Deeply Delving Dungeons

You can find Part 1 here.

Now where were we? Ah yes, we just finished going over the story elements of ME2 which means it is now time to review the primary game play, and by that I mean combat. Anyone familiar with the first Mass Effect will be happy to hear that the clunky combat has been completely revamped into a far more visceral and satisfying experience, which is good because you will be spending the vast majority of the game in the heat of battle. Exploration has taken a major backseat to intense firefights and despite my own predilection for exploratory game play I have to say that Mass Effect 2 is all the better for its renewed focus.

Refining the game play of the original is actually a major design theme in ME2 with many systems being heavily toned down in order to streamline game play. In fact, I do not really consider this game to be a proper RPG at all. Sure, it has dialogue with choice and consequence but that is hardly a qualifying attribute for an RPG (after all, the vast majority of classic RPGs don’t have any C&C whatsoever!) and though there are still levels, skills, and classes it has all been stripped so bare as to almost be a pure shooter. To be perfectly honest I wish Bioware would just get rid of any pretense of it being an RPG and just focus on what makes Mass Effect great: gripping cinematic dialogue and thrilling combat. But seeing as they still want to market this franchise as an RPG I feel I must mention the new “RPG” system before moving on to the retooled combat.

Fans of the original Mass Effect will recall that as your characters would level up through combat and completing Missions and Assignments you would be allocated a number a skill points based on your current level range that you could then spend on your wide array of skills point by point. Each skill had many levels of proficiency with major upgrades staggered throughout the progression, including unlocks for skills that start out barred from use. These skills ranged from firearm proficiency to general skills such as armour use and general stat boosts to special skills like Biotics or Tech skills. There was even a skill that was tied to the class you chose and in the case of Commander Shepard you also received three more skills in the form of a special Spectre skill as well as Charm and Intimidate for use in dialogues. Unfortunately, each point spent on a skill went largely unnoticed with the barest of minimal increments in utility as they were trained, and to top it all off similar characters shared the same skills which hurt individuality amongst your squad.

Thankfully Bioware decided to scrap this system for the most part and really boiled things down to what was most important, namely those major upgrades along each skill line. Now rather than having to deal with something along the order of 12 (I can’t remember the exact number right now) incremental improvements over a skills upgrade path you only have to worry about 4 stages of improvement. Unlike the original system each increment doesn’t cost a single skill point, rather the first stage costs one, the second costs two, the third costs three, and I think you get the picture. Each stage of improvement provides noticeable enhancement and should you decide to fully upgrade a skill you encounter a welcome improvement in the form of skill evolution. Essentially what happens is on purchasing that final upgrade you are given a choice between two different evolutionary branches of the original skill. Often these are split between a more powerful version of the skill or an incarnation that happens to effect larger groups of enemies. When it comes to the ammo augmentation skills you get to choose between a more powerful augment or the ability to share that particular augmentation with your whole team.

That alone would have provided sufficient variety to outdo the original skill system but Bioware still felt it necessary to make a few more tweaks to enhance playability. As I mentioned in the previous part of this review, gone are the Charm and Intimidate skills, replaced by a far more intuitive system that is completely detached from the “RPG” mechanics. But that’s not all they got rid of. Gone too are the weapon and armour proficiency skills and let me tell you that making such a bold alteration to their original advancement structure has paid off in spades. In the original, playing on Jack Shepard, the renegade Vanguard I imported into ME2, I would almost always use my pistol, only very rarely switching to my shotgun to liven things up. In Mass Effect 2 I found myself constantly switching between my pistol, shotgun, submachinegun (a new addition to the series arsenal, and a welcome one), heavy weapons, and even a sniper rifle (not to give too much away but despite still being restricted in your access to firearms there comes a point in the game where you are able to learn how to use another weapon type)! This, by itself, serves to make firefights a great deal more exciting and fun to play through.

But they didn’t even stop there! As I mentioned earlier your team mates in the original felt largely homogenous due to their sharing many of the same skills with one another and with your character as well, and there were only six NPCs to choose from in the first Mass Effect. This time around you have ten (I’m pretty sure it’s ten, too lazy to check) characters to choose from yet their skill sets all feel very distinct from one another. There is very little overlap between characters and what little overlap you encounter will likely be with Shepard and ammo powers. Each character (aside from Shepard) has four skills to choose from with one of those skills being locked until you complete a special mission for that character. Despite the comparatively limited repertoire of each character they feel just as (if not more) useful in battle than any of the characters from the first game and it also serves to differentiate between them a great deal. And if that weren’t enough, that sealed ability that each character eventually has access to is completely unique to that character and if you should so desire you can even train Shepard to use one of your currently unlocked loyalty abilities by accessing the Normandy’s research station (more on that later) which allows even greater flexibility for your party makeup.

Enough of the RPG mechanics however, time for some combat!

