Game Review: Mass Effect 2

Following on from the massively (although perhaps not entirely deservedly) successful Mass Effect, Bioware's latest RPG epic Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves just over a week ago; only to start another debate about whether or not it was too early to start handing out Game Of The Year ribbons. It probably is - let's not forget there's Final Fantasy XIII just over the horizon - but with it's hugely improved combat, awesome scale and superb story-telling, Mass Effect 2 will be a genuine contender for any Game Of The Year awards.

You'll reprise the role of Commander Shepard (you can port him straight from saves of the first game, if they're still lingering at the back of your hard drive) who, after a rather good opening cutscene, promptly dies, only to be brought back by the pro-human Cerberus organisation (a smart way of keeping continuity despite the skills overhaul). It's then off into the big wide Milky Way to investigate why human colonies are mysteriously disappearing and discover another ancient, hidden threat to the galaxy, all the while building a team of soldiers, researchers and a couple of psychopaths to stand with you in the final, suicidal mission. On paper, then, it doesn't look much different to the first Mass Effect, but Bioware have done just about everything possible to make Mass Effect 2 bigger and better in every aspect.

Now you'll be taking orders from the "Illusive Man", voiced by Martin Sheen. Martin flipping Sheen. It's almost worth a GOTY nomination just because of him.

Back in the first Mass Effect the galaxy we were given to explore was a let down almost as colossal as the game's ambition; it turned out to have precious few planets we could interact with - all but three being practically identical - and reams and reams of text containing the imaginary facts and history of imaginary planets and solar systems, which undermined the supposed "epic scale" that Bioware had promised. This time round, though, the galaxy's scale feels genuinely huge; there are more solar systems to explore with new space stations and cities (before there was only the Citadel), each planet you can travel to looks and feels different to the others, and the planets you can't land on can still be scanned for materials - which can be used to research upgrades - or signals that lead to hidden missions. It's just awesome, the perfect staging ground for any RPG epic, where you can spend hours exploring and barely scratch the surface.

The role-playing itself hasn't seen significant a change, but it has been refined. There are still the same starting classes - Soldier, Adept, Engineer and everything in-between - but there are now fewer starting skills per class (six instead of eight), including a unique, class-specific skill (for example; the Infiltrator can now become invisible). It almost sounds like a step backwards, but each skill now has two branches - let's say you want to level up an enhanced ammo power; you can either choose the branch that allows your entire party to use enhanced weapons, or just have significantly more powerful ammo for a single character. With this system you can build your character and the other party members in specific ways, so that you can not only bring the ideal team to every mission. Plus it helps create brilliant replay value.

Why isn't this slimming version available in Dragon Age?

As with other RPGs, you'll gain experience and level up by completing missions, and Mass Effect 2's are just excellent. It would have been easy, with the huge galactic scope, for some of the missions in Mass Effect 2 to fade into the background, and feel like little more than mini-excursions for easy cash and quick experience - that's certainly how it was in the first game - but now that just isn't the case. Almost every mission takes you somewhere different, whether it's simply another part of a space station or a whole new world, giving Mass Effect 2 a diversity that most other RPGs just don't have. Thanks largely to flowing cutscenes and the fully-scripted conversations (pretty much every other RPG has you play as Silent Bob's sword-wielding cousin), every mission feels relevant, as if the decisions you make during it could have a proper impact in the galaxy that will come back to hug or haunt you in the next instalment. There's even a chance to go back and read messages from people you've helped in past missions, giving you a sense of personal involvement that is rarely accomplished in games.

But, Mass Effect 2's most improved aspect is the combat. While it's predecessor was let down by the terrible friendly and enemy AI and having to stop the game every five seconds to use abilities via a fiddly radial menu, Mass Effect 2 has none of those problems. The enemy AI is much more advanced; it will try and outflank you, spread out if you're using area effect powers, and even help power up enemies that are in a better position to take you down. Friendlies are much simpler to command - each of your active team is allocated a button on the directional-pad, just tap left or right and they'll move to cover, attack a target or use their power. There are even three hot-keys for your personal powers, which is probably all you'll need now that you only start with six skill trees. All this comes together with a decent, if not a little rudimentary, cover system to create a surprisingly good third-person shooter that is perfectly complimented by the role-playing element.

The new combat system means that playing with Biotics is much smoother. And infinitely more devastating.

The music is still superb and the graphics no longer suffer from the hideous texture pop of the first game, so all things considered there are very few downsides. But Mass Effect 2 isn't perfect; the story - while being one of the better-told video game stories - is still quite short for an RPG, possibly shorter than the first game was, which is a shame considering just how much they have to play with. Obviously with so much else to be getting on with it's not a massive issue - you'll easily be able to get a good 20+ hours out of it without diving in too deep - but it still feels rushed, and could have probably done with one or two more sub-plots to flesh things out that little bit more.

