Helen Lewis

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Game of the year? Not for me, it wasn't . . .

Mass Effect 2 is fun and polished -- but it didn't deserve to pick up the top prize at the

By Helen Lewis Published 17 March 2011 17:12

And the best game of last year was . . . Mass Effect 2. That was the verdict of the British Academy Video Games Awards voters, anyway. I can't say I agree with them.

That's not to say I dislike Mass Effect 2. I enjoyed playing it -- much more than the first game, not least because they removed a very irritating side quest that involved driving endlessly round barren planets in search of minerals. (Admittedly, they replaced it with an equally irritating side quest where you simply stayed on your ship and scanned for minerals.)

The characters were well realised in terms of backstory, dialogue and voice acting; the gameplay was fun and intuitive; the graphics were often beautiful. My only real quibble would be with the plot, which felt like moving through a checklist. Befriended nails-hard assassin? Check. Painstakingly upgraded all armour and weapons? Had BioWare's signature softcore alien love scene? Check. It's telling that I had to go and look up what happened at the end, because I couldn't remember six months after playing it. (By contrast, I can still clearly recall the story of the first Mass Effect.)

That aside, it's no surprise that ME2 picked up such high review scores -- its Metacritic average was 96 -- because it's rare for a game to do everything so well across the board. But to me, that's not what a Game of the Year award should recognise. I think it should be something that surprises you, that shows you something new is possible in the medium. It's the same reason that I wish the Best Film Oscar had gone to Inception, rather than The King's Speech -- and the year before that, I would have picked Avatar over The Hurt Locker.

There are several reasons ME2 didn't blow me away, the primary one being that it was a sequel. It took many of its most successful elements from the first game and others were simply refinements of them. For that reason, I don't think the award should have gone to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, either -- despite Naomi Alderman's very persuasive championing of it -- or Super Mario Galaxy 2. I'm not saying that a sequel couldn't be amazing and unexpected; just that it's harder.

What does that leave? I can't really comment on Fifa 11, having not played a football game since Championship Manager 97/98, but I doubt that it's much of a trailblazer, either.

Two contenders remain among the nominees: Limbo and Heavy Rain. The former was definitely the plucky underdog: a downloadable game costing under £10, developed by a small Danish independent studio. The British Academy host Dara O'Briain spoke for many in the audience when he said that he wished it had won something, and it's a tempting argument. Limbo showed smaller developers that there is hope; that digital distribution via Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network should make it easier for them to get breakout hits.

But although Limbo was a beautiful, thoughtful, wonderful game -- see the NS review of it here -- I don't think it should have won best game. It would be like a poem winning the Booker Prize.

Which brings me to Heavy Rain. It is, so far, unique in its gameplay mechanic (entirely dependent on quick-time events and controller movements) and it's the first time I've seen such a domestic, gritty, realistic story told in a game. If you had told people 20, even ten years ago that games would be dealing with child abduction in a mature, emotive way, they'd have scoffed (and then gone back to running over prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto 3, probably). Then there was the storytelling mode -- four playable characters, whose plots interweave -- and the multiplicity of potential endings, rather than simply a "good" or "bad" one as we've come to expect.

It feels weird to champion Heavy Rain when I didn't enjoy playing it as much as some of the other nominees (QTEs make me profoundly nervous) but it is the game that most changed the way I think about what games can do. Its real value lies in being a stepping stone, I hope, to a whole new avenue in gaming.

So huge congratulations to BioWare, who made a great game and should be praised for it. But I can't help wishing it had been another studio up on that podium.

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12 comments

Fri, 2011-03-18 03:26 — Avatar and Inception? (not verified)

You make some very valid points - ME2 is a polished game, but nothing really groundbreaking in it.

On the other hand, I fail to see your point on Avatar and Inception . Inception was OK, but not really that subtle. Avatar was Pocahontas in space. It was a terrible plot and fell apart on that. The Academy Awards tend to favour a solid, "conservative" background to film storytelling and plot above technical innovation - at least for the headline award.

I suppose similarly, the gaming industry seems to favour a select set of games which sold well, arn't controversial and are quite conventional.

Heavy Rain, whilst selling well, never got to the dizzy heights of ME2/Black Ops/Some other FPS's, neither did it hit into the category "shooter" or "happy childrens fun game" or "indie mentionable".

Me personally - I'm hoping Thief 4 comes out and puts a nice plot with a nice game mechanic back into existence. Too much running, stabbing, jumping in the Assassin's Creed series and not enough thought. And yes, I know. Sequel. And an unnecessary one, given the plot had been finished off (effectively) in Thief:DS - but it was such a nice little world, with such nice little artwork.

And next year you'll have (yes, another sequel) Beyond Good and Evil 2. I don't hold my breath for too much innovation on the game mechanics, but it'd be nice to see an adventure-ish game back in the charts, and (hopefully) a decent plot thrown in.

Fri, 2011-03-18 11:00 — Lucky Jim (not verified)

Mass Effect 2 was a worthy winner imo, although it would have had some stiffer competition if Rockstar had allowed Red Dead Redemption to be considered.

As for next year, if (and it's a big if) The Last Guardian makes it out on time, that'll be the title that deserves to win (but probably doesn't). Nobody does "haunting" like Team Ico do, although Limbo wasn't far off.

