Warning: If you have not played Mass Effect do not buy Mass Effect 2. Your overall experiance will be better if you had. The other reason you should do so is because I don't want to have to recap on the original game.
Spoiler warning: If you don't want to have plot points ruined for you I suggest that you skip this review.
Mass Effect 2 is a Sci-Fi RPG by Bioware, you begin as Commander Shepard (the protagonist from ME1) on you ship (the Normandy) which is attacked, blown up and you are sucked in to space and you die. The end. Or so one would think, your body is recovered by Cerberus, a pro-human terrorist splinter cell group with shit-loads of money. They use said shit-loads to "recreate" you with the Lazarous Project, which basicly is robot arms sticking computer chips inside of you (turns out if you put enough metal into a person they come back to life). During this time you select your class, gender and design your face. The cool thing is that if you created a ME1 character, you can import that character to gain extra money and resources when you begin (depending on your level).
The classes are...
Soldier: This class can use all types of guns, but thats about it. You just shoot guys to kill them, this class is for people who don't use powers very often.
Adept: This class is for those who prefer to use powers over guns. They use biotic powers to blast and pull thei foes. They use SMG's and pistols
Engineer: They use shields and tech abilities such as sending in combat drones, buffing ally shields and lowering their enemies shield. This class can use pistols and SMG's and is prefered by those that like to shape the battle with their powers.
Vanguard: If you like biotic powers and guns that you can get up close and personal with than pick the Vanguard class. They use close range biotic powers, pistols and shotguns to kill their enemies. Prefered by those who love to get into the thick of the battle.
Sentinel: Love tech and biotic abilities? Try the Sentinel! They use less powerful tech and biotic abilities than the Adept or Engineer but can handle almost any situation. They can use SMG's and pistols.
Infiltrator: Tech and combat specialists. They can cloak themselves using tech abilities. They can use sniper rifles, pistols and SMG's. This class is for those who prefer to pick of their enemies from a distance.
You are woken early from stasis to find yourself in an unfamiliar room on a space station that is being torn apart by it's own robot security force (never send a bot to do a humans job). After finding a gun (and realizing that every gun in the galaxy now needs fucking ammo now). The games combat is based on many modern shooters, so you take cover, pop up and shoot, which is better designed than ME1. You also get heavy weapons to kill bosses, big enemies, groups of enemies or just for laughs. you shoot your way trough the station to your first squad mate Jacob Taylor (who was in charge of security, bang up job there dipshit). He is a biotic Vanguard (imagine a jedi that uses pistols and shotguns) and can use biotic power to pull and hit things at will or if you order him to.
After killing more mechs you encounter Miranda, the person who lead the team of programers to fix you up. She is a Biotic Adept who can use similiar attacks as Jacob, But switchs the shotgun for an SMG. After killing the traitor to their organization, she an Jacob take you to the Illusive Man the leader of Cerberus (and subscriber to creepy eyes monthly). IM tells Shepard that since he/she was dead a race of aliens known as Collecters have been abducting human colonies and need to be stopped. He gives you a ship (a bigger and better normandy), crew and the list of specialists you will need to go on your "Suicide Mission" to stop the Collecters.
In ME2 you mainly do missions in the Terminus Systems (you know, the other half of the universe you couldn't go to in ME1) to collect members for your squad and earn money. You talk to various people in ME by using a dialouge system which has 5 responses good response, neutral response, asshole response, Paragon response and Renegade response. The first 3 are the ones you get at the begining, the other two are come from your moral standing, Paradon is good your a compasionate and charming hero who does no wrong, in contrast is Renegade a sarcastic, foul-mouthed badass who gets things done with violence and threats. The way ou choose to handle differant situations gives you either Paradon or Renegade points. This can affect your appearance because due to your reconstruction being interupted you now have a few scars. These scars will go away if you have a high Paragon score, or become deformed if you have a high Renegade score. What made ME differant to most RPG's is that your character actually talks.
You also have these quick time events during certain scenes you get a flash stating that you can click the RT or LT bumers to do a heroic Paragon action or a hostile Renegade interupt. They don't follow the usual QTE formula, because you can ignore them. It still adds just one more layer of depth to a dialouge system that was already good.
