Warning: This is pretty long.
Mass Effect 2 is among the long line of third person RPGs Bioware has created, along with others like, well, obviously Mass Effect (well, maybe not so obvious since Team Silent only created the first four Silent Hill games and even then, there was only one person who helped make all four of them and that was the sound director) but also the very loved Knights Of The Old Republic series, the first two Baulder's Gate games and their expansion packs (the two games and expansion packs receiving various awards, with Baulder's Gate 2 staying at 6th highest average scoring game on Metacritic since 2009, despite being made in 2000) and the well received Dragon Age: Origins which has had expansion packs and books made in it's honour with fans wanting more. In other words, Bioware does not fuck around. Mass Effect 2, to be honest, is a game that since around late winter I've bought and been putting off until I had a completed Mass Effect character file. After growing bored of attempting to complete Mass Effect for the third time, I never did play Mass Effect 2. However, holidays happen, I still can't be bothered with Mass Effect so I think ?screw it!? and hit Mass Effect 2 in hopes that I wouldn't be punished for my mistake.
So you play Commander Sheppard, the same male/female who saved the entire galaxy from Saren and The Geth. If you haven't play Mass Effect, it's strongly recommended you do just because if you don't you will become somewhat confused at what is going on and will be unable to fully involve yourself with the story. Considering how popular Mass Effect is, I'll be surprised if you skipped the first game and played the second game. This time, after watching yourself get blown up and killed in space after The Collectors decide to play target practice with your ship, you'll be chasing down The Collectors to kill them back for killing you. Don't worry, you'll still be the same Shepard, just put back together by a pro-human company which is run by ?The Illusive Man?, someone who skipped the ethics lecture in their business studies class and doesn't even know what the meaning of the term is. You'll be asked to assemble a team of people, some old and some new, to help you to fight back against the Reapers (I'll come back to this).
Mass Effect 2 solves a large problem that, at least personally, plagued Mass Effect: The Combat. For those who didn't play Mass Effect and remember it well, combat went like this: ?No children, leave your powers alone; you obviously don't know what you're doing with them, god this gun sucks, why the unlimited ammo? Holy crap, a hard boss, eat grenades and bullets until you die! What the hell is with this amount of upgrades?! Why do I have to make sure each of my children are properly clothed for the weather and then manually one-by-one take each useless piece of clothing to the recycling bin?!?. They fixed this in more than one way. For a start, the AI of your team is a lot more improved so you don't have to be scared to toggle that powers thing for your team mates to let them use powers at free will. Secondly, the only guns you can use are the guns you are trained with (so no longer will you be lugging around useless guns that serve no purpose), with all the big guns for you only since big gun ammo is very precious. Thirdly, and the most noticeable improvement: No more unlimited ammo. You get ammo clips which absorb a certain amount of heat from the gun. Once it absorbs as much as it can, you have to change clip. It works more like a magazine system in normal guns. Despite you basically tripping over bullets, it provides a refreshing and more enjoyable ?shoot, hide, reload? system that other games which get you to hide behind cover use.
You'll be able to use the big guns so it comes down to saving that ammo for the bosses. The bosses also have an element of strategy, although it's very weak and flimsy and boils down to ?SHOOT IT TO HELL!? or ?SHOOT IT'S FRIENDS TO HELL!?. Grenades are gone in favour for the big guns (e.g. rocket launcher, grenade launcher and laser gun). Manually upgrading your guns and ammo with small ?perks? are gone in favour for a system where you upgrade guns generally, like more ammo and more damage for a certain sub-category of gun. They also scrapped having to change armour and gun based on which is the best, with just choosing which gun favours your style. One unspoken but obvious improvement is also the running. Mass Effect running can be described as driving a tank, slow, sluggish and with the smoothness and dexterity of a, well, tank. Mass Effect 2 creates a running system that feels more smoother, however, you can't help but think it needs a bit more working on.
This is where the improvements end. You'll be expected to, through trial-and-error, to know the stats of each gun. Like, you wouldn't know some heavy pistols are generally more powerful than others, while sacrificing the amount of ammo you carry, until you try it. This leaves you to do one of two things: You either actually try them out one-by-one and work out which you prefer, or you do as I did, shrug your shoulders and just pick a gun. Luckily, you wouldn't be penalised for picking a gun which is worse than the other guns since it's down to personal preference than ?THIS IS BETTER, NO, THIS IS!?. However, even a simple ?This is how powerful this is, this is the speed it fires, ammo in the magazine, etc? system would be great and so useful.
