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“I just want to play this forever” – Mike (paraphrased)

My favorite game of all-time for the past decade has been Halo for the original Xbox. I’ve even written a good deal about Halo-related stuff (see Halo (PC), Halo: The Graphic Novel, Halo 2 (XBox), Why (Again) Halo is the Best Game Ever), though I really only love the first game. In fact, I play through Halo on Heroic difficulty at least once a year.

Finally, there’s something new to replace this tradition: Bioware’s Mass Effect 2.

I played Mass Effect (ME) for the first time and then Mass Effect 2 (ME2) back to back over a 3 week period and 70+ hrs of gameplay, finishing earlier this week, so I’m acutely aware of the differences between the games.

Mass Effect was a pretty damn good game. It reminded me a lot of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) for the Xbox, which was also made by Bioware. ME has great dialogue, characters, non-linear storyline, humor, graphics, and lots of stuff to do and explore (without being too open, in the sense that there’s no specific sense of direction).

That said, Mass Effect 2 blows the original away. After I finished ME2 this week, I thought to myself, I don’t want to go through ME1 again. It just doesn’t seem fun in comparison. Knowing that I have to (I want to make different choices in the first game’s storyline to see how they pan out) is depressing. The relative difference in games is like having to re-play a Japanese RPG with silly and frequent random battles and level grinding- yeah, play it once, sure, that’s fine. But twice, ah f*** no, too tedious. Secret of Mana for the SNES was my favorite RPG for a long time (I played it 15 years ago), and I still have never played through it again.

After playing ME1, I had a list of gripes that I didn’t necessarily expect to be fixed for the sequel. And I was okay with that. But ME2 fixes everything. EVERYTHING. Even things you didn’t think were broken were fixed, and while you may dislike some changes at first, when you think about them more, you’ll realize they make sense and Mass Effect 2 is better because of them.

Here’s another thought. Kyle didn’t like ME1 at all, didn’t really play it. Loves ME2.

When has a sequel been so much better than its original, that you can’t stand to play the first game anymore (but would love to replay the sequel)? I don’t mean like generational sequels, like Metal Gear for the NES and then Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation, these two Mass Effect games are two years apart on the same console. I can’t say this for any game. Definitely not the Halo series. I loved Halo 1, hated Halo 2, am okay with Halo 3 and Halo: ODST. Metal Gear? I own MGS 1, 2, and 3, and never got into 2 or 3.

Here are some notes on what Mass Effect 2 brings:

• Autosaves: Fixed. Autosaves are frequent- you rarely need to save by yourself. Plus, saves are quick and don’t pause or disrupt gameplay.
• Shooting Gameplay: Much, much improved. Feels much more fluid. You can consider it Gears of Wars-lite with RPG elements.
• Ethical Questions: While ME2 still makes most decisions obvious in terms of good/evil, nice guy/dick, there are some situations that seriously challenge your inner beliefs as a person, that aren’t about right and wrong, they’re just about what you think is best. (If you have played ME2, remember the Krogan). I liked this a lot, I sat for 10 minutes thinking during one of the decisions.
• Inventory: You don’t have to equip individual armor and weapons for everyone anymore, it’s much more simplified without losing that “I want to upgrade!” feel.
• “Great dialogue, characters, non-linear storyline, humor, graphics, and lots of stuff to do and explore”: All still here in the sequel. Phenomenal visuals, technically, but also artistically along with a much more consistent framerate.

The only complaint I have is something that exists in most Bioware games (Mike says Dragon Age doesn’t have this problem): The Mass Effect games have a meter to monitor your decisions. If you do nice things, your Paragon meter goes up. If not so nice, then Renegade. But it’s always obvious how to pick the decision for either effect, and that’s what makes it too game-like for me. In KOTOR, your character would physically match your attitude. Be a dark son of a bitch, and you’d look evil.

I want a game that doesn’t explicitly tell you that what you’re doing is right/wrong/good/bad. I just want to make decisions naturally the way I might do if the game were real life, and I want the game to react naturally and not give me a meter to show me. The story and characters would just flow with you, and maybe in the end, there could be a summary about what kind of person you really are.

Black and White and then Fable supposedly promised that they would do something similar, but they didn’t- there was no subtlety in how you were affecting the game world. In life, most of us are clueless about how we actually are to the people around us, and how our decisions affect others around us. Let’s see that in a game! If I am a real dick in life, I want the game to pull that out of me. That’s true role playing.

Anyway, as I recommended to Jimmy, steal someone’s Xbox 360 and play Mass Effect 2. Who cares about Mass Effect 1. Don’t bother with reading reviews or whatever, just go into it fresh, play, and be amazed.

Mass Effect 2 is now the standard by which we’ll measure single player experiences, not just RPGs but story-centric shooters as well.

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