Mass Effect 2 E3 Previews

I hope you’re ready to read through more Mass Effect 2 previews, because there are four more to bring to your attention.

The first is at Kotaku:

…at one point during the demo, Shepard and crew are searching for an assassin in a giant space building (lacking a better term), and they stop to question a guard standing at the top of a large transparent elevator shaft looking dealie. Asking for information, the guard refuses to help, after which our new, tougher commander gruffly replies, “You’ve got two ways down, express or coach.”

As the guard responds, obviously not willing to give them the information they seek, an icon flashes in the bottom of the screen, letting the player know an interrupt action is available. Pull the trigger, and Shepard interrupts the guard’s response, violently.

The second is at Crispy Gamer:

It’s BioWare’s “The Empire Strikes Back.” The new story is darker and features a potentially explosive ending. While the best Star Wars movie was never explicitly mentioned in the demo, it was so abundantly alluded to that not even a cinderblock would miss it. And, with the odd implications about who and what Shepard is, who among the Mass Effect faithful could pass that up?

The third is at RPGFan:

Combat has been improved with the addition of heavy weapons, location-based damage, and better ability to issue commands to squadmates. There are 9 new weapon classes available in the game and BioWare showed off the grenade launcher in the demo, which easily took down groups of enemies. In addition, the new biotic and tech powers are all physics based and can take enemies out from cover to expose them to weapon fire. To keep this as part of a usable strategy, players can now use the command menu to issue commands to both allies and Shepard simultaneously. On top of that, Shepard and allies can cripple their enemies by dealing damage to individual body parts, preventing them from wielding weapons, moving quickly, or using their brains as they become bloodied messes on the floor. It’s a much more in-depth combat system which we were very happy to see.

And the fourth is at Kombo:

Not so much a ‘What’s Not’ as a ‘What’s Not There’, but the Mass Effect 2 demo was noticeably devoid of the exploration aspect of the game. Bioware promised a huge number of optional, explorable planets with narrative sub-threads to be uncovered for the first Mass Effect, but ultimately under-delivered and left players exploring barren moons for ore or analyzing gas giants from space for codex updates. The presenters admitted up front that the exploration component from the first game was weak and promised that the team was putting a great deal of effort into ensuring that optional side-quests are more involving, linked more naturally to the core narrative, and that the supplementary environments are more exciting. I’d love to take their word for it, but for now I’m leaving that box on the improvements list unchecked. Hopefully Bioware will show that element of the game off for the next demo.