Movement in the MAKO has been swapped with the spaceship travel system, which I have to admit not only did I see it not coming, I love it a lot. To upgrade weapons or other equipment (which I will admit, the upgrades are noticeable, mostly) you need a certain amount of one of the four elements. To get these elements, you can find small amounts during missions but more commonly, you need to probe planets for them which I have to say I love. Maybe this is the inner ?I love to mine and make things in MMORPGs!? emerging in me, but I love having to decide where to drop a probe depending on radio waves on a certain area. I love that these elements have a use. I love that you need to buy more fuel to go from one solar-system to another, and more probes to extract the elements. To be honest, I'd say the space-ship system is pretty much flawless, except the annoying ?YOU HAVE HALF OF YOUR FUEL SUPPLY LEFT? prompt that is blurted out like an inappropriate comment by a mentally disabled child trying to seek approval of others through offensive ?jokes?. If you're flying around and using fuel, yes you are going to naturally keep an eye on your fuel amount, at least I hope, you don't need to be reminded by a bot that you may be just under half of fuel left and maybe you really should go that extra tiny little distance in the direction you were going in anyway just so you can refill your fuel.
Now, I figured I'd come back to talking about the characters for this reason: Because they affect your game so much. The original Mass Effect characters, if you knew them, affect your game (e.g. I'm not sure about the choices, because I didn't get the chance to do it with a completed file, but the Krogan home-world was slightly hostile at first at me killing Wrex (despite my natural tendency to prevent a fight with him) and you'll see Kaiden again and he'll hate you for being with Cerberus). Each character acts very differently and it's nice to not only get new characters, but old characters with a minor twist to their personality. An example of this is Garrus's slightly more vigilante-fuelled behaviour which tends to be more violent than the first. Each character is new and refreshing, all with unique and interesting personalities. From Jack's slightly hostile attitude, to Samara's zealot passive view, all the way to Thane's matter-of-fact view. The new races you get to meet (the most noticeable being drell, which is the race Thane is) are interesting and fresh, bringing something new to the already large amount of races without appearing as just a pointless addition. The romances, to some, pose as no problem at all. I ended up picking up a female Shepard (I made a female Shepard on Mass Effect because it seemed impossible to make a male Shepard that didn't look like Ugly Shepard) and ended up having to choose between Thane and Garrus.
Allow me to make this clear: Any decision that leaves you struggling to decide for reasons beyond things that will affect game-play (and may make no difference to game-play), through ways like additional guns, at any point in the game means that the story is automatically well written, at least for the person it speaks to.
Maybe it's partly because of my queer sexuality, but I was staring at the screen for a long time as I had to decide between Thane and Garrus. Both characters at their strong points. I knew Garrus longer and he seemed more, well, sweet for a lack of a better word. He was good to talk to, I knew him from the previous Mass Effect and he was cool (come on, Archangel as a nickname due to being a good vigilante is cool). On the other hand, he was overly violent. Thane, on the other hand, was cute. He was the more attractive looking between the two characters, he was more interesting and he was flawless as a character. However, he was dying.
I had to ask other people who preferred, both stating that Garrus was cooler and generally better. I flipped a coin a few times. I thought some more. I was about to go with Garrus when I realised this: I was going to feel guilty later about not choosing Thane. This, in turn, lead to making a second save file.
It's as soon as I finally did this, I knew that Mass Effect 2 was a good game. Yes, it has it's own faults that could do with some addressing, but it is a very solid game that can easily appeal to anyone who likes action in their RPG or RPG in their action. Despite playing for over a week, for over 35 hours, the end is still not in sight just because the enjoyability of the side-quests and extracting materials to make upgrades. There's nothing here that makes me groan and wish it was completely extracted from the game, everything fits in nicely. The only way this game can drop from being fantastic is if the writers suddenly had a stroke or if there is a game-breaking glitch because the testers got lazy suddenly. I can't recommend this enough to Mass Effect fans, although I expect people who enjoyed the first and not get the second to be far, few and crazy. To non-Mass Effect fans, if you like RPG and action, and you don't hate sci-fi, I recommend this game, and the first Mass Effect just to bring you up to speed so you can fully appreciate this game however I think it's still possible to like Mass Effect 2 without previous knowledge since it's easy to pick up most knowledge of the previous game as you go along, things like Krogans love to kill things. They don't care what person (or animal) it is, they just love to kill things. So they're like what you'd get if you combined a steroids junkie with a red-neck, and you added a little more intelligence.
Is disappointed at the lack of sex scenes, then again I may be one of the only people around who is curious what is under the power suit of those aliens like Tauriens, e.g. Garrus.
