- Image by rwcandeer via Flickr
If you have never played Mass Effect before, you should. It’s one of the rare games I actually ran through multiple times – maybe 4 or 5 times, each time trying a different path.
And now, Mass Effect 2 is here. Naturally I waited for it eagerly like other fans. In case you did not know, Mass Effect has always been slated as a trilogy. After Mass Effect 2, there will be a Mass Effect 3. Probably in 2012?
In any case, one of the BEST THING is that not only can you import your old Mass Effect 1 character into this game, but you continue him/her! What do I mean? Well the history of what happened in Mass Effect 1 are retained here. If you killed someone, that person won’t appear in Mass Effect 2. If you saved the council, the same council will still be here in Mass Effect 2.
I imported my 3 characters into Mass Effect 2 immediately. One’s “good”, the 2nd one was “evil”, and the 3rd… well he’s kinda neutral.. has both Paragon and Renegade points, and that’s the one I’m currently playing now. One thing I did remember about the original Mass Effect was that it was DAMN HARD to be “evil”. Sometimes, you have to be “good” to complete a quest, and then you get Paragon points instead of Renegade points.
Thus far from what I see, it may still be harder to be a bad guy as it was in Mass Effect 2. Seems like many conversations have more readily-available dialog options that lead to Paragon points than Renegade ones. However, I will have to wait till I re-play this with the “evil guy” to know more.
How does Mass Effect 2 link to Mass Effect 1? Take a look:
Cool huh? Uh yeah that’s the video from one of my characters in Mass Effect 1 – a good-guy female Shepard 🙂 I don’t know why the audio is out of sync – the original video file I uploaded was fine.
Anyway the second cool thing is that after you import your character and the game starts to throw you into the story, you are given a chance to customise your appearance again, or just accept the same face you created when you played Mass Effect 1. For continuity I chose to keep the same face.
I did try to customise the face though, and the thing I didn’t like was how it resetted the face to a “default” face instead of just letting you customise from the imported face. I had initially thought I wanted to give Shepard a little stubble on his chin.. to signify the time passing between Mass Effect 1 and 2.
Gameplay-wise, it’s mostly the same. However, now you don’t buy Biotic Amps nor weapons anymore. Now you research them on your ship and unlock them when you have recruited the right people into your team. Also, the planets now contain minerals which you need to mine to get the raw materials to create the new items you researched.
A major part of the game involves you running around upgrading your ship and your crew’s equipment. To survive the later part of the game, you need to upgrade everything as much as you can, before you head for the Omega 4 Relay. Well that’s fine for me since I normally get side-tracked in an RPG and I explore other places before I go back to the main quest.
Speaking of crews – well you do get some of the old crew members back. Most of the team members in this game will be new. Some of your old team members are now holding different positions in various other places, and yes you do get to meet them and talk to them. The odd thing is that, those old team members that you DO recruit again aren’t automatically “loyal” to you. Take for example, Garrus. Back in Mass Effect 1, I helped him confront the crazy doctor and he was grateful. Now he’s not “loyal”? Come on man, you OWE me!
I also was disappointed that when I went back to the Citadel that I couldn’t go back to the old places. I’m basically locked in to the new part – Zakera’s Ward. Even the Presidium was very limiting – I could only go to the human consulate office, and then when I exit the office I am back in the rapid transport system. I wanted to walk around the Presidium!
Anyway right now my game saves tell me I’m almost 40 hours into the game, and I’ve only played maybe 40% of the game. I’m thinking it’ll last as long as, if not longer, than Fallout 3.
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