Mass Effect 2 Preview Round-up

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Written by BuckGB on December 18th, 2009

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To help balance the weapons a little better, guns now use "thermal clips" to keep them from overheating. Each clip has a limited amount of use - it might cool off 20 shots from a pistol, but just one from a sniper rifle. Clips are universal and can be used in any weapon, but you're still going to have a finite number at your disposal, so you'll have to think hard about how you choose to arm yourself going into a fight.

By the way, if you're concerned that BioWare has turned your beloved Mass Effect into some kind of generic shooter, don't be - all the RPG elements you loved from the first game are still there in the sequel, I promise.

Remember that initial teaser trailer from earlier this year, the one that was all "Shepard KIA" and everything? That wasn't smoke and mirrors. It wasn't the Citadel helping Shepard pull a vanishing act in order to go undercover, like I suspected. Shepard dies in the first five minutes of the game. Dead as a doornail. As the Normandy is savaged by a mysterious alien warship, humanity's first Spectre agent is sucked into the void and seemingly lost. Things look pretty grim.

The next things you see are computer displays of lab-grown internal organs, robotic arms bolting cybernetic doohickeys onto bone structures, a desperate scientific effort to resurrect a man who was nothing but "meat and tubes" when they brought him in.

While exploring the station I was able to stop just long enough to check out two of the new mini-games. Opening wall safes is accomplished through a match-two "Memory"-style mini-game. You highlight a blue orb to reveal a symbol, and find its pair on the switchboard. Match them all before time runs out, simple enough, if not particularly fun. The other game would come up when I tried hacking datapads and such. A sample line of code is shown on the top of the screen and you have to find its duplicate in the three-columned scrolling area below. It seemed easiest to look for it by color rather than shape, since the sections of code are split up into orange, white, and green text and more easily identifiable that way. Again, not really something I'd call fun, but a challenging enough puzzle to keep things interesting.

Specialization from developing the characters builds a personal connection with them. And the story naturally carries a significant amount of the load in keeping Mass Effect 2 firmly in the RPG ranks. As the screens and videos had hinted this middle chapter in the trilogy veers into a darker, seedier atmosphere. Where the first game centered on the sleek Citadel space station, Mass Effect 2 introduces its polar opposite: station Omega. This unruly place is a collection of anyone and everyone from around the universe living in fractured wards under the control of various gangs.

Lending to the game's prequel friendliness, the original classes are the same in Mass Effect 2. Soldiers can carry all weapons and can learn all of the weapon powers, the Adept controls the battlefield with biotic powers, and the Engineer makes use of the omni-tool and tech abilities. The remaining three classes are hybrids of the original three: Infiltrator (Soldier & Engineer), Sentinels (Engineer & Adept), and Vanguard (Soldier & Adept). Some classes have a twist, for example, the Adept can now do directional throws to, for example, toss enemies off a bridge. Soldiers have some new heavy weapons options, like the grenade launcher, that have limited charges but should help their squads get out of tight spots.

A few of the notable enhancements to the combat system include the addition of a new cover mechanic. No longer will you automatically grab cover whenever possible; instead you'll need to press a button to take cover behind a wall or object. In the first game, needlessly grabbing cover while attempting to move around was a common frustration, and it's been addressed in the sequel. As well, the overheating system in the first game is no more, replaced by a more typical ammo-based mechanic.

Mass Effect 2's main gameplay hasn't changed a lot. It continues to perfectly mix role-playing and third person shooter elements. While the experience in the first game remains, up until today, pretty much without rival, the sequel pushes the boundaries even further. Mass Effect 2 not only feels more cohesive but it's highly improved. The biggest example I can give you is in regards to the inventory system, which got on the nerves of many players in the first game. Before, players had to manage their inventory in one single menu, filled secondary sections where you could modify your equipment or sell unused items. As you filled your inventory with new armour, weapons and other gear that you found, you could also manage your squad's inventory. In other words, if played Mass Effect, you would have probably realized that you could spend a large chunk of your time just surfing your inventory, trying to make sense out of it. In Mass Effect 2, the inventory system has been divided into separate sections, making micro-management of your gear and your party's much easier to manage. For example, there's an armour locker, and in there, you can customize or create your own armour with all sorts of different pieces that you find in your way through the story. Upgrades and modifications to weapons and armour are now done through research terminals. That's right, you'˜ll come across different research projects that will allow you to optimize or improve almost everything that you have, including your spaceship.

Although we weren't given a hands-on tour of the new Normandy, we were shown some of the highlights. Your home in ME2 is streamlined, with more crew members, more activity and feeling more like a busy ship of war. The endless elevator rides from ME1 are a blessed memory, replaced with a simple, and much shorter loading screen - the NPC banter while waiting bored for a level to load has been moved into the game itself. The Normandy can be upgraded, much as characters can, which will help make missions easier. Character customization extends to what the character wears as well; players can define separate outfits for armored combat and lounging about bars. There is even a fish tank in your quarters and, of course, fish of various types can be purchased.

The minute we exited the bunker we were beset by flying mechs that chewed up the (turns out) double-crossing Quarians who'd gotten cocky and run ahead. My team continued moving toward our objective, taking down flying-turret-like mechs and near the end, faced a huge, heavily-amored mech who admittedly, ate my lunch the first try. Hey, at least I got to see the new health mechanic at work. (Health in ME2 regenerates, and when your health's getting dangerously low, the edges of the screen start to fill with red, tendrily stuff. That's when you want to find cover and wait for the tendril effect to go away.) Once we overcame that pesky 'bot, we found our informant hiding in a control room, babbling at a wall full of screens. ME2's dialog mechanics are largely the same as those of the first game, but one of its new features is the (interrupt) feature. This was used to great effect in the informant situation. The feature allows you to perform Renegade actions during conversations whenever an icon appears on screen, making conversations more dynamic. In this case, I was able to interrupt the babbling informant and bring him temporarily to his senses by shooting out one of his computer screens. Heh. Nothing like the direct approach, I always say.

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