Mass Effect 2 - Leaked GDC Video @ ShackNews

magerette

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ShackNews has posted several minutes of early game footage for Bioware's Mass Effect 2 leaked from the GDC. It features a look at level design and a short dialogue. You can stream it here.
More information.
 
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It's impossible to tell if the PC is Shepard or not. Apart from that Asari NPC there is someone in the pink Phoenix armor, but that could be anyone, really...
 
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I couldn't hear the commentary on my laptop speakers but it looked exactly the same as Mass Effect. Were there any significant improvements I missed?

Looks like they implemented the "duck and cover" mechanics that wasn't invented by but popularized by Gears of War.
 
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Looks like they implemented the "duck and cover" mechanics that wasn't invented by but popularized by Gears of War.

"Duck and cover" was popularized long before Gears of War. Kill Switch on the PS2 was the first game to to really make it popular.

As far as ME2 goes, I'd be happy if they just tweak the inventory, and make the side quests more interesting.
 
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"Duck and cover" was popularized long before Gears of War. Kill Switch on the PS2 was the first game to to really make it popular.

Popular you say? An average reviewscore of 67 isn't popular. While it introduced the mechanic it was Gears of War that made it famous.

As far as ME2 goes, I'd be happy if they just tweak the inventory, and make the side quests more interesting.

I would also like a public apology for the inventory design in ME along with a video in which the inventory designer of ME's inventory is beaten with a stick as a warning for the rest of the world.
 
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Popular you say? An average reviewscore of 67 isn't popular. While it introduced the mechanic it was Gears of War that made it famous.


I didn't realize the critics review of a game had anything to do with a gameplay mechanic. Perhaps Gears of War did make it famous......in Sweden.

Kill Switch was fairly popular over here when it was released, regardless of what the critics may have said about it. The whole 'shoot from behind cover' thing was it's main selling point.

Kill Switch may have not made that mechanic "famous" per say. But if you insist on going that route, then you would have to credit Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell games.
 
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I didn't realize the critics review of a game had anything to do with a gameplay mechanic.

We aren't talking about including a mechanic, we are talking about making a mechanic mainstream.

Perhaps Gears of War did make it famous......in Sweden.
Kill Switch was fairly popular over here when it was released, regardless of what the critics may have said about it. The whole 'shoot from behind cover' thing was it's main selling point.
Kill Switch may have not made that mechanic "famous" per say. But if you insist on going that route, then you would have to credit Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell games.

I have so far only seen one single reference to KillSwitch, and that was in GameTrailers review on Uncharted, that actually made the very comment I just said, that the mechanic was invented in Kill Switch but got into mainstream through Gears of War. The sucess of GoW is ridicilous. I would say that even Splinter Cell is in GoW's shadow. Now I see this mechanic in all sorts of new games, most recently in Resident Evil 5.
 
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We aren't talking about including a mechanic, we are talking about making a mechanic mainstream.


Yes, and the Splinter Cell games were undoubtably the first to do that.

I'm not going to argue semantics about which game is more popular, but the fact is GoW only made good use something that was already "mainstream".
 
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@ danutz_plusplus- Yes you can, even since the first game in the series.

Wow, I have absolutely no recollection of doing that or seeing that being done ingame. The only moment I've pulled out my gun was while rappelling or while hanging from a pipe/cable. Hmm. Weird.
 
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^ Splinter Cell doesn't actually have a full-blown cover system. All you can do is stick to walls and can't fire your weapon while stuck to a wall. So it's more of a stealth system than cover system.

At least the first 3 SC games. I haven't finished Double Agent yet.

First three games were all just brilliant. The series just kept getting better and better by each game. The last chaos theory is the king of the trilogy. The best stealth experience i've ever played. Beats even Metal gear solid and hitman bloodmoney. I'm currently replaying Chaos theory with hard difficulty and no quicksaving allowed (well this is just my own rule, but it can get quite instense when you are not allowed to quikcsave :)

As for Double Agent. Its plain shit. I don't understand what happened between these two games but clearly the series went for an other direction. In this direction player isn't anymore encourraged to be stealthy and use his brains. Heck knowning your environment was big part of the experience in previous games because Sam just couldn't take hits much, so it forced you to be stealthy and kill silently unless there was no other choise.

Double agent on the other hand feels and plays like a shooter, you can easily blast few enemies or its nothing to take few hits on the vest. Moreover Sam's suit has a "traffic light" warning system. Green means you are hidden, yellow enemies are trying to find you, Red that you are dead meat. Its just fucking annoying, unrealistic and feels completly retarded.
If this wasn't enough in pc-version you can't even rebind your mouse buttons. I couldn't play the game because of this. I just couldn't. I tried but it felt akward. How can dev-team be so idiotic for not letting players to remap their controls?!
 
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Gameplay looked like barely an alpha.

Re: cover-based gameplay. It had, indeed, shown up long before Gears of War. Dead to Rights and Manhunt are two other games that used that style of cover-based shooting. I'm sure that there were others before those. Rainbow Six: Vegas came out at the same time as Gears of War and its implementation of cover mechanics is a lot better. It's a shame that Gears of War gets all the credit for it, but that's how the gaming PR business works nowadays. I hope that Mass Effect does a better job of implementing it in the second game. At the very least, there should be a "take cover" button.

Double Agent was, indeed, a terrible game. The traffic light thing for whether or not you were visible was really dumb. I don't know what they were thinking there.
 
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Gameplay looked like barely an alpha.

Re: cover-based gameplay. It had, indeed, shown up long before Gears of War. Dead to Rights and Manhunt are two other games that used that style of cover-based shooting. I'm sure that there were others before those. Rainbow Six: Vegas came out at the same time as Gears of War and its implementation of cover mechanics is a lot better. It's a shame that Gears of War gets all the credit for it, but that's how the gaming PR business works nowadays. I hope that Mass Effect does a better job of implementing it in the second game. At the very least, there should be a "take cover" button.

Double Agent was, indeed, a terrible game. The traffic light thing for whether or not you were visible was really dumb. I don't know what they were thinking there.

They were most likely thinking that all the FPS fans trying out the game needed to have their hands held and yanked when they were seen or not.
 
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