But don't let that nitpick put you off, because everything else about Mass Effect 2 is just fantastic. It's a prime example of great video-game storytelling with incredible scope, solid combat and huge replay potential. Game Of The Year? That remains to be seen, but it's definitely a worthy contender and an absolute must-play for sci-fi, shooter and RPG fans alike.

9/10

...the sex scene was better in the first game, though. We don't even see side-boob now. Bloody spoil sports.

Game Review: Dark Void

We've been on the virtual front lines enough in the last few years to know what makes a good shooter and what makes a bad one, but it seems some developers are still struggling to figure it all out. Cue Capcom's latest failed experiment, Dark Void, a weird Gears Of War and Iron Man hybrid that somehow manages to do almost everything that's been done a thousand times totally wrong.

After being greeted by a half-dramatic title menu where a flying, steel Dark Void logo flies over what can only be described as a blue neon vagina, things kick off when pilot Will Grey (voiced by Nolan "One Voice For Every Hero" North) crashes his plane in the Bermuda Triangle, which turns out to be overrun by aliens called "The Watchers". Typical. Fortunately, Will stumbles across a gun and, hiding behind some conveniently placed rocks, gets to shooting.

The loading screens look gash

Unfortunately, the shooting is arguably the worst thing about Dark Void (apart from Nolan North, of course). Don't get me wrong, the cover and shoot gameplay works well enough (it would probably be more surprising if it didn't), but because of the weapons and AI it's incredibly dull. When the cover system works in games - Gears of War is the obvious example - it's because the enemy is smart enough to try and flank or expose you. There's none of that here; the enemy is quite happy sitting behind a column or tree trunk or park bench or whatever, popping in and out of cover until you've loaded it with bullets from one of your unimaginative weapons or smacked it around enough - which is basically done by hammering the melee button in the hope that you happen to initiate the attack quicker than the target, watching Will perform the attack from a slightly more cinematic angle (at which point you're unable to control him, so there's every chance that he could finish the attack only to find a grenade at your feet), then rinsing and repeating a few times until the alien falls over. Almost every ground-based shoot-out plays out this way, making the Dark Void experience utterly forgettable.

Wait, is that a flying Geth? Is there anything this game hasn't pinched?

This chug along in this manner for a while until Will meets up with a group of humans known simply as "The Survivors", who quickly hand him Dark Void's party piece: the jetpack. It starts of with fairly basic hovering - which is pretty nifty, and spices up the shoot-outs for a few minutes - but quickly becomes used for proper flight, allowing you to quickly take off from the ground and join in the dogfights. It could have been good but the jetpack doesn't handle particularly well. Standard flying is easy enough, but pulling off any kind of manoeuvre is a faff - you have to hold down one of the analogue sticks then flick both of them in a certain direction, which is way too much fuss when five UFOs are bearing down on your exhausts - and aiming is wild, making it almost impossible to target enemies and, consequently, making the dogfights more frustrating than fun.

Annoyingly, with the jetpack comes the introduction of a ridiculous amount of quick-time events. Pretty much anything that isn't simply hitting a Watcher in the face comes with a quick time event, and some of them are far to drawn out. Hijacking an enemy spaceship is the worst of them, because chances are you'll have to do that quite a lot what with the aiming is so bloody finicky. Normally quick time events have you press buttons in a certain order while something cinematic goes on in the background (see Uncharted 2/The Force Unleashed), which is fairly naff in itself, but hijacking in Dark Void is even worse. You don't press different buttons, you just hold down one and watch as Will pulls away at a sheet of metal. Pulls very, very slowly. You'll actually be sat there for a good thirty seconds, holding down one button while nothing really happens. Someone genuinely thought this was a good idea. You wouldn't even want them stacking the shelves at Gamestation.

Even at full boost, the pointlessly massive environments take far too much time to explore

As stand alone elements the combat and flight simulator are pretty poor, so it's no surprise that things don't get any better when they're combined. Dark Void's jetpack allows for a virtual cover system - let's say you're using the jetpack to climb a rock-face with a enemies at the top; you can use your jetpack to boost up the side of the cliff, grabbing on to protruding ledges and, while hanging from them, use them as cover as you make your way up. It's a novelty at first, but it still has all the problems that the regular horizontal gameplay does - except now you get a few particularly stupid enemies hiding on the wrong side of cover.


It's a shame really, as Dark Void should have been so much better. With the cover system shooting, the jetpack and the seamless transition between the two, it could have ended up as a decent game. But it's marred with poor gameplay decisions - namely the quick-time events - and lazy development, resulting in a drab, repetitive experience that you'll forget about five minutes after picking up a different game. To sum it all up: Dark Avoid.

...I'm sorry.

4/10

I'm sorry for the first caption as well...

Reviews Coming Soon:
Glee (Series review)
Being Human (Series review)
Mass Effect 2 (Game review)
MAG (Game review)