The story of Mass Effect 2 follows loosely on the heels of the first Mass Effect. Shepard, still commanding the Normandy, is with his crew as they patrol for fringe geth when they are suddenly attacked by an unknown assailant. Shepard getting his crew off before the Normandy explodes, he goes down with the ship. But the game is not over before it begins. Shepard wakes up an unknown time later in a new body, and it’s at this point the real story begins: getting to the bottom of who attacked the Normandy and trying to understand what the threat is to Citadel Council and the rest of the civilized universe.
In terms of pure game, I think it’s fair to say Mass Effect 2 is an improvement on the first Mass Effect in almost every way. Rather than completely switching game modes as some franchises have done (e.g. Fallout), Mass Effect 2 takes everything Mass Effect 1 did and does it better. Story is tighter and more focused. Squad play is more streamlined and predictable. The explorable worlds fit the setting and story better. And perhaps most importantly, combat is more fluid and satisfying.
In the Star Wars/Star Trek dichotomy of science fiction, Mass Effect 2 is still mostly on the on the side of Trek. There are certainly operatic elements (e.g. players can romance NPCs, character and loyalty are important, tragedy occurs), but by and large the more “human” side of science fiction guides the story. There is a fair amount of dialogue, as well as dialogue choices which slightly affect story. There are multiple alien races all of whom are extremely humanoid (hands, feet, torso, but an additional couple of eyes or scales for skin). And the last, and perhaps most convincing aspect, is that the game is comprised of a tight-knit crew (ala the USS Enterprise) who fly around the galaxy getting involved in various adventures and fights. There is more action than the average Star Trek movie, but the pattern still echoes.
In terms of story, Mass Effect 2 is caught somewhere between episodic (short, contained stories around NPCs and side missions) and campaign (a main storyline which moves in leaps and bounds). I say caught somewhere between because, if you add up the hours doing the episodic and side stuff and compare it to the main campaign, they come out on the side of side missions. Mass Effect 2 is not a linear story game, rather there are multiple lines, all of varying lengths, with the main story line being the longest.
And my final criticism is the line-by-line writing. I understand that given the way the dialogue trees are structured it’s not possible to have a naturally flowing, linear conversation. The game needs to be ready to present the dialogue in whatever order the player selects. That being said, the lines run the gamut of appropriate to forced, overdone to artificial. Shepard and the NPCs can talk like real humans at times, but usually its stilted and unnatural—the framework of “game” exposed, and immersion limited. Moreover, it coddles the player, treats them like a juvenile god, that is, rather than an intelligent adult. Oh, Shepard, you’re the greatest! Overall, there is a major disparity between the quality of the graphics compared to the maturity of the story and character lines.
In the end, Mass Effect 2 is a significant improvement over the first Mass Effect. While I personally bounce off the writing, I see why some people stick. It is that big chunk of galactic adventure and battle with a lot of content and agency. Players design and command their squads. Personal stories come through in the loyalty missions. There is lots of fun blasting away with laser guns, rocket launchers, and the like. You get to fly and drive around in space vehicles. And lastly, the pieces (mostly) cohere into a science fiction package unlike any other on the market. Yes, the overarching story is anything by original. The aliens are not alien. And the quality of the wiring on a line by line basis can often make the player wince. But I do believe these points are not in the mind of most players. So, take my criticism with a grain of salt.*
*Side note: I have also played Mass Effect: Andromeda, the fourth game in the Mass Effect world, and a game many people were critical of upon release. Now, in the context of Mass Effect 1 & 2, I start to understand why people were critical. But I still can’t fully agree. The graphic bugs in Andromeda, agreed, not good. But gameplay, story, fighting mechanics, etc. are either similar or improved. Sure, Andromeda is more open world. But the core of the game and story are very similar. I suppose some people just want the same product over and over. What I would personally like to see is a Mass Effect game in the vein of Uncharted. Why not a purely linear, tightly focused action game with squad capabilities? More resources could be devoted to telling an original story while the action/fighting elements remain intact. Just thinking out loud…
I played the whole trilogy whenever the new game came out and out of the trilogy ME2 is definitely my favorite. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to call it "one of the greatest games of all time" but for its time it certainly was a highlight. And I think it's important to think of Mass Effect as game in the category of "AAA games that want to be movies". The Uncharted-series you mention at the end is another example of that. With Mass Effect you get the movie-feel even though there are still some rudimentary RPG-elements where your choices matter - sometimes... the narrative structure is restricted (it's essentially a chain of pearls), the Paragon/Renegade rewards just blindly choosing one or the other, romancing just being a matter of being persistent... There's plenty to criticize in the game. Especially the roleplaying-elements are lackluster. And the planet-scanning-stuff you do to acquire resources... That might as well not be there. It's unnecessary busywork. I assume it's a holdover from the Mako-expeditions you did in 1 but honestly, I don't need the resource-management stuff in a game if design-wise it's such a distraction from what the game actually cares about.
