On the Subject of Mass Effect 2

Perla/Simi

I didn't really pay much attention to Mass Effect when it was originally released. I think eventually I picked it up cheap in Steam sale, and it really grew on me. To date I've completed it three times, most recently immediately prior to the release of the sequel. I'm still impressed by the storytelling, the dialogue, and the well-designed universe. It's interesting, reading back on my original thoughts on the game, that I had doubts about replay potential. It is true that there are sections which can be a bit tiresome, relying on simply skipping through some dialogue to complete an assignment. And the side-missions are still mind-numbingly repetitive and bland.

I'm not that far into ME2, so these will be more initial thoughts than a comprehensive review. Firstly, and mostly importantly, collectors' edition!


Thanks to the continued rise of digital distribution, a physical collectors' edition is becoming a rare thing of beauty. Fortunately the ME2 CE isn't too disappointing. At first it looks like a simple UT3-style tin box, but it turns out the tin is relatively slim, and accompanied by a separate package for the art book, comic and "Cerberus Network" card.


There could have been a bit more included, especially a figurine or similar. Instead the add-ons are complemented by some additional DLC, which is of questionable value.


Still, it could have been worse, and in general it's nicely presented. The biggest disappointment is that for some reason only the digital CE comes with a copy of the soundtrack, which is a bit cheap. Still, that's what bittorrent's for. I expect.

So, what about the game? Well so far I have some very mixed feelings, although on balance they're ultimately positive. First things first, being able to import a character from ME1 (assuming it completed the game) is a nice touch, and is well handled. Having played the games back-to-back it was very satisfying to see my familiar Shepard appear in ME2. The game does a good job of translating the character appearance, probably because if you look closely they haven't really changed any of the design options, just updated the textures and shaders.

Commander Shepard completes Mass Effect 1

Commander Shepard, the 2010 edition

And that's the big improvement in ME2. It does look very pretty, in the same slightly clinical style, while remaining pretty speedy. Thanks, no doubt, to being primarily developed for shitty old consoles. The characters look better, the environments look better. There's some quite subtle but impressive lighting trickery going on, and the shadowing in particular is a big improvement over the original.


But it can't be all good, right? Right. I think I read somewhere that the PC version of ME1 was outsourced, and it actually turned out surprisingly well. The inventory system often comes in for criticism, but I found it pretty workable. The mouse controls were painless and consistent. Unfortunately ME2, which was handled by Bioware as far as I can tell, is a major and frustrating step backwards in that regard. The game suffers from the same piss-poor mouse implementation as many other recent AAA titles, in particular Bioshock and Fallout 3. Turn down the mouse sensitivity enough to make your character controllable (and you have all of 3 settings to choose from. Seriously) and it's way too slow in 2D interfaces, including the time-critical hacking sections. So I'm forever switching my mouse's hardware sensitivity on-the-fly to compensate. It's shit like that which makes you wonder if anyone at Bioware even tested the game with a mouse. It's stupid, stupid crap which would take virtually no effort to correct, if they could just be bothered. Fingers crossed for a patch in the near future.
What almost certainly won't be patched, unfortunately, is the fucking awful inventory, or rather "loadout" interface. Because the looting of the original game appears to have been deprecated in favour of a convoluted, spoon-fed system of pickups and research which appears to offer a much smaller scope for customising your team.
Then there's the ship navigation. Instead of the relatively basic, but reasonable star maps with all the zooming in and out of star systems and driving around (very boring and repetitive) planets, there's some ridiculous micro-machines interface where you "fly" a mini ship around the map and... well there's not much to do. You can pick story locations to visit, or there's a bizarre resource gathering system which involves scanning planets for the materials you need to research weapons and upgrades. It seems very out-of-place, because at least driving around in the mako and shooting things felt like something Shepard ought to be doing.

The whole thing, along with the combined use/sprint/cover system has "console" written all over it, because obviously some drooling console monkey can't cope with having more than one button to press, or more than one thing being listed on a screen at any given time. It's very sad that the game has taken such an enormous step backwards in that regard, and it's a poor reflection on Bioware who are supposed to be the PC gamer's friend when it comes to this sort of stuff.
I mean, you can't even double-click on a menu item, you have to click the separate "confirm" or whatever button. Pathetic.
It's all the more frustrating because everything else is so good. The dialogue system is unchanged, which is a good thing, including the paragon/renegade options. The dialogue itself is first-rate, again, with some genuinely impressive voice acting. Even if you do end up with Fifty Cent as one of your first team members. The "Illusive Man" is a somewhat less impressive addition, reeking as he does of "G-Man"-style narrative stupidity.
The firefights are much improved, however, incorporating much greater numbers of enemies, and more variety.

