Mass Effect 2: My Thoughts So Far...

Now that we're nearly through the first month of the year 2010 I thought it would be a good idea to write about Mass Effect 2 and my experiences with it thus far.

When it first arrived in my post yesterday I was eager to play it but I could not because I wanted to finish up my second play-through of Mass Effect 1 in order to receive the best reward when porting my character over to Mass Effect 2.

You can imagine my desperation as I still had Feros, Virmire and Illos to complete which took me a good three hours. Once I had completed it and listened to the satisfying credits song for the third time I quickly installed the game and jumped straight back into the world of the Mass Effect series.

Immediately I noticed a huge difference in visual presentation compared to the first game and the performance was much better possibly because the game was actually using the full power of my PC unlike older games which were not designed to use Quad Core technology.

From here I'll be talking about a few minor spoilers that take place from start to about five hours in.

Once I gained control of Shepherd I soon realised the controls had been changed and old mechanics had been removed. The changes that effected me the most was the lack of a radar in the corner and the switching of the "shift" and "space" keys on the keyboard. I soon got used to it though and like it more because it means I can rest my thumb on the "space" key and do most of my actions using just my thumb.

As for story I won't go into details as the game is fairly new but some parts such as the return to the Citadel actually brought out an emotional response. I was expecting the council to welcome me back and honour me for what I did in the first game but instead they dismissed all my hard work and the resulting atmosphere was quite sad and frustrating. It was even more effective because hours ago I had saved their lives by sacrificing my fellow humans in the first game.

You have to admit a game that can do that must be very powerful emotionally and I have to praise the story writers at Bioware because so far they've surprised even me.

At one point you meet your old friend Garrus from Mass Effect 1 and unfortunately he gets shot down by an enemy flying aircraft. I literally said out loud "No, he can't die, that's not fair. He's an awesome character..." Luckily he survives but he is scarred quite badly which again made me feel sad because he hides his injuries with jokes to uplift the mood.

Enough about the story though, as for gameplay, I am impressed with how fluid it feels now. One improvement is the weapons which now fire more accurate lasers that actually sound like guns unlike the "hairdryer" sound effects from the first game. Taking cover is easier now and issuing commands to your squad has been fixed so that you use the "q" and "e" keys instead of the out of reach "arrow" keys.

As for space travel they have also improved that greatly by allowing you to drive a "mini" Normandy. You can fly to a planet and use a new scanning mechanic that is a hell of a lot better than landing on it and driving around doing the same missions over and over in the first game. It allows you to scan the planet for resources and send probes that search for minerals which are sent back to you so that you can upgrade weapons, armour and even the ship. Searching for resources is necessary as the game designers have stated that you can die at the end of the game if you are not prepared.

Overall I'm five hours in right now and I already feel attached to the story and the characters that inhabit the universe. This is going to be a long game since I'm taking my time with it and I hope you do too.

EA's Left 4 Dead 2 Event

'This is the building where it took place.'

Last week I was invited to the Left 4 Dead 2 event in London which was created to promote Valve's new sequel to Left 4 Dead 1.

It was very entertaining because we were trained to hit "infected" mannequins with weapons related to the game such as baseball bats, frying pans and assault rifles (although we didn't get to shoot them).


'Food rations and beer.'

There were also food rations and a corner where you could get your face painted to look like an "infected" from the game. (Obviously I opted to look like a Hunter since I was wearing a hoody).


'Infected face paint at its best.'

After hitting the mannequins around and getting our faces painted, we went down to the basement where they had set up four Xbox 360's to playtest the game.


'The gamers' basement.'

The version we played was an early test build that had a few glitches but other than that it was playable and I had a good time playing it. (The EA guy behind me was calling us hardcore because we got to the safe room at the end of the demo although I'm pretty sure it was because Director felt sorry for the people who played before us).

As an owner of the first game on the PC platform I already knew how to play the game so it was easy to pick up. I was very surprised at how good it was to aim with the Xbox 360 controller as my past experiences with FPS games on consoles have been difficult to aim with.

Left 4 Dead 2 is very similar to its prequel except that it is vastly improved with new enemies, weapons, characters, campaigns and an updated director AI which makes the gameplay different depending on how well the player is doing.

I feel that the large amount of game content justifies the price tag; however I still believe that it is too early to release a sequel especially since there are hardly any custom campaigns for the original game.

Lastly I was very excited to meet Valve's Chet Faliszek who shook my hand (still haven't washed them) but unfortunately my camera man was upstairs getting a beer and Chet disappeared as soon as I turned my back. I wanted to ask him about Half Life 2 Episode 3 and try to pry some facts out of him, oh well.

Overall my friend and I had a fantastic time and it was an honour attending. I just hope the next event I go to involves hitting something with a frying pan because that was the best part of the night!

Below are more pictures taken at the event which includes my friend who hit the mannequins so hard that a cricket bat splintered and flesh flew past people's heads. Scary.





(Thanks again Yasir!)

P.S. This is my 50th blog post!!!