What's Your Opinion
Mass Effect 2 is a Tour de Force of Sci-Fi action that corrects any issues that the first had whilst adding to the detail of the entire universe.
The first Mass Effect had issues which dragged down what could have been one of the best Sci-Fi RPGs out on the market. Most noticeable where the combat, frame-rate and dull mission structure. Bioware have made sure that the feedback they received has been address these issues but they have added to the detail and depth of back-story and history of the universe that you will find it hard to put down the controller, even after 30 hours of playing it.
Mass Effect had a great concept that was backed with interesting characters that made the whole experience feel like a living universe that did not shy away from taking concepts found in other Sci-Fi properties and working it into their own fiction. The sequel not only delivers a dark seconded chapter of the trilogy but also doubles the amount of characters and sorts out a more seamless experience, thanks to a more structured game.
If you have played the first game your entire experience with the sequel will be much more meaningful than those of you who haven't. However, that does not mean that the game is any less engrossing if you didn't get a chance to play the first. You play as Commander Shepard who after the destruction of the Reaper, also known as Sovereign, goes through a dramatic event that winds up leading him to join the a private military company known as Cerberus, which is run by The Illusive Man, whose sole intention is to make humans the centre focus of the universe. A new threat has risen in the universe, where entire human colonies are being taken and The Council -- basically the universes government -- do not think of it as a major threat and still cannot come to terms with the Reapers returning. This forces Shepard to join Cerberus as they are the only ones taking the new threat serious.
The story will take you across the galaxy collecting a team of personally selected soldiers that you must find and convince to join this 'suicide mission'. If you have played the first Mass Effect you are able to take in your completed game save and import it into the game. This will take across all the major decisions that you made from the first game -- such as did you kill Wrex -- as characters and subtle details are woven into the story. One of my favourite was the 'fan' of Shepard from the first game, Conrad Verner. This side mission was just a small reminder of how Bioware have really thought of even the small conversations of the first game and built them into the sequel. This does not mean that if you are coming into it fresh that you will be left out. A conversation takes place at the beginning of the game where they ask you of the previous events that took place in the first game. Here is where you make the call of what decision you would like your Shepard to have made, whereas if you have imported your character then the decisions that you have already made carry over into the game.
Shepard is an interesting character on his own but it is the characters that he encounters that really makes Mass Effect 2 stand out from the rest of the RPGs out there. As I said earlier the main bulk of the story is about you exploring the galaxy finding the right people to join you for the suicide mission. This means that characters that surround Shepard have to be interesting and unique in their own way. Thankfully Bioware have somehow been able to create a whole array of characters that range from an assassin with a troubled past, a genetically modified woman, an all powerful Justicar and even a huge Krogan that doesn't understand his own purpose. All of the characters have their own personal mission that you can choose to do, and this is where the game really dives into the personal matters of your crew and you find out what drives them and why they have agreed to join with you. These were my favourite parts to the game as the second portion, the exploration, isn't still quite what I wanted it to be.
You still have your Galaxy Map from where you can plot a course to the next system or planet. Then you will dive into that specific solar system which is made up of many planets. Some have missions on them, other are just for scanning so that you can receive minerals to purchase upgrades, and others when scanned will detected anomaly’s which in turn lead to a side mission. The system is much better than the first where you took the dreaded Mako down to the planet’s surface where you had to somehow manoeuvre the vehicle to find minerals and then a base which was copied and pasted on every other planet. Instead this has been replaced with a shuttle which takes you down to the surface of the planet where you jump out and start shooting. Mineral extraction is still a sore spot in the games pacing as you will be fighting a huge scale war only then to have to scan multiple planets with the universes worst scanner to find minerals. This quickly gets tedious and eventually I gave up and just scanned every other planet.
Huge improvements have been made to the combat side of the game. The shooting is a lot more competent and can now be look on as a third person shooter, whereas the character classes each have their own pros and cons to them which makes you really think which class you will pick for the rest of the game, which in turn reflexes on which characters you choose to take into the battle with you to balance out the combat skills. Biotics still play a big part in the game -- which act like the force from the Star Wars series where you can pull enemies and push enemies using energy -- however weapon selection has been trimmed down quite significantly so much so that there isn't even an inventory screen, which means no loot. This doesn't hurt then game but does mean that RPG elements have been dubbed down.
