E3 09: Mass Effect 2
I'm afraid things behind closed doors at the Mass Effect 2 room in the EA booth didn't fare much better than Dragon Age. We learned that Commander Shepard is very much alive (he is, after all, destined to traverse three games in what BioWare calls 'the most intense experience a human being can have') but that other major characters can and will die during this second, deeply darker chapter of the Mass Effect epic.
One piece of tasty chum we were thrown is a bit more teasing info about your Mass Effect saved games: all of your choices in the first game, from who lived to who died, moral choices and story-impacting tactical choices, will be maintained in the sequel. That's pretty sweet.
Mass Effect 2 will see Shepard deal with a splinter group of humanity that calls itself Cerberus - while still fending off the geth and learning more about the Reapers. You'll win at least one new party member, the galaxy's most feared assassin, a fellow named Thane who belongs to the new Drell race.
Dialog options now appear during cutscenes, deepening immersion - but the real improvement is in combat. The power wheel returns, allowing you to issue commands to your team while paused, and real-time combat has been given incremental upgrades - location-based shooting allows you to blow off heads and limbs, and nine new weapon classes have been added to the game.
One vaguely spoilerriffic cinematic (that was nevertheless epic to watch) showed the Normandy cracking apart under heavy fire. Unwilling to leave the handicapable Joker to his fate, Shepard made his way through the space-exposed deck of the ship to rescue his wise-cracking pilot. Meanwhile a character that looked like Ashley Williams died violently, and Shepard himself ended up floating off into space, heading toward planetfall as his body drifted toward the massive orbital body nearby.
I wish BioWare had taken questions or expounded further on how they're planning to diversify the Mass Effect universe, but the limited exposure I had was more than enough to whet my appetite. And yours too, I hope - keep it whetted until Mass Effect 2 hits the PC and Xbox 360 sometime in 2010.
tiny dancer
Posted to E3, Hot Stuff, Video Games, Videos on 6 June 2009
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: bioware, e3, e3 09, ea, mass effect 2, pc, xbox 360
I just hope they managed to hire some writers this time around who are capable of writing from a PoV that was alien (no pun intended) to them.
That was the excuse, right?
Because we're all aware how many of the BioWare elmpoyees regularly go on massive space quests and all. ¬_¬
I did note an atomic rocket launcher at the end of the clip...
Guess they are the "chain saws" of this generation hehe