Mass Effect 2 Previews, Interview, Gameplay Footage, and Mobile Media

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Written by BuckGB on December 21st, 2009

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Following the character customisation screen (where presumably old Mass Effect save games will also be detected and also let's hope there'll be an option to tweak old characters, so we can adjust our ugly, fish-lipped freak of a man) and a brief textual summary of the events of the first game, you begin back on the Normandy, effectively starting where you left off in the previous Mass Effect. So you'll see a lot of your trusted crew again and to reacquaint yourself with the clean lines, narrow corridors and cramped quarters of your old vessel, which is rather nice.

Of course, it's not long before pretty cut scenes unfold detailing hugely important events that conspire to shake Shepard's world to its very foundations, and you're eventually spat out on the other side. Big spoilers duly sidestepped, the rest of the demo takes place at a Cerberus space station where you meet the slinky, sophisticated Miranda and tough-looking, no-nonsense Jacob.

With the odds so massively stacked against him (or her, if you created a female Shepherd), it's no wonder that Shepherd finds himself pushed into an unlikely alliance with the mysterious Cerberus ogranisation who played a recurring but minor role in the first game. Further explored in the novels, Cerberus is a secret society of technologically minded human supremacists who share a thirst for power and a talent for infiltration and deception. Led by the Illusive Man, Cerberus has agents everywhere and fingers in more pies than a particularly unhygienic baker. Let down by the military and Citadel Council, it's to this group of radicals that Shepherd has to turn in order to get the information he needs.

Unfortunately, militant supremacists tend not to keep the most pleasant of company and so Shepherd quickly finds himself introduced to all sorts of unsavoury characters, some of which he recruits into his newly formed squad of warriors with a deathwish.

Somewhere in between travelling from the infirmary to the shuttle bay to escape, I played two mini-games to gather information. These mini-games are in place of the button pressing sequences in Mass Effect. Both were matching games, though one was to match identical icons together while another was to match small, unreadable texts together. This is a very brief description of the mini-games, but both are more enjoyable than simple button mashing.

Upon reaching the shuttle bay, it becomes clear that the attack on this installation was an inside job, and the crewmember we picked up was the man. The first moral choice came up, whether to shoot him myself or to let Miranda Lawson, the voice over the intercom who was in charge of rebuilding Shepard, do it herself. Either choice will show on-screen after a decision is made as a +score morale, where the score is a number and morale is essentially good or bad. The paragon and renegade system has been updated so it's not so simple, but I didn't have time to delve too deeply into how the new system operates.

NowGamer: Despite its obvious brilliance, Mass Effect was certainly not the perfect article. Have you listened to the criticisms aimed at the first?

AC: We've listened to a lot of feedback from [the original] and have a lot of target fixes to approach in 2. And we take the jokes too, you know. We know the long elevators! It has been a few years and we've become really good with the Unreal Technology honestly, this game looks fantastic. I think it rivals any of the Unreal games out there. I actually bet a case of beer with someone on staff as they were like '˜I don't know if they'll ever fix that texture pop-in' that was such a big problem in 1 and I was like '˜oh, we'll fix it!'. I've put my money down. I gotta make sure it's gonna happen. It will.

NowGamer: How is BioWare approaching Mass Effect 2 in terms of where it stands within the trilogy that you've had planned since the start?

AC: Mass Effect 2 is kind of like the dark second chapter, and we've been talking about that a lot. We love Empire Strikes Back and what it did to the original Star Wars trilogy, and even things like Wrath Of Kahn. There are much darker themes and it's not nearly as light as the first game. I think it's going to be really more appealing to mature audiences because we know people want more adult storylines they are in for a treat next January. Even I'm surprised at some of the twists and turns that happen. It's really exciting as we can't wait for everyone to play it.

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