Deeply Delving Dungeons

So I just finished my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2 mere moments before I started typing this out and I have to say that despite all of my original optimism for this game… it totally blew me away! For once there’s really not a whole lot that I can say against this game, almost every aspect of its production has been polished to a mirror sheen (including Martin Sheen’s performance) and the developers over at Bioware really took the criticisms levied against the first Mass Effect to heart and improved on almost every game system as a result. Mass Effect 2 is a truly cinematic experience and considering how often that gets thrown around lately know that this title stands out from the pack. I’m still reeling from the thrilling ending sequence and to my mind I cannot come up with any other game ending that even comes close to being properly epic.

First thing’s first: the story. Bioware tends to catch a lot of flak for the predictable pacing in their RPGs. You start out an inexperienced loner who is thrust into a titanic struggle between the forces of good and evil whereupon you are elevated into the ranks of some mystic/elite organization and tasked with saving the world/galaxy. You tackle three to four major points of interest (in whichever order you wish), you are confronted with a shocking twist, you finish off the remaining POIs and finally you rush off to confront some ancient evil. Now, I don’t really have a problem with Bioware’s formula, what matters to me is how the story is told, not how it’s structured, but Bioware decided to mix things up a bit in Mass Effect 2.

After getting through an inspired introductory sequence players are basically given free reign to do as they will. You are tasked with overcoming an ancient evil, yes, but it’s up to you as to when you’re ready to get the job done. So if you wish you can bring the fight to your enemies right away or you can instead choose to explore the galaxy, recruit a team of seasoned professionals, and upgrade your squad and ship. All of the choices you make have an impact on future events (I assume. As I mentioned before, this was my first playthrough so I can’t know for certain but this game gives a far better impression of choice and consequence than the original did so I am comfortable to trust in the game’s branching paths), not just in this game but also in Mass Effect 3 one would assume. For instance, even when you reach an apparent point of no return you are still given complete control over what you want to do, though delaying your strike can have dire consequences.

The writing in this game is just top-notch, along with the voice acting. It is surprisingly funny at times too, causing me to double over in laughter on more than one occasion. The real highlight isn’t the writing for the main story or window dressing though, it’s the characters that you encounter in your travels that really command your attention. I cannot think of a single character who didn’t hold my interest at least a little bit and that is quite rare for an RPG… rare for a game actually. Even Joker, who I truly disliked in the first game, is engaging this time around and I found myself talking to him after every one of my planetary excursions just to see what he had to say. And it’s not just your squad mates who demand your time, almost every NPC has something interesting or amusing (or both) to say and I frequently found myself going out of my way to listen to every bit of dialogue I could hunt down.

That deep characterization is more important in Mass Effect 2 than in most games too when you consider what you’re ultimately up against. This game was heavily marketed as culminating in a suicide mission, and while many titles have tried to pull something like that in the past they have almost always fallen completely flat. Not so with Mass Effect 2. Assuming you don’t have a strategy guide at hand (which I didn’t, and which I recommend you don’t have for your first playthrough either) chances are good that you will lose party members during your final mission. Of course, if it weren’t for the stellar writing on Bioware’s part that would be a non-issue, they’re just characters in a game after all; but because Bioware put so much effort into developing their characters and helping to create strong bonds with the player you can really feel despondent when faced with an unexpected loss.

Now, I tried to get as close to 100% complete as I could (without having a guide on hand) before moving on to the big finale but even I was faced with a grievous loss. Everything seemed to be going well when all of a sudden Tali fell to an unfortunate assault, and I felt absolutely terrible about it. I lost another member of my team soon after and also made decisions resulting in the death of my crew (I was playing a Renegade after all) but her death really made this struggle personal. Sure, I could have reloaded, but then I don’t think the ending would have been near as powerful for me if I had. And because her death was so unexpected it immediately set me on edge for the rest of the mission as I figured anyone could die at any time now.

**FIREFLY SPOILER ALERT** Sort of the same way that Shepherd Book and Wash’s death near the end of Serenity made you question the survivability of the remaining characters. **END SPOILER**

In fact, I was so affected by each character’s mortality that right after the final boss I noticed my Shepard’s love interest was lying underneath some debris and I just about lost it when I thought she had died too and when I found out she survived I was positively elated! I normally couldn’t give a damn about romantic subplots in games, they’re just another task to mark off on a playthrough checklist usually, but somehow this game really caused me to care about these characters, and to say that is rare would be a spectacular understatement. To be perfectly honest, Mass Effect 2 is worth playing through for the ending alone. Oh, and the ending cinematic has really got me excited for the third game!

All of this is really made possible by the amazing work that Bioware has done with it’s cinematic dialogue exchanges. These aren’t your typical talking heads, these are proper virtual actors acting out an epic space drama and that you get to control how it plays out just makes it all the more satisfying. They seem to have fixed my biggest complaint about the first Mass Effect’s dialogue as well, that complaint being that there would often be multiple dialogue choices that would all lead to the exact same response. This time around the writers/scripters have done an exemplary job at making sure that not only is every single option distinct but also easy to intuit. I can’t recall a single instance of my making a choice in conversation only to have Shepard do something completely against my expectation, so thank you Bioware for bringing the dialogue system you had promised for the first game to the sequel.

Speaking of fulfilling old promises, there are proper interrupts in conversation now! This was something that the devs had mentioned for the first game only for us to find out that you could only skip dialogue sequences rather than actually interrupt a speaker. Now there are occasions wherein a control symbol will pop up during a conversation prompting you to press the designated button in order to execute the interrupt. What makes these distinct from simple Paragon/Renegade choices is that you have a limited time frame in which to trigger them, not to mention they’re a hell of a lot more dramatic than most other static choices (at least the Renegade interrupts were. Seriously, I wholeheartedly recommend playing a Renegade in this game, it’s hilarious). It also ties into the revamped Paragon/Renegade system as well where you no longer need to pump skill points into Charm or Intimidate, instead new options open up the more you follow a particular path, which feels a lot more natural to me.

Anyways, this review is getting a bit lengthy, and I’ve only just finished up covering the story (not the plot though, wouldn’t want to spoil anything). I’ll continue this review tomorrow by covering combat and the RPG-ish mechanics and if that goes too long I’ll continue Tuesday with anything I haven’t already touched on (including the bad parts).