Shifting Masses

The blog has been quiet as of late for many reasons.  The main being, as I stated in another post, that I'm pretty much focused and honed on Mass Effect 2 or Modern Warfare 2.  Bioshock 2 dropped sometime ago which I did not yet pick up due to the fact that I was/am trying to actually finish games when I start them.  I failed pretty hardcore with Mass Effect 1.  It happened to come out on the very same day that the original Rock Band came out, and I ended up buying both the same day.  The choice was pretty clear, plastic drums were way way more interesting.  ME ended up getting shelved for quite a while.  I finally broke it out somewhere around a year or more later and started to play.  I got a bit into the story, picked up a few squad mates, and then my WoW addiction kicked in and I lost track of the game again.  Cut to another year later, I start up the game with the determination to start and finish it.  Naturally that didn't happen.  What we ended up with was me rushing through the first game the week that Mass Effect 2 was released.  The reason for this was that you were able to import your Shepard from the first game into the second one and have all the consequences and outcomes (plus a nice boost to your XP and credits) become part of the storyline in ME2.

On Mass Effect 2 release day I walked into Best Buy, picked up a copy off the shelf (so much for your "not getting a copy unless you reserve" bullshit Gamestop) and went home.  I promptly unwrapped the game and put it right on my shelf.  It pained me to not be able to open it and place it in the tray and being my adventures as Commander Shepard again.  No, I had to still finish the first game and at this point I wouldn't be touching ME2 until the weekend due to not being all that far into the first game.  Needless to say the rest of the week was a blur as I raced through the main story line, picking up the rest of my team, blowing from planet to planet, hunting down Saren to save the galaxy.  By the time the weekend hit, I was facing off against Saren and Sovereign and saving the galaxy.  At this point in the game I hadn't capped yet, I was maybe in the high 40's and I was going to start a second play-through  because as stated above, you could bring your character over to 2.  That lasted all of 5 minutes before I said screw it, grabbed ME2 and dug in.

With the help of two decent snow storms, Mass Effect 2 is now finished.  I capped out at lvl 26 (full cap is 30) so I basically want to play til I hit 30 so I can be ready for DLC and ME3.  Bioware really through the game for a loop in terms of game play, and I have to say, I love 90% of the changes they made to the game.  Being able to use powers like "cast-able spells" was a huge improvement in my eyes.  In the first game I did A LOT of micro managing of myself and my team which I felt took a good deal away from the action aspect of the game, especially the ebb and flow of the story and action sequences.  If you don't know what I am talking about, basically in the first Mass Effect you could only map one of your powers, other wise in the middle of a battle you would have to pause the game, pick the powers you wanted to cast yourself or your team, unpause the game, said powers cast, and then basically rinse and repeat. In it's second edition, you are able to map up to three powers and use them just by clicking the right and left bumpers on your controllers.  Awesome.

There are a few other things they changed such as your inventory system, which virtually doesn't exist anymore.  Instead of just changing full suits of gear, while on mission now you can stop at various shops and pick up various different pieces of armor (legs, chest, helmet and shoulders maybe hands?).  Each piece of armor now has its own stats that you can mix and match to make a perfect gear set for your class.  Guns now work a lot different as you only have a handful of options to choose from, but are able to upgrade whichever you want.  No more having 10 pistols from Eden Prime sitting in your inventory.  A few other things absent are all the Mako stuff thankfully, and with that Omni-Gel is pretty much gone too.  Medi-Gel now works totally different, you get the Unity skill again (which in the first game you had to unlock) that basically brings your whole squad back to life, if you have the gel.

Over all the game was a huge improvement on the first one.  Graphics were improved, the new combat style that they took with it love.  There are still a few parts of the game that drive me nuts such as the mining mini-game to find minerals that will help upgrade your weapons, skills and other things.  The new hack games are sub-par matching games that after the first few times (plus the hack extension upgrade) were like doing simple math.  The load times are somewhat long but I think that was in response to no one wanting to stand around on elevators anymore, and sometimes the AI of your party just drops to 0 and they do something really stupid.  Other than that the story is awesome, there was a real sense of "some of you might not make it back alive" to the larger picture, and there's some nice set ups for the third game.  All in all if you love Bioware, and loved the first Mass Effect, pick this up, get the free DLC, and venture forth into the galaxy.


Commander Pria Shepard reporting for duty (and hitting on Yeoman Chambers...)

 

Quality might be lame because I had to take a picture of my TV since it's not hooked up to my computer for capture purposes.

End Transmission.
Nerdsbeware out-