Mass Effect 2: Difference between revisions

Mass Effect 2^[1] is an action role-playing game with third-person shooter elements developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for Windows and Xbox 360 on January 28th, 2010, following its release for Playstation 3 in 2011. It is the second entry in the Mass Effect series taking place in the 22nd century, after the events that happened in its direct predecessor Mass Effect. The player takes control over Commander Shepard, a human soldier who has to assemble a team to stop the “Collectors”, an insectoid species displaying the main threat for humankind.

This entry provides a broad overview about Mass Effect 2, analysing its core game mechanics and reviewing them under the premise of descision-making within the game itself.

About the game

Setting

Mass Effect is set within the 22^nd century within a fictive version of Milky Way, where the player has the opportunity to travel to accompanied galaxies through so called Mass Relays. The Mass Effect series established a massive fictive universe, even introducing different political organisations like the citadel council which is responsible for the mayor part of the universe and tries to maintain the established law for all Individuals who are part of the galactic community. Another faction is “Cerberus”, a paramilitary survivalist group, mostly consisting out of humans. The Core belief of Cerberus is that humans deserve a greater influence within the galactic community, especially tackling the council. Lead by the Illusive Man, Cerberus operates with any methods that could advance humanities status, including terrorist activities, assassinations and human experiments.

Characters & Races

There are 19 different alien races established in Mass Effect 2 ^[2]. Roughly they can be ordered to citadel council races and non-citadel races. Council races include representatives from the Asari, Turian, Salarian and humans. Humans joined the citadel committee relatively late^[3], therefore having not so many representatives, thus having a minor influence. Additionally, this is where Cerberus’ motivation for a stronger influence on human behalf stems from. Races that are only inhabiting the citadel and do not take part in politics are the Drell, Elcor, Hanar, Keeper, Salarian, Turian and Volus.

Non-citadel races include races, who are extinct or do not have any embassies on the citadel, as well as having a neutral status^[4] . These would include Batarians, Geth, Krogans, Quarians, Rachni, Vorchas, Yahgs, Protheans and Leviathians and obviously not Reapers and Collectors.

As the game progresses, the player encounters those different races. Every possible squad member he gathers, is from another race and every race comes with different traits, impacting the third-person shooter parts a little bit. This allows for a bit of customization on the players behalf because he can adjust his squad members to his playstyle. Additionally, the player gets different dialogues within those missions for every other character, increasing replayability.

Plot

In the year 2183, shortly after the events of Mass Effect, a spaceship by the name of SSV Normandy is attacked by an unknown hostile force. The Commander of this ship, Shepard, is pulled into space and dies via asphyxiation, but was retrieved by the paramilitary group “Cerberus”. Cerberus immediately starts the “Lazarus Project”, which has the simple objective of bringing Shepard back to life. Shepard awakes 2 years later, again in an assault on the research facility where he is being “reborn”, and is brought to the head of Cerberus, the “Illusive Man”. Shepard now working for Cerberus learns that human colonies are vanishing from all over the galaxy and that the main threat from Mass Effect, the Reapers^[5], are behind this. Only this time they are supported by and insectoid species called the Collectors^[6], who reside behind the Omega-4-Relay where no spaceship ever returned from. Shepard is than tasked by the Illusive Man to assemble a team to stop this imminent threat to humanity and is even provided the Normandy SR-2 spaceship to help him in his quest. After recruiting enough Teammates, Shepard is sent to investigate a supposedly disabled Collector spaceship where he learns that the Collectors are an ancient alien species (the Protheans), enslaved by the Reapers. Shepard than learns how to bypass the Omega-4-Relay before he is ambushed by Collectors.

By visiting a neglected reaper-drone, Shepard discovers an IFF(Identification, Friend or Foe) which is necessary to safely travel through the Omega-4-Relay , which has to be built into the Normandy SR-2. Now finally able to travel into the Galactic Centre, Shepard is able to reach the Collector base, where he finds out that a new reaper type is created by the collectors. Merged with the DNA of the humans within the abducted colonies, the collectors were able to construct a human-reaper hybrid. Shepard is forced to destroy this beast and based on the choices the player has made over the course of the whole game, several Crewmembers may lose their lives in the final battle, the same applying to Shepard.

Gameplay

As before mentioned, Mass Effect 2 is an action role-playing game with third-person shooter elements. The main part would be the action-RPG part where the player in the role of Shepard pushes the narrative ahead through conversations and his choices. The shooter-elements come in secondary. A third-party gameplay element would be collection-missions e.g. Shepard visiting the wreck of the SSV Normandy and collecting dog tags from fallen crewmembers. Mostly those missions take place in a little spaceship or by foot.

