Mass Effect 2 Review

I have discussed my dear Mass Effect series before on this site from a philosophical/moral perspective and praised it for pushing morality beyond binary norms of good and evil, instead critiquing player’s actions from a deontological and teleological perspective. While that stood as more of a critique of the game as a literary work, here I will discuss the game from a more traditional, “review” standpoint.

Yet, before we begin, I must make a single, absolutist statement. Buy Mass Effect 2, the game is a wondrous journey into a richly imaginative universe populated with interesting characters and incredible worlds.

Gameplay

From a gameplay perspective, Mass Effect 2 is an amalgam of third-person shooter and role-playing game tropes, its main gameplay sections being divided into combat and conversation. Fighting is done in semi-real time, allowing the player to pause the action at any point during a battle to assign commands and cast “spells”, when played in real-time, Mass Effect 2 operates very similarly to a cover-based shooter, forcing the player to dance in and out of cover with visceral grace. Upgradable powers and experience points level out the game’s RPG elements, adding the strategic depth of character development to the game. Ultimately, Mass Effect 2’s combat engine creates a perfect marriage of RPG and shooter elements, and as a result, what we have is a fluid cover-based shooter with enough tactical depth to recall classics like Diablo and Knights of the Old Republic. While it is true that Mass Effect can be considered to be a “casual-ized” and “dumbed-down” RPG, this works to the game’s benefit, having fewer opportunities to level-up and fewer points to allocate makes upgrade decisions more meaningful.

Nonetheless, combat is marred only by questionable friendly AI. While there are squad commands for holding positions, advancing and retreating, these do not necessarily work, and when left to their own intuition, oftentimes fail to use cover. It is truly jarring to see your feeble, mage-type character vault over a barrier to engage a horde of Krogans using his weak pistol.

Where it comes to conversation, Mass Effect 2 radically simplifies discussion through its “Paraphrase System” and its dialogue wheel. Up to six dialogue choices can be chosen from a radial menu, each of them summarized in brief on it. While this does reduce the amount of reading one has to deal with, it does create some awkward moments when the paraphrased choices fail to embody the tone and nature of the inherent dialogue choice. And as a result, Mass Effect 2’s conversations are imperfect.

Where the game’s conversations do excel at, though, is the narrative impact that each interaction has. Relationships between characters can be built or destroyed, and the choices that the player will make will have far reaching impact far beyond the scope of the immediate games. As a result, the Mass Effect trilogy feels less like a series of self-contained games, but rather a single continuous story meant to be played from start to finish. Indeed, the narrative power afforded to the player by the game justifies the name, the player has a Massive Effect.

That said, Mass Effect 2 suffers from a few technical faults. One such problem comes in the form of load times, which, while not monumental, are still annoying in environments that require many map-transfers or reloads. This is especially problematic in the multi-leveled Normandy. Crew member reside on each of the ships different floors, and suffering a 45 second load time to converse with each floor of characters remained a severe turn-off to the game’s best aspect.

Furthermore, a few technical problems, such as slow-loading textures and glitchy collision detection on vehicular levels are inherited from the game’s predecessor. This however is rare and occurs only during a few select DLC chapters.

Story

Mass Effect 2’s story ties directly into the events of the first game, thus, it comes as highly recommended to experience the tale of the first game before plunging into Mass Effect 2. (The PC version is $20 on Steam and has relatively tame system requirements for an action-RPG, I was able to run it on a 2.0 GHz Pentium Laptop with an integrated graphics card.) That said, Playstation 3 players can download a beautifully drawn interactive comic book summarizing the events of the first game. What tames this prospect is the fact that the comic does little to emphasize the moral weight and impact of the game’s choices and characters, and thus, while the player might understand the first game’s story, little in way of emotional connection is established.

That said, Mass Effect 2 takes place approximately two years after the events of the first game. Protagonist Jane Shepard is killed by a passing alien ship before her charred body is captured by Human-Supremacist organization Cerberus. Aliens called Collectors from deep space are abducting human colonies and Shepard, now a galactic hero from her exploits against the Reapers of the first game, must investigate the problem and assemble a team to deal with it. What follows is an epic and very personal saga involving a multitude of realistically written characters. Surprising plot twists keep the story interesting with every mission, and the battle to attain each crewmember’s loyalty is both moving and entertaining. A wonderfully realized universe is filled with imagined histories and lore. One of the best aspects of Mass Effect is its “Codex”, an encyclopedia of lore so well written that the game’s optimistic sci-fi universe seems to be a viable place to spend one’s imagined life.

