Mass Effect 2 - Updated impressions

And what can we expect from the sequel? Hudson fills us in on the basic premise of the plot: “In the first game, you stopped an invasion of Reapers, gigantic and ancient machines that want to harvest organic civilization. But, the Reapers are still out there somewhere and Shepard knows they’re coming. In Mass Effect 2, humans are being abducted in their thousands from all over the galaxy, and Shepard is working with a shadowy pro-human group called Cerberus to find out why. You realise that you’re going to have to launch what everyone tells you is a suicide mission, if you are to find out what’s happening to the missing humans. And to give yourself the best possible odds, you set off to recruit a team of the most dangerous and powerful individuals in the galaxy.”

Not sure, but it sounds to us like Shepard is going to be mixing with interstellar extremists. It’s an example of Mass Effect’s rather smart morality system. Sure, you can build the toughest team and breeze through the finale of the game, but at what cost? What are the choices you’ll need to make in order to get the biggest bad-asses onboard the Normandy? And – rather critically – will it affect the way you end the trilogy? It’s a hand that Bioware is playing very close to its chest.

One thing the developers are keen to be very transparent about is the way they’ve beefed up the combat. The original, despite being brilliantly paced and scripted, faced criticism for its gunfights – this is something Hudson and his team has worked hard on. “Pretty much everything has been improved,” he tells us confidently. “First, the overall movement and cover system has been redone, so that movement and aiming is smoother, plus you engage cover much more fluidly than before.”

The demo we saw at E3 proved how far the cover system has come. It looks and feels incredibly natural – very much from the Gears of War school of animation. This makes a huge difference to the way fights play out, as you can react to what’s happening with much more ease. We saw Shepard dashing between piles of space crates, ducking in and out to take pot-shots at enemies, and switching between weapons on the fly.

Next to the stilted single-animation cover fights of the original, it looked like a huge leap forward. Hudson continues, “You have much better real-time access to your powers since you can map your favourites to controller buttons. This means you set yourself up for battle then generally play it without ever pausing.” So, ME2 can be played as a pure action game, although Hudson assures us that you can pause the combat and manage your attack at any time if that’s how you want to play.

Another problem with the shooting in the first game was the AI. Your team-mates weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, despite wielding some kick-ass biotic abilities and weapons. They didn’t react when enemies flanked and gunned them down, so the easiest thing to do was to ask them to hang back while you handled the fight yourself. Thankfully, that has all changed too. “You also have better control of your squad, with separate squad movement orders so you can place each squad member exactly where you want him or her. And you can fire their powers in real time as well, using context-sensitive buttons.”