Mass Effect 2 Review

Bioware has done it again; Mass Effect 2 is a phenomenal game setting the benchmark for what a studio has to do to make a proper space RPG. The first 10 minutes alone will leave your mouth dropped in awe, especially if you had a connection with your character from the first game. I promise that I will keep this review as spoiler free as possible to keep all of your young minds fresh.

Since the bad is harder to think off we will start off with that. The worst thing about this game is that if you’re coming in fresh you probably won’t have that jaw dropping moment that I spoke about having in the first 10 minutes of the game. I highly recommend that if you have not played Mass Effect 1 then you go back right now and play it. It is well worth your time and effort. Besides that Bioware does take their cover mechanic from Gears of War but before you get all up and arms it does not feel like Gears of War, there are just hints of it there.(It does use the Unreal engine, remember that) At times the cover mechanic does not work correctly or the way you want it to. Many times I have been in cover and switching weapons only to see Shepard stand up and die because my health was low. It gets annoying but not game breaking. Those are my main two problems with Mass Effect 2 but there are small things that I noticed like a sound looping bug when you’re scanning planets. The song plays but when it gets to the end you hear a small hiccup while it loops. Also just scanning planets is a very slow process. I'm not sure why they made something that I found to be very addicting (it soaked up a lot of my time) to be such a slow and painful process. But as I stated those are very small things that I picked up while playing.

Onto the good; everything and I mean everything that seemed to be a problem in Mass Effect 1 has been fixed in Mass Effect 2. From the fade in textures, to the frame rate problems it’s all fixed. This game is filled with different things for players to do. Besides the main storyline there are loads of side missions for you to accomplish, along with a plethora of different galaxies for you to visit. In each of those galaxies there are different systems and within those systems are many different planets for you to scan for ores which you will use to upgrade your ship, armor, weapons, and yourself.(More on that later) Also you might find a planet that has an anomaly on it, and that means that there is a mission available on that planet. Each planet you go to is vastly different and seems like they could make DLC just based off of that one planet.

The inventory system, the one that so many people had problems with, is now more streamlined. I personally missed the clutter because that made me feel like I was playing a RPG. Having a ton of items everywhere made me feel good about what I was doing.(Strangely) But for those who hated the inventory system, it’s gone. You choose you’re weapons at the start of each mission and if you want to add things like incendiary ammo or cryo ammo to your bullets you have to unlock that ability. As far as upgrading your armor and weapons goes, you have to find the upgrades during different missions and upgrade them when you’re on the ship. This is where scanning planets come into play. The elements that are found on those planets are used to upgrade those different things not your credits.

The way the story is laid out for the player is amazing. The player has a choice in everything that happens. When you’re building your team each and every mission that you’re doing is engaging. Once you recruit a member to your team it’s your choice if you want to gain their loyalty, trust me you do. Each and every member’s loyalty mission is just as good if not better then the mission taken to gain them. These mission play a vital role in how the end of the game will look for you.

The way that you actually play the game has changed as well, and for the better. The slower pace of Mass Effect 1 is long gone and the fast paced shooting of Mass Effect 2 is in. With the ability to map three different powers to a key on the controller as well as one power for each of your teammates is great. Now you can actually feel like the Vanguard or Adept that you wanted to be. You can fight an Asari and have one person break down her shield with Overload, another pull her towards you, then you use slam to throw her up against the ceiling then onto the floor. All that can be done without entering into the power wheel at all. That alone blew my mind, the power that is displayed by Commander Shepard and his crew is outstanding.

This game simply put is amazing and worthy of all the hype around it. If you didn’t like the first game play the second game. If you played the first game you HAVE to play the second game. Every thing has been improved and I’m curious to see how and what Bioware is going to do for the third. Until then I hope that they give us better DLC then what they have done for Mass Effect 1. The masterminds at Bioware have done it again, they created a bench mark game for all third person shooter games to look at and think we have to hit that mark. Developers are going to say “you know the first 10 minutes of Mass Effect 2? I want that feel” for the introduction or even endings of their games. Now excuse me while I feed my scanning planets addiction.