jango
01-28-2010, 11:48 PM
So .. after all this time of following rumours, announcements, dev diaries, and the obligatory forum babble it's here ..
*This 'First Impressions' was written after 3 hours of gameplay ..
http://www.gamers-forum.com/imagehosting/215284b62762928822.jpg
Getting the ball rolling
So, after getting the game finalised and ready to roll I was already aware that I needed to hook up to Cerberus - Mass Effect 2's network for providing DLCs, news, and so on. Having already got a Bioware social account etc it was fairly straight forward, and once that was done it was off to the Bioware Social site to register my game codes for the extra goodies. Within 5 minutes this was all done, I'd downloaded all the extras to my PC, installed them, and fired up the game. I'll be honest here, at this stage I had no idea if I'd done it correctly .. and to be frank, I didn't much care - I'd already missed 15 minutes of gameplay time, dammit!
Creating Shepherd
The character customisation tool is pretty straight forward, and as you might expect you can either choose one of the presets or get your hands dirty in deciding what kind of nasal passage you want. The physical customisations begin and end with the head .. no body tweaks for boob fans, no voice tweaks, no clothing tweaks at the start (although some of these come later). The customisation, at least to me, seem relatively basic compared to others, and reminded me a lot of Oblivion's tool. Aside from facial features, you also get to choose a background and a psychological profile - although for players of Mass Effect 1 some of this is removed if you choose to import your character from a saved profile.
All of this doesn't take too long, and before you know it you're hurled into a world of hate .. reaper style ..
http://www.gamers-forum.com/imagehosting/215284b6276295a4dc.jpg
Looks, sounds and feel
You'll initially be struck by the level of detail of both the environments and the facial treatments - it looks well produced and solid. Much like Dragon Age there are imperfections that you can see if you look for them, but on the whole the overall look is good. In the first few hours of the game you get to see how these environments combined with the music score set out a canvas that feels epic, making it literally feel like you imagine space would. This becomes especially apparent once you get past the first few zones (all of which are really there to help you learn how to use cover, how to hack, and how not to melt your own face .. which is handy).
Each step of the way you can feel your character being molded, and yes, even within the first few hours. Conversations seem immediately significant, and the choices you make very early on already have some impact on your character.
As you move through the early stages you learn how to hack wall consoles and datapads, how to use your command hud, and later how to access the different levels of your ship, how to scan and use probes, how to travel around the universe, and perhaps more importantly how on earth Miranda (pictured below) manages to maintain the intensity of her buns of steel (OK, that last one isn't strictly true ..).
http://www.gamers-forum.com/imagehosting/215284b62762994037.jpg
Scratching your head .. exploring .. and bringing back the bacon
Once you get on board your ship (and I'm intentionally not spoiling how you get there, or why), you'll soon discover that Mass Effect 2 clearly is what I'd call 'a slow burner'. By that I mean that it doesn't try to force things down your throat - go here, learn this etc - instead its approach is a lot more gentle than that. As an example you can explore your ship and learn about your crew, their needs, their thoughts, all of which have an impact later. Some hint at quests, some give you an idea of where the game will take you (an example being the armoury where Jacob is, where the AI unit informs you that you can later use this section of the ship to manufacture custom weapons and so on). But, as you'd expect it doesn't inhibit you from progressing the story, but instead merely hints that you have all this to look forward to.
The only thing that for me will take some getting use to is the space travel system. From the initial descriptions I thought there would be a kind've warp system, whereby you can jump from one zone/planet to another .. but instead you manually fly to places picking up fuel etc on the way. To me this feels a little out of sorts with the rest of the gameplay, and to some extent trivialises it. However, what it does allow is for you to explore the UI, roam the galaxy, and choose how you want to play - so it seems this will be a double-edged sword with both good and bad aspects.
As for the combat system, it's pretty straight forward. You can use and break cover quite easily, and issue squad commands too .. this was made easier for me when I read through some of the instructions on board my ship about advanced combat tactics - something I personally feel should've made an appearance in the earlier mini-missions. So far the combat has been relatively straight forward as you might expect, but there also seems to be hints of using enviromental aspects to aid you in future fights, whereby your skills (like overpower or pull for example) can be combined with the environment to help you tackle especially awkward foes. More on this another time no doubt ..
So .. 3 hours in .. enjoying it for sure, despite a couple of early bug-bears, and eagerly keen to see what else the universe has to offer .. and also whether I can entice Miranda back to my personal quarters for a totally 'innocent' jacuzzi .. ahem ..