ReplyDeleteBut these RPG-elements is what makes it special in the “games which want to be movies”-genre. And that’s why there was so much controversy surrounding the ending in ME3.
As an aside, the ME-trilogy is what convinced me that when you want to do "What if a game were a movie...?" story-wise, the protagonist has to be a character as well. He can't be the blank slate Shepard is in the ME-trilogy. That's why I agree with you that Uncharted is better at this than Mass Effect.
But what makes ME2 work is its overall narrative structure: Your character is a resurrected galaxy-hero and you have to assemble a team with which you end up going on a "suicide-mission". I would argue that all the missions you do involving your teammates aren't side-content at all. That's what the game is about: Building your team, building relationships with the team and then have all these relationships you're invested in be threatened by the final mission. And I think the game has some interesting little stories to tell with these teammates. This simplicity and directness are what makes this game work, I think. The third one struggles with finding an ending and the first one is janky on a lot of fronts.
Also:
"For example, the aliens. My brain cannot get over an insect face talking in a Texas drawl. It’s a bridge too far. If it’s an alien, make it sound like an alien. Otherwise, I feel like the fourth wall is being broken—like a dude is wearing a rubber alien mask. Out the window goes my sense of immersion."
That's obvious suspense of disbelief territory. You'd have a hard time enjoying a lot of fantasy, sci-fi and history-fiction if that small thing takes you out of it. Does it break your immersion when a soldier from the Roman empire speaks in English and has a British accent? Does it break your immersion when Spock in Star Trek talks? That complaint just seems overly picky.
As for Andromeda... That fourth game is WAY worse than the other three. Calling the graphic bugs "not good" is a huge understatement. The faces and how they were animated in the game-engine was absolutely terrible. Characters would look blank-eyed and would have silly facial expressions all the time. Now that's a thing that actually breaks immersion! To boot you'd think the fourth game in the series would look better or at least the same as the third one but you wouldn't expect it to look worse!
Fully agree on the fact that loyalty missions are the hinge on which the success of the game swings. Without those, it's quite generic.
DeleteRegarding suspension of disbelief, there is a spectrum we need to keep in mind. Russell Crowe speaking English in Gladiator is a very different thing than aliens in Mass Effect speaking with a Texas drawl. These are not the same. The first thing is realism. Gladiator is mimetic - or at least as mimetic as history has taught us Roman times were. The use of English is only a technical challenge to overcome in order to meet market demands. The rest is quasi-historical, and therefore an extremely easy imaginative space to enter. Mass Effect is on almost the opposite end of the spectrum. It is decidedly non-mimetic. In order to enter the imaginative space, the player must set aside aspects of reality they consider normal - setting, timeframe, technological possibility, etc., etc., and aliens. Seeing an alien speak in a human vernacular is thus like seeing a polar bear sing opera - very different than Russell Crowe speaking English with a human tongue. See books like Solaris, Embassytown, and others for truly alien encounters (i.e. not just a skinny white guy with pointy ears and a bad fringe haircut :).