Monday, February 28, 2011

Mass Effect 2 - minor points

You know me I hate to see wasted potential and in this case it applies under "Why didn't they change this?".

Mass Effect 2 on the PS3 is a 3rd person action/shooter/RPG game where you fly around the galaxy land on planets or space stations and solve (or create) problems.

The big flaw of the game is your own ship.It comprises four decks - Captain's Quarters, CIC, Crew, Engineering. To access a deck you use the elevator and then watch a loading screen - why? None of these areas can be deemed that large compared to the areas you traipse through on planet or station and those areas use a delayed load option so that it loads up as you approach the door and the most you get is a brief hiccup. But travelling through your own ship? Starting at CIC if you want to check in on each deck and then return that's four loading screens you'll be looking at and each is a minute plus.

Why would you want to visit each level - they each have different crew members and functions. Luckily the Armoury, Research Lab, Personal Computer and Galaxy Map are all on CIC. Want to change your armour or clothes; you have to visit your quarters; want to talk to some of your squad members (to open up more research options and possibly loyalty bonuses) they're scattered across the ship. It's ridiculous.

[Update - though not listed as a fix the latest patch 1.02 has sped up this 'transit' time. Although it has apparently created some new bugs; specifically to do with the Genesis comic]

This leads me to my final minor gripe and that's the loading screens themselves (as we see them so often). It's a nice schematic of the ship (or station or shuttle drop/launch) with a spinning green disc top right and the word "Loading" next to it. So what? Well occasionally part of the schematic lies underneath the loading icon. Seriously people you know that's where the icon is going to be so even if it is a layer over the top why not design the schematic to make it appear as part of it; just box it off in the same style; make it an actual gauge rather than a spinning disc; do something other than slap it over the top. You can't tell me someone looked at that and thought "Yep that looks fine".

It has other flaws but these should have been the easiest to do something about. A full review to follow.

2 comments:

walkerno5 said...

Agree 100%. Damn thing should just be a menu.

FlipC said...

Well I have no objection that they're trying for immersion. It makes sense that the armour changing is in the Captain's Quarters; that Jack holes up in Engineering etc.

Just they then ruin the very thing they are attempting with the split.

Just running through Project Overlord - so many faults.