[HEADING=1]Mass Effect 2.[/HEADING]
Mass Effect 2 is among the long line of third person RPGs Bioware has created, along with others like, well, obviously Mass Effect (well, maybe not so obvious since Team Silent only created the first four Silent Hill games and even then, there was only one person who helped make all four of them and that was the sound director) but also the very loved Knights Of The Old Republic series, the first two Baulder's Gate games and their expansion packs (the two games and expansion packs receiving various awards, with Baulder's Gate 2 staying at 6th highest average scoring game on Metacritic since 2009, despite being made in 2000) and the well received Dragon Age: Origins which has had expansion packs and books made in it's honour with fans wanting more. In other words, Bioware does not fuck around. Mass Effect 2, to be honest, is a game that since around late winter I've bought and been putting off until I had a completed Mass Effect character file. After growing bored of attempting to complete Mass Effect for the third time, I never did play Mass Effect 2. However, holidays happen, I still can't be bothered with Mass Effect so I think ?screw it!? and hit Mass Effect 2 in hopes that I wouldn't be punished for my mistake.
So you play Commander Sheppard, the same male/female who saved the entire galaxy from Saren and The Geth. If you haven't play Mass Effect, it's strongly recommended you do just because if you don't you will become somewhat confused at what is going on and will be unable to fully involve yourself with the story. Considering how popular Mass Effect is, I'll be surprised if you skipped the first game and played the second game. This time, after watching yourself get blown up and killed in space after The Collectors decide to play target practice with your ship, you'll be chasing down The Collectors to kill them back for killing you. Don't worry, you'll still be the same Shepard, just put back together by a pro-human company which is run by ?The Illusive Man?, someone who skipped the ethics lecture in their business studies class and doesn't even know what the meaning of the term is. You'll be asked to assemble a team of people, some old and some new, to help you to fight back against the Reapers (I'll come back to this).
Every time I talked to The Illusive Man, especially when near places like Omega and The Citadel, I half expected him to ask me to go on a cigarette run.
Mass Effect 2 solves a large problem that, at least personally, plagued Mass Effect: The Combat. For those who didn't play Mass Effect and remember it well, combat went like this: ?No children, leave your powers alone; you obviously don't know what you're doing with them, god this gun sucks, why the unlimited ammo? Holy crap, a hard boss, eat grenades and bullets until you die! What the hell is with this amount of upgrades?! Why do I have to make sure each of my children are properly clothed for the weather and then manually one-by-one take each useless piece of clothing to the recycling bin?!?. They fixed this in more than one way. For a start, the AI of your team is a lot more improved so you don't have to be scared to toggle that powers thing for your team mates to let them use powers at free will. Secondly, the only guns you can use are the guns you are trained with (so no longer will you be lugging around useless guns that serve no purpose), with all the big guns for you only since big gun ammo is very precious. Thirdly, and the most noticeable improvement: No more unlimited ammo. You get ammo clips which absorb a certain amount of heat from the gun. Once it absorbs as much as it can, you have to change clip. It works more like a magazine system in normal guns. Despite you basically tripping over bullets, it provides a refreshing and more enjoyable ?shoot, hide, reload? system that other games which get you to hide behind cover use.
No more telling your team mates "hush children, daddy's killing". Now they know how to shoot and use their special abilities.
You'll be able to use the big guns so it comes down to saving that ammo for the bosses. The bosses also have an element of strategy, although it's very weak and flimsy and boils down to ?SHOOT IT TO HELL!? or ?SHOOT IT'S FRIENDS TO HELL!?. Grenades are gone in favour for the big guns (e.g. rocket launcher, grenade launcher and laser gun). Manually upgrading your guns and ammo with small ?perks? are gone in favour for a system where you upgrade guns generally, like more ammo and more damage for a certain sub-category of gun. They also scrapped having to change armour and gun based on which is the best, with just choosing which gun favours your style. One unspoken but obvious improvement is also the running. Mass Effect running can be described as driving a tank, slow, sluggish and with the smoothness and dexterity of a, well, tank. Mass Effect 2 creates a running system that feels more smoother, however, you can't help but think it needs a bit more working on.
This is where the improvements end. You'll be expected to, through trial-and-error, to know the stats of each gun. Like, you wouldn't know some heavy pistols are generally more powerful than others, while sacrificing the amount of ammo you carry, until you try it. This leaves you to do one of two things: You either actually try them out one-by-one and work out which you prefer, or you do as I did, shrug your shoulders and just pick a gun. Luckily, you wouldn't be penalised for picking a gun which is worse than the other guns since it's down to personal preference than ?THIS IS BETTER, NO, THIS IS!?. However, even a simple ?This is how powerful this is, this is the speed it fires, ammo in the magazine, etc? system would be great and so useful.