As your team grows and you talk to them you realize that they have certain things they need to get done before the big mission. These are called loyalty missions, completing them gives the Squad-Member a new outfit, ability and a higher chance to survive the mission. You can also romance certain team members during the course of the game by talking to them (just don't do it with Morinth, trust me) this really doesn't have much affect on the story, but you get an achivment so what the hell.
Exploring the universe has gotten better, before you just visited planets now you can actually (somewhat) pilot your ship going to planets and space stations. This also brings up another thing, resources. In ME1 you used a crappy tank called the Mako on planets to find rocks, the Mako handled like ass and the planets were sparsely populated. You now scan planets to find resources, though it's not a whole lot better than the Mako. Still, scanning is more rewarding and takes less time.
You use resources to upgrade you ship for the big mission, upgrade your armor and weapons. The coolest thing is that you can create better heavy weapons (up to a nuke launcher). Problem is, near the end of the game you require 10 planets worth of resources to get the high end upgrades. Combine that with scanning and your in for a 2 hours of mineral scrounging to get every singal upgrade.
The main reason you should play ME1 first however is because of continuation. Choices in ME1 carry over to ME2. That means the world is differant depending on how you played the first. In most cases you get an email or a bit of dialouge, but it's still cool to see that Bioware put the time in to make the game function like this.
Despite all the improvments, there are still two more thing's I dislike about ME2. The inventory system. In ME1, idiots complained that the inventory system hurt their tiny brains. So Bioware decided to dumb down the inventory screen to armor and weapons. You buy armor mods at certain stores and can add them in your personal chambers. You pick what weapons you want at the beginning of every mission as well. Yes it's simpler, but that doesn't mean it's for the best. At this rate ME is becoming more shooter than RPG. The leveling up system was also simplified, you now only have 4-5 skill paths and only the 5th is unique to your character. You level up after every mission and every skill path takes 10 points to fully level up and then you get an upgraded version of that power. Now you can reset those points, so there is a silver lining, I just hate how they removed the level of customization.
Still, it's a great game. If you have 60$ kicking around buy this game. It's great if you love a great story, RPG's in general and good character design then pick this game up. Just remember that you will face a dumbed down inventory and a repetitive scanning minigame. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to waste a few more hours of my life on ME2 now.
Please comment
Spoiler warning: If you don't want to have plot points ruined for you I suggest that you skip this review.
Mass Effect 2 is a Sci-Fi RPG by Bioware, you begin as Commander Shepard (the protagonist from ME1) on you ship (the Normandy) which is attacked, blown up and you are sucked in to space and you die. The end. Or so one would think, your body is recovered by Cerberus, a pro-human terrorist splinter cell group with shit-loads of money. They use said shit-loads to "recreate" you with the Lazarous Project, which basicly is robot arms sticking computer chips inside of you (turns out if you put enough metal into a person they come back to life). During this time you select your class, gender and design your face. The cool thing is that if you created a ME1 character, you can import that character to gain extra money and resources when you begin (depending on your level).
The classes are...
Soldier: This class can use all types of guns, but thats about it. You just shoot guys to kill them, this class is for people who don't use powers very often.
Adept: This class is for those who prefer to use powers over guns. They use biotic powers to blast and pull thei foes. They use SMG's and pistols
Engineer: They use shields and tech abilities such as sending in combat drones, buffing ally shields and lowering their enemies shield. This class can use pistols and SMG's and is prefered by those that like to shape the battle with their powers.
Vanguard: If you like biotic powers and guns that you can get up close and personal with than pick the Vanguard class. They use close range biotic powers, pistols and shotguns to kill their enemies. Prefered by those who love to get into the thick of the battle.
Sentinel: Love tech and biotic abilities? Try the Sentinel! They use less powerful tech and biotic abilities than the Adept or Engineer but can handle almost any situation. They can use SMG's and pistols.
Infiltrator: Tech and combat specialists. They can cloak themselves using tech abilities. They can use sniper rifles, pistols and SMG's. This class is for those who prefer to pick of their enemies from a distance.
