Comments on: Oh Captain my Captain – Mass Effect 2

By: Craig Lam

Craig Lam — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:55:54 +0000

Great review: one of the ones where almost all the things I like about the game are held up.

RE: Male/female shep – I love both. Hale has a little more personality in her voice acting, perhaps, though the superb writing in the responses makes the slightly drier male shep just as effective.

I just finished as a “grey” (both ren. and para.) male shep and I’ve started over with a female renegade. Great fun.

By: Tom Hatfield

Tom Hatfield — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:35:39 +0000

They had that in ME1 didn’t they? Although the mineral scanning there was for collection quests, you simply pressed ‘scan planet’ and got the doodads.

I can see why they tried to make it active, and the first few times it’s a pleasant diversion (especially when one attempts to probe Uranus) but it really does wear out it’s welcome long before you finish the research tree.

By: Nalano

Nalano — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:51:27 +0000

I always felt that the whole “scan planets” thing was a vestigial idea by Bioware to pre-empt the whole schtick such that, no, really, there is this vast galaxy out there and it’s not just the half-dozen pre-rendered environments you visit for the main story like, well, every other Bioware game in existence.

I’m hard pressed to figure out how they could make it better, though. The explorer in me says I’m commander of this great spaceship and thus practically have to go out in the wild black yonder, but the game has to subtly hint to me that my interest should be back on the story at hand, too.

I mean, reading the descriptions of each planet’s more interesting than doing the scan/probe mini-game, so perhaps de-emphasize scanning (or make it automatic) and re-emphasize anomalies? More long-lost civilizations, fewer generic pirate havens or resource grinds…

By: Tom Hatfield

Tom Hatfield — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:15:40 +0000

It actually works really well, to the point at which I now feel odd hearing it from default male Shepard.

I have to point out I stand against the “Female Shepard is the only Shepard types” Jennifer Hale is great, but Mark Meer is every bit as good. Plus you can make him a badass black dude with a Captain Price ‘tache.

By: Ed Fenning

Ed Fenning — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:40:13 +0000

I find it hard to picture the male shepard’s voice matching with your Shaft Shepard.

By: Lambchops

Lambchops — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:05:20 +0000

“there’s something about captaining a ship that the series has always gotten entirely right”

I completely agree here. The ME games are two of the few RPGs I’ve played where i’ve truly felt like I was in command of my team – rather than just being an insanely powerful guy with a bunch of ruffians tagging along for hardly any reason at all. It’s one of the main reasons that I stuck with the first game despite its rough edges and I was glad to see it continue into the much improved sequel.