Calling the character arcs “interesting and realistic” does little to describe the depth and care put into their creation. Characters are exceptionally well written and feature incredible voice acting. Through idle conversation and active “loyalty missions”, the player must develop a relationship with each of them, and by the game’s conclusion, the player will feel like he has made a lifelong friend of these virtual characters. Particularly memorable is the saga of Garrus Valkarian, a Turian operating his own version of justice on the crime-ridden planet of Omega, his long-ingrained memories of revenge and injustice characterize him as one of the game’s most interesting characters. Mordin Solus, a hyperactive Salarian doctor, who initially comes off as a source of comic relief, contributes strongly to the game’s extensive lore by his regrettable involvement in the Genophage, a synthetic disease that severely damaged the galaxy’s population of Krogan. While the game may be dark in tone, intense drama and self-referential humor are done with such great care that exploration is fun and rewarding.

One of two problems that can be said of Mass Effect’s narrative is that the paraphrase system occasionally creates moments where the player does not feel in control of the conversation. This is especially apparent during conversations with potential romantic partners, where Shepard will invariably open a conversation with a flirty line whether or not the player wants to participate in a romantic subquest.

The second problem comes in terms of the game’s morality system. While eschewing a single, sliding-morality meter in favor of two meters for respective “paragon” and “renegade” choices. The two are meant to symbolize the player’s tendency to adhere to either deontological and teleological ethics in given situations, which, in theory, is a great idea that will eliminate binary morality. What makes this problematic is that situational choices are still binary in nature. Players who adhere to the deontological path are portrayed as noble, kind and heroic, whereas players on the teleological path see their Shepard’s behave selfishly and cruelly, forming Sith-like facial scars. This reduces what was intended to be a multifaceted and realistic version of morality into a binary one.

Graphics and Audio

From a graphical perspective, Mass Effect 2 is an artistic and technical triumph. Alien races are convincingly portrayed and go far beyond the “Muppets in Space” the original Star Wars was decried for. Even more striking is the diverse variety of worlds that the player will traverse through. The Asari colony of Illium evokes Coruscant’s skyscrapers with saturated blue and purple to create a very cosmopolitan-feeling planet. Similarly, the red and brown streets of slummy Omega work wonderfully to showcase the decrepit imagined history of crime-filled ghettoes and gangs. The post-apocalyptic wasteland of Tuchanka is impressive in the scope of destruction it has suffered, and the memories of a previous civilization are evident in its Varren-infested surroundings. Each planet is artistically unique and impressive, making for an imaginative diversity of styles unheard of in most games.

Technically, Mass Effect 2 is far improved over the first game. Facial animation is incredibly detailed and bridges the uncanny valley with grace. Lighting, particles and textures realize the artists’ vision with skill and finesse, and Mass Effect 2 is one of the prettiest games on consoles… at least when its not hit by one of its exceedingly rare graphical glitches.

From an auditory perspective, Mass Effect 2’s cast of skilled voice actors is a treat for the ears. An inspired performance by Jennifer Hale as Jane Shepard is a highlight, her tonally intense yet open style connects the player to her actions wonderfully. Seth Green’s “Joker” and Martin Sheen’s Illusive Man also give wonderful performances, conveying respectively the character’s sarcasm and mystery with finesse. Sound effects and music set the emotional tone well for combat and conversation, adding to the intensity of the game’s battles.

Conclusion

Mass Effect 2 is one of those games that will take over your mind and inhabit your thoughts and daydreams. With a cast of lovable characters, an inspired universe and visceral-yet-strategic combat, Mass Effect 2 surpasses its predecessor with aplomb and solidifies its place with RPG-greats like Chrono Trigger and KOTOR. Play this game. 4.75/5

Explorations in Gaming: The Most Misunderstood Medium (Part 1)

For the last year or so, I have been blogging considerably less than I had before. While I was able to push out 89 postings last year, 2010 brought a meager 49 postings. I also have not written a major blog post since last year’s Nerds and Popularity. I am embarrassed to say that a tenfold increase in gaming time was responsible for my declining blogging productivity.

