Joe Juba from Gameinformer writes: "Like most of the gaming world, I'm playing Mass Effect 2 right now, and it is awesome. The story, combat, and structure are all even better than the original which is high praise from me, considering how much I love Mass Effect (it's part of my 1000 Club). So far, there is only one area of the game that falls short and, by "falls short," I mean "totally sucks" the mineral scanning.
Here's how it works: You approach a planet, initiate a scan, and hold the left trigger to start getting readings. Then, you spend the next 20 minutes meticulously (and at a glacial pace) combing the planet's grid, keeping an eye out for spikes in a seismosgraph that indicate the presence of a mineral vein. When you find one, you send out a probe, collecting some of the resource. Repeat that process about 30 times until you've tapped a planet's minerals. Do this until you can't bear it anymore, and then you can return to the main story. Sound fun? No, because it isn't."
RPGs are often huge, sprawling endeavours. With limited playtime, we have to choose wisely, so here's the best western RPGs available today.
"I started playing games yesterday" the List... Meh!
How about a few RPGs that deserve some love instead?
1 - Alpha Protocol - Now on GOG
2 - else Heart.Break()
3 - Shadowrun Trilogy
4 - Wasteland 2
5 - UnderRail
6 - Tyranny
7 - Torment: Tides of Numenera
And for a bonus game that flew under the radar:
8 - Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Not only glorious jank, but the idea that the story can completely change depending on what you do, or say, or side with, makes it one of the most forward thinking games ever. The amount of story permutation is the equivalent of a Hitman level but in Story Form. And it wasn't just that the story changed, no, it was that you met completely new characters, or missed them, depending on your choices. Made Mass Effect feel static in comparison.
Alpha Protocol was absolutely glorious, indeed. And it was, and still is, more Next Gen than most anything out there these days. In this regard at least.
Pity.
Wealth of Geeks explores some of the best gaming romances that have stolen our hearts over the years.
Diandra worked on Diablo 4 and also other games at Blizzard including WoW: Dragon Flight. She’s also been at Bioware, Carbine, RIOT, and she is currently working at Crystal Dynamics.
Brian was the Lead Writer on Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls, worked on StarCraft: Heart of the Swarm, StarCraft: Wings of Liberty, and was also a writer on Mass Effect 2. He’s also been involved in movies such as the Iron Giant.
Diandra and Brian discuss their industry experience, the games they have worked on, how the writing process works, and much more.
Yeah it is the only thing in the game that is really annoying, yet you have to do it to progress in the game. It would have been much better if there were only 5 massive deposits on each planet, whereas you can actually use 30 probes on each planet on both big and small deposits.
Still, it's a lot more realistic than the last game where you just go over the planet, and it does an auto scan.
If the scanner was bigger it might not be so bad, but it is really boring the way it is now
Ye it's not so great. But then you find a big ass spike and you're like YES!... and then for the next 20 min you're bored out of your skull. Then you find another big spike... and repeat
yeah so annoying.
At least it's better than driving the mako around finding the minerals, but I wish it was optional and didn't have such a big role.