Mass Effect 2 First Look



£38.99

BioWare clearly hasn’t been resting on its laurels. Their team has been working hard on Mass Effect 2, and having taken all of the criticism on board, the sequel “improves nearly every aspect of the experience,” according to BioWare’s Casey Hudson, project director on Mass Effect 2. If the presentation I saw gives any indication, I’d have to say he's right.

The following contains heavy spoilers for Mass Effect, and some minor ones for Mass Effect 2. If you don’t want to know anything about what happens, don’t read any further.

With that out of the way, Shepard is back, as if you couldn’t have guessed. Despite all of the E3 build-up and the uncertainty of the first human Spectre’s fate, Mass Effect is apparently a trilogy about Shepard. This second game is the “dark second act”; the Empire Strikes Back to the first game’s A New Hope. That’s enough film references for now.

Shepard will be investigating the sudden disappearance of humans from around the galaxy, which is widely believed to be a suicide mission. Aiming to prove them wrong, the majority of the game looks to focus around him recruiting, equipping, and gaining the loyalty of some of the most dangerous characters around – it’s a “high-action descent into the most brutal parts of the universe,” says Hudson. While doing so, Shepard’s going to be working with the mysterious Cerberus group, and there’s a new power in play in the galaxy too. On top of that the Reapers – the giant biomechanical monstrosities that almost destroyed all life in the first game – may have been defeated but are far from gone, and still exist out there. We’ve been warned not to forget this.

The big thing about Mass Effect 2 is something that hasn’t been done in games for quite some time, and to my knowledge, never to this extent: you can import your save from the first game into the sequel, which factors all of your previous decisions into this. Considering the results of some of the actions you could take, I’d say there are going to be some hefty changes in your experiences. Despite this, Hudson described Mass Effect 2 as a perfect place to bring in new players. We’re going to have to wait and see how that plays out, though.

The first half of the presentation showed off Shepard’s attempt to recruit a character called Thane, who we’ve mentioned previously. Thane is an assassin – a rather good one – and Shepard’s attempts to track him down have led to his latest target, an Asari named Nisara, and no I don’t know if that’s the proper spelling. First things first though: Shepard needs to get to her, which involves getting past the mercenaries she’s brought in to protect her.

Controllable conversations can now take place in more dynamic settings, with one on display as Shepard headed towards the building Nisara was holed up in. They’ve also got an “interrupt” button, which was shown off during a conversation with the first mercenary they encountered there. During his claims that he doesn’t know anything more and wouldn’t tell you even if he did, the interrupt prompt flashed up; tapping the left trigger caused Shepard to shove him through the window to his death and utter a Bond-esque quip.