Some years ago, developing and enhancing this site was one of my top priorities online. As I turned on my computer, I browsed the web and thought about content to upload to this site. It served as a good outlet for me to explore personal thoughts, share the better ones with the world and chart my personal intellectual development. Since then, such topics have tropped out of interests and video games have come to fill that void. My most-visited sites used to be Wikipedia, Flickr, Blogger and DeviantArt respectively and has since shifted to Facebook, Wikipedia, Gamespot, IGN, GamesRadar and Swap.com.

The tenfold increase in gaming has also changed my personality in noticeable ways. My sense of humor has grown dry, consisting of deadpan references to obscure video games in inopportune moments. Just yesterday at Quiz Bowl practice I blurted, “IMRAN ZAKHAEV!” when prompted with a Middle Eastern Russian imperialist. Sunday Sites are now almost exclusively reposts of IGN and GamesRadar articles. My fundamental relationships with others have deteriorated as I hold little interest in professional sports, television and the opposite sex. Thus, in this post, I will attempt to explore and defend video games and the relationship with the gamer to his games. Games have quickly become the most misunderstood art form of our day. Spreading a greater understanding of the nuances of the medium is my goal with this post, which will be part of an ongoing series titled “Explorations in Gaming.” 

A Time of Asteroids and the Birth of Obsession

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one” ~ Mr. Antolini

I remember that there was a time when I had yet to discover gaming. I was about two years old at that time; I mostly read and drew to entertain myself. At three, I was given access to my dad’s Macintosh, where he kept a considerable number of games. The first game I ever played was a clone of Missile Defense, along with Odell Down Under, Oregon Trail and Asteroids along with a crapload of edutainment titles. I must say that playing them was no revelatory experience. While I did play games on that computer frequently, I had yet to encounter the experience that would entrance me for life. 

In 1998, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time entered my life, I had played Super Mario 64 before, but nothing was like this. That was an early revelatory experience. The fantasy world of a 3D Hyrule permeated my early childhood fantasies, I would make up my own dungeons and Zelda stories with my imagination. I would be Link in my daydreams. The next game to conquer my imagination and daydreams would not come until I discovered Pokemon, which would entrance my fantasies and dominate my mind for years. Dreams of adventuring the countryside, chasing creatures and battling trainers would be all I would think about. Needless to say, this opened the door for a lifelong love… or obsession with gaming.

Like most teenagers, I have changed a lot over the years. I have lived through phases of anger, cynicism, silliness, fear and pretension. Notably, my love of video-games has remained unchanged and has only grown stronger. I love video-games for the profound experiences that they have given me, both emotionally and intellectually, nonetheless, gaming has had its detrimental effect on me, encroaching upon my interests outside of gaming, my ability to succeed socially and tackle interpersonal issues.

Wasted Time: Mainstream Perceptions of Video-Games

“Computers, long a symbol of depersonalization, were cast as ‘tools for conviviality’ and ‘dream machines.’ Computers, long a symbol for the power of the ‘big’-– big corporations, big institutions, big money-- began to acquire an image as instruments for decentralization, community, and personal autonomy” ~ Sherry Turkle (The Second Self)

When most people look at video-games, they see them as a waste of time. Indeed, while talking to my high-school peers, I discover that the general consensus is that games have grown stale and boring and are only fun when played with friends. Despite the commercial success of Wii Sports and Modern Warfare 2, the overwhelming majority of teenagers treat games as casual, social pleasure. While I have no opposition to enjoying games in this way, the sheer depth and nuance of the medium makes such a cursory glance rather disappointing. Despite the technical and artistic prowess of both independent and corporate developers, the mainstream perception of games as quick, cheap entertainment remains largely unchanged.

Video games do have their fair share of detractors. The mainstream media is well known for holding often silly and uninformed views of video games. For the most part, these pundits take video-gaming at the surface level, believing violence, not refined design, to be the main appeal of video games. This is a gross generalization that assumes that gamers are no more than a philistine population seeking to simulate violence as graphically as possible. This view is flawed, as it fails to account for the fact that several recent ultraviolent games, such as MadWorld, Manhunt 2 and Postal 2 were notable commercial failures. If ultraviolence were the main appeal of games, then the massive casual game movement spearheaded by 2006’s Wii Sports would have never started.

