Arnold Cook writes: "BioWare have been drip feeding us character reveals and titbits of information on Mass Effect 2 for months now, and so it was with some excitement that I sat down for hands-on time with probably the most anticipated RPG of 2010 that isn't Final Fantasy XIII.
The demo begins with Commander Shepard and his team aboard a shuttle on the Asari colony Illium. After a brief discussion with your unnamed Asari pilot you learn that Shepard is seeking an assassin who he plans to find by being present at his next hit, an Asari diplomat. During this conversation you're treated to various shots of the planet's surface, a gargantuan city spanning as far as the eye can see. As you fly between the city's many colossal skyscrapers it looks very much like Coruscant, but with a sleek and sexy Asari feel.
The first thing the opening cut scene makes you immediately aware of is just how good the game looks, it gives any current or upcoming game a run for its money and is quite a step up from the original. The scale and detail on offer during the demo is very impressive, with crisp textures and excellent lighting. Gone are the odd stop/start loading moments and choppy frame rate of the first game, replaced with a reworked engine lacking any Unreal Engine texture pop-in and said to be locked at 30fps."
One of the best things about the Mas Effect series is the companions you meet along the way. So here is a tier list of all the companions from Mass Effect!
To think that Bioware at some point was capable of doing games like this, you see those characters and remember them like good old friends, and now check ME Andromeda, Anthem, Veilguard etc and wonder what the hell happened.
some in andromeda are decent, I agree with peebee and Vetra being good companions. Except Liam he's trash tier
it's like bitch but your shirt back on, your not blue or spikey get away from me
RPGs are often huge, sprawling endeavours. With limited playtime, we have to choose wisely, so here's the best western RPGs available today.
"I started playing games yesterday" the List... Meh!
How about a few RPGs that deserve some love instead?
1 - Alpha Protocol - Now on GOG
2 - else Heart.Break()
3 - Shadowrun Trilogy
4 - Wasteland 2
5 - UnderRail
6 - Tyranny
7 - Torment: Tides of Numenera
And for a bonus game that flew under the radar:
8 - Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Not only glorious jank, but the idea that the story can completely change depending on what you do, or say, or side with, makes it one of the most forward thinking games ever. The amount of story permutation is the equivalent of a Hitman level but in Story Form. And it wasn't just that the story changed, no, it was that you met completely new characters, or missed them, depending on your choices. Made Mass Effect feel static in comparison.
Alpha Protocol was absolutely glorious, indeed. And it was, and still is, more Next Gen than most anything out there these days. In this regard at least.
Pity.
Wealth of Geeks explores some of the best gaming romances that have stolen our hearts over the years.
You can even hop over small walls and boxes. Who would have thought we'd see such wonders."
Uhh /sarcasm? Great preview.
Preview writer here: That's definite sarcasm on my part. Not just in regard to that one sentence, but the whole paragraph really.
It just makes me laugh how so many games these days have a cover system and yet fail to implement it very well, especially considering how good Gears of War did it three years ago (hence the 'magical gear of war' comment).
GoW's cover system is certainly not perfect, but it's a solid foundation, and yet so many games still mess it up (the original Mass Effect included).
I'm just glad to see BioWare trying so hard to nail every aspect of the game this time.
as if I was not excited enough for ME2. Nice job on the preview. You are certainly right about the graphical upgrade from ME1. Those screens look, as jj walker would have said, "DY-NO-MYTE".