The action-RPG part of the most part, is implemented through Shepard’s interactions with NPC in form of dialogues. The third-person shooter parts can be found, when Shephard has to finish missions that advance the plot, or in loyalty missions, where he is absolving a mission with a certain objective that is of interest from a certain crewmember. Those missions fortify the relationship between Shepard and the respected crewmembers, making them loyal to Shepard after successfully finishing the missions. The collection missions are mostly received, when Shepard finds optional items within some missions, delivering it to a certain NPC and starting a dialogue with them. The NPCs often reward Shepard with these missions, containing important resources. Sometimes those missions can be received just by talking to NPCs, learning some information, and talking to another NPC, latter giving the mission to Shepard.

The most important gameplay element are the conversations between Shepard and the NPCs in the Mass Effect-Universe. The player can engage in these conversations via a radial command menu ^[7], which can offer him/her up to 6 dialogue options in one roster to choose from. Dialogue options, that appear at the top are generally more charming and friendly, even selfless at sometimes. Often, charming people lets them be more forthcoming and encourages them to give extra rewards for completing missions.^[8] It also can be used to deescalate tense situations.^[9]  Options at the bottom, are more intimidating, meaning that the player is mostly threatening or insulting NPCs in a conversation.^[10] Players can threaten NPCs into cooperating or to force them to enhance possible mission rewards.^[11] Choices that are located in the middle area are neutral, where the neutral left offers the player to go more into detail within a dialogue. Here the player does learn some information, but this does not advance the dialogue at all.

Morality within choices come in form of Paragon (charm) and Renegade (intimidation). Every time the player engages in dialogues, he gains different amounts of points based on the dialogue options he chooses within one dialogue sequence. After the dialogue is complete, the player is rewarded those points within their respected faction (video example min. 2:27-3:08).  It is also possible to gain points out of both factions; the player is not restricted to one playstyle. The points are evaluated by the impact they are having e.g. killing someone (within an interrupt-sequence) earns more Renegade points compared to insulting them (outside of an interrupt-sequence).

Furthermore, the points reveal new dialogue options. The more points the player gathers throughout the course of the game in one moral system, new dialogue options become available within dialogues. Subsequently, the more points the player achieves in one moral faction, the greater is the impact of this decision.

Additionally, the game introduces an Interrupt-System.^[12]  After the player chooses an option offered by the dialogue wheel, a minor cutscene plays, which displays the answer of the NPC who is addressed. In some cases, these minor cutscenes offer the player an interaction option: Renegade or Paragon. If the player chooses to interact, it changes the course of the dialogue, additionally giving him more agency^[13]  within the linearity of dialogues, thus earning more Renegade or Paragon points. If the player does not choose such an interrupt option, the dialogue will continue ‘normally’ with the player not getting extra Paragon or Renegade points or a special minor cutscene. It does not count as a moral choice i.e. “not using a Paragon interrupt is not considered a Renegade choice, or vice versa.”^[14]

Combat

While in combat, the player takes control of Shepard with the camera being fixed behind Shepard, allowing for a third-person perspective. Shepard needs to be navigated by the player through linear levels, fighting different kind of enemies. The game takes strong emphasis on providing a cover-system^[15]  for the player. The player can hide behind objects of the environment he is playing through, like barrels or tumbled over metal plates. While behind cover, the player cannot take damage from enemies (except they flank) and his shield- and health points are regenerating faster. The damage absorbing shield protects the player health bar. If former is depleted, the player takes damage and if he cannot regenerate fast enough, no matter behind cover or not, he dies.

Simultaneously, Shepard is always accompanied by two crew members, forming a squad out of three. It is possible for the player to manually control the NPC-Squad members. He can order them to go behind cover or target a particular type of enemy. If not commanding the NPCs, the NPCs are controlled by their respective AI.

The enemies Shepard is facing are protected by (at least) their health bar, as well as shields, armour and barriers or a combination consisting out of the before mentioned. Every kind of protection has different kind of weapon to which it is vulnerable to, so players have to adjust their weapon of choice. With different enemies on the battlefield and all with different vulnerabilities, the player is forced to change their weapons constantly.

Gameworld & Narration

While in a playthrough, the player needs to talk to different NPCs to progress within the story, but the purpose of those conversations is not solely to progress the story. They contain useful information on upcoming events and mission or give more insight on the character Shepard is talking with i.e. conversations are rendering the fictive environment (i.e. the “game world”^[16] ) with all of its assets more believable. This is reinforced by having the middle-left option in the radial command menu (in the future referred to as the “dialogue wheel”^[17]), which allows the player to go in depth within a conversion by asking some information; an option provided by the game to offer the player more insight which he can choose voluntarily.

