Man did I ever love Mass Effect. My first foray into Western RPGs, I played through it twice, once as a firm, well to do Shepard, and the other as a tepid, slightly perverse asshole. I dumped over a hundred hours in the game, and was fascinated by nearly every aspect. Long elevator rides and a lack of side mission’s diversity notwithstanding, Mass Effect was probably my game of the year in 2007.
Which is why it was imperative for me to see Mass Effect 2 before I left the E3 show floor. While the closed door demo was entirely hands off, it was still quite exciting. The whole “Shepherd is dead” rumor purported by the first trailer is, predictably, false – but Shepherd’s alleged death does play a role in the narrative; at one point an Asari said to Shepherd, “I thought you were dead,” and Shepherd replied, “Yeah, I got better.” That was the tag-line from Crank: High Voltage, sure, but also represented a slightly wittier Shepherd this time around; he was spouting several cheeky, action hero one liners (that all drew laughter) throughout the entire demo.
Anyway, Shepard’s motivations were closely guarded by Bioware, but we were given a general outline of the narrative. Humans are disappearing throughout the galaxy, and Shepherd, in an effort to figure out why, needs to shuffle around the galaxy and assemble a collection of badasses for his new squad. This mission we saw involved Shepherd trying to track and recruit an Assassin named Bane. Shepherd had to track him to the office of an Asari, and Bane dropped in an assassinated everyone in the room, sans Shepherd. A brief bit of dialogue was exchanged using the now-classic dialogue wheel from the original Mass Effect, and that portion of the demo closed with Bane joining Shepard.
Combat looked similar to the first game, albeit with a few new perks. Five new weapon classes have been added on the solider side of things, and they’re joined by the occasional heavy (pickup) weapon, which, in the demo, was a rocket launcher.
The dialogue scenes also appeared to be significantly reworked. In the first Mass Effect, I remembered static dialogue scenes featuring nothing but Shepard and whoever else simply looking at each other in a slightly uncomfortable and paused manner. The conversations I saw in Mass Effect 2, rather, presented multiple camera angles that changed with each line of dialogue, easily adding some much needed diversity to the somewhat inactive conversations.
We were also shown two other areas of the game. The first was a nameless planet in the galaxy, a beautiful, sweeping savannah/jungle that looked far better than the pallet swapped textures of the side quest planets of the original Mass Effect. We were told this was to demonstrate that every planet in Mass Effect 2, be it plot related or otherwise, would feature a widely distinctive aesthetic. Bioware heard the cries of sameness loud and clear, and they look to not repeat the monotony of their first effort.
Another sequence was laced with spoilers, so I won’t go into details, but it was shown to demonstrate the sheer brutality of Mass Effect 2; Shepard can die this time around. They were also quick to point out that if Shepard doesn’t meet his unfortunate doom, Mass Effect 2 will be fully playable after the completion of the narrative. Without a doubt, Mass Effect 2 is going to be a game of consequence. Let’s just hope the incredible quality of the demo stays consistent throughout the narrative.
