By Jim Rossignol on August 18th, 2009 at 9:34 pm.
First there was Mass Effect, and soon there will be two of it. And yet, to be quite honest, I’ve not really be tracking said sequel, despite quite enjoying the first part of Bioware’s big space adventure. With 2 being bumped back to continue in early in 2010 (no concrete date yet), I’ve lost ever more focus on it. However, I just spotted this dude shown (above) – who was apparently revealed a bit earlier in the year – and interest has once again glimmered. He’s a beautifully blank-faced alien assassin character, Thane, and I can see him being rather popular in my ME2 team, made up from “the galaxy’s most powerful mystics, geniuses, and convicts”, as we make adventures and deign to save the human race. Of course what has nudged me into looking into all this is some information from GamesCom, where those extraneous plot details and a grunt, called, er Grunt, have been revealed.
Oh, and there’s a trailer illustrating Mr Grunt too, straight from the convention and posted below. Game footage, a-lovely. But why does every possible future have an ’80s pole-dancing club?
Oh and a dev diary from a while back, since we’re catching up on all things Mass Effect 2:
I have a feeling that Mass Effect is going to be one of those games that gets better with each release – looking forward to this one.
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WANT.
Thane looks pretty nifty. And shoulder-charging psycho-space-budgies never get old.
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I’m hoping to make time for another playthrough of the first game before ME2 is released, so I can take advantage of the pseudo-persistence. I massively enjoyed the first one.
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Grunt is like an exact copy of my playing style in most RPG’s and shooters. Definitely gonna be on a squad with Jean-Luc Shipard and Wrex!
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The problem with a series getting better with each installment is that it makes it really tough to re-experience the originals when all the uncorrected flaws slap you in the face…
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ME1 was decent, worth playing through once, but here’s hoping the sequel is a bit more open, a lot less repetitive, and significantly less buggy.
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Oh, and for the love of god, in the next one put the autosave points AFTER the cinematics!
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@ Vinraith: I’m hoping for a ‘return of the Jedi’ effect for ME2. The first one was still hampered by the whole “what don’t you remember…” and “of course you know that…” banter. Nearly inevitable when presenting a new universe and its lore, especially when the protagonist doesn’t suffer from ‘memory loss’, but nevertheless annoying.
With the universe laid out and the basics of the overarching storyline and a familiarity of the NPC’s in place, I think everything is set up to make Mass Effect 2 one of the best RPG’s in the past 5+ years. I hope. :-)
Also expecting technical improvements over the original, like the crappy console inventory and poor team management. Add to all that the choices you make in 1 carrying through in ME2…should be good.
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Errrrrh I meant Empire Strikes Back – GOD I suck
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“But why does every possible future have an ’80s pole-dancing club?”
Who would want to live in a future without one?
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@Rinox
Yeah, me too. Honestly, I think there’s a lot of reason for optimism. I really do hope they stop making me rewatch cinematics every time I die in a boss fight, though. That drove me NUTS.
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Hmm, the new race looks like a cross between a cobra and Abe Sapien. I’m saddened that they stuck the “needlessly violent proud warrior race” cliche onto the Krogan, but then again, FPS players could probably relate to the monologue.
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Serph: I actually liked what they did with the Klin… Krogan. Also like that the Assari were by far the deadliest creatures in the universe (well, in the lore, anyway).
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I also dislike the fact that the Asari fall under the “
greenblue-skinned space babe” trope. Geez, enough with the progenitor race foolishness. Make the aliens look like actual aliens and add more HUMAN females if you want to balance it out >_>report
Hm. Irrationally violent. Unpredictable. Big Krogan in big armor who likes fighting. Sounds an awful lot like Wrex, who may or may not have you know in ME1. Who else thinks that you’ll only get Grunt in your party if Wrex isn’t?
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@Serph: Wasn’t that the entire point in the Krogan?
Wrex was the exception, the one who tried to make a difference, and got stabbed in the back for it.
I think it worked well. The Krogan were portrayed as violent and proud not simply because “that’s how they are”, but because they don’t really have anything to live for. They can’t breed and they’re not really organized enough to do anything to solve that problem… So they just live for themselves, and make a living as mercenaries.
Grunt did seem a bit too singleminded though… :p
And @Funky Badger: Except the reapers…
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doh – I meant to quote Vinraith re: checkpoints
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@DigitalSignalX
That’s the exact moment I’m thinking about. I very nearly abandoned the game entirely at that point out of blind frustration and rage.