Ph.D student Vanessa Gorely says, “Video games are extremely prevalent in our culture, but they haven’t been paid much attention as a cultural phenomenon. Most attention has been paid to the negative aspects of gaming and not the good aspects of it.” Gorely is correct in this regard, the vast majority of people view gaming as boring, nerdy, socially-isolating or a societal threat. They do not acknowledge that gaming can be a truly enriching experience that can entertain, stimulate and entrance. Video games, particularly those by indie developers, have grown into a viable medium for artistic self-expression, indicating that gameplay is not a waste of time, but a means of personal development and life-enrichment. At the same time, there is no denying the profound effect that games have on their players and the mystery of the human-computer relationship.

 Intellectual Gaming: Using Games to Address and Convey Points

"If you think a game is 'Madden 2008,' then hey, games probably aren't art." ~ Jonathan Blow

In a 2008 lecture, Jonathan Blow said that 95% of independent game developers fail to complete their game, 95% of that population fail to make a fun and meaningful game. Oftentimes, developers design with high production-values in mind failing to design fulfilling mechanics and dynamics and arouse the desired response in the player. Blow is regarded by many to be the most preeminent intellectual in the gaming community, his 2008 puzzle game Braid is regarded to be the epitome of personal expression through interactivity in a medium dominated by multi-million dollar corporations. Lauded for its ingenuous four-dimensional mechanics, semi-autobiographical commentary on contemporary gaming, humanization of enemies and intellectual significance, Braid brought new ideas to game development, smashing the Hollywood-emulation mold that corporate development adhered to for so long. 

Perhaps Braid’s critical success can be attributed to its intellectually stimulating atmosphere and meaningful gameplay. Its ambiguous and surprising ending has been interpreted to mean a wide variety of things. From an emotional chronicle of a painful break-up to a psychological exploration of a Manhattan Project developer, interpretations are varied, thoughtful and interesting. Braid is unlike most mainstream games because its mechanics are an integral part of its storytelling whereas other games use a story to wrap together mechanics and dynamics.

Braid is not the only case for intellectual gaming. Indeed, video-games have already begun to make their way into educational institutions. The University of Calgary has already planned to add video-games to their research library. Wabash College in Indiana has already placed Valve’s 2007 puzzler Portal on its required summer material for incoming freshmen. Addressing “fundamental questions of humanity”, Portal has been analyzed by critics and compared to Goffman’s sociology book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. The character of GLaDOS, Portal’s omniscient, insane AI, is known for exploring themes of identity and conflicts between public and private selves. The fact that a video-game has made its way into a non-computer science college course signifies that video games are indeed a respectable and important part of modern culture.

Intellectualism in Mainstream Gaming: Commercial Success, Risk Taking and Satire in Grand Theft Auto

Intellectual gaming extends beyond obscure critical successes. 2007’s Bioshock and 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV were violent, mainstream (albeit traditional) commercial hits that held significant messages. Unlike the aforementioned games, which used gameplay to make their messages inseparable from the interactive experience, these games use atmosphere and cinematics to convey their messages respectively. This reliance on Hollywood-styled presentation detracts from the overall uniqueness that the interactivity of gaming affords.

This cinematic style can be attributed to the immense cost and risk involved in making mainstream games. GTA IV took 5 years and $100 million to produce. If it were to flop, then the combined efforts of hundreds of artists, engineers, marketers, administrators and writers would be undermined, causing significant economic disturbances. Realtime World’s MMO APB was a notable commercial failure, taking 5 years of development and millions of dollars. Within six weeks of its release, it was announced to be shut down due to its commercial unsustainably. Such commercial failures are why major publishers are unwilling to support experimental gameplay and champion the emulation of movies in games. The sheer number of differing voices involved in corporate game development makes it difficult for individuals to express themselves in these kinds of games.

Despite the clear distinction between presentation styles, some mainstream games still make an effort to pose challenging intellectual questions validating gaming. Bioshock received universal acclaim for its serious analysis of philosophical subject matter. It heavily criticizes Ayn Rand’s objectivism and theorizes over the ethical implications of a Randian society modeled after Galt’s Gulch. The game was commercially successful and told its story through methods unique to video games. Bioshock is considered to be one of the greatest video games ever released for its daring risk-taking and thought-provoking thematic material.