So, like I said, a mixed bag. I'm really enjoying it from a story and action perspective, but pissed off that some elements of this game are absolutely worse than in its predecessor. It's both annoying and sad, because even if they hadn't changed those aspects at all, it would still be better than what they've become. It's like Bioware wanted to make changes for the sake of making them, or else they were simply too lazy to get the PC version right.
Anyway, because I'm not one of those cunts who thinks they have to "beat" a single player game as quickly as possible, I'm going to take my time and see what there is to see. I hope there aren't too many more disappointments in store.

The Field Marshal's New Year Honours List

Another year chalked up, and with it another batch of games. It must be pointed out that I haven't awarded a Bennett Medal this year because try as I might, I've been unable to think of a third game which has rocked my world in 2009. There have been some near-misses, but it has been a fallow year for AAA titles it seems.



The Bennett Cross
"... most conspicuous gameplay, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to entertainment in the presence of the enemy"

The Hunter

A game of which many gamers are probably unaware, and some of those who do know it may well be inclined to steer clear on the grounds that killing small, defenseless fluffy animals is mean and nasty, or something like that.
Brand awareness certainly hasn't been helped by financial troubles faced by the developers this year which apparently led them into a period of administration. Fortunately it's still running, and we can only hope that work continues to fully realise the game's potential.
But what about the game itself? Well, it's a relatively straightforward hunting game. You pick a weapon, you set out into a completely open and satisfyingly large island game reserve, and then you track and (hopefully) kill either deer, turkey, elk or coyote. Sounds simple, and it is, but that doesn't do justice to the amazing atmosphere of the game. The reserve itself is beautifully rendered, especially in the early morning as you trek across misty hillsides with the sun peaking through the trees. Despite the number of species available, game is few and far between and you can spend a large amount of time starting to wonder if there's anything there at all, until you hear the grunt of a big buck, or the startling whine of an elk bull, and then you're into the tracking stage. Some of the animals are very, very sensitive and getting close is the biggest challenge, which makes a kill even more nerve-wracking. Much as I like Serious Sam, The Hunter is no mindless run-and-gun. There are no airports full of civilians to mow down with your machine gun, no grenades or gunships or demons or waves of undead to fend off. It's not for everyone, but if you don't have any moral objections to the game, and can stand something a bit more laid-back which rewards patience over twitch skills, there's nothing better that I'm aware of.



The Bennett Service Order
"... acts of the greatest gameplay or of the most conspicuous entertainment in circumstances of extreme danger"

Dragon Age: Origins

I've put about 20 hours into this game so far, and it's telling me I'm 15% of the way through. I'm sure some twat power-leveler could have finished it by now but the point is there's so much to appreciate in Dragon Age that I'm really in no hurry to finish it. There are flaws, notably the combat which is awkward and old-fashioned, and I spend a lot of time wishing I could skip the dungeon crawls and get back to the story. And I could do without having to micro-manage all the party members. And your hero really ought to have recorded dialogue instead of standing there like a statue in every cutscene. But ultimately Bioware have taken the excellent story-telling mechanics of Mass Effect and fitted them to a dungeons and dragons adventure. The result is an enormously satisfying game, and it wouldn't do it justice to say it's a good way to pass the time until Mass Effect 2 appears.

Honourable Mentions
Aion was perhaps the biggest launch for me this year, so why isn't it in the big 3? It's fairly pretty, and flying is an interesting, if not particularly well-implemented gimmick, but really there's not much else to even say about it. It's the same old mechanics, a whole shit-load of grind, and the usual deluge of moronic cunts who show up wherever PvP rears its ugly head. It's not really bad, it's just not great.
Having just picked up Torchlight in the Steam winter sale, I'm enjoying it a lot as a sort of gentle alternative to Diablo. The pet is a nice touch, especially being able to send it back to town to sell all the crap while you're in a dungeon.
Overlord II was more of the same, and no worse for that. Burnout Paradise was ok, although much more arcade-orientated than the superior Test Drive Unlimited.

