Mass Effect 2

One review I saw said it best. If you considered Mass Effect to be a third person shooter with some cool RPG elements, prepare to be blown away by Mass Effect 2. If, however, you considered the original to be an RPG with a solid shooter mechanic, you might be a little underwhelmed.

The first thing I should say is, I have only played through it once with an imported character from 1. This means that my entirely different choices with my other character from 1 will probably make the game play SIGNIFICANTLY differently once I play it again. So, in this review, you should even take the PLOT with a grain of salt as it will most likely change depending on what you did in 1, or what you choose to do in 2.

Also, there will be significant spoilers. You are warned.

I started as Commander Shepard, not long after the end of the first game, sent to hunt down the last remnants of Geth. Before you can say, "Normandy!" your ship is attacked, destroyed, and you are sent hurling into space and into the nearby planet's atmosphere.

You heard me right. You start the game dead.

A mysterious organization known as Cerberus (which shows up in some side missions in 1 where you kill as many of them as you can because they're doing nasty experiments) recovers your dead body and reanimates you over the course of two years. With your new enhancements you're given the choice to re-select your class. So if you were an adept in 1 you could be a pure soldier in 2. Each class comes with a special ability that no doubt makes it play significantly differently. I chose to make my former vanguard an Infiltrator, who uses sniper rifles, SMGs and heavy pistols and has the ability to turn invisible for a short period of time. Friggin awesome.

You meet up with some Cerberus operatives who fill you in after being rudely awakened that you're not fully healed but they need your help against some hacked mechs that are destroying the facility. This is where you're introduced to the new and much improved combat system. Instead of the unlimited rounds and overheating mechanic, each weapon now has a set amount of ammo, which can be replenished by picking up thermal clips. In terms of upgrades, instead of having to open up the menu to switch them, things like incinerate, cryo and disruptor ammo are now powers that last until you switch them. While I lament not being able to upgrade them in more detail, I can't complain about just how much it streamlines combat and makes it more manageable. Also gone are any worries about upgrading your team, as the only armor you upgrade is yours (which you manage through exchanging different pieces) and any weapon upgrades you get are simply better upgrades of the previous weapon. This is really the essential component to that first statement I made. Practically all of the RPG elements from Mass Effect have either been trashed or greatly reduced. While this makes for a smoother, more action filled game, it also takes out a lot of the randomness that made the original worth going back and playing over and over again.

Anyways, some basic tutorial stuff later and you're introduced to a new and improved Normandy and left to scrounge the galaxy for a team of experts to help you take down the Collectors, a mysterious race that has suddenly popped up from beyond the galaxy to steal thousands of humans for an unknown purpose. In the two years that you've been gone, a lot has happened to your old crew, so you are sent looking for new faces who are the best of the best to make your chance against the collectors the best it can be. That's not to say there aren't some familiar faces who join up, but when they do it's a wonderful surprise and I don't want to ruin it.

You'll also notice that there's no more long elevator rides hiding load screens, everything is nicely summed up into "missions" after which you get a summary of what happened and what you found, and no more awkward Mako trips. Unfortunately, the Mako has been replaced by something even worse. Weapon upgrades are now researched on your ship after finding them during missions, and you spend minerals to buy them instead of credits. The way you find minerals is by going through an agonizing process where you waste credits buying fuel to scoot you around to other star systems, buy "probes", pick a planet, and then scan the surface. When the readings spike, you launch a probe and gather the minerals. It's boring, it's pointless, and it wastes so many credits.

This is the other thing. There is now no good way to make credits. Each mission/quest you complete will give you a reward, and there are plenty of hackable safes and datapads around to give you a credit boost, but there is only ONE WAY to make credits on your own, and that's $500 at a time betting on varren (dogs) on the krogan homeworld. That's it. And when most every upgrade is between 50,000-100,000 credits, that's just not feasible. Sure they had the equivalent of that through gambling in 1, but you could at least sell the massive amount of useless equipment you would find to make a buck. In this, what you find is what you get. And it irks me.

But then we get to Mass Effect 2's biggest draw, just like its predecessor...the story. Oh man the story. From beginning to end I literally had trouble putting this game down because I always wanted to find out what happened next. While the side missions are now much shorter and never feel like anything other than a side mission, the main story and loyalty missions are so engrossing that it can be forgiven for just about everything else. If you liked the story elements in 1, then dig your teeth into 2. Practically everything is improved. The dialogue wheels are more fleshed out and better suited to the conversation style. There is now a Paragon/Renegade interrupt system wherein you can interrupt whoever's talking for either paragon or renegade points depending on the situation. Don't like what that guard is saying? Push him out a window. Is your teammate distraught over a death and doesn't know what to do? Interrupt them with a hug. They're littered all over the place, and many can even give you a significant advantage in ensuing combat.

Oh, and you thought the decisions you had to make in 1 were hard? Not only do practically ALL of those decisions come back to haunt or help you, but they ramp up the newest decisions to 11 in 2. Time and time again I was forced to agonize over certain decisions because both choices had serious implications for the rest of the game and for Mass Effect 3. Or some decisions that might or might not have any effect later simply had such good arguments for both sides of a choice that it was honestly hard choosing. Sometimes it's clear when you're being a hero and when you're being a villain, but more often than not that line gets blurred, and that's what has me salivating for Mass Effect 3.

So overall, the story has improved dramatically as has combat. I wish they had simply tweaked the RPG elements instead of abandoning them, but it's hard to argue when you're in the middle of a firefight and all you have to do is press a button to change your ammo. Space exploration still sucks, and the open endedness with side missions and replayability in terms of randomized equipment has been significantly reduced, but the thousands of different decisions you can make throughout the game makes it just as replayable as 1. Again, if you liked the shooter elements of 1, this is a dramatic improvement that will knock your socks off. If you liked the RPG elements, you're going to be a little disappointed, but it will still most likely knock your socks off.

Mass Effect 2 gets a 9.5/10.