Mass Effect 2 Review

Name : Mass Effect 2
Genre : Action RPG
Platform : Xbox 360, PC
Developer : BioWare
Publisher : Electronic Arts

Mass Effect 2 Review:

Mass Effect 2 sucks. Those are the words you’ll never ever get to hear come out of anyone’s mouth anytime soon. BioWare, once again manages to show us how huge of a behemoth they are when it comes to PC RPGs. Just when we’re still hooked on playing Dragon Age : Origins, they drop off another huge bomb at us in the form of Mass Effect 2.

Now, chances are, you’ve probably played the first Mass Effect, so you’d probably be familiar with the gameplay. Basically, a few things have changed, and probably for the better. The weapon overheat feature has been replaced with ammo count. The biotics and tech skills that you have are more readily available since the charge time is shortened. Unfortunately, they replaced the grenades with heavy weapons. Not that it’s a bad thing but, was it so hard to put both in the game? Still, no more overheating, heavy weapons and faster charge times equals more action, although you still have to plan out some simple strategy in taking out enemies. Also, this time around rocket launchers and blasts do less damage. Some might shun this as being a downgrade since it makes things easier, but I remember a lot of deaths coming out from rocket launchers in the first Mass Effect and it was frustrating at times. As with most shooters these days, BioWare decided to adopt the health regeneration feature for Mass Effect 2, but the medi-gels are still present and are now used to revive fallen allies.

Sci-fi epics are always a treat, and Mass Effect 2 has quite a nice story interweaved into all the action. In Mass Effect 2, you take control again as Shepard, the first ever human spectre who has no boundaries in exacting justice and making sure the universe and all its inhabitants are safe from whatever threats that may be coming to pawn them. After the defeat of Sovereign, Shepard and his crew fly off into space to defeat more geths, and aliens, and space pirates and whatnot. But then, this huge ship comes in out of nowhere and blasts you off into space, dangling as your oxygen escapes your suit and leaves you entering a planet’s atmosphere. And you’re dead. But this is a sci-fi story, so as with any other sci-fi stories out there, an organization named Cerberus decides to invest billions of credits to fund the Lazarus project in hopes of bringing you back to life so that you can find the ones responsible in killing you in the first place and kick their asses all over space until they get chronic diarrhea.

As with any other BioWare games, you get to make decisions that more or less affects the storyline. You can either choose to be the traditional paragon and do things like helping out those in need with a strict code of honor, or you can go renegade and become the ultimate badass by sticking to another code : shoot first and ask questions later, if ever. Your decisions can even be critical at times with some even affecting the outcome on whether or not you or any of your crewmates live or die throughout the game. Mass Effect 2 as with the first one is one big interactive sci-fi action movie, with role-play the way it was meant to be.

To get the ultimate experience of the story of Mass Effect, you’d best transfer your save file from the first Mass Effect and continue where you left off. This allows you to transfer your money and also all the actions you’ve taken in the first game. You can even change Shepard’s face or his class. For instance, if you were a soldier in the first game, you can pick out a different class such as an Engineer or an Adept. Or, you can choose to start off a new character with default actions in Mass Effect pre-chosen by the game.

Some characters from Mass Effect make a brief cameo in Mass Effect 2 while others get to join your crew again along with new members, all of which have depth and character in them. Needless to say, interaction is important in Mass Effect 2. Some interactions provide insights on the characters background while others will eventually lead to unlocking new missions and even upgrade availability. You can also proceed with a relationship with several of the characters, determined by the sex of Shepard.

As you fight your way through missions, you’ll level up and receive skill points to spend on upgrading or unlocking skills that help you unleash hell unto anyting that stands in your path. Another thing that they’ve changed in Mass Effect 2 is the upgrade feature. This time around, you’ll need to collect resources such as platinum and palladium from planets you’ve visited in order to perform upgrade on weapons, armors, the Normandy and also the unlocking of prototypes like new heavy weapons and the option to relocate your spent skill points. Thankfully though, you don’t have to drive the Mako all around planets to find them. Instead, you’ll be scanning planets sending out probes wherever resources are present on the scanner.

So, in the end, Mass Effect 2 is another solid title coming out from the great minds behind BioWare with little to no problems affecting the overall experience in any way, short from a few awkward glitches. The only thing I’m pissed off about Mass Effect 2 is not having the patience to wait for Mass Effect 3 to continue the story. Thankfully, Mass Effect 2 has a lot of DLC released and more still waiting to be released and with all the different paths you can choose, we’ll still be entertained by the time Mass Effect 3 does eventually come out.