Dishonourable Mentions
Dead Space came out in 2008 I think, but since I only just got around to playing it, it's included here. Awful, awful, AWFUL controls, stupid third-person view and insipid story. HAWX could have been Strike Commander for 2009, but instead managed to be tedious shit with an awful external view mechanic that could have been designed by the Dead Space devs. FEAR 2 was a borderline good game, except that Monolith managed to make the same mistakes as the developers of the FEAR expansions and as a result Project Origin's story is shit. The action often misfires and the game ends up being a pale imitation of the original.

Thought for the Day: Bianca Beauchamp

Big old wonky fake boobs, and a penchant for wearing full-body condoms. Nice!

On the Subject of Dead Space

Keely Hazell. Yes, again.

Another day, another Steam sale. I picked up Dead Space because I've read a lot of glowing reviews, despite some early control issues. Not so many that I was convinced to buy it at full price, mind you.

Anyway I'm not impressed. It's essentially a third-person Doom 3. With really, really shitty controls. Even when you turn off the in-game vsync (and force it through the video card driver instead) it's still shit. Floaty, laggy, nasty, shit mouse control which is a combination of a crap port from the console version, combined with the idiotic notion that making the controls as painful as possible will increase the sense of "suspense". "You're in a heavy space suit, you're supposed to move slowly". Bollocks. Fucking with the controls does nothing but get in the way of the sense of immersion, and makes the game frustrating not in a "difficulty" sense, but in a "this game was designed by monkeys" sense.

And that goes double for the third-person camera. I'm neither for nor against third person in principle, but I'm absolutely against Dead Space's implementation. They've zoomed you right in so half the fucking screen is taken up by the exciting view of your own back. Because of course by making it so you can't see anything because you're always in your own way, it makes the game more exciting and scary. Twats. But then they've realised that if you're staring at your own spine, you can't see anything at all, so rather than move the camera back to a more reasonable distance, they had the bright idea of shifting it way over to the right. So now it's only the left half of the screen which is hidden behind your own character. I honestly didn't realise that the character in the opening cut-scene was supposed to be me, I assumed it was another spaceman sitting next to me on the ship. It really is dumb, and gives the (correct) impression that they're desperate to show off their character design at the expense of the game play.

Despite the rather poor first impressions I thought I'd get stuck in and see if the game at least offered a bit of atmosphere, some decent scares or whatever. Sadly it really is just Doom 3 so far. It has the seriously annoying habit of showcasing new enemies when you first encounter them, usually from the safety of a neighbouring room through an unbreakable window. "Hello! Look at me! I'm a scary new creature! See me slaughter someone of no significance, and then come in here after I'm gone and a few more like me will pop up". It's the same thing FEAR 2 did with the assassin, even though FEAR 1's assassins were handled much more effectively. In Dead Space it happens right from the start of the game. There's no "Aliens"-style attempt to leave the worst to your imagination, keeping you on your toes because you don't even know what's stalking you in the shadows. From the moment they're introduced, all the enemies are just a series of tedious monster-closets. You can easily tell when, and usually where they're going to pop up. A corridor with no exits at the far end, but a tempting item on the floor? I wonder what will happen when I pick it up. An objective located in a large room with vents on the walls and floor? Whatever do you think is going to happen? At least in "aim" mode you get a torch, so that's one improvement over Doom 3. Except the game isn't very dark to start with so you don't really need one.

It's relatively good-looking I suppose. In a generic, industrial spaceship corridors sort of way. The monsters are pretty bland and forgettable. There's the obvious gimmick of needing to shoot their limbs off if you want to kill them efficiently. It's contrived and stupid but it's a damned sight more acceptable than messing with the controls in order to "enhance the game play experience".

So consider me particularly underwhelmed. I'm very glad I didn't pay 3 or 4 times as much for it. I feel like I still paid 3 or 4 times more than it's worth. But fear not (literally), there will undoubtedly be a slew of sequels as they try and wring all the commercial potential out of the franchise.

Thought for the Day: Eva Wyrwal

While I marshal my thoughts on Aion and Dragon Age: Origins, amuse yourself to the exceptional talents of the Polish hottie.