It is evident that the game has an immersive game world and it is implementing it decent at the same time. The game design goes hand-in-hand with the overall narration. The game narrative, interactive narrativized interface (dialogues), character-writing, storyworld and emotions are working harmonious together to give the player the best possible experience. Mass Effect 2’s Universe is massive and extremely well established. However, this comes with a crux.

It is fully viable for the game to provide those contents in their full glory and the narration would only benefit if all elements would be dealt with in detail e.g. the player learning nearly everything about the turian race, thus learning and understanding the whole inner movements of  the turian crew member Garrus(Ill.5) on the base level of race, while simultaneously learning about Garrus^[18] as an individual. This would render Garrus more believable and he would seem

more as a “sentient” being. This would make the game world, especially the character and race elements, as well as the overall narration more believable.

Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible for a game with this size to reveal, or rather communicate, all of its contents, the same being attributed to Mass Effect 2. That is why there needs to be some sort of restriction on the game’s side to not appear overwhelming for the player.

Regarding the main narrative: The time needed for a story-playthrough is roughly 25 hours^[19] , not including extra activities like loyalty missions, collection missions or additional content i.e. DLCs. If played with extra activities, the game time stretches to 35 hours^[20]  or even up to 50 hours^[21] . It cannot be expected on the game’s side/ developers side, that every player has the time or interest to fully immerse into the game world, because than the game would loose its status of being a video game for certain players; It would not be an entertainment medium anymore, more like an interactive encyclopedia. The key ingredient Mass Effect 2 is decency: Providing enough information for the player to feel immersed into the storyworld while actively playing the story, but not so much that the player perceives the information as excessive and not feeling immersed into the game world at all.

Additionally, the game’s pacing is rather slow. This is probably better for a narrative-driven game like Mass Effect 2 by offering the player “more time” to develop a deeper sense and compassion for the overall storyworld. On the other hand, this means that at the same time the player has to invest more time and concentration on his behalf to achieve these effects, being fully immersed into the game’s story world.  

The problem with the deliverance of such an immense game world lies within the player. The video game as a medium cannot adjust to the player (not including Updates/Patches in this section) and is always designed in a certain way. Either the player can adjust to the state the video game is presented in, or not.

The Codex

Mass Effect 2 handles this problem in a creative way: It is outsourcing some information of the game world into readables. While providing enough information in the framework, that being the story, to enable a decent narrative experience for the player to feel also immersed into the game world, it also provides additional deepening information in form of the codex. The codex can be selected by the player through the pause menu. Within the codex the player can choose between primary and secondary information the codex provides. Primary information within the codex gives the player a rudimentary understanding of the various game elements even using an audio-feedback in form of a narrator, who reads out loud the information given (about races, conflicts, the galactic government, planets, locations, ships, vehicles and even technology, etc). The secondary information goes more into detail giving even more information at the cost of the narrator.

The game offers the player a deeper interaction with the game world even reading the information out loud for him. Seemingly, the game invites the player to get more into depth with the game world, so that even players who only want to have the basic ludic experience of playing the story take an interest into going more into depth with the game world.

Research Relevant Topics

With the sheer size of content, the game has to restrict some of it to present its world coherent and comprehensible. This restriction appears in form of the story world and narrative; It is transporting the necessary basic information for the player to feel immersed into the game world. All other information that go beyond the basic information are outsourced. An important thing to note here would be, that outsourcing is not referring to outsourcing game world elements onto other forms of media e.g. the internet (like it is the case with Destiny). The game is outsourcing information to different forms of micronarratives, all within one medial form, that being the video game itself. The “basic” micro-narrative is the interactive story, played by the player, providing him with enough information about the game world. The other micro-narrative would be the information given in the codex, furthering additional information to promote the larger field of the macro-narrative i.e. Shepard fighting against the Reapers to save Humanity. Noticeable here is, that the additional information in the codex is transported to the player in another way. While the player has more agency while playing the story, this agency gets somewhat lost when reading through the codex. Interaction is reduced to a bare minimum, and even further if the narrator of the codex is considered.

Interesting here is following: Within one medial form, that being the video game Mass Effect 2, various medial forms are encapsulated. For one, there would be the classic interactive-ludic action of playing Shepard and making choices. Then there is the less interactive way of reading secondary information, or the even lesser form of listening to the primary information. All those Elements allow for a different form of interaction on the players side but all of them are contributing to the same game world and the grater macro-narrative. The players agency is shifting depending on which different micro-medium he is choosing within the macro-medium being the videogame.

