PC Gamer - USA 2019-09)

RIGHT: Travelling

from planet to planet

collecting minerals is

admittedly tedious.

FILLING THE GAPS More games that leave things up to the imagination

M

ost people scoff a bit
when I tell them that
one of my favorite
things about Mass
Effect 2 is scanning
planets. I get it—the whole act of
clicking on a planet, watching a
transition screen, turning said
planet around its axis for a while
until you’ve found a mineral
deposit, then listening to the same
lines over and over as your probe
launches isn’t exactly a rousing
experience. It doesn’t have to be.

The Mass Effect universe is an
accomplished piece of world
building. The moment I step into
Shephard’s boots, I have a personal
history that ties me to the
achievements of the human race in
outer space. Humans made first
contact with new species, became
represented in an interplanetary
council and can basically go wherever
they please. But the Mass Effect saga
is also about uncharted space,
showing us that for all that humans
have seen and built, there’s always
more of space to be discovered.
To me, scanning planets is about
discovery, in the most scientific sense
of the word. It is, like Spock’s
technobabble in Star Trek, an
important part in delivering a fully
realized world. Of course, there is no
practical use to me as the player in
knowing the radius and day length of
some random planet, but without
them, it wouldn’t be a planet.

ALL SHAPES AND SIZES
The codex entries for planets consist
of two different sets of data: a set of
numbers describing the planet by
parameters such as atmospheric
pressure and surface gravity, and a
description of what has been

discovered in previous expeditions,

such as the soil quality or any life

forms present. It’s the kind of

background info doomed to go

unread, but stuffed with detail all the

same. Imagine the effort and

dedication that goes into making

whole solar systems worth of planets

with different conditions—an

immense world-building endeavor—

all just for you to scan a planet and

siphon off a few stones.

From a mechanical perspective,

scanning is a more economic and less

tedious alternative to going down to a

planet in your Mako and driving

around until you find minerals, like in

the original Mass Effect. It’s supposed

to be a quicker and more efficient

form of resource gathering, grounded

in the realities of spaceflight.

I’d go as far as to say scanning

could be intentionally boring, as not

every job on a spaceship involves

going pew, pew, pew. But imagine a

crew logging the data of a planet

scan, suddenly facing a major

discovery.

Take the planet 2175 Aeia, a name

that sounds like a keyboard smash.

After a flyby, nothing noteworthy was

recorded, until you go back and scan

the planet again, only to discover that

its atmospheric composition is close

to Earth’s. Have you just discovered a

new habitat for humans? What kind

of species already call this planet

their home? Those are the kind of

questions I can’t get enough of.

NEED TO KNOW

RELEASED
January 26, 2010

OUR REVIEW
90%

EXPECT TO PAY

$20

LINK

masseffect.bioware.com

INFINITY AND BEYOND

Some planets, like Parnassus, are

simply not in the Citadel database

due to bureaucratic snafu, which

makes me think about how even

space conquest is nothing without a

good backend filing system. Mass

Effect 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda

go further, telling more detailed

stories of how the planets fit into the

world, detailing a history of who lives

there or how a planet was rendered

inhabitable. When I find a rusty

spaceship or satellite, I imagine the

mighty storms that might have ripped

them apart, whole stories that played

out before I uncover the debris.

Scanning planets in Mass Effect 2

shows that even at a time when devs

have the storage capacity and

graphical capabilities to let players

explore even the most detailed world,

what really inspires the imagination

is to sometimes not be able to look at

something—the same way the vague

shadows in the original Silent Hill

were scarier to me than the crystal-

clear HD version. I dream of the stars

and life undiscovered, but I imagine

there will be a lot of scanning before

we meet our first alien, too.

SPACE CONQUEST IS

NOTHING WITHOUT A GOOD

BACKEND FILING SYSTEM

KENTUCKY ROUTE

ZERO

You gradually come to

accept that Kentucky at

night is full of ghosts, but

you rarely meet them.

STORIES UNTOLD

The horror in Stories

Untold, a mostly

text-based adventure,

comes precisely from the

things it hints at.

WHERE THE WATER

TASTES LIKE WINE

You meet many different

people and collect their

stories while moving

across the continent.

CULTIST SIMULATOR

Summon demons and

build a cult with just

a deck of cards—all

your evil deeds are

yours to imagine.

EXTRA LIFE

NOW PLAYING (^) I UPDATE I GUIDE I DIARY I REINSTALL I WHY I LOVE (^) I MUS T P L A Y