Mass Effect 2

Available on: Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Played it on: Xbox 360 (Imported save from Mass Effect)
Played it for: 100 hours

RATING: 8/10

Mass Effect 2 is just so... different! And wonderfully so!

As expected, a sequel should never be the same as its predecessors *cough*cough*modern Call of Duty*cough* but Mass Effect 2 is strikingly different from the first game. At first, the changes seem a little bit too drastic, and it almost doesn't even feel like the same game series, but it quickly becomes evident that BioWare knows what it's doing. Everything has been updated, tightened, and bettered. No complaints here, ME2 is great.

The first, and most obvious, area of development is in the game's overall feel. The combat is very different from Mass Effect, and it addresses all the complaints players had about the first game. The guns are varied, and feel different, the actual combat system has been streamlined, and is more like a third person shooter than an RPG, and it takes a lot of focus off the powers. The change is very jolting and unwelcome when coming straight from the first game, but after completing Mass Effect 2, and then returning to Mass Effect, it's very clear why the developers did what they did. The combat system needed an upgrade, and what they did was pretty much perfect for the game's style. And the guns aren't the only part of the combat that has been changed. The powers have been updated to be more dynamic, and allow Shepard to create a team that compliments his or her fighting style. Granted, it's still best for Shepard to have a good mix of squad members, but it may not be necessary to have someone with combat skills, one with biotics, and one with tech specialty. It might be useful to have two squad members with biotics, one with area of effect powers, the other with very damaging, single target abilities. Or two tech specialists that can hit in quick succession, causing "tech explosions." It makes the game a lot more fluid and customizable, and while this difference isn't evident in the first few times the player levels up, as the player gains more squad mates and settles into a fighting style, the game blossoms.

Graphics have been significantly upgraded, too. No complaints on Mass Effect, but ME2's more precise coloring and shading along with overall better look allow the game to live up to original graphical intentions. The worlds Shepard visits are now very distinctly different from each other, giving each mission its own special place in players' memories. For example, Shepard visits two human colonies very early on in the game, one called Freedom's Progress, and the other Horizon. While they are both human colonies, and both have similar architecture, they both look vastly different so players will remember both colonies, not just one. It makes the game easier to become lost in while retaining the same Mass Effect look.

The plot is fantastic as well. It is incredibly tense, and it only gets more so as the game continues. There is a single and very direct focus that is the crux of the game, and that's to defeat the Collectors, a mysterious race that only exists in legends. No matter what Shepard does, this problem is always overshadowing his moves, and this leads to a lot of tight spots. The Suicide Mission at the end proves to be the most difficult mission ever contrived in the series, and the ease with which squad mates die puts the player between a rock and a hard place when choosing what crew members to send to what parts of the Collectors' home base. Much of the Normandy Crew's survival is based on their loyalty to Shepard, which is built up throughout the game, and the ending nicely ties up the franchise as a whole.

I do, however, have some smaller issues with this sequel. The game's load screens are at the top of my list, they take an eternity to move along, and it seems that this is a problem that could have and should have been fixed. I haven't come across any other game, even an older game, with loading screens as long as Mass Effect 2. And there's another thing that bothers me, unrelated to the load screens. The design. The game doesn't have that same immense feel as the first Mass Effect game, and there doesn't seem to be the same sense of wonder with ME2. Missions in this game, like in other generic third-person shooter games, are very linear, and while this is also semi-true of the first game, Mass Effect also had missions to explore around on the surface of other planets in a ground vehicle. These planets were uninhabited, but they still added massive amounts to the size of the galaxy. With their removal, the galaxy gets a lot smaller. This is made doubly so by the fact that every single planet that's not inhabited must be scanned for raw materials in a very painstaking way by the Normandy SR-2. This is grinding, and grinding is a very bad thing for a game to force onto a player.

Now I'd like to review the two major DLC for Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival. I would do two more reviews, but since these two DLC are pretty much integral to the story of Mass Effect 2, they deserve a spot in the full review.

Lair of the Shadow Broker
In this DLC, Liara T'Soni, an Asari who was on Shepard's crew back in Mass Effect, has uncovered a route to the mysterious and powerful Shadow Broker, an intergalactic information dealer. The Shadow Broker wronged Liara after Shepard was comatose in the time between the two Mass Effect games, and she wants revenge.

This DLC was very fun to play. It shows a side of Liara that isn't seen at all in the first Mass Effect, and it shows an amazing amount of character progression. She is no longer the timid girl who researches Prothean ruins, Liara is now a very powerful Asari who is determined, and rather ruthless. Thankfully, though, Shepard has many opportunities to talk to her and help her gain a little of her old self back. Unfortunately, Liara does not remain in Shepard's crew after the DLC is over, but along with the Paragon dialog options, Shepard has the ability to, if he or she was in a relationship with Liara at the end of Mass Effect, talk to her and declare that he or she still loves Liara, and wants to be with her. If this path is chosen, it ends with a little romance in Shepard's cabin, and some significant satisfaction from players who were pining after Liara throughout Mass Effect 2 like I was.

This DLC takes probably three or four hours to play, but it's split up into several missions, so it's a little more laid back. If this DLC is not played, Liara simply becomes the Shadow Broker without Shepard's help sometime before the events of Mass Effect 3.

Arrival
Oh dear, it looks like the Reapers are here. Time to destroy the Mass Relay and prevent their arrival.

This is a very difficult DLC to play through, as Shepard has no choice but to destroy the relay and kill all the aliens still present in the star system. It does, however, provide a significant amount of plot, as Shepard gets to witness Reaper Indoctrination progress while revealing deeper feelings within him or herself. In the end, Shepard has a talk with the leader of the Reapers, Harbinger, who says that any effort to stop them is futile. This directly sets up the events of Mass Effect 3, and is pretty much completely necessary for the progression of the trilogy's story. This DLC does take about three or four hours of straight playing to complete, so it is more grueling than Lair of the Shadow Broker, but the gravity and importance of Shepard's mission in this DLC is blatantly obvious.

If this DLC is not played, the Alliance destroys the relay without the help of Shepard, and none of them make it out alive.

Mass Effect 2 is a good game that's still rough around the edges. With a little more refinement, this trilogy could really end on a high note, and hopefully it will.