Electronic Arts and Bioware release this first developer diary of Mass Effect 2. It brings together the two gameplay sequences that we were the first to show you during E3, along with some new excerpts and the inevitable commentaries from the team. Sorry for the bad quality of the file, we haven't found anything better. Mass Effect 2 will be out this winter on Xbox 360 and PC only.
All comments (31)
Let's just hope this time our big, bad arch-nemesis doesn't decide to tell us his exact plan and exactly how to stop said plan half-way through the main story.
Let's just hope this time our big, bad arch-nemesis doesn't decide to tell us his exact plan and exactly how to stop said plan half-way through the main story.
And whats wrong with fanboyism? It gets old to hate everything just for the sake of hating after a while. When a game as good as Mass Effect gets released, there really isnt anything else to do than to jump in to the fanboy soup and just soak up the awesomeness of the game.
There's a time for being cynical and critical of everything, and a time for just enjoying the quality of certain rare games. There's no point in hating a game just because alot of other people love it lol.
This game cant come soon enough.
Back on my thoughts on Mass Effect. The cut combat, dialogue, and exploration systems were what I really took issue with. The gameplay was run-and-gun retard-o easy, dialogue began to become extremely trite and superficial about midway through the game (how many times can the council races condescendingly remark that humans are inferior in one sentence?), and the entire concept of "exploration" was completely and utterly lost in the final product ("Scan" "You receive medallion!"). And then the horrible story that I believe in one review said "changes Sci-Fi forever." (/barf)
That being said, I believe the non-zero-sum "alignment" meters were a step in the right direction towards pragmatism in story development: treating situations how they would best suit the character, visuals were stunning, and the immersion was captured very well.
Also, from this dev diary I can see that combat, dialogue, and exploration are taking center stage in their minds as what was bad with ME so in that respect I am *very* excited to see what they do. However, I will not get my hopes up just to be let down so tremendously again. And I swear if I'm fighting sentient robots who tell me their master plan for universal damnation half way through the story I'm burning someone's lawn in my neighborhood. You've been warned, BioWare!
Anway, /offsoapbox! :)
If you want a "run and gun" game out of it you get a run and gun game out of it. If you want a more strategic game out of it then you get such. - different classes offer different results.
Likewise, different actions offer different conversational results.
I agree that the exploration was poor.. having a solar system full of nothing whilst maybe realistic, offered little to the player..and was a far cry from the idea that we could fly to anywhere, land, and explore.
Hopefully the planets that are filled are filled with more than sand and one bunker this time round.
The story though.. to call it horrible you obviously werent paying attention. The storys very deep - deep enough to allow room for a trilogy to be based around it. It's effectively all about God.
If you had to think "strategically" for anything other than your first couple of tries at Berenzia then you fail at video games...really, really bad. By "fail at video games" I mean you can't optimize your squad's skill ladders, you can't properly assign correct targets during combat, you decide to "lolet Wrex get shot in the head," etc. You're right though, if I wanted a painfully ridiculous convoluted combat system where nothing dies for 40 minutes while I "strategically" set up my tech and biotics for every 2-3 person skirmish I face then it wouldn't be a run and gun; it will be a nice way to knock yourself out for the night, though.
I got the tactician achievement first play through (on my soldier) and I have to be honest, I ran and gunned with Wrex charging + rampaging everything to death while I barely had to crack off a few rounds. During boss fights I just told him to attack the boss while I took a nap and I came back into the next scene ready for my big close-up!
So, it was a very run and gun game. If you struggled with understanding how to utilize your squad or control focus targets then I might be able to see how it was a "strategic" shooter/RPG.
The story can be dissolved into one word: racism. Council hates humans, humans don't trust council races, Saren hates humanity (collective of all races), Sovereign thinks he can play god and discriminate against the races' "evolutionary process" (read: cleansing; i.e. Hitler; i.e. racism), and on and on and on. Every time I heard a main-plot conversation it was about hate/racism.
And like I said before, Sovereign then comes out of nowhere and says, "What's up Sheppard? We're gonna attack the Citadel at 3:00 pm on Saturday and we'll be comin in from vector niner three zero. Please don't have any defenses up around the central spire cause that is where I'll have to tap in to make the Citadel a big jumpgate thingy so the rest of my boys can come in and clean up. Also, don't tell anyone else please, I would hate if our master plan that we've been recycling millennia after millennia somehow was thwarted cause I just told you all this. Peace, cya saturday!"
"-_- No excuse for pathetic writing like that. Honestly, I have to think they had all these great ideas for the ending (the Saren suicide, the council decision, etc.) but had *no idea* how to get there so they just bullied it through. That's quite a big gaping hole in Sovereign's plan and went completely untouched by reviewers, again, hailing the story as "remarkable" and "changing Sci-Fi forever!" and on and on ad nauseam.
Please offer support for your argument that the game's main theme was effectively all about God. I'm interested in hearing what you got out of the narrative.
ME1 story/gameplay and graphics were excellent and my GOTY for '07, this has just blown it out of the water!! 2010 cant come soon enough.
Oh and using a sniper as actually really fun in this games. Wrex really can't do much from a dozen meters away.
Anway, /offsoapbox! :)
Also, I'm sorry I've polluted this board with my rants. I've been doing nothing but writing 1000+ word essays for my two summer classes recently and I tend to feel it a necessity to elaborate and give strong evidence for every point rather than just joke around on a game site! <3
Peace and love.
I mean ****SPOILERS- finding out that Ashely is a big ol' racist was a huuuge turn-off yet kinda funny at the same time, needless to say, she had to go :/ SPOILERS***
It makes me glad that Bioware seems to be really focused on making the sequel that much better technically and gameplay wise, really listening to the feedback.
I loved the first one and can't wait for this, especially since it's the "dark chapter" as the dev said. Great way to start off 2010!