Mass Effect 2 Review

[VA1N]

As most of you probably know already, I have been anxiously awaiting this game for about two years now. Ever since I beat the first game, I have waited with baited breath for the sequel to come my way so I could continue my career as the galaxy saving Alliance Vanguard Shepard. Well, the time has come and I have put in a good 14 hours with the game and am ready to write the review. I'm probably around 60-70% of the way through the game, but at this point I have picked up all of the major game mechanics, story, character development, etc. to write a review for our site. So, if you were interested in this game or just like reading reviews, pull up a seat and read away.

One of the main questions you will hear people ask about Mass Effect 2 is whether or not you need to play the first game. Different people will say different things to this question, but the answer is a little complicated. Someone who played the first will get 100X more enjoyment out of part 2 than someone who hasn't, but even if you skipped the first, part 2 is still an amazing game. You'll be missing out on the small things, like when Shepard is stopped by someone thanking him for saving them "on that one planet." If you played the first, this will jog your memory and you'll actually remember saving this person and a feeling of goodwill will wash over you, something I have never experienced before. I actually felt like people were thanking me for saving them in the past...when in reality, I just controlled a character to do so in a game. What an amazing game design!

Building off of my previous point, if you played the first game you probably still have the save file. If so, good! Keep it! Mass Effect 2 has a build in import tool that allows you to import an existing Shepard into Mass Effect 2 bringing over your looks and morality. Depending on what you did in the first game, you could also begin your career with extra money and minerals. I imported a max level (60) Vanguard from the first game and I started the game "rich" for importing him. I was given a stockpile of minerals and money and was able to begin at level 5. This was a very cool addition to an already amazing game.

The team at BioWare really put an effort forth to change some of the mechanics from the first game. Most people who played the first game complained about a few key things. First, the Mako. The Mako is the vehicle you drove in the first game when you landed on a planet. The driving sequence has been removed completely, replaced with a system that automatically puts you on the planet where you need to be. Another issue was the elevators (although a minor complaint). The elevators in ME1 took forever since they compensated for the load times. Finally, the combat was reworked in the second making the game a much more competent third person cover shooter (think Gears of War meets Uncharted). Ammo has been introduced into the game for the first time in a unique way. Instead of picking up ammo for each weapon, you will instead pick up cooling clips. You "reload" when you weapon is beginning to overheat and picking up additional clips will give you additional ammo. It's an easy system to master, but at first can be a little different.

In terms of gameplay, the game just feels a whole lot more polished. They took everything that was wrong or not perfect in the first and tweaked it to make it perfect. The game is quite literally a masterpiece of game design. Enemies are varied and unlike the first, can't just be gunned down all willy nilly. You need to think about what enemy you are fighting and plan accordingly. Some have shields, some have armor, some have both and each take different tactics. Shields can be brought down with a team members overload ability and then gunned down at will. As you play you will pick up these tidbits of gameplay knowledge and by the halfway point you'll be mowing down enemies at will, with the big challenges, the end bosses, putting up one hell of a fight.

The main part of any BioWare game is always the story. Continuing from where the first left off, something big happens in the beginning of the game. This big event allows you to make your character look any way you want and you can even change your character type. The choices include a soldier class that allows you to use all weapons, magic classes, magic + combat classes, engineering classes, engineering + soldier, and a few other combos. Needless to say, there will be a class that will suit your needs in some way or another.

After the game begins, you are tasked with finding a group of soldiers, mercenaries, vagabonds, prisoners, and other unlikely sources to join your team. You have to visit a wide range of worlds, all uniquely designed and beautiful in their own right, and "woo" each to join you. Most won't join you at first or need something in return. Once you complete the mission, they join you on your ship. From here on out, they can accompany you on missions. There's a bunch of people to recruit, but once you recruit them the "wooing" doesn't stop there. You need to gain the loyalty of your crew, although this is completely optional. Gaining the loyalty of your crew confirms whether or not they will join you for the final mission of the game, the looming "suicide mission" that is constantly talked about. It is possible for Shepard to end the game dead and the game completing. This only stresses the need for you to gain the loyalty of each crew member and upgrade your ship to it's max capacity. More on upgrading later though. After you bring the members on board, you can talk to them after each mission you undertake. You will learn about their back stories, their troubles, their lives, basically who they are and how they tick. When you speak to them enough and get a good repertoire going, they will offer you their mission. Complete the mission, and you gain their loyalty as well as a new outfit and power for them. Screw up the mission (some can be failed with no retry) or say something damaging to them and you could lose their loyalty forever. With some characters, you can even garner a romantic relationship that ultimately ends up in a bedroom before the final mission. This love interest will carry over into Mass Effect 3 and play a big role, so chose carefully. Character growth and character relations is a huge part of the Mass Effect universe and you will spend a very large amount of time talking to your squad mates. If you just grimaced at that, don't. It's very enjoyable and you will feel closer to your teammates because of it. You'll find you'll bring your "friends" with you on missions more than the other people you don't like as much. My personal favorite characters include Miranda (the sexy Cerberus operative), Tali (Quarian from first game who is now a possible love interest), and Jack (Subject Zero - the hard ass biotic bitch who has a very troubled past).

Mass Effect 2 introduces a couple new features that weren't present in the original game as well. You can now upgrade most, if not all aspects of your armor, weaponry, and ship. Your armor can be fully customized to whatever color scheme you want, different armor types, helmet types, etc. and these will show up in all cut scenes. This helps to better immerse you in the game. Weapons can be upgraded much like other games and your ship you will be upgraded for bigger and better facilities and weaponry. The ship upgrades don't really matter until the end of the game. Upgrading your ship is a must to survive the "suicide mission."

While certain things were added to the game, others were removed. The biggest removals from the game were random loot drops and enemy XP. In the first game, killing an enemy gave you two things, experience and loot. Now, you only get exp after a mission has been completed and your loot is found sparingly around the levels with upgrades thrown in for good measure. It's missed, but not a big deal. I found that in the first game I would clear out every enemy in the level to try and get every piece of exp possible...now I don't care as much.

Mass Effect 2 is going to be considered for Game of the Year 2010, I can assure you that. It's an amazing game that has surpassed my expectations completely. Having spent well over 150 hours with the first game, I consider myself an expert on the Mass Effect universe. The lore continuation, story flow, characters, everything is just perfect. BioWare is doing an amazing job bringing the universe to life in Mass Effect 2 and players who give it their time and attention will be treated to an experience unlike any other. It's not unlikely that while you aren't playing the game, you'll be thinking about playing it. Sitting at work yesterday I was contemplating who I should become romantically involved with, Miranda or stick with my old girlfriend from the first game Liara T'Soni. But what about Tali? What's hidden under that environment suit...yeah, it's sounds bad, but don't knock it until you've experienced it yourself, and you won't experience it unless you give it a shot. Mass Effect 2 is a game you should buy though. Unless you have GameFly that allows you to rent games for however long you want, you'll need to hold onto the game for a good long while to complete the 25-50 hour game. You could blow through the main missions and forget everything else, but if you did that, you'd be missing out on the whole Mass Effect experience. Take the time to do the side missions, talk to the characters, gain their loyalty...in doing so you'll be experiencing gaming history in the form of storytelling the likes of which have never been seen in a video game before. Be careful though, this game will take up a lot of your time, willingly of course.