Song of the Day: Suicide Mission from Mass Effect 2 (by Jack Wall)

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Arleigh

The news about Clint Mansell being brought in to compose the score for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 rpg from BioWare has me listening through the score from the previous two games in the series. To continue the jonesing I’m getting from this news I’ve chosen track 25 from the Mass Effect 2 soundtrack to be the latest “Song of the Day”.

“Suicide Mission” comes into Mass Effect 2 around the beginning of the third and final act of the game when the player has gathered and assembled his team of rogues, assassins, berserkers and all sorts of undesirables to make that final jump through the Omega 4 Mass Relay. This track brings together the main theme from the very first game with the brass heavy and hopeful sound of track 5, “Normandy Reborn”, in the second game.

I sometimes just reload the save prior to the jump through the Omega 4 just so I can listen to this particular track of the soundtrack and see the visuals accompanying it. If I don’t feel like replaying that part of the game I’d just reload right before the end credits begins and just enjoy listening to it.

“Suicide Mission” just brings an epic sound to the game and anyone who has played it knows how it brings to rise goosebumps upon hearing it. For those who haven’t played the games this piece of music just brings to mind some of the best in epic, orchestral scores.

Mass Effect 3 to have a Clint Mansell score

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Arleigh

Some major news on the video game front was reported today. One of the most critically-acclaimed video game franchises of the last five years will have an award-winning music composer creating the score for it.

The game in question is the third (most likely final entry in the current trilogy) game in BioWare’s Mass Effect rpg franchise. The composer is one Clint Mansell. He is the same Clint Mansell who has created some of the most evocative film scores for the last decade and most of it for Darren Aronofsky’s films (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan).

Mass Effect 3 will be Mansell’s first foray into video game music composing. This is great news for fans of the franchise. It lends an even more cinematic flair to a series whose musical score were already great to begin with.

EA and BioWare are definitely pulling out all the stops to create a worthy finish to this trilogy. I already know that I will be getting the game and I will definitely be buying the soundtrack once it’s up for sale (I already own the first two that were composed by Jack Wall).

Source: The Quietus

PS: Here’s two pieces of music so people understand why I thought the first two game had awesome scores and Mansell being brought in for the third means awesome just went up to 11.

Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2

Dragon Age 2

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Arleigh

In the winter of 2009, BioWare released a new rpg franchise to bookend their massively successful and critically-acclaimed scifi-rpg series Mass Effect. This new franchise was to be fantasy-based and would take the same deep and complex storytelling paired with morality choices that all past BioWare rpgs were well-known for. The game was Dragon Age: Origins and it did quite well that the company quickly began on creating the follow-up.

The game was a success, but not without some gripes from critics and players alike. While overall the game delivered on the experience BioWare promised it had some gameplay and visual failings which kept the game from becoming one of the great ones in 2009. The combat mechanics was not as intuitive as most gamers were used to. It played more like early BioWare games where commands for types of attacks were given but players had no control on how the attack were performed. There was also some major graphical issues in the game even on some high-end gaming pcs which ran the PC version.

Despite these flaws the game did entertain and gain quite a following. It’s no wonder that BioWare is ready to release the sequel, Dragon Age 2, a little over a year since the first game. This sequel will have BioWare addressing the very flaws gamers had with the first game. The combat will be more geared more like an action rpg with a streamlined control system. The company has stated that the look of the game will surpass that of the original now that programmers have had a better look at the PS3 and Xbox 360 systems. The game will also have a storyline which will span 10-years with the player’s character affecting how the world in the game changes depending on actions and decision played throughout.

Like its scifi brethren, Dragon Age 2 will use players’ saved completed games of the first title to tool and alter this sequel for that particular gamer. There’s one major change to the gameplay which may make some players unhappy. A player will not be able to choose their character’s race class. No more dwarf or elf characters. This sequel is strictly a human affair.

Until more videos of actual gameplay come out these CG-animated trailers will have to whet the appetites of rpg gamers everywhere.

Mass Effect 2 Launch Trailer

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Arleigh

Well, it is just days away until the release of one of the most-anticipated games of 2010. The game I am talking about is BioWare’s Mass Effect 2. It is the sequel to the very popular and critically-acclaimed action-shooter/rpg hybrid Mass Effect which came out in late 2007. The launch trailer marks the start of the massive marketing and ad campaign to promote the game. This one includes interspersed within the trailer blurbs of review scores and positive quotes from game reviewing magazines and websites dedicated to games. All throughout the trailer we have Shephard’s erstwhile ally (and possibly, enemy) The illusive Man of the shadowy, pro-human group Cerberus narrating a brief take on what players will encounter in this sequel.

I will say that the trailer is even better than the last one released by BioWare. The other one details the dangers of recruiting the new sets of characters to help the player in their quest, but this one shows how much more epic this particular fight and game really is. Mass Effect was already quite the massive and epic sci-fi space opera when it came out and this sequel seem intent on out-doing that predecessor in every respect from the look of the trailer. It helps that its all classed up by the voice of The West Wing’s President Bartlett also known as Martin Sheen. The trailer even hints at the opening events of the sequel which has been talked about many times at other places. I won’t go into detail about it but lets just say that Shephard and the original Normandy don’t have a nice first-encounter with the sequel’s main antagonists, The Collector.

So, January 26, 2010 should be retitled Mass Effect 2 Day. For some players, it will be just like a holiday as every work must be put down and stop in order for the playing of said game to commence.

Source: Mass Effect 2 Launch Trailer in HD

Mass Effect 2 aka The Galactic Dirty Dozen

Posted on December 28, 2009 by Arleigh

BioWare has long been a favorite game developer of mine. This love for their games goes back to their classic Baldur’s Gate series on the PC and then their KOTOR games for the Xbox 360 (still waiting for the third game in this series…still waiting). I’ve always enjoyed how conversations were not just affairs where as a player I just had to watch the dialogue unfold. BioWare has pretty much made it their own to have dialogue which branched out into different results and consequences depending on how the player responded.

In 2007, they released what I thought was one of the best games, if not the game of the year, in Mass Effect. It was an action-rpg clothed in space opera clothing which brought to mind the early Star Wars films (prequels don’t exist in my world) and some of the best supplemental novels based on Lucas’ scifi universe (the Zahn novels being the best of the bunch). While the game itself had its flaws they were never glaring enough to ruin the game and the story.

2010 is just days away and the release of the sequel to Mass Effect is just weeks away. In what could be one of the games to vie for 2010 Game of the Year, Mass Effect 2 returns to address some of the game mechanic flaws from the first game and expand on the galactic-wide story and history which unfolded before. This game looks to find the protagonist in the initial game (whether John Shepard or a customized player) out to save the galaxy once again, but this time around needing the help of one of the villains in the first game: Cerberus. In order to save the galaxy and the human race it looks like the player must go through what I could only call as “The Dirty Dozen” but in space.