Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Mass Effect 2

In honor of the upcoming Mass Effect 3, (less than a week!), I would like to give my review on Mass Effect 2. This game is epic in every sense of the word. In ME2 we don't strive to live up to a destiny, prove our worth or try to become the hero, we are the hero who has respect immediately as he/she steps into the scene and is known by almost everyone in the galaxy. Shepard calls the shots and everyone else follows.



This game was everything I have ever dreamed of in a game. An amazingly done sci-fi RPG/third person shooter. I loved how much detail was put in to every planet, what its composition was, alien occupancy, safety, the atmosphere... I know a lot of gamers didn't care too much about those details but these little things really made this game awesome. As someone who has always wondered "what's out there", being able to travel light speed and explore was great. But what really made this game was the characters. From the very beginning we question the Illusive Man's motives and what he really seeks. We are able to make decisions and give Commander Shepard a real personality. Shep doesn't need to take orders, she simply does what she wants and can build relationships out of these interactions, whether that makes them lovers or enemies.

The most brilliant part of the game that BioWare established was that Shepard had a VOICE. There are too many games to name where the main character never talks. Many where we can't even select a text line responding and almost none where we actually HEAR the main characters voice as we control her thoughts. This is what established such a bond between the gamer and the game itself. I no longer felt as an outsider looking in on this world, I felt I was in this world. And if you choose Sheppard to say "no" she doesn't simply say "no", her responses are well thought out and can be witty, sarcastic, firm and so on. So bravo BioWare for doing what others don't. I'll give you an example, I love Skyrim and Fallout, they are excellent games. But I feel very disconnected from the main character. When the character makes a decision or talks to someone we see no emotion in our characters face, we don't even see our characters face. And we never hear their voice. If you answer yes or no to someone, it is just that. No thoughtful thinking and no voice behind the decision. I don't even know what my main characters faces look like in Skyrim or Fallout, but my Female Sheppard will always be burned into my mind because I am her and she is me.

BioWare did an excellent job with the casting of the voices in this game. It was like a movie. In any game I've ever played, I can't really remember the voices except of maybe the main character, but in ME2 I can recall every voice and personality of almost every main character. This was exceptional.



Don't think I was gonna leave out my sci-fi lover... The opportunity to have a relationship in this game is one you should not pass up. It was so much fun and a rush that left me feeling like I was back in 8th grade chasing my crush. At first I just didn't think that there were many suitors from a FemShep standpoint. I felt a little left out. But then I met Thane and all that changed. Yes, I'm a Thane lover and I know there are many many other females that share my love for him. I started reading fan fiction for God sake, just so I could drag out my Sheppard/Thane relationship. And for the male Shepards out there, don't act like you didn't fall in love with Tali, Ashley or Liara...



The storyline was phenomenal, graphics amazing, music superb. There is nothing that I would change about this game (except maybe a Thane sex scene).

Score: 10
Replay Value:10

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Fable 2



Fable 2 was a pretty good game with many choices involved to create the hero of your choice. The game starts with the hero as a child as she explores the city as an orphan and rescues a dog who was being mistreated. After a traumatic event, we join the hero again as a young adult with her trusty dog she rescued by her side. The world is open to you and yours to explore. The game seems very cartoony and childish in graphics but don't be fooled, the game is very mature. You constantly have quests that you can do at your leisure and the main story line can be completed at your own speed. There are also many side quests you can undertake that require a lot of work and exploring. You can be good, bad, corrupt, pure, fat, skinny, ugly, pretty, nice, mean, funny serious... the choices are yours to make.

I found that making money in this game started very slow, I was just scraping by until the very end of the game when I could finally buy some more expensive properties. As a female character you take the short end of the stick, the selection of husbands in this game is lacking compared to the women, and everyone wants to take you to bed. It gets really annoying have people constantly want to have sex with you and follow you around like puppy dogs. Also, the female characters are lacking in the beauty department. The look like orcs, weighing in around 250 and 6 feet tall with rippling muscles and huge quads, the men barely reaching her chest in height. I like my female characters to be smokin' hot and she did not meet my standards at all, in fact as many female gamers before me put it, she was just a dude with boobs.

This game made me realize that whatever game I play I need to always have subtitles. I put around 40 hours into this game and by the end of it had no freaking idea of what was going on or the story line at all. It was ragingly loud during the fight scenes and then when the hooded chick talked I was like "WTF did she just say??" So I can't tell you much about the story line. She had three companions that were never available except in a couple of the main story lines quests, it would have been nice utilize the companions more, as they just seemed like a wasted part of the game. All in all it was good but nothing truly amazing.

Rating: 8
Replay value: 4