Mass Effect 2: Arcade Edition (ME2AE) was the very last project I made at NAIT. The assignment for this project was simply to take a game from 2010, and translate it into the style and gameplay of an arcade game from the 1980s or 1990s.

I really wanted to work with Mass Effect 2 in this project because it is one of my all-time favorite games, as well as pay homage to my instructor, who worked on the Mass Effect Trilogy. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to translate the gameplay, but after some research, I thought a beat em' up such as The Simpsons would be a perfect fit.

Project Highlights

• 2 game modes
• Enemy pathfinding using the A* algorithm
• My first real attempt at custom art. The characters designs were taken from a reddit user named wolfentir's DeviantArt account, which has since been deactivated, and modified to my own taste. I also had to create the animations for walking and punching. The level art was made by myself.

I want to do more with the project in the future. I'll be looking at adding things like:

• The human reaper boss from the end of the suicide mission (cut originally due to time and pixel art talent constraints)
• Special moves for each of the characters (cut originally due to time constraints)
• Level select for battle arena with 3-4 maps
• Better animations and world art (jumping animations)
• Updates to character locomotion (wall sliding/jumping)

Change Log

v1.21:

• Fixed players clipping out of bounds

v1.2:

• Fixed collectors shooting infinitely in some situations
• Added Medigel pickup to replenish health Dropped occasionally by collectors, always by Harbinger
• New balancing for 1 player arcade mode - less enemies, more time between spawns (2-4 players have the same difficulty)
• Minor logic and AI fixes

NOTE: THIS GAME REQUIRES 1-4 CONTROLLERS!