Mass Effect 2 Review

Mass Effect 2 is the sequel to the ridiculously popular and absolutely wonderful sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect. Mass Effect featured many RPG staples, such as freedom to control quest outcomes, interact with squad members, build a character, specialize them and upgrade your powers/inventory as the game goes on.

Mass Effect 2 kind of jumped out of that shell, and kept everything an RPG needs to be an RPG, but also focused on ways to make their gameplay more fun and drifting more toward a shooter by introducing new elements of gameplay to promote balance.

Gameplay: 10.0

Mass Effect 2's gameplay is actually pretty similar to it's predecessor. It's a 3rd person shooter with the ability to freeze time in order to use special tech or biotic (magic, essentially) abilities to hurt enemies or throw them around the room.

Mass Effect 2 went out of it's way to all but eliminate an inventory of items, making less time spent on managing a bunch of useless items and more time playing the game. They also changed several aspects to their gun-fighting gameplay to make it more tactical. They introduced finite ammo and ammo clips throughout the environment, as well as a cooldown that affects all of your abilities instead of just one, making decision-making and precision more important than it was before. Small things were also included like noticeable headshot damage, a better reticule bloom system and a wider array of enemies.

The calling card to Mass Effect was it's conversation system, and the ability to make crucial decisions that will impact future Mass Effect releases. If you played Mass Effect 1, you can import a character into Mass Effect 2 that will affect what you see and are able to do in your customized ME2 universe. They claim the same to be true for Mass Effect 3, and this game's web of choices will likely have big ramifications in Mass Effect 3, considering the same types of decisions you made in ME1 are multiplied in ME2.

Along with the theme of "spending more time playing the game", they got rid of the Mako altogether, which is a little bittersweet. Sometimes exploring a planet in the Mako was really fun, and other times it got irritating. Instead, they introduced a planet scanning system, which actually isn't all that interesting but very important to upgrading, and a shuttle that takes you from battle to battle. Overall, I think it's a lukewarm change considering driving the Mako was often awkward and took up a lot of time, but it also took out a lot of elements of exploration and the true feeling of being on uncharted planets. A better choice might have been planet exploration with a faster, hovering vehicle.

Presentation: 10.0

Mass Effect 2 cleaned up on Mass Effect 1's facial animations (as if Mass Effect 1 didn't already have some of the best speaking animations ever made...), as well as cleaned up on the graphical problems the first one suffered - namely the slow loading time of a lot of their textures. It's really hard to complain about much, but sometimes their objects overlap on the character's body and face and some surfaces will flicker on and off, making it a little distracting. But, if you complain very much about that and let it get in the way of the game, then you'll never be satisfied because otherwise the game looks spectacular.

I honestly liked the audio in Mass Effect 1 better. It had better music, better sound effects, but the voice acting in ME2 is still top-notch. Still, you won't play Mass Effect 2 and have many or any complaints.

Theatrics: 10.0

Mass Effect's voice acting, writing and story-telling have always been pristine. Any sci-fi fan would be happy to watch this game because it feels like an epic movie, plays like a great game, and the environment is so rich with information, you'll likely become absorbed into their universe to a degree that no game has shown.

Since it is a sequel, they needed a story arc to make it not feel like Mass Effect 1: Part 2, but rather it's own new game. The first 10 minutes of the game is probably one of the best in-game cinematic sequences I've ever seen, and it immediately springboards the story into something unique.

The only somewhat irritating aspect of Mass Effect 2's story was how it felt like the universe revolved around you. If you played through Mass Effect and imported a character, by some wild string of coincidences, you ran into almost every important side-quest character from the first game. It felt a little cheesy to me.

Controls: 9.0

The in-game controls are good, but not great. It, like many games, has a problem with it's cover system. In Mass Effect 1, you entered cover simply by butting up against it. In Mass Effect 2, they made the button to enter cover the same button as you use to sprint, which can result in a lot of unintentional mistakes made that can cost you your battle and your patience.

Replay Value: 10.0

I played through Mass Effect 1 five times, and Mass Effect 2 three times. For a single-player RPG that usually takes about 25-30 hours per playthrough (not counting any DLC), that's a ton of gameplay. Considering Mass Effect 1 is my favorite game on the 360 and possibly my favorite game of all-time, three playthroughs on an RPG is something I haven't done outside of ME1 and that deserves some big-time recognition. Besides, one of those ME1 playthroughs was to import into ME2 to create a distinctly different web of choices for ME3 importing, whenever the day comes.

My Overall Rating: 9.9