Those shifting medial forms come close what Henry Jenkins is describing as Narrative Architechture^[22] . Jenkins describes that the story of a game is distributed across different locations, varying from one another. As described, this happens through different medial forms within the game, but also explicit and implicit within the gameplay i.e. directly in a conversation or through a public radio, or an audio log.^[23]

But why is the narrative within the game world so important and widespread?

The Answer is easy. Nothing would have any meaning for the player if he is not immersed. For a game having decision making as its primary gameplay element it would be fatal if players would not have interest to make meaningful decisions. The player would perceive the decisions as meaningless. That is why the game has to have a strong representation. This is best explained with Janet Murrays Spatial Affordance:

“[…] Navigable space is created by clearly distinguishing one place from another and creating consistent interaction patterns that support movement between spaces. When encyclopedically large and detailed informational spaces or virtual worlds are well organized with clear boundaries, consistent navigation, and encyclopedic detailsthat reward exploration they create the experience of immersion. “^[24]

With the player of Mass Effect 2 having a spatial presence within the game, the player feels his actions have meaning. Important to note here is, that the choices the player makes have to make sense within the context of the established game world, and function coherent to the overarching plot.

Choices

Before moving on to the choices it is important to understand how those work within the game. Mass Effect 2 offers the player an Interactive narrativized interface in form of the “dialogue wheel”^[25]. When engaging in a dialogue, the game provides the player up to 6 dialogue options to choose from. After the player chooses one option, he gets a skippable micro-cutscene where the reaction of the NPC is shown. The dialogue durations are varying in duration, with the minimum ranging between two presented dialogue options and one cutscene.

The way dialogues are presented to the player is through the Strategie der Heraustellung^[26] , a concept criticized by Robert Baumgartner. The “Strategie der Heraustellung” is self-explaining: The choices which can be made are projected onto the games surface, where player interaction is needed to proceed. But with this “Strategie der Heraustellung” the factor of time gains importance. If the player chooses not to choose, the conversation cannot move on and with stagnation of the dialogue, the narrative comes to a hold, because it can mainly advanced through conversations. Time halts within the game, therefore not penalizing the player if not making a decision. Thereofore, choices are made deliberate.^[27]  The motivation for making a choice lies within the game semantic and the information provided.^[28]  Through the interruption of time, the game emphasises the narration.^[29]

In conversations, the player takes control over Shepard, and here is where a crucial detail begins: Unlike other games where the protagonist is merely a vessel for the players action, Shepard has a fully formed identity i.e. within the Mass Effect- Universe, Shepard is independent of the player.^[30] Shepard’s core beliefs and values do not change in the course of the game no matter how the player chooses to interact with Shepard.^[31]This seals Shepard within a certain frame-narrative the player is experiencing through Shepard’s view), even tying it back to the meta-narrative of all instalments in the Mass Effect series.^[32]  This means that the player interacts on level of attitude rather than on the level of identity.^[33]

With this, Mass Effect 2 leads the player down the same narrative road but nuances the experience different each time. The game allows the player to “inflect the attitude of the primary frame on the game world, while simultaneously providing a stable embodiment of the core ethos of the story.”^[34] Although the player is more acting on a moral behalf, the choices deliver important work for the narrative.

At the same time this means that the agency of the player is somewhat limited. The bigger the game world and options of interaction with the respected world, the more complex it is to provide a narrative flow and progression upright.^[35]  This is where some games limit the players agency to still provide a narrative flow. Bizzocchi and Tanenbaum are stating:

“When control over plot progression dominates freedom of play, we sometimes criticize a game as being “railed.” Mass Effect 2 is indeed railed—but the narrative constriction is nuanced, and the effect is not oppressive. Mass Effect 2 is indeed railed—but the narrative constriction is nuanced, and the effect is not oppressive. Mass Effect 2 is like a river—as you make progress you inevitably get carried downstream, but you have some choices on how you get there.”^[36]

Bounded Agency

Introduced by Bizzocchi and Tanenbaum is the concept of bounded agency.^[37] Bounded agency is a method of a game which allows the players interaction to deepen the narrative without derailing the direction the narrative is headed. It can be described as a middle link between “railed” and “open” games. While the players agency in railed games is minor and in open games mayor, bounded agency restricts the players to a certain amount. In Mass Effect 2 bounded agency is found on various narrative levels.^[38]  The highest would be the Meta-Narrative of The Mass Effect-Series, connecting all stories of the various games together. Next, there would be the story of one particular game in the series which allows the player to impact it with their bounded choices. The next level would be the micro-narratives beside the story, also under the concept of bounded agency i.e. Interaction with characters, third-person shooter parts, etc. Notice here, that bounded agency is especially used within the ludic-interactive game elements.