The oft-maligned Grand Theft Auto IV, popularly believed to be a celebration of violent street life, holds many redeeming values to be unearthed by deeper analysis. By depicting a realistically written, emotionally complex and humanly identifiable tragic protagonist through subtle nuances in animation, GTA IV garnered universal praise from critics. In his memoir Extra Lives, Tom Bissell extolled the game’s personally impacting environment and dialouge, writing that “[while] GTA IV’s dialogue has no bearing on its gameplay… it does make it one of very few games in which listening to people talk is not only enjoyable by sociologically revelatory” (168) Indeed, while most casual players ignore the intellectually stimulating writing, GTA IV is deserving of a considerable amount of respect in this area, particularly because of the media’s ample misunderstanding of it.

Missing Out on Life: Fulfilling Oneself Through Games (or not)

“So what have games given me? Experiences… most of which are as important to me as any real memories… I wanted games to show me things I could not see in any other medium… I wanted games to tell me a story in a way no other medium could… Then I wanted games to redeem something absent in myself… maybe all a game can do is point at the person who is playing it, and maybe this has to be enough.” ~ Tom Bissell, Extra Lives (182)

There is no denying that games hold a profound effect on the player. For heavy enthusiasts like myself, video games encroach heavily upon real-life commitments and relationships. While games may have infiltrated my subconscious and caused problems in real-life, I can absolutely profess that I cherish the presence of games in my life for many reasons.

But that is a story for another post. Stay tuned for part 2 of Explorations in Gaming: The Most Misunderstood Medium.

Facade and Procedurally Generated NPC Responses

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of meeting Michael Mateas with COSMOS. Mateas is an associate professor in computer science charged with running the Expressive Intelligence Studio, a lab where research in dynamically generated content is preformed. His field of study specializes in advanced AI, furthering advances in autonomous characters and interactive storytelling. The product of the EIS’s research is Facade, a stellar piece of experimental software years ahead of today’s perception of interactivity.

  Facade falls outside of the currently recognized aesthetics in contemporary game design. The player can move around the environment and interact with objects in the first person, but most important is the player’s relationship to Facade’s two NPC characters. This is where the game’s innovative experimentation shines.
All of the NPC’s animations and dialogue is procedurally generated in real-time. Unlike Bioware’s prerendered dialogue trees, Mateas assigns values to words that the player inputs to generate animated character models and return NPC dialogue. Trip and Grace (Facade’s NPCs) are fully voice acted using pre-recorded “snippets” of dialogue, these snippets are strung together within the program to produce grammatically correct and cogent sentences. These procedurally generated NPC reactions are nearly indistinguishable from pre-rendered reactions. Thus, Facade’s experimental AI is highly advanced and years above commercial AI. While it is not far removed from existing AI chatterbots, the integration of natural language simulation into a game-like scenario

Nonetheless, Facade’s 2005 technology still has its flaws. Several minutes into play, I encountered a situation where I input something that the AI couldn’t respond to (but again, not a lot of people know about The Game, even fewer AI chatterbots). Facade managed to cover up this hole well, the NPCs would say “what?” or “pardon” to these inputs. Procedural animation and 3D character modeling also looks primitive to modern pre-rendered animation and models. At certain times, characters would become horribly disfigured spontaneously. But given the experimental nature of these advances, such flaws are forgivable and Facade wholeheartedly succeeds at what it is meant to convey.

With the mainstream success of Heavy Rain, a PS3 interactive narrative powered by controller input rather than artificial intelligence, it is safe to say that future games will have this type of NPC interaction. Advances in voice recognition technologies could bring this type of interaction to home console games that lack keyboard input. WRPG games would be especially benefited by autonomous AI. BioWare and Bethesda games have been holding a similar brand of NPC interaction for years, albeit with pre-written inputs and scripted responses. Should procedural animation and dialogue technologies continue to advance to appear in commercial, mainstream games, the industry effect would be amazing The use of autonomous AI in commercial games will make gaming more immersive, emotionally meaningful and artistically relevant than ever before.

Facade can be downloaded for free at interactivestory.net, you’ll need a BitTorrent client to download it.