Posts tagged Mass Effect 2
The Backlog: This is Why We Play edition
May 17th
We’re celebrating the joy of gaming this week. Sometimes, it takes a little time away to appreciate how great gaming is; sometimes, it just strikes you after coming back to a recent classic. Other times, it’ll sink in despite frustrations.
Doug has hit the track again, Tyler has wound through the Mass Effect 2 DLC, and Nick has finally settled down in the great state of Texas and has time to play lots of games again. So without further ado, on to the Backlog!
The Backlog: Party Like it’s 2010 edition
May 8th
The Backlog is, of course, for the games we’ve been playing as of late and, ideally, games that are brand new. The cutting edge!
That’s how it turns into our Backlog being full of brand-new bangers like…um…Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Quest IX? Riiiiiiiiiight. Well. At least we’ve got things to say about these games, plus honest-to-god newer wares, too.
Anyway. To the Backlog!
Review: Mass Effect 2: Arrival
Apr 1st
Alright, so here’s the deal: Before the jump, I’m not going to spoil anything. After the jump, I will try to avoid direct story spoilers but discuss what Arrival means in terms of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. It’s a hard topic to avoid when talking about this DLC pack, and needs to be addressed. Capiche? Capiche.
At Silicon Sasquatch, we love ourselves some Mass Effect. I’ve played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 twice each, bought and played through all of the ME2 DLC, and earned almost all the achievements in both…and I’m the person on staff who is the least hardcore about the game! Put simply, we enjoy the game’s mechanics and universe so much that the opportunity to dive back into ME2 one last time and get a nice bridge between it and the highly anticipated Mass Effect 3 is very, very hard to avoid.
That said, I enjoyed it but as a DLC package for Mass Effect 2, I find it hard to put Arrival ahead of some other extra missions Commander Shepard has gone on. It’s not quite as interesting from a gameplay standpoint as the Overlord or Kasumi: Stolen Memory missions were, and I don’t think the storyline was handled as well as The Lair of the Shadow Broker. There are times in Arrival where I felt like the level design was a touch convoluted. I think Arrival also relies a bit too much on combat — one of the new achievements in this DLC is tied directly to a specific combat sequence, and I can’t for the life of me think how you could get it the first time around. Hell, the second half of the mission has an almost-bewildering amount of shooting dudes given the context of the situation.
That said, Arrival does tell the story that bridges Mass Effect 2 and 3. And it does provide additional context and, above all, gets you excited for Mass Effect 3 to get here NOW. So, it has that going for it. Lastly, it provides you another chance to go back into the game — and even with some issues, more Mass Effect 2 is always a good thing. It may be a bit fanboy-ish, but when the topic of ME comes up, it’s hard to be completely subjective. The game series has proved itself to be that good.
So dig in. Whether now, to avoid as many spoilers as possible, or as an appetizer to get back into the mood for Mass Effect 3, this deserves to be played, for better or worse. It’s a shame that the hook of being the gap between Mass Effect 2 and 3 can be used to get fans to struggle through an average experience.
Backlog: Clever Unifying Theme Goes Here edition
Feb 5th
Okay, fine: So maybe we didn’t put our thinking caps on this morning to figure out what ties all three of our Backlog entries together. It’s possible that we didn’t get enough sleep because some jerk woodpecker just had to poke the hell out of a dying fir tree about five feet from a certain editor’s bed for roughly three hours. Maybe that same editor grew frustrated in hunting down a hilarious .jpg and drew a crude comic to vent his frustration instead.
Who knows? It is a mystery. So why don’t we just file it away for now and move on to more pressing matters?
Lovely.
Here’s the skinny: Nick is up to his old tricks, Doug is off the friggin’ deep end of football-induced insanity, and Aaron just really, really hates free stuff.
Backlog: Is January the cruelest month?
Jan 28th
Truly, April may be the cruelest month, but January is getting damn close. After a respite granted by the holidays, the real world stings like the fog on a frosty January morning. Aaron’s got the working man’s blues, living for the weekend (whenever that may actually fall for him — it’s like a shell game, you see), while Doug and Nick have the non-working man’s blues. It’s enough to drive a person crazy.
Plus the days are still crazy short around here. At least we have video games to keep us company! Time for the Backlog!
Backlog: In from the cold edition
Jan 7th
A rare moment of Portland winter when it wasn't grey and rainy! Instead it's just clear and cold.
Happy New Year! Brrrrrrr. It’s cold out there. It hasn’t snowed at all in Portland this year, but it has been frigid around here. Cold enough to make streets a little slick and freeze car locks if you’re parking outside. It’s kind of sad that we didn’t get a last-minute snowfall to provide a true White Christmas, but considering the insanity that happens whenever Portlanders have to drive in the snow, it probably saved millions in insurance claims.
It’s also been cold enough to stay inside and play some games, which we’ve been doing! Nick has (shockingly) kept on playing Minecraft, Doug is still living out sports fantasies, and Aaron has shared the joy of Civilization V. So, without further ado, we present the first Backlog of 2011.
Backlog: Same Old Hack n’ Slash edition
Dec 10th
It scares some of us.
Nick and Doug settle for the gaming equivalent of security blankets this week instead of embracing the unknown.
I’m not judging them, at least not intentionally. But maybe I am now that I think about it.
Our story so far: two editors walk down well-tread paths carved out of boredom while I charge blindly into trying two indie games on a whim and a 2010 retail release I had completely forgotten about until this past Tuesday.
The Backlog: Civil War Edition
Dec 3rd
Image by friend of the site Brian Gundell
I don’t care who you are, if you’re an Oregonian, this is a weekend you care about. It’s Civil War weekend, and as proud (if a bit underemployed) alumni of the University of Oregon, all three of us have a side to take in the game. Good luck getting much done in Portland tomorrow between noon and 4 pm, and god speed to anyone driving south on I-5 from Portland who isn’t going to the game. I don’t think it hurts us to take an excessively pro-Ducks stance, so here goes:
LET’S GO DUCKS!
We do have the usual Backlog content to go with the heaping of school pride, though. Nick’s been stabbin’ fools in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Doug’s tackling some single-player games passed over during the year, and Aaron has been finding a balance between work, games, and the Wasteland.
The Backlog: Mobsters, Motorcars and Minecraft edition
Oct 1st
This was a lot funnier in my head. Sorry, everybody.
At Silicon Sasquatch, one of our strengths — yes, we do have strengths — is our diversity of taste. Doug loves games where you drive a car in circles for hours, which Aaron will find baffling; surely his period-piece mafia adventure is a lot more fun. And both of them will think I’m absolutely out of my mind when I tell them I spent most of my free time this week hollowing out an entire mountain because, um, that’s just what I wanted to do.
So that’s what we’re focusing on this week: the things that make each of us special.
Review: Mass Effect 2: The Lair of the Shadow Broker
Sep 20th
There’s been no shortage of Mass Effect-themed entertainment this year. Beginning with Mass Effect 2, the praiseworthy sequel to the series’ 2007 debut, developer BioWare has put out a steady stream of downloadable mission packs, optional weapons and equipment, additional characters and story-related add-ons that all bolster the core Mass Effect experience with varying degrees of success.
While there have been some high and low points in Commander Shepard’s extracurricular activities, this latest supplement, The Lair of the Shadow Broker, is the first add-on that delivers the same level of quality in role-playing, exploration and combat that made Mass Effect 2 such a standout game.