Fri, 2011-03-18 12:01 — yuccaplant (not verified)

My it's wonderful to see games being discussed.

I will agree that ME2 was very good but nothing really new was brought to the table,just a very polished game.

Heavy rain however was simply wonderful it was,to me at least easily the game of the year by a country mile it was well made,wonderfully written and rare for a game believable it was a joy to play it should have sold by the bucket load,sadly though it wasnt generic shooter 43 so it was never going to be a big seller.

Beyond good and evil 2 has a lot to live up to,once again the original game sold poorly but was wonderful to play (thank god for GAME's bargain bin,i found my copy for a tenner for the original xbox),wonderful game.

As for the Last Guardian one can hope it arrives but you get the feeling it won't team ICO don't seem to rush anything i hope they prove me wrong

Fri, 2011-03-18 12:09 — fdfdfd

@ Lucky Jim - I'm not the person to talk to about Red Dead Redemption. It had such promise in its distinctive setting and lead character... which it proceeded to piss against the wall. At the start of the game, I was Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry - and at the end, I was reduced to doing menial tasks for my wife and ungrateful son!

@Avatar and Inception?

I definitely take your point on Avatar - it did a lot of things very badly. Perhaps I am too influenced by the fact James Cameron invented a whole new camera technique for it.

Inception I definitely stand by, though - I'm a big Christopher Nolan fan generally, and I loved that he got an intelligent ORIGINAL blockbuster fantasy script made.

Fri, 2011-03-18 13:41 — Neil (not verified)

Agree with some of the comments about ME2 but in its defence I think what Bioware do better than anyone else is give you a sense of being the protagonist in a decent blockbuster sci-fi movie. It's a bit more than just being very polished. Is it groundbreaking? I think it may be in that it manages to combine many elements that most games, or at least RPGs, have usually failed to blend togther successfully. The story is stronger than what you'd get in a pure shooter and the shooty bits stand up on their own - maybe not as polished as a full blown shooter but having played Gears of War 2 around the same time I know which one I'd rather replay. Perhaps the high gloss polish is the part that is groundbreaking.

There are things I'd like to see improved to create better immersion - such as making the various locations feel more like living breathing worlds rather than the unchanging walk on stages they can feel like. Expanding out the galaxy and less sterile side quest sites would help but that feels like minor quibbling. Bioware aren't Bethesda, though it would be nice to see some middle ground between the two visions of the RPG.

I admired Hard Rain in many ways and it deserves to be recognised but I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much as an actual game. That may become a limitation on the format - I may read a novel or watch a movie on the same subject matter, but playing a game? Not sure.

Wed, 2011-04-06 16:42 — OttomanPirate

ME2 proved worthy winner imo. Bioware successfully delivered a game with an epic trilogy spanning story - of which the decisions you made in the first carry over and tangibly affect the experiences, character development and interactions in the subsequent sequels. You really feel like the protagonist.

This is what makes ME2 groundbreaking, as well as its undeniable polish. Bioware took time over this game (not to mention the various DLC additions) and it really shows. I for one hate picking up games that promise so much only to find dodgy frame-rate issues and an overall poor finish. More developers need to take Bioware’s lead.

As for ME3 - I for one can't wait to strap on my N7 helmet and kick some serious Reaper butt!

Fri, 2011-03-18 16:10 — Lucky Jim (not verified)

Fair point about RDR Helen, the actual game design itself was deeply flawed: but for me, the world it was set in was the real star. That's what set it apart from a lot of the year's other games for me, but Mass Effect 2 still would have got my vote if I had one. I can see the arguments against it, but I can't remember the last game- let alone the last 40-plus-hours-long game- which I've gladly played through four times. I may well give it another run through for good measure before Mass Effect 3 arrives.

Having only got my hands on a PS3 recently, and Heavy Rain more recently still, I'm not really in a position to comment, but I'm looking forward to finding out if it's worth all this praise. I thoroughly enjoyed Fahrenheit until it lost its bearings towards the end, so I've got pretty high expectations.

I think it's a bit of a shame that the terrific job Ninja Theory did on plot and characterisation and plot in Enslaved seems to have been ignored by most. It'll be dirt cheap by now, and I can heartily recommend it. Far from perfect game-wise, but a hugely impressive feat in using the medium to tell a story.

Sun, 2011-03-20 00:36 — ViolentBERLIN (not verified)

have u got a live tag helen

wld b nice 2 play sum halo wiv u 1 tym, u look alryt

well prtend wer hamas shootin up mossad n shit init ^____^

Fri, 2011-03-18 18:44 — fdfdfd

@ Lucky Jim

Good tip - didn't realise Enslaved was written by Alex Garland (he's getting around, isn't he? I heard he was writing a Judge Dredd movie too!). Will keep an eye out for it on Play etc.

Sat, 2011-03-19 01:48 — Danny (not verified)

Hard to say whether it was worthy of game of the year, from my personal stand point, i though it was an epic game, especially with the amount of hours i got out of it, the only other game i've got more hours out for offline play is Dragon Age.

I see a load of people say Heavy Rain but i don't have a PS3 so obviously haven't been able to play it.

@LuckyJim Enslaved has certainly been ignored, wasn't a very long game, but the story and the visuals were amazing, really enjoyed playing that.

BTW has anyone see L.A Noire? That's shaping up to be one of the best games of all time, never mind game of the year.