You are woken early from stasis to find yourself in an unfamiliar room on a space station that is being torn apart by it's own robot security force (never send a bot to do a humans job). After finding a gun (and realizing that every gun in the galaxy now needs fucking ammo now). The games combat is based on many modern shooters, so you take cover, pop up and shoot, which is better designed than ME1. You also get heavy weapons to kill bosses, big enemies, groups of enemies or just for laughs. you shoot your way trough the station to your first squad mate Jacob Taylor (who was in charge of security, bang up job there dipshit). He is a biotic Vanguard (imagine a jedi that uses pistols and shotguns) and can use biotic power to pull and hit things at will or if you order him to.
After killing more mechs you encounter Miranda, the person who lead the team of programers to fix you up. She is a Biotic Adept who can use similiar attacks as Jacob, But switchs the shotgun for an SMG. After killing the traitor to their organization, she an Jacob take you to the Illusive Man the leader of Cerberus (and subscriber to creepy eyes monthly). IM tells Shepard that since he/she was dead a race of aliens known as Collecters have been abducting human colonies and need to be stopped. He gives you a ship (a bigger and better normandy), crew and the list of specialists you will need to go on your "Suicide Mission" to stop the Collecters.
In ME2 you mainly do missions in the Terminus Systems (you know, the other half of the universe you couldn't go to in ME1) to collect members for your squad and earn money. You talk to various people in ME by using a dialouge system which has 5 responses good response, neutral response, asshole response, Paragon response and Renegade response. The first 3 are the ones you get at the begining, the other two are come from your moral standing, Paradon is good your a compasionate and charming hero who does no wrong, in contrast is Renegade a sarcastic, foul-mouthed badass who gets things done with violence and threats. The way ou choose to handle differant situations gives you either Paradon or Renegade points. This can affect your appearance because due to your reconstruction being interupted you now have a few scars. These scars will go away if you have a high Paragon score, or become deformed if you have a high Renegade score. What made ME differant to most RPG's is that your character actually talks.
You also have these quick time events during certain scenes you get a flash stating that you can click the RT or LT bumers to do a heroic Paragon action or a hostile Renegade interupt. They don't follow the usual QTE formula, because you can ignore them. It still adds just one more layer of depth to a dialouge system that was already good.
As your team grows and you talk to them you realize that they have certain things they need to get done before the big mission. These are called loyalty missions, completing them gives the Squad-Member a new outfit, ability and a higher chance to survive the mission. You can also romance certain team members during the course of the game by talking to them (just don't do it with Morinth, trust me) this really doesn't have much affect on the story, but you get an achivment so what the hell.
Exploring the universe has gotten better, before you just visited planets now you can actually (somewhat) pilot your ship going to planets and space stations. This also brings up another thing, resources. In ME1 you used a crappy tank called the Mako on planets to find rocks, the Mako handled like ass and the planets were sparsely populated. You now scan planets to find resources, though it's not a whole lot better than the Mako. Still, scanning is more rewarding and takes less time.
You use resources to upgrade you ship for the big mission, upgrade your armor and weapons. The coolest thing is that you can create better heavy weapons (up to a nuke launcher). Problem is, near the end of the game you require 10 planets worth of resources to get the high end upgrades. Combine that with scanning and your in for a 2 hours of mineral scrounging to get every singal upgrade.
The main reason you should play ME1 first however is because of continuation. Choices in ME1 carry over to ME2. That means the world is differant depending on how you played the first. In most cases you get an email or a bit of dialouge, but it's still cool to see that Bioware put the time in to make the game function like this.
Despite all the improvments, there are still two more thing's I dislike about ME2. The inventory system. In ME1, idiots complained that the inventory system hurt their tiny brains. So Bioware decided to dumb down the inventory screen to armor and weapons. You buy armor mods at certain stores and can add them in your personal chambers. You pick what weapons you want at the beginning of every mission as well. Yes it's simpler, but that doesn't mean it's for the best. At this rate ME is becoming more shooter than RPG. The leveling up system was also simplified, you now only have 4-5 skill paths and only the 5th is unique to your character. You level up after every mission and every skill path takes 10 points to fully level up and then you get an upgraded version of that power. Now you can reset those points, so there is a silver lining, I just hate how they removed the level of customization.
Still, it's a great game. If you have 60$ kicking around buy this game. It's great if you love a great story, RPG's in general and good character design then pick this game up. Just remember that you will face a dumbed down inventory and a repetitive scanning minigame. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to waste a few more hours of my life on ME2 now.
Please comment