You still gain exp from completing missions, but it has been structured in a way that you cannot just grind to gain levels. Each level you gain, you acquire points that you can spend on a specific skill that your class has. Such as the Vanguard class which I chose -- which is half biotic and half weapon -- has a Pull ability which when upgraded can pull multiple enemies at once. However that is pretty much the extent of the character customisation. Although you can change the look of your Shepard more so than in the first as you can choose specific colours, textures and armours types to 'protect' Shepard. I put protect in inverted commas because it is more of a cosmetic change than a tactical change when customising the look of Shepard. Again this streamlines the game into a more shooter based style and takes away most RPG elements, which may affect some people’s judgements on the game.
Most of the technical issues which were in Mass Effect -- such as texture pop-in and frame rate issues -- have been ironed out. The conversations now have a dynamic camera so will switch between angles and shots more frequently during the many dialogue trees, which adds a much more varied look to each conversation than a static uninteresting conversation. As a matter of fact these are the best conversation structures that Bioware have made to date. There are still a few minor texture pop-ins and unclean cuts between shots in custscenes, but nothing detracts away from the game, which in turn means that game runs much seamlessly.
When I begin to think of the amount of dialogue that has to be recorded it blows my mind. I mean when you think that Shepard is voice by a man and a woman, and can have two very distinct paths you can follow -- good and evil -- and also add to that all the extra characters, side chatter, radio announcements and sound effects you start to understand that this game must have been a mammoth task. All the dialogue is believable and the score of the game keeps relatively similar to the first. Even the infamous Galaxy Map tune is back. There were some strange sound glitches where a man would scream for minutes after he had died but again these are minor issues that don't stand in the way of the entire game.
Mass Effect 2 is a Tour de Force of Sci-Fi action. Even though it shaves away some of the features that made it an RPG it adds and fixes many ideas that where just not fully realised in the first Mass Effect. When a game makes me sit on my Xbox for four days straight and not get bored or tired of playing it then it is doing a lot of things right.
Reviewed By Blood
Mass Effect had a great concept that was backed with interesting characters that made the whole experience feel like a living universe that did not shy away from taking concepts found in other Sci-Fi properties and working it into their own fiction. The sequel not only delivers a dark seconded chapter of the trilogy but also doubles the amount of characters and sorts out a more seamless experience, thanks to a more structured game.
If you have played the first game your entire experience with the sequel will be much more meaningful than those of you who haven't. However, that does not mean that the game is any less engrossing if you didn't get a chance to play the first. You play as Commander Shepard who after the destruction of the Reaper, also known as Sovereign, goes through a dramatic event that winds up leading him to join the a private military company known as Cerberus, which is run by The Illusive Man, whose sole intention is to make humans the centre focus of the universe. A new threat has risen in the universe, where entire human colonies are being taken and The Council -- basically the universes government -- do not think of it as a major threat and still cannot come to terms with the Reapers returning. This forces Shepard to join Cerberus as they are the only ones taking the new threat serious.
The story will take you across the galaxy collecting a team of personally selected soldiers that you must find and convince to join this 'suicide mission'. If you have played the first Mass Effect you are able to take in your completed game save and import it into the game. This will take across all the major decisions that you made from the first game -- such as did you kill Wrex -- as characters and subtle details are woven into the story. One of my favourite was the 'fan' of Shepard from the first game, Conrad Verner. This side mission was just a small reminder of how Bioware have really thought of even the small conversations of the first game and built them into the sequel. This does not mean that if you are coming into it fresh that you will be left out. A conversation takes place at the beginning of the game where they ask you of the previous events that took place in the first game. Here is where you make the call of what decision you would like your Shepard to have made, whereas if you have imported your character then the decisions that you have already made carry over into the game.