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Looks like the Mechanist servants on Thief II.
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Reapers, schmeapers. I shit bigger than them.
(Bit of an unfair comparison though, like saying Luke Skywalker’s harder than a Star Destroyer…)
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i just hope they make an original story instead of cloning kotor … again
and that the mako dies a painful death 5 minutes into the game, i hate that freaking thing
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As long as this game has more sideboob, and more opportunities to go “Fuck you, I don’t have time for your snide insinuations!” *BAM*, I will be sold.
Oh, and I hate the Krogans. They remind me of every generic “IMMA BLOW SHIT UP” character in RPGs ever. I want some character depth outside of the damn database, please. I dealt with Wrex in the harshest manner possible, and I’m going to do the same to Grunt.
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@ Vinraith & DigitalSignalX: Oh man that cutscene then to top it off putting dialogue options as well and then BANG straight into everyone shooting at you at close range from all different angles. The tenth time I sat through that comes in 2nd on my all time list of strongest urges to do violence to a games developer… right below the moment I realised I couldn’t go back and do any of the side missions.
Yet this is still this is still probably a pre-order for me unless they decide to charge silly money for it.
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Ahh, @vinraith @DigitalSignalX, I actually dropped the difficulty level at that point so I wouldn’t have to sit through that damn cinematic again. Annoyingly it happened to be, for me, one of the toughest battles of the games.
I really enjoyed Mass Effect, and an very much looking forward to the sequel. I’m trying to keep away from reading too much about it now though, deciding I want it to be a surprise.
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@Vinraith: Wasn’t that more a problem with the sudden and insane difficulty spike? I mean, if that Krogan hadn’t been eight times as difficult as anything else you’d encountered before, the checkpoint wouldn’t have been so much of a problem.
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@jalf
Yes, the difficulty spike was also a problem, but I could have dealt with it more calmly if not for the placement of the checkpoint.
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oh, yeah, the two cinematics in the Liara mission (when you approach the mine and suddenly get “cutscened” out of cover and when you leave with her) made me want to put my fist though the monitor, i believe there are a lot more but since i was more powerful after that i barelly got killed
ME1 has this weird difficulty curve that starts high and then drops like a rock once you get your hands in V~VIII equipment and max a few skills
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everybody likes pole dancing. EVERYBODY
Also, HAW HAW HAW. Grunt sounds like a psychopath.
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I think everyone might be forgetting just why this game has all these cliche characters. It’s entirely supposed to, it’s all of classic sci-fi rolled up into one awesome game. And at least they put a pretty awesome background behind why the Krogan are such jerks.
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Wouldn’t you be a jerk if your entire race lived to fight and had no chance of survivng through the next 100 years? Screw the world, make a few hits, make some money, hire a couple of Asari for a night and live as well as you can before your inevitable, untimely death.
You will not be missed.
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@Animystic
I know! Everyone seems to want Iain M Banks: THE GAME. In a game with production values this high, there are huge restrictions on what is and what is not possible in terms of art direction and the fiction which drives it.
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Oh yes, Fenchurch, give me a game with the Lazy Gun!
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I never felt the urge to play ME , not even a little bit :( I would much rather have had another KOTOR game.
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Ooh, wait, are those personality traits going to drive the characters’ AI in gameplay? I like the idea of having a team full of bad-asses who just charge around punching people.
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Is it too much to ask for a bit of character depth in an RPG?
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About the deathsquad – they were kind of tough, but I only had to reload once. I love having a shotgun and psychic powers.
@Animystic: Classic sci-fi!? The game’s a total tease – it has all this realistic-looking technology, and even goes to lengths to explain everything, but when you get down to the actual characters, I found that the most interesting one was actually MYSELF, because I was being a total, hilarious asshole. As far as aliens go, the huge, lumbering four-legged ones on the Citadel really stuck out to me, because they could actually BE aliens. Imagine one of those guys fighting on your team…
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I didn’t mean the golden-age of scifi. I was thinking more of Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, hell even things you’d seen in Star Trek and Star Wars. And yea, they did a great job with the main character. It’s the most freedom in a game that has full voice acting, at least that I can think of. And it’s still plausible that an alien race could evolve to look similar to humans.
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One thing that annoys me about ME (and pretty much every other party based RPG) is why the hell can I only take 2 other people with me?
“Alright troops, I’m going to head into an enemy stronghold where I’ll be outnumbered 500 to 1. You and you are coming with me, the rest of you can stay here and watch space-tv”
It doesn’t even give a good logical explanation as to why you’re so limited.
