In my last column I showed the height of my gaming fandom, hopefully proving myself to be a trusted source for gaming opinion, but the beginning of this column may topple the tower I worked so hard to build.
You may think less of me as a gamer when I reveal that until recently, I had never successfully played a Bioware game -- but not from lack of trying.
I played the first hour or so of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but lost interest. I created a character in Jade Empire, but that was as far as I got. Just watching my wife play Dragon Age for a few minutes convinced me that I should not even bother. I made it all the way to Earth's moon in the original Mass Effect, but found myself literally falling asleep during the conversation portions. Even before aligning myself with the Apple side of the force, I never played games on a PC, so you can bet I didn't even touch Neverwinter Knights or Baldur's Gate.
For some reason, I have never been able to allow myself to get lost in the fictions of these conversation heavy, build your own adventure games from Bioware — until Mass Effect 2.
It was the night of Jan. 25 a few minutes before midnight when my wife and I went to pick up a copy of Mass Effect 2, easily her most anticipated game so far this year. The employee was talking to us about the game, clearly excited, when he asked, 'is it for you or her?' I quickly responded, 'oh, this is her game,' as if I was trying to pass some mysterious blame onto her. We went home, and she started playing that night, and I watched with curiosity.
I had been willingly allowing myself to give into the promotional hype of Mass Effect 2. I was reading about the game, watching videos about the game and the most important element that let me know I was starting to get excited about the game was present too. While fast forwarding through television commercials with the DVR, I would rewind and watch the Mass Effect 2 commercials. That is when you know you are excited about something. When you make an effort to watch a paid commercial about it.
I love science fiction, I love space exploration and I love video games, so why I was unable to play through the original Mass Effect was a complete mystery to me. I liked shooting aliens, but I would get so bored talking to them. My wife warned me that Mass Effect 2 was more of the same. Talk to the aliens and then shoot them, maybe sometimes convince them not to shoot you back if you are playing as a good guy. I decided to give the game a shot anyway, and I am glad that I did.
I think the main reason that I have been able to get so absorbed into Mass Effect 2, is because everything is tighter and more streamlined than it is in the first game. Immediately noticeable is that the shooting feels infinitely better. In the first game, controlling a gun felt loose and sloppy. It was designed so that you didn't really need to aim to shoot at enemies, but this made it very difficult when you actually needed to.
Organizing your equipment was difficult in the first game, so they just got rid of the whole organizing equipment element altogether. You will never find yourself combing through menus to see which piece of armor protects you better against what enemies.
The last big change from the first game to the second game is the presence of a vehicle. A lot of time in the first game was spent landing on alien worlds exploring them with your space-SUV (which, for those unfamiliar with the game, is not the real name of the vehicle). It sounds like a neat idea on paper, but it was not fun. It was time consuming and difficult. So, Bioware did what every smart developer should do. They listened to player complaints and completely got rid of the vehicle for Mass Effect 2.
Other than those three elements, the game is structured more or less the same. Meet characters, converse with them, make friends, make enemies, shoot some bad guys move onto the next planet. It is the correction of those three elements that have allowed me to finally enjoy the part of every Bioware game that would originally put me to sleep: the conversations.
With almost every character you meet in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, you are able to have a lengthy and realistic conversation. Your chosen responses will dictate very important elements in the story as well as the relationships you have with the many characters. You can build friendships, create enemies, strike up business deals or even pursue romantic relationships all based on how you talk to people. It makes up for a large part of the game, and truly makes you feel like you are the character that you are playing since you are making all of his (or her) decisions, and they are having a real and definable effect on what is going on in the story.
Talking to people though, just like it can sometimes be in real life, can be kind of dull.
After landing on a planet, getting frustrated driving the space-SUV around, getting frustrated by not being able to aim at an enemy and then getting frustrated looking through a menu of equipment, the last thing I wanted to do was have a drawn out conversation with an alien.
But that is all in the past!
Now I can land on a planet, walk a few feet, have a fun space shootout, and I am in a good mood, ready to talk to this alien as long as he (or she [or it]) wants me to!
This is why Mass Effect 2 is a great game, and specifically, why it is better than the first. Not having to worry about space-SUV's, or your equipment, or shooting your space guns allows you to focus on what makes the game so personal and interesting. Character interaction. The illusion of socializing, a friend of mine once said about videogames, and there was a never a truer example than Mass Effect and its' sequel.
This is the kind of game that shows how and why an interactive story can be so engrossing. I have built a bond with my teammates, I hate my enemies and most importantly I have my own personal motivations. It's not that I understand and sympathize with the motivations of the protagonist like you would in a good film or book, the goals that I have in place for my character are my own.
And that is why the world of Mass Effect is so compelling.