Preview: Mass Effect 2's Engineer

Engineers in Mass Effect had their fair share of problems. So, is Bioware working on remedying those game breakers or are they just throwing more fuel on the fire?



While I don’t have the same giant raging love-fest of Mass Effect that Tim has, I did enjoy the game. Despite more than a few problems with the actual gameplay itself: Stupid enemy AI, even more stupid ally AI, ground transport that acts like a super-ball hopped up on Red Bull, a 360 version with random texture mapping, the story kept me interested enough to play through the game. The classes, on the other hand, where a bit of a mixed bag. Soldier/Combat classes were functional enough to only slightly depend on your allies. Biotic based powers completely overpowered most enemies in game breaking terms. The class that sucked the most was the Engineer class. Stuck with the Pistol (unless you unlocked other weapons through another play-through), no real biotic powers to speak of, and most of your skills sucked. A preview of the Engineer class is up, and it looks like it might be playable as a class in the next game.

First up is AI Hacking. While I loved the concept of hacking, in the game the skill was less than useful. In ME1 if you got ahead of your squad, hacked the AI, and the machine hacked did something before your “sharp as a box of bowling balls” teammates shot it, it was a useful skill. Hacking a unit already damaged by your squad really didn’t do much, and half the time the unit hacked kept attacking you. According to the preview up at IGN, hacked machines now get a shield buff and will no longer target squad mates if you shoot them. Sounds promising, but we will just have to see.

Next up is Combat Drones. We can now officially call the Engineer a “pet class.” Combat drones are a glowing ball which is supposed to pull enemy fire, and at higher levels, shoot enemies and self-destruct to take them out. This brand new skill has lots of potential, but if the new AI isn’t up to snuff then it could be a waste of talent points.

Overload is probably the most useful Engineer skill. A quick use of this skill took out most, if not all, the shields of average foot troops, making the takedown a lot quicker. It wasn’t as useful on larger targets, but only because said large targets had such a large shield capacity it was like a bee sting to Godzilla. Still, it’s back in ME2 and I hope it’s just as useful in the new game as it is in the old.

Active powers now include Incinerate and Freeze. It’s unclear if these replace the ammo-upgrade equivalent, but from the video they appear functional at least. I never equipped that ammo in ME1, mostly because the accuracy de-buffs were not worth having it at all, especially not when other ammo did straight damage buffs.
As we get closer to the games launch, it is still a game-time decision whether or not I pick this game up. I liked the first one, despite all its flaws, but it really depends on what they changed and what they fixed if I get it straight away or wait till the eventual price drop.