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Because poll dancing will never go out of fashion? At least I sincerely hope not. Christ, the galaxy will have been well and truely pussy whipped if that ever happens. Thane would be in the kitchen and Grunt would be neutered and in a kenel.
Mass Effect 2 doesn’t need to make the slightest effort to keep my attention. Really looking forward to this one.
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I haven’t played Mass Effect yet (waiting it to arrive) so checked out the video. This grunt guy looks just like space dwarves (is Krogan his name? Korgan Bloodaxe!)..
I wonder if the infamous blue skinned babe is some kind of space elf?
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Also, is there a collection of EA logos somewhere on web? I always find the style change to fit games interesting. Ubi is doing the same recently but IMO not as good as EA’s
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I didn’t really like the first game. It felt too sterile to me, and every planet was the same thing. Land, drive around, shoot stuff. I’ve gotten more fun out of replaying Baldur’s Gate. Maybe I’ll check this one out.
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@Serph: Wasn’t that the entire point in the Krogan?
Wrex was the exception, the one who tried to make a difference, and got stabbed in the back for it.
Exactly! Anyone who writes off Wrex as “angry warrior race guy” obviously didn’t take the time to find out about his backstory. The fact that he actually used to be really idealistic, and was NOT your typical proud warrior race guy made him a great character in my opinion. Hopefully this Grunt guy will be just as interesting.
“Fenchurch says:
@Animystic
I know! Everyone seems to want Iain M Banks: THE GAME. In a game with production values this high, there are huge restrictions on what is and what is not possible in terms of art direction and the fiction which drives it.”
^Exactly! This is a VIDEOGAME, people! You should *not* expect the same depth of story and character as is present in literature.
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i absolutely loved Mass Effect- my favorite game of the last two or three years. Here’s hoping ME2′s just as great.
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Hah! Space elf.
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Is it bad to want more out of video games than what they already give us? I mean, thinking that way we should all just play pong and buy pong 2 for the sake of… buying pong 2. That said I doubt anyone really expects an accomplishment of epic proportions of character realization, but it’d be nice, I mean Dreamfall and The Longest Journey tried it, they just failed at the whole game play thing.
I don’t expect Grunt to be a complicated character though, he looks like an expendable merc, hence: grunt.
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wooly: Not expecting it is somewhat related to not aspiring towards it, no?
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Perhaps he always had a dream of being a gardener, but when he realized that the plants on the Krogan homeworld had an unfortunate tendency to cannibalize offworlders, he decided to grudgingly follow his father’s advice and become a cold, heartless mercenary.
In the end, all he really wanted was to plant a flower.
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” ‘But why does every possible future have an ’80s pole-dancing club?’
Who would want to live in a future without one?”
I echo this sentiment!
Also I’d better damn well be able to have Wrex in my party for this one. I haven’t seen any mention of my other buddy either, where’s Garrus?
ME original tips for the folks who discussed having trouble with the Krogan enemies. Use Ammo mods that apply toxic damage over time, it prevents health regeneration, which is the main reason those guys are so damn tough. You have to kill them several times over before they actually die. Poison fixes that. :D
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@wooly
This is a VIDEOGAME, people! You should *not* expect the same depth of story and character as is present in literature.
I may not expect it, but it would sure be really really nice. There’s nothing wrong with wanting it to, especially in light of the quality of writing treatment most 3A titles receive.
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I can’t watch any of the HD RPS embedded videos. I click play, and nothing happens.
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I have high hopes for ME2 to correct the few flaws of the ME. Of what I’ve seen so far, the combat looks much more interesting and more “interactive”.
Let’s hope they correct the main bummer (at least for me): the boring weapons. And I don’t mean that the assault rifle or the shotgun are boring (I love those). What’s boring are the different weapons in each category. To find an Avanger III instead of a II you already have is not too exciting. I want at least a few unique weapons so I am excited when I find them.
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ME’s weapon system was just ridiculous – you could carry around at least a million guns, with the only difference being the version number. Why not force the player to carry around one gun, but be able to upgrade it with mods (and swap it at the ship for a different model), and have crates actually drop money instead of endless streams of guns!
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ExcaliburXVII: Can you tell me what operating system / browser version you are using? The video is very new and needs a bit more bug-testing.
cheers
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Is it just me or does he look like a cross between an Asari and those… what’s the name… reptilian, thin (not wrex) breed?