I'll write a full review once I get a lot further into the game, but those are my first impressions .. so far ..
*This 'First Impressions' was written after 3 hours of gameplay ..
http://www.gamers-forum.com/imagehosting/215284b62762928822.jpg
Getting the ball rolling
So, after getting the game finalised and ready to roll I was already aware that I needed to hook up to Cerberus - Mass Effect 2's network for providing DLCs, news, and so on. Having already got a Bioware social account etc it was fairly straight forward, and once that was done it was off to the Bioware Social site to register my game codes for the extra goodies. Within 5 minutes this was all done, I'd downloaded all the extras to my PC, installed them, and fired up the game. I'll be honest here, at this stage I had no idea if I'd done it correctly .. and to be frank, I didn't much care - I'd already missed 15 minutes of gameplay time, dammit!
Creating Shepherd
The character customisation tool is pretty straight forward, and as you might expect you can either choose one of the presets or get your hands dirty in deciding what kind of nasal passage you want. The physical customisations begin and end with the head .. no body tweaks for boob fans, no voice tweaks, no clothing tweaks at the start (although some of these come later). The customisation, at least to me, seem relatively basic compared to others, and reminded me a lot of Oblivion's tool. Aside from facial features, you also get to choose a background and a psychological profile - although for players of Mass Effect 1 some of this is removed if you choose to import your character from a saved profile.
All of this doesn't take too long, and before you know it you're hurled into a world of hate .. reaper style ..
http://www.gamers-forum.com/imagehosting/215284b6276295a4dc.jpg
Looks, sounds and feel
You'll initially be struck by the level of detail of both the environments and the facial treatments - it looks well produced and solid. Much like Dragon Age there are imperfections that you can see if you look for them, but on the whole the overall look is good. In the first few hours of the game you get to see how these environments combined with the music score set out a canvas that feels epic, making it literally feel like you imagine space would. This becomes especially apparent once you get past the first few zones (all of which are really there to help you learn how to use cover, how to hack, and how not to melt your own face .. which is handy).
Each step of the way you can feel your character being molded, and yes, even within the first few hours. Conversations seem immediately significant, and the choices you make very early on already have some impact on your character.
As you move through the early stages you learn how to hack wall consoles and datapads, how to use your command hud, and later how to access the different levels of your ship, how to scan and use probes, how to travel around the universe, and perhaps more importantly how on earth Miranda (pictured below) manages to maintain the intensity of her buns of steel (OK, that last one isn't strictly true ..).
http://www.gamers-forum.com/imagehosting/215284b62762994037.jpg
Scratching your head .. exploring .. and bringing back the bacon
Once you get on board your ship (and I'm intentionally not spoiling how you get there, or why), you'll soon discover that Mass Effect 2 clearly is what I'd call 'a slow burner'. By that I mean that it doesn't try to force things down your throat - go here, learn this etc - instead its approach is a lot more gentle than that. As an example you can explore your ship and learn about your crew, their needs, their thoughts, all of which have an impact later. Some hint at quests, some give you an idea of where the game will take you (an example being the armoury where Jacob is, where the AI unit informs you that you can later use this section of the ship to manufacture custom weapons and so on). But, as you'd expect it doesn't inhibit you from progressing the story, but instead merely hints that you have all this to look forward to.
The only thing that for me will take some getting use to is the space travel system. From the initial descriptions I thought there would be a kind've warp system, whereby you can jump from one zone/planet to another .. but instead you manually fly to places picking up fuel etc on the way. To me this feels a little out of sorts with the rest of the gameplay, and to some extent trivialises it. However, what it does allow is for you to explore the UI, roam the galaxy, and choose how you want to play - so it seems this will be a double-edged sword with both good and bad aspects.
As for the combat system, it's pretty straight forward. You can use and break cover quite easily, and issue squad commands too .. this was made easier for me when I read through some of the instructions on board my ship about advanced combat tactics - something I personally feel should've made an appearance in the earlier mini-missions. So far the combat has been relatively straight forward as you might expect, but there also seems to be hints of using enviromental aspects to aid you in future fights, whereby your skills (like overpower or pull for example) can be combined with the environment to help you tackle especially awkward foes. More on this another time no doubt ..
So .. 3 hours in .. enjoying it for sure, despite a couple of early bug-bears, and eagerly keen to see what else the universe has to offer .. and also whether I can entice Miranda back to my personal quarters for a totally 'innocent' jacuzzi .. ahem ..
I'll write a full review once I get a lot further into the game, but those are my first impressions .. so far ..