Mass Effect 2: Difference between revisions

Mass Effect 2 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 ^[1]. 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^[2], 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^[3] . 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^[4], are behind this. Only this time they are supported by and insectoid species called the Collectors^[5], 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 ^[6], 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.^[7] It also can be used to deescalate tense situations.^[8]  Options at the bottom, are more intimidating, meaning that the player is mostly threatening or insulting NPCs in a conversation.^[9] Players can threaten NPCs into cooperating or to force them to enhance possible mission rewards.^[10] 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).

<youtube>T-o-eX7Zyw4</youtube>

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.^[11]  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^[12]  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.”^[13]

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^[14]  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”^[15] ) 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”^[16]), 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^[17] 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.