(it makes sense as the Asari are doing it with everything that moves (provided it’s true love, I know I know…))
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Hated that there were no consequences for your action ir first Mass Effect. The only thing in the first game that had some real impact was when you have to choose who to save – that chick or that dude. Now it’s like:
1. Mass Effect – Choices
2. Pay 60$
3. Mass Effect 2 – consequences
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Asari also live a super long time, so they’ll get round to cave moss eventually.
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Your choices had pretty big consequences for the colonists on Feros.
I really liked the characters in the first game, I thought they all had really well developed personalities and backstories. It’s not the developer’s fault if you didn’t talk to them and find out about them.
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The ’80s-ness of the pole dancing club is fantastic – and presumably apt since Bioware said (I think the the ME1 artbook?) that they looked to ’80s sci-fi for style and inspiration.
Poles aside, the spinning neon cocktail glasses – genius!
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I’m liking your new player. ME2′s looking great, too, can’t wait.
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Now they have two characters that remind me of Kit Fisto.
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Looking forward to this. It seems clear that they’ve added quite a lot to the existing game. Personally hoping for a bit more diversity in the character models (and hair styles), as well as a more easily managed inventory system (If your reading Bioware: when I want to sell stuff, let me do it by category, not just price).
@Serondal
Sriously? You’ve got the Old Republic coming out dude. In the interim give ME1 a shot, its an enjoyable romp. Sentinels FTW.
***SPOILERS***
Given that dependant on how you played ME1, and that either Ashley or Kaiden & possibly Wrex could be dead, I think there is a bit of a question mark really whether any of them will have a role in the sequel. Sure ideally it would be great if they did carry on through the entire sequel, but having any of the survivors around for more than a brief cameo in the early stages would significantly impact upon both the script & the recorded dialogue for pretty much everyone (I doubt they want to double or treble the amount of recorded dialogue they have to produce..) . Hopefully we’ll see the excellent Tali & Garrius carried through (I’m also hoping at some point we get to see the Quarian fleet at some point, if not in ME2 then ME3).
Like 1stGear I suspect that Grunt might only be available if Wrex died during ME1. Though I guess it could be interesting to see what having 2 Krogan together in a team might be like esp as Grunt seems quite headstrong compared to Wrex.
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@Jim Rossignol : Same problem here… On Vista X64, with Chrome. I tried Firefox as well, doesn’t work.
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Gutter: you got any adblock or noscript running?
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whoa, just looked up Mass Effect on Steam and it’s still 45€.
I probably have to wait another year :]
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My only problem is that I can’t for the life of me remember what actually happened in the original ME. Something to do with Reavers… Wikipedia it is for me then. Also, I’m pretty certain I still don’t hold my original installation and my last save file for this, so I’m going to have to start from scratch and lose a part of ME2 that’s really appealing to me (even if, worst comes to worst, the implementation is very superficial).
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@Masked Dave: Eh, I thought it varied wildly. Garrus was probably the weakest character. There wasn’t really anything too interesting about him. Wrex had a really good backstory once you got into it, but none of it really had anything to do with your game. Your quest to get him his family’s armour was pretty pointless. It’d have been interesting if you’d been able to try to convince him to take another stab at leading the Krogan, or something like that. His story was just too shrink-wrapped and encapsulated.
I hope ME2 allows more interaction with your party members, and allows for a bit more character development on their side.
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St4ud3: It´s on amazon for 20 Euros, at least here in Germany.
I´d love to see Wrex return, and Garrus and Tali as well.
Don´t care too much about Liara, Ashley and Kaidan (got him killed on my save anyway ^^).
I also hope that the things we did in ME1 really effect the outcome of the second game, stuff like who you killed, the what you did with the Rachni Queen, etc.
What they really have to improve on tough is the inventory/item system, it´s just not really pleasing to find thousands of guns basically named “Assault Rifle 1″ through “Assault Rifle 10″. And we know that Bioware can do this, it´s one of the things i really liked about Baldur´s Gate 1+2.
Every item except they most basic had a little back story and i can still remember some of them years later. (Crom Fire, the Rose Blade, Baldur´s Helm, stuff like that.)
It was very satisfying to find a new item, while in ME it was “meh, more random guns”.
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@Jim Rossignol: I’m running Vista x64 and Firefox.
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“Demikaze says:
My only problem is that I can’t for the life of me remember what actually happened in the original ME. Something to do with Reavers…”
What happened was I saved the universe and then the game called me a racist.
ME2 Wishlist:
A proper “neutral” ending.
