choir science fiction stuff which is disappointing considering how impressive the visuals are, and how strong the narrative turns are. For a game that clearly wants to evoke the spirit of 1970's and 1980's science fiction, the score lacks real theme work. It doesn't take away anything from the experience, but it doesn't add anything either. Compared to Zimmer's work on METAL GEAR SOLID 4, this is a pretty lackluster effort on Wall's part.
You Must Choose Wisely. Big events sneak up on you in MASS EFFECT 2, and while that's certainly the way life works, when you're playing a game, trying to prepare your crew for a suicide mission, you want to know how close you are to going on that mission.
You know, so you don't get your ass blown off.
This game also forces the character to build skills through either heroic or anti-heroic decisions and there are places in the game where the tally of those decisions will PERMANENTLY affect your game.
And they come at friggin' random.
Again, while that is the way life works, it also makes you play a bit defensively. You spend a lot of time trying to keep things from happening and not moving forward until you have enough of this, enough of that. There is an achievement for keeping all of your crew alive, and it's not the easiest thing to get. Now technically they don't penalize you for not doing side missions and mining all the resources and talking to everyone.
But if you mind your crew getting slaughtered in a hail of bright plasma, then they penalize you for not taking side missions, mining all the resources and talking to everyone.
THE UGLY:
The Space Epic Grows Up. There's actually nothing ugly about MASS EFFECT 2 because it's damn good. What is ugly is the fact that other sci-fi media franchises pale in comparison to the level of effort in what Bioware has achieved. They break all the rules here. One character could be right at home in a Warren Ellis sci-fable, and another could have come from Roddenberry's journal. What's compelling is the combination of these archetypes and how it re-defines what is possible in the world of sci-fi action.
Gone is the STAR TREK cliche where everyone on a planet believes the same thing and looks the same way.
Gone is the STAR WARS failure to make intergalactic politics interesting..or even tolerable.
Gone is the BSG issue of something would be legitimately awesome if it just had a little more money and more design and was able to take that final step away from "budget".
The simple fact is that no Hollywood movie would ever do what MASS EFFECT 2 accomplishes. It's an impossibility. This would be a 300 million dollar film that goes from epic battle sequences to the most challenging characterization of independent film. It would be rated-R and even if they made it 3-D it still wouldn't play safe enough for Hollywood to embrace.
To clarify the article title, STAR TREK, despite its' best efforts, is really a story of a bunch of good people who generally always do the right thing for the right reasons. Their biggest problem is always the same thing, the Federation doesn't agree with whatever the Enterprise wants to do and Kirk/Picard/Janeway/Archer/Sisco/Pine-Kirk does it anyway and saves the day, vindicated until the next movie. Yeah, some people can die, but they never really do anything that changes the way you think about them. The choices they make sort-of matter, but not really.
These are the voyages of the Starship predictable. Our ongoing mission, to never take you out of your safety zone. To boldy go to the same place we've gone before over and over again...
MASS EFFECT 2 is to science-fiction as THE SHIELD was to police shows and NIP/TUCK is to medical drama. It rips apart the genre expectations of the military space epic, and rebuilds them with the safety off.
THE REAL DEAL HOLYFIELD:
It's good. Go play it. If you haven't played the first MASS EFFECT, then I strongly suggest you pick that up and play through it first. It's 20 bucks and the choices you made in that game will carry over into your MASS EFFECT 2 experience.
If you enjoyed MASS EFFECT, then this everything you need it to be. Git you one.
MASS EFFECT 2 was developed by Bioware and distributed by Electronic Arts. It retails for 59.99 and is available now for the XBOX 360 and the PC.
The above review is based on a retail copy of the XBOX 360 version of the game. No copies were provided for review purposes.
About the Author: Bryan Edward Hill is a filmmaker, writer and musician. Currently he is writing BROKEN TRINITY: PANDORA'S BOX (Top Cow) and DRX: VELOCITY(Independent). As always, Bryan Hill asks you to drink responsibly.
Comments
Sign in to comment with your TypePad, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo or OpenID.