In the first Mass Effect combat was plagued by many problems. Unresponsive controls, a terrible cover mechanic, unsatisfying weapons, abysmal AI (well, the AI still kinda sucks but it’s a bit better now), and just an overall sensation of blandness. With the sequel Bioware saw fit to address all of those problems and ended up making one of the most enjoyable combat systems I have ever experienced in an action game.

As I already talked about, being able to switch between weapons without having to worry about your character’s proficiency in their use had a huge impact on my enjoyment of the many battles I fought in. It also helped that each weapon model handled in a very unique manner when compared to their counterparts. There isn’t the same diversity of equipment as there was in the first game (I’ll talk about that tomorrow, just one more example of positive game play refinement) yet each gun feels different. I only managed to find two of each weapon type (except for heavy weapons and some special DLC weaponry) but the difference between each model required careful consideration. When I finally got an upgrade to my basic pistol I ended up using that upgrade for a large portion of the game but near the end I actually “downgraded” to my starter pistol because I found that I preferred the feel of that gun. What really encourages you to mix up your weapon use though is how each weapon is effective against certain defenses. Pistols work well agains armour and health, Submachineguns and Shotguns are effective against shields and barriers, Sniper Rifles are effective against shields and armour, and Assault Rifles are good against pretty well everything.

Combat is intense and fortunately the controls are far tighter this time around. Of special note is the reworked cover mechanic which allows you to quickly transition from cover to cover, easily snap away from cover (which was a pain in the first game), vault over low obstacles, and even quickly slide into cover from a run. It all feels very responsive which is most fortunate considering how deadly your enemies can be if you find yourself with nothing to use for shelter from their attacks (I played on the Veteran difficulty setting which is one step above normal and I found the game to provide a very satisfying level of challenge from start to finish, dying many times due to poor judgment). I did occasionally run into some weird little problems with aiming around cover or being randomly displaced from cover but these were few and far between and I have yet to play a game where the cover system worked perfectly all the time in any case. I’m not trying to make excuses though, when the cover doesn’t work as it should it can be very frustrating and I hope the devs can work out the kinks in the system for ME3.

Special abilities also received a major update for ME2, especially Biotic powers. Rather than having lengthy cooldowns on your special abilities like you did in the first Mass Effect you instead have to contend with a short global ability cooldown followed by a specific ability cooldown (often of negligible length). This global cooldown lasts for a few seconds and while that may sound as though it would cripple your ability to chain attacks into one another what it really does is force you to rely on your squad mates in order to combine powers. There are quite a few power combinations, most of them quite dramatic, from Pulling enemies into the air then hitting them with a Throw or Concussive Shot so you can watch them all go flying to forcefully Slamming an enemy into the ground only to lay a Warp on them at the last moment causing them to explode with Biotic potential to freezing a group of enemies solid only to fling and shatter them using a violent Shockwave. In this the Biotics received a great deal more attention than the Techies though Techs were still thrown a few bones such as being able to use the environmental hazards to greater effect with their Overload ability.

Of special note are the special class powers that Shepard receives depending on his class selection at the beginning of the game. Now, I haven’t yet tried out most of these powers but I’ll list them all the same. Soldiers get an ability to enter what basically amounts to bullet time, Adepts can create a Singularity that pulls enemies into its center so you can easily hit them with area of effect attacks, Engineers gain the ability to summon a Combat Drone that will distract and attack enemies and possibly even explode on death, Sentinels can activate a formidable Tech Shield that absorbs copious amounts of damage and explodes on depletion seriously damaging nearby enemies, and Infiltrators can cloak themselves with invisibility allowing them to line up the perfect sniper shot.

None of those are as impressive as the Vanguard’s Biotic Charge ability however where you essentially warp into an enemy combatant, passing through the intervening space (including solid obstacles) and slam into them for decent damage, possibly flinging them into the distance. It isn’t a terribly great ability to start seeing as you basically come out of it completely defenseless, surrounded by enemies, and as you can only charge into enemies you can’t escape right away. Fortunately, as you train this ability (which you should focus on from the very beginning) you gain a shield boost when you charge (up to a 100% boost if you evolve it into Heavy Charge) and depending on the evolutionary path you take you can end up either hitting more enemies when you charge or gain a short bullet time effect when coming out of the charge, giving you the time to blast away nearby enemies with your shotgun (the Vanguard’s weapon of choice).

There’s been a lot of debate surrounding the Charge ability, with many calling it out as completely useless because it requires you to come out of cover in a game where being open to attack means you’re going to die very soon but I personally found it to be extremely powerful, fun as all get out, and it even saved my ass more times than I’d care to count. I would often find myself charging into a group of enemies, cutting them down with my shotgun, getting destroyed by enemy fire, and then just before I bit the dust the global cooldown would be up and I would charge into another throng of enemies with my shields fully charged laying waste to them with my trusty shotty, repeat ad nauseum (I’m assuming that flying around at lightspeed so much would probably give Shepard lightspeed-sickness or something). Biotic Charge is, as I was telling a friend yesterday, the ability of choice for fucking madmen, and it is simply the most interesting form of attack I have seen in a game for as long as I can remember.

