Mass Effect 2: The Return of Bad Textures

Everything looks glorious at a distance...

When looking at the above screenshot, it's easy to admire Mass Effect 2's stunning presentation. As I have mentioned before, the game doesn't look that much better than its prequel but that is not a bad thing since the first game is still beautiful to this day. It is unfortunate however that the Personal Computer version of Mass Effect 2 still suffers from some bad low-resolution textures just like in the original: a problem that definitely derived from the game being developed for both the X-Box 360 and the PC. I suspected that BioWare would ensure a premium visual experience on the PC like they did with Dragon Age: Origins but sadly that is not the case. I do not have the 360 version to make direct comparisons but I can say right now that I am very disappointed with this, especially after playing Origins because these depressing looking texture-works do not exist even on the non-player characters in that game and it should not have surfaced in Mass Effect 2. There are other weird things that BioWare did to make the game more managable on the console that just don't work that well on the PC but I will discuss those in my review of the game.

...but the close ups are messy. Click to enlarge:


The MVE logo on the sniper rifle just cannot endure the roughness of deep space travels.


Far into the future, there are still laundry detergents that can cause fabrics to fade.