Fast Elevators
No horrible floaty buggy driving
Save anywhere, or at least check points after exposition
Sex with anyone, anywhere.
Um… Should be fun!
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Just answer me this Batman? If you choose the “but… I want both of you option” in ME1, can you get a 3some? If not, then you better damn well have that option in ME2. I’ve only gotten that option once by playing both their love dialogs through half to three quarters of the way on both of them.
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“What happened was I saved the universe and then the game called me a racist.”
Well if you will leave the heads of every major alien race to die…
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But why does every possible future have an ’80s pole-dancing club?
Because they get to motion capture some dancers!
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I loved Mass Effect and I’m very much looking forward to MF2. Just a shame it’s not coming out on the PS3. Still, as long as I can woe some ladies and be a bad ass at the same time, I’ll be a happy chappy.
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@Chemix
As far as I’m aware you can’t. If you suggest it when confronted by the ladies then Ashley will just storm off. Still given she’s a xenophobe, is that really a surprise?
I’m sure most people boffed Liara anyway.
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I bought the 360 collectors edition on release day and loved it. But making it for the 360 trying to fit all content on 1 dvd really limited what other planets/content could be like. Thing is with PC and PS3 a 15+gb game is no problem. But you add in foreign language audio etc and the most they can fit on one dvd is about 6gb +foreign lang audio. The first one seemed to hit this limit. Unfortunately this is why i think the 2nd one wont be much better. If the side quests are more fleshed out it will come at the expense of the main story.
If your thinking but just use 2dvd’s game makers really don’t like to because then once you’ve gone on to the 2nd dvd you have to block off or write out of the story everything from the first dvd. Since some 360 dont come with hard drives thats not an option either. The best option i think would be a 2dvd set but 1 dvd for main story areas and 2nd dvd for side quests. sure it would be a pain for some to go back and forth but the could be like hey im just gonna play main quests for awhile or hey lets do side quests for a few hours. of course people with the harddrive space could just install both discs.
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I really hope that they add skippable cutscenes this time around…It was really annoying to sit through the same sequence over and over again if you fail some mission.
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@shiggz
I think also MS discourage publishers from releasing multi-disc 360 games with some mad licensing penalties as well.
Its a pity MS never had the balls to ship the 360 with an HD-DVD and a guaranteed hard drive. By not doing so they not only handed Sony the HD format crown, but they also hamstrung developers completely. Sure it might of garnered MS a few 100,000 extra unit sales at the low end of the market initially, but its left the platform weak vs its rival in terms of longevity.
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@kadayi exactly.
i hope that the next gen will 360 will at least have a removable and upgradeable 2.5″ hard drive like the ps3. IVe got 10tb of storage in my home that i didnt pay that much for.. but my 360 is locked at 20gb… seriously i have flash drives bigger then that.
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I didn’t backup any savegame files during my last reformatting and I don’t really have the gumption to play through ME again, though I enjoyed it the first time round. I hope it will be simple enough to use a savegame from someone else – that way it will be easy enough to experience a full on paragon or renegade Shepard from the word go, with variations of dead friends and romances.
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Video player won’t run the first video for me in SD, but clicking the HD button in the top left corner makes it run fine.
Also, really looking forward to this one :D
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@Bluto
Should be fine I guess. Maybe make a post in the forums and perhaps someone might furnish you with what you require.
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I can’t wait for ME 2, sadly I will probably have to play this on the 360 as that is where my original save is and I have grown too attached to my Sheppard.
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Well, that rests my question Kadayi, was hoping for a nonsensical hidden response. But that would have been reported almost immediately and been on every walkthrough from here to random yellowish planet # 3, this time, with pirates and sand worms. Still, here’s hoping for Mass effect 2, but if that were to happen, shouldn’t females get a similar opportunity? and if so, would they really be able to use the sandwich effect to cover the cg nipples of fiery ESRB death? Could a game get away with blurry silhouette sex? Could this be the missing link between games and movies!?
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@Chemix
Beats me. I was surprised they didn’t include a female Shepard/Ashley option tbh. You only get the Liara/Kaiden option. I guess that way given the Asari are (conveniently) asexual Bioware couldn’t be accused of discriminating and not allowing a Male Shepard/Kaiden option. Of course biware completely failed to realise that everyone that played the game was really thinking ‘I need to get that Quarian out of her space suit…’
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Yum.
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@Adventurous Putty: “In the end, all he really wanted was to plant a flower.” I approve this backstory.
@sigma83: Space elves? ELDAR? XENO SCUM!
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