Okay, this is getting long again, but we’re still not quite done.

Mass Effect 2 does away with the overheating system of the original and replaces it with an “ammunition” system revolving around the use of Thermal Sinks. I’ll just say right now that this addition does wonders for making you really think about your actions during combat as you could run out of “ammunition” if you’re careless. Fortunately running out of Thermal Sinks isn’t the end of the world as, like I mentioned before, the global cooldown system enables you to use your powers much more frequently so you’re never completely out of options. Thermal sinks are universal “ammo” clips for everything but heavy weapons. Picking up a clip, which is done by simply walking over or next to one) replenishes your supply of shots across all weapons.

That may not make much sense, but if you think to how ammunition works in the Mass Effect universe it actually works out in the end. In Mass Effect there are no bullets so to speak. Instead, slugs are sheared off of a block of metal through computer guidance based on the necessary weight parameters for reaching the target provided by the gun’s targeting computer. That sliver of metal is then enveloped in a mass effect field and propelled to sub-light speeds in order to hit its target with destructive force. This mechanism essentially results in infinite ammunition for any one engagement due to the minimal amount of material needed for a slug thanks to the exceptional speeds they are accelerated to. Unfortunately this caused weapons to overheat easily which became a problem when engaging the Geth. Unlike conventional warfare against organic beings it is not possible to wear down a synthetic lifeform through conventional tactics brought about by such an ammunitionless battle economy. The Geth needed to be hit fast and hard, and the Geth themselves had reached the same conclusion which is why they developed Thermal Sinks. The way I see it is that these clips essentially contain a non-renewable substance which can trap excess heat, allowing for continuous fire. The amount of heat that can be contained by one of these sinks is preset which would account for one sink being able to support varying quantities of ammunition depending on the firearm it is being used with. These sinks must then be ejected in order to insert fresh Thermal Sinks (i.e. you have to reload).

Okay, now that I’m done nerding out it’s time for one last thing: heavy weapons. Wait, two last things: heavy weapons and medigel!

There are six types of heavy weapons in Mass Effect 2 (with more coming in DLC packs in the future I’d imagine) and each one of them is unique and brings something different to the battlefield. The first one is a simple rocket launcher, nothing special there. As you progress through the game you’ll find more depending on how much you explore (and research). One of them is basically the rocket launcher I just mentioned only this rocket is homing. You also find an alien weapon that fires a tight-beam laser that rips though shields like butter. You can also research a cryo launcher that freezes enemies (though I never really found a good use for this one when I could have been using another heavy). With the Zaeed DLC available through the Cerberus Network I was also able to find a flamethrower that was mildly satisfying to use for a bit.

My favourite however was the “Nuke Launcher”. It didn’t fire an actual nuke or anything, just a massive slug propelled to an insane velocity resulting in a mushroom cloud. What I love about this one is how precious its use felt to me. For one, you could only ever have one shot available to you at any one time, even with it fully upgraded the best you could get was something like 175% capacity and you would need 100% to be able to fire. Secondly, it has an extremely long charge up time, so long that you had to plan effectively in order to get a shot off or else you would get hit and be forced to start over again; this obviously forced you to make good use of your squad to get that shot off. Finally, it packs one hell of a punch! There is an enemy you will encounter many times throughout the course of the game called an YMIR Mech. These behemoths are basically used as boss creatures of a sort and seeing even one of them on the battlefield can send you running. Victories against them are hard-won indeed. Yet one time I was faced with two (!) of these mechs at once and decided I would try out my new cannon on them. Somehow I managed to distract and cluster them with my team long enough to get a shot off and when I did it was as if I opened a gateway into hell! When the fire and brimstone cleared all I could see was the wreckage from two utterly annihilated YMIR Mecha.

Okay, last comment. Anyone familiar with the original will remember that unless you had one of the rather slow regen mods assigned to your armour (or had the appropriate class skill) any health damage had to be healed using medigel which was scarce. Furthermore, team mates lost in battle could only be resurrected using the Unity skill that Shepard could train under the Spectre skill line. That all changed for Mass Effect 2. Now health regenerates rapidly if you can find some cover for a few seconds and the Unity skill is now available regardless of training and simply requires the expenditure of a Medigel for every member of your squad you want to bring back into the fight. It all adds up to streamlining the combat and just making it a hell of a lot more enjoyable than in the first game.

Mass Effect 2 is, quite simply, one of the best shooters available right now, with a great diversity of abilities and solid shooting mechanics. Tomorrow I will finish up this review by touching on the exploration aspects of ME2 as well as anything else I haven’t mentioned up until this point (like the new hacking/bypassing minigames).