Eight things that would make Mass Effect 2 better than its predecessor

With Mass Effect 2 just around the corner, I went Indiana Jones on the pile of games that lives inside what used to be my book case and – with total disregard for my personal safety – retrieved my copy of Mass Effect from it. After the dust settled and my PC was visible at the other end of the room (nah, I’m married, my wife would never allow me to let it get that bad) I installed the game and gave it another play-through.

As with the first time, I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game. Bioware sure knows how to tell a story. But there were some old annoyances too. Even with Patch 1.02 installed, some of these annoyances were still present. Below a list of eight things that would make Mass Effect 2 a better game over its older brother.

8 - Down with the elevators
Bioware recently announced that indeed, there would be no elevators in Mass Effect 2, jay!
Loading screens are still far too common in gaming but at least they are for a reason. Yet when gamers have to sit and do nothing for no apparent reason, we tend to be less than amused. There are many such moments in Mass Effect, the elevators being the worst of them. Sure, some radio voice or squad member will usually have something to say about past or current quests but that does not make up for the lack of action. Landing on a planet has a similar issue: when the Nomad drops the Mako down to a planet’s surface, a short cut-scene shows its landing. Fun to watch once but after a while you just want to get on with it. There is no way to skip the sequence and there is no evidence of any loading. As these cut-scenes and elevator instances appear to be there only for our entertainment – and they just don’t entertain - I would vote for being able to skip these scenes altogether.

7 - No more getting stuck
Apart from a crash to the desktop I can think of only one worse thing to happen in the midst of playing a great game and that is my character or vehicle getting stuck. The left-side of the image above illustrates how in one game my Mako got stuck on some sort of antennae during an away mission on a planet. I struggled for a couple of minutes before I resorted to loading a savegame. This meant having to repeat everything I had done since my landing on the planet. Equally frustrating was when I suddenly found my character to be stuck on the railing of a raised path. Fortunately I had only just saved that time.

6 - Lively environments
If we are to believe Mass Effect, space stations and colonies will be incredibly boring when it comes to interior design. A major part of the game plays out on The Citadel which is perhaps the most boring place I visited in a game since Anachronox (a game I loved but not for its environments). To hide the fact that every wall has the same shape and color, the game attempts to brighten things up by adding colored lighting. This only partially succeeds in covering up the utterly uninspired decor. While some of the planets that you visit show slightly more variation, the overall decoration of the environments is rather bland. A lot can be solved by adding more varied textures and objects. A piece of art in the hallway or on the walls won't hurt either.

5 - Less generic footsteps
I never realized how important it is to hear the footsteps of your character while you are stomping around in a game. To be more precise: how important it is to hear those footsteps reflect the surface that you are walking on. Mass Effect has a very limited sound library to draw from when it comes to these footsteps. I would say that it is barely more than your average First Person Shooter from say, eight or nine years ago. The choices for the different walkable surfaces are: Metallic, Stone, Snow and Water. These would cover most of the game, were it not for the fact that a large portion of these surfaces appear to be Metallic. Whether you are your The Normandy, The Citadel or on a ramp leading up to some mine, it all sounds exactly the same. With the amount of walking that you do in Mass Effect, the lack of variety can really get on your nerves. Even changing the pitch of the sound somewhat for different surfaces would improve things dramatically.

4 - Better inventory management
Mass Effect's inventory management is nothing short of confusing. While I thoroughly love the ability to customize weapons and armor in the game, I was hesitant to do so. It is just too much of a chore trying to sort out what is what. From the inventory screens, the player is only able to see textual differences between each item. To make matters worse, most items have the same name with only a Roman numeral to distinguish between two items from the same type or manufacturer. While this is bad enough when you are assigning weapons and armor to your squad, it is even worse when you visit a merchant. It is not uncommon to be dragging along 100+ items (which is good, don't limit this!) at which point the list becomes something of a blur to one’s eyes. Pictures or icons with the items will help the player to quickly find what he needs and a simple filter on the item types will solve most of the issues when dealing with merchants.

3 - Fix the Assault Rifle and Shotgun
In Mass Effect, I tend to reach for my pistol or Sniper Rifle in just about any situation. This is especially strange for the pistol: in most games I loathe using pistols for their lack of power. My weapon of choice is almost always the Assault Rifle, so why don't I use it in Mass Effect? Simple: there is no crosshair. A wide circle shows the approximate area that you are firing at. So wide in fact that it might as well not be there at all. The Shotgun has the same issue but it impacts the player even more. Due to the slow firing rate and nearly invisible impact of bullets on your enemy, you can't adjust your aim fast enough for the shotgun to be very effective. Only at real close range (granted, that's what you normally use a shotgun for) is the shotgun worth the hassle of changing your weapon for, but by then your team mates will usually have caught on and disposed of the problem for you. A simple crosshair would solve all of these issues.

2 - Cutscene before battle? Please save the game!
I can’t believe that game developers have not caught on to this particular frustration yet. Battles against an end boss - in pretty much any game - have traditionally been preceded by a cut-scene or chat with the bad guy about his motives and other such idiocy. I know, we want that idiocy because it appeals to our sense of drama but these sessions are often quite long and in Mass Effect they can’t be skipped. If you fail in combat, you die and have to do the whole scene over again, and again, and again. How annoying! Why not simply save right after the scene turns into combat so that you don’t have to go through it every time you fail? A simple solution for an old problem.

1 - Smarter AI
I have seen some really dumb AI in my life and Mass Effect's AI ranks very high on the 'stupid' scale. While AI controlled foes will seek cover all the time, they will happily stand there while you fire a couple of rounds into their sides once you’ve circumvented their position. Oddly enough, both enemy and friendly AI will also attempt to shoot each other while there is an object or wall in the way. Yet the height of the AI's stupidity must be when a member of your squad is standing behind you. They will happily try to shoot at the enemy -through- you. It makes you wonder if this is why friendly fire in Mass Effect does no damage at all. Painful.