Mass Effect 2 [Xbox 360/PC/PS3]

[Uli]

I here this a lot but where was the homosexuality in the first Mass Effect? My Shepard had no romantic conversational options with Ashley or Tali and Liara T'soni is an alien who's species don't have a specific gender and can mate with both genders of other species. Unless I missed something?

thanks, this might be an explanation as my love interest in Mass Effect actually was Liara T'soni. she gave Shephard a rushed kiss when i met her, guess this will be all for me in this game.

How about simply that Miranda and Jack are straight and therefore don't fancy female Shephard?

i never would have guess this well, i am talking about content and possibilities here. the lack of homosexual romance between humans is sad and incomprehensible, most of all as Dragon Age has these options.

[Wools]

I still regard the original Baldur's Gate and it's sequel as Bioware's finest games. Mass Effect, though flawed, continued in a similarly rich vein of form but the recent Dragon Age: Origins and, now, from what I've played so far, Mass Effect 2 leave me suspecting the company increasingly focuses it's resources on beautiful cut scenes to the detriment of gameplay.

As Brats coined it earlier today, many people confuse detail with depth, and although Mass Effect 2 is hardly lacking in the stuff, I do understand the game is nowhere near as swimming in resources and statics screens as Bioware's previous efforts.

How does Mass Effect's focus on story and characterisation harm the game play?

[Eight Rooks]

Liara is a member of an alien species who totally coincidentally all look like extremely attractive human females bar the back of their heads, who has no character traits whatsoever other than a brief nod to some general mummy issues, no character progression over the course of the first game other than 'Sure, I'll save the galaxy. Bye, mom. Shame about having to kill you and all' and, well, largely exists as the embodiment of one of those Star Trek episodes which revolved around 'Oh, Captain Kirk! Tell me about this thing you humans call... love.' The Asari pages in the artbook even has the notes from the designer responsible saying well, hey, every macho space fantasy needs its gorgeous alien babes, or words to that effect. She's the lesbian option, end of story. The only way you could ever convince me her supposed lack of gender was anything other than a clumsy getout clause to avoid offending too many people would be a time machine back to Bioware's boardroom meetings pre-Mass Effect 1.

Obviously you can't simply make every NPC want to sleep with every possible permutation of the player character, gender or morality notwithstanding. I mean, nudge-nudge aside it's a fairly serious issue, other than for the people who don't like to think video games should have any relevance to anything to do with the real world. Or Witcher fans who just like the titties. On the other hand to say Shepard is less customisable than the player's avatar in Dragon Age is shaky at best, ridiculous at worst, and while the developers are perfectly within their rights to say 'no, sorry, he/she's straight' you do have to accept you're basically saying to a significant portion of your audience sorry, this character is not and will never be entirely you, regardless of how much control we're giving you over their life in every other respect - don't like it? Tough.

[Charlie]

How does Mass Effect's focus on story and characterisation harm the game play?

The time and money available to a developer to pour into any game is limited, and whilst I do appreciate fine story, narrative and characterisation, gameplay should always remain the key element and main focus for the majority of a developer's resources. With Dragon Age: Origins, and now ME2, I get the sense Bioware do not adhere to this philosophy as the gameplay plays a distant second fiddle to the fancy characters/fancy cutscenes.

[Concrete donkey]

thanks, this might be an explanation as my love interest in Mass Effect actually was Liara T'soni. she gave Shephard a rushed kiss when i met her, guess this will be all for me in this game.

Yeah. It was for me. In my original Xbox playthrough I tried to develop something with Kaidan and then, well something happened to him so Liara became my only option. In Mass Effect 2 I remained loyal, both to Liara and to

->Open Spoiler<-

the alliance and the Citedal council

even if they weren't loyal to me.

[Uli]

yet it looks like there actually is lesbian romance, at least in Mass Effect... so why not in Mass Effect 2 then?




also found this one...



female looking male Shepard or real? however, i wont give up on Miranda, not yet.

[FreelancePolice]

This thread just took a turn for the weird...

[sharky_ob]

Someone needs a girlfriend

[Riskbreaker]

yet it looks like there actually is lesbian romance, at least in Mass Effect... so why not in Mass Effect 2 then?

There isn't, it's a hacked version of the PC game.

[Uli]

Someone needs a girlfriend

i only want Miranda. just think of it: she is genetically optimised to be perfect.... in every way...

There isn't, it's a hacked version of the PC game.

ok, i will give up on my illusions then. this short cutscene isn't worth the fuss anyway. i don't want to become Mass Effect 3 a dating sim but i would appreciate a more substantial and mature approach to themes such as romance and sex.

[smouty]

i only want Miranda. just think of it: she is genetically optimised to be perfect.... in every way...

Except her face
Two bag job.

[Welrain]

ok, i will give up on my illusions then. this short cutscene isn't worth the fuss anyway. i don't want to become Mass Effect 3 a dating sim but i would appreciate a more substantial and mature approach to themes such as romance and sex.

sigh. I think the romance / sex bit is handled quite well, not perfect but it's still early days for such things in videogames. Just because you can't persue a homosexual relationship doesn't negate what is there.

ps:

http://i40.tinypic.com/2l9sdw5.jpg

two bag? really?

[smouty]

two bag? really?

In game - definitely. Why are you even posting a real picture of who the character is based on?

[Brats]

The time and money available to a developer to pour into any game is limited, and whilst I do appreciate fine story, narrative and characterisation, gameplay should always remain the key element and main focus for the majority of a developer's resources. With Dragon Age: Origins, and now ME2, I get the sense Bioware do not adhere to this philosophy as the gameplay plays a distant second fiddle to the fancy characters/fancy cutscenes.

I'm the biggest fan of gameplay over story and normally I would agree, but the gameplay in Mass Effect is the story and characters, because so much of the gameplay is based in the conversation engine (rather than the shooting engine which is more the side dish imo).

I found the conversations utterly engaging and I carefully chose the responses based on how I thought my character would act. That to me is the truest sense of an RPG, a term that has been bastardised over time to mean a game with lots of stats and numbers, but actually means a game where you the define the role.

There are actually very few cutscenes in ME2 (i.e. parts where you are removed from the action). The conversations are the meat of the game - they are interactive, they have risk and reward, they require some tactical consideration.

If ME2 was just the action scenes, upgrading weapons and static cutscenes, I would have been bored out of my skull. I think Bioware should be applauded for spending so much time on the 'role playing' part of their games, although I appreciate they are not for everyone.

[Charlie]

I don't know if, like you, I regard the story and characters as gameplay but I can't argue when you say the conversations are engaging - indeed I struggle to think of a game that matches Mass Effect 2 in that sense.

My problem is much as I admire and appreciate the brilliant story, characters and conversations, which remarkably get better as the game progresses, I don't consider it a fun game to actually play. As an audio and visual treat, it's incredible. As a tale, it's incredible. But as an actual game, I think it somewhat mediocre. That's why I would have preferred fewer or perhaps less dazzling conversations/characters in favour of a game that is smoother and more satisfying to run around and shoot in. I'm not saying I wanted more action, in fact I'd have preferred less action, but I want the action to feel good. But alas the poor movement mechanics, poor combat mechanics an poor level design put paid to that.