Shepard is an interesting character on his own but it is the characters that he encounters that really makes Mass Effect 2 stand out from the rest of the RPGs out there. As I said earlier the main bulk of the story is about you exploring the galaxy finding the right people to join you for the suicide mission. This means that characters that surround Shepard have to be interesting and unique in their own way. Thankfully Bioware have somehow been able to create a whole array of characters that range from an assassin with a troubled past, a genetically modified woman, an all powerful Justicar and even a huge Krogan that doesn't understand his own purpose. All of the characters have their own personal mission that you can choose to do, and this is where the game really dives into the personal matters of your crew and you find out what drives them and why they have agreed to join with you. These were my favourite parts to the game as the second portion, the exploration, isn't still quite what I wanted it to be.
You still have your Galaxy Map from where you can plot a course to the next system or planet. Then you will dive into that specific solar system which is made up of many planets. Some have missions on them, other are just for scanning so that you can receive minerals to purchase upgrades, and others when scanned will detected anomaly’s which in turn lead to a side mission. The system is much better than the first where you took the dreaded Mako down to the planet’s surface where you had to somehow manoeuvre the vehicle to find minerals and then a base which was copied and pasted on every other planet. Instead this has been replaced with a shuttle which takes you down to the surface of the planet where you jump out and start shooting. Mineral extraction is still a sore spot in the games pacing as you will be fighting a huge scale war only then to have to scan multiple planets with the universes worst scanner to find minerals. This quickly gets tedious and eventually I gave up and just scanned every other planet.
Huge improvements have been made to the combat side of the game. The shooting is a lot more competent and can now be look on as a third person shooter, whereas the character classes each have their own pros and cons to them which makes you really think which class you will pick for the rest of the game, which in turn reflexes on which characters you choose to take into the battle with you to balance out the combat skills. Biotics still play a big part in the game -- which act like the force from the Star Wars series where you can pull enemies and push enemies using energy -- however weapon selection has been trimmed down quite significantly so much so that there isn't even an inventory screen, which means no loot. This doesn't hurt then game but does mean that RPG elements have been dubbed down.
You still gain exp from completing missions, but it has been structured in a way that you cannot just grind to gain levels. Each level you gain, you acquire points that you can spend on a specific skill that your class has. Such as the Vanguard class which I chose -- which is half biotic and half weapon -- has a Pull ability which when upgraded can pull multiple enemies at once. However that is pretty much the extent of the character customisation. Although you can change the look of your Shepard more so than in the first as you can choose specific colours, textures and armours types to 'protect' Shepard. I put protect in inverted commas because it is more of a cosmetic change than a tactical change when customising the look of Shepard. Again this streamlines the game into a more shooter based style and takes away most RPG elements, which may affect some people’s judgements on the game.
Most of the technical issues which were in Mass Effect -- such as texture pop-in and frame rate issues -- have been ironed out. The conversations now have a dynamic camera so will switch between angles and shots more frequently during the many dialogue trees, which adds a much more varied look to each conversation than a static uninteresting conversation. As a matter of fact these are the best conversation structures that Bioware have made to date. There are still a few minor texture pop-ins and unclean cuts between shots in custscenes, but nothing detracts away from the game, which in turn means that game runs much seamlessly.
When I begin to think of the amount of dialogue that has to be recorded it blows my mind. I mean when you think that Shepard is voice by a man and a woman, and can have two very distinct paths you can follow -- good and evil -- and also add to that all the extra characters, side chatter, radio announcements and sound effects you start to understand that this game must have been a mammoth task. All the dialogue is believable and the score of the game keeps relatively similar to the first. Even the infamous Galaxy Map tune is back. There were some strange sound glitches where a man would scream for minutes after he had died but again these are minor issues that don't stand in the way of the entire game.
Mass Effect 2 is a Tour de Force of Sci-Fi action. Even though it shaves away some of the features that made it an RPG it adds and fixes many ideas that where just not fully realised in the first Mass Effect. When a game makes me sit on my Xbox for four days straight and not get bored or tired of playing it then it is doing a lot of things right.
Reviewed By Blood
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