Movement in the MAKO has been swapped with the spaceship travel system, which I have to admit not only did I see it not coming, I love it a lot. To upgrade weapons or other equipment (which I will admit, the upgrades are noticeable, mostly) you need a certain amount of one of the four elements. To get these elements, you can find small amounts during missions but more commonly, you need to probe planets for them which I have to say I love. Maybe this is the inner ?I love to mine and make things in MMORPGs!? emerging in me, but I love having to decide where to drop a probe depending on radio waves on a certain area. I love that these elements have a use. I love that you need to buy more fuel to go from one solar-system to another, and more probes to extract the elements. To be honest, I'd say the space-ship system is pretty much flawless, except the annoying ?YOU HAVE HALF OF YOUR FUEL SUPPLY LEFT? prompt that is blurted out like an inappropriate comment by a mentally disabled child trying to seek approval of others through offensive ?jokes?. If you're flying around and using fuel, yes you are going to naturally keep an eye on your fuel amount, at least I hope, you don't need to be reminded by a bot that you may be just under half of fuel left and maybe you really should go that extra tiny little distance in the direction you were going in anyway just so you can refill your fuel.
"Yo dawg, I heard you like ships, so I let you buy model ships to put into your ship's commander's room so you can fly a ship while you fly a ship."
Now, I figured I'd come back to talking about the characters for this reason: Because they affect your game so much. The original Mass Effect characters, if you knew them, affect your game (e.g. I'm not sure about the choices, because I didn't get the chance to do it with a completed file, but the Krogan home-world was slightly hostile at first at me killing Wrex (despite my natural tendency to prevent a fight with him) and you'll see Kaiden again and he'll hate you for being with Cerberus). Each character acts very differently and it's nice to not only get new characters, but old characters with a minor twist to their personality. An example of this is Garrus's slightly more vigilante-fuelled behaviour which tends to be more violent than the first. Each character is new and refreshing, all with unique and interesting personalities. From Jack's slightly hostile attitude, to Samara's zealot passive view, all the way to Thane's matter-of-fact view. The new races you get to meet (the most noticeable being drell, which is the race Thane is) are interesting and fresh, bringing something new to the already large amount of races without appearing as just a pointless addition. The romances, to some, pose as no problem at all. I ended up picking up a female Shepard (I made a female Shepard on Mass Effect because it seemed impossible to make a male Shepard that didn't look like Ugly Shepard) and ended up having to choose between Thane and Garrus.
A face not even a mother could love, and believe me she tried.
Allow me to make this clear: Any decision that leaves you struggling to decide for reasons beyond things that will affect game-play (and may make no difference to game-play), through ways like additional guns, at any point in the game means that the story is automatically well written, at least for the person it speaks to.
Maybe it's partly because of my queer sexuality, but I was staring at the screen for a long time as I had to decide between Thane and Garrus. Both characters at their strong points. I knew Garrus longer and he seemed more, well, sweet for a lack of a better word. He was good to talk to, I knew him from the previous Mass Effect and he was cool (come on, Archangel as a nickname due to being a good vigilante is cool). On the other hand, he was overly violent. Thane, on the other hand, was cute. He was the more attractive looking between the two characters, he was more interesting and he was flawless as a character. However, he was dying.
I had to ask other people who preferred, both stating that Garrus was cooler and generally better. I flipped a coin a few times. I thought some more. I was about to go with Garrus when I realised this: I was going to feel guilty later about not choosing Thane. This, in turn, lead to making a second save file.
It's as soon as I finally did this, I knew that Mass Effect 2 was a good game. Yes, it has it's own faults that could do with some addressing, but it is a very solid game that can easily appeal to anyone who likes action in their RPG or RPG in their action. Despite playing for over a week, for over 35 hours, the end is still not in sight just because the enjoyability of the side-quests and extracting materials to make upgrades. There's nothing here that makes me groan and wish it was completely extracted from the game, everything fits in nicely. The only way this game can drop from being fantastic is if the writers suddenly had a stroke or if there is a game-breaking glitch because the testers got lazy suddenly. I can't recommend this enough to Mass Effect fans, although I expect people who enjoyed the first and not get the second to be far, few and crazy. To non-Mass Effect fans, if you like RPG and action, and you don't hate sci-fi, I recommend this game, and the first Mass Effect just to bring you up to speed so you can fully appreciate this game however I think it's still possible to like Mass Effect 2 without previous knowledge since it's easy to pick up most knowledge of the previous game as you go along, things like Krogans love to kill things. They don't care what person (or animal) it is, they just love to kill things. So they're like what you'd get if you combined a steroids junkie with a red-neck, and you added a little more intelligence.
Is disappointed at the lack of sex scenes, then again I may be one of the only people around who is curious what is under the power suit of those aliens like Tauriens, e.g. Garrus.
