Mass Effect 2 Review

Within the genres of science fiction or fantasy, we can’t help but find ourselves overwhelmingly captivated by the rich worlds we find. From Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare’s games render such highly detailed and well thought-out universes that they especially enable us to escape our lives and truly immerse ourselves into other realities. More than just escapism, however, the games provide a more important (and less pathetic) thematic function: their alternate realities inform our own.

My Shepard, captain of the Normandy.

When playing Mass Effect, for instance, the way I control Shepard’s character is the way he becomes my character, and thus helps me understand myself, whether by reflection—my choices make Shepard embody everything I am—or by difference—I make him everything I’m not. I can become so invested in a BioWare game like Mass Effect because its characters and reality mean so much more than simple fantasy. So please understand why I might get a little touchy when things drastically change in my beloved universe.

I can’t even imagine the Mass Effect 2 experience without first playing the original, and I’d be totally remiss if I didn’t extensively critique the narrative or discuss spoiler-laden comparisons to Mass Effect. If you import your unique completed Mass Effect saved game, you’ll experience far more satisfying results in interactivity and agency – the developers author the ongoing effects of your past choices into Mass Effect 2 (that will also assuredly continue through to Mass Effect 3).

You should play the original Mass Effect not just because it’s a fantastic sci-fi odyssey and a significant prelude to an ongoing story, but also because the narrative fulfills your specific choices in impressive ways only possible in video games.

Damn, I wish I saved Kaidan.

Shepard went through hell to defeat the rogue Spectre agent Saren and prevent him from destroying all life in the galaxy, so you’d better make his efforts, or rather your efforts, count. Granted, the game wipes the slate clean, so to speak, when Shepard dies during the well-directed introduction. During the two years it takes for Cerberus, a radical pro-human organization, to literally rebuild Shepard and revive him back to life, Shepard’s old crew has dispersed and moved on, so he must start anew.

Despite Shepard’s death, the way you determined his past—whether you saved Ashley or Kaidan, ended up killing Wrex, or left the Citadel Council to die by the end of first game—still matters. Ranging from minor references on the “Galactic News” to the very existence of certain side missions and segments of the primary mission, Mass Effect 2 essentially fleshes out much of its narrative based on your prior story choices.

The Collectors, not as cool as Saren.

Alerted by Saren, the Reapers—a group of massive AI harbingers—still pose a threat of impending doom on the galaxy, but for now Shepard must attend to more immediate matters. Many of the initial quest’s involve Shepard’s dealings with Cerberus and its shadowy leader “The Illusive Man,” his recruitment of a new crew, and his investigation of the Collectors, an advanced alien species bent on abducting humans.

The missions flow with a brisk pace that keep you enticed and wanting more, though many of them are rather too short, especially when compared to the satisfyingly long missions of Dragon Age and the first Mass Effect. Worst of all, missions end with arbitrary summary screens, which take you out of the immersed experience and don’t let the missions conclude by their own merits. Despite their issues, they consistently reflect a variety of memorable points in Shepard’s journey, and I especially enjoyed the ones, such as the investigation of virally infected mechs across several planets, that sprawl over multiple sub-missions. Most remarkably, they maintain their memorable qualities throughout Mass Effect 2’s 35 hour adventure, even while their quantity outnumbers that of the first game.

Pursuing the Collectors and assembling his crew, Shepard must weed through a galaxy full of foes and combat challenges worthy of the kings of consoles. And that’s not a compliment. On the one hand: gratitude to BioWare for vastly improving the squad members’ AI, as they’ll no longer have trouble following your orders and they’ll even take down a few enemies themselves.

On the other hand, while BioWare probably had good intentions when they removed the problematic inventory and stat-enhancing mod system of Mass Effect in favor of the sequel’s streamlined, less stat-dependent shooting, their solution is like replacing an entire engine to fix a bad spark plug. The fact that your aim doesn’t rely on RPG-style accuracy stats anymore might be a good thing, but the combat falters on two vital fronts: it assumes that making head-shots is difficult (read: that you’re playing on a console) and it doesn’t counterbalance the more effective shooting with smarter, tougher enemies.

Uh, Mordin, I have a mouse and keyboard. You don’t need to fry the poor bastard.

The combat essentially boils down to the colorful little bars atop enemies’ heads. Yellow bars mean they have armor, so use your trusty pistol to punch through. But purple and blue bars mean they have barriers and shields, so watch out because (brace yourself) now you should switch to an automatic weapon like the machine pistol because— what’s that you say? You already killed them anyway with headshots? Oh of course, you’re a PC gamer!

Well, I suppose you don’t need the more advanced RPG strategy either, where you can pause at any time and use the show-stopping biotic abilities, the “mass effect” fields that can levitate, slam, and otherwise cripple foes in various ways. Hey, even though biotic powers are basically overkill, you can still use them anyway to stave off your own boredom of the straightforward shooting, right? You’ll likely miss Mass Effect’s challenging RPG gun-play despite its flaws. You and me both, brother.

Enjoying the scenery after a hard day’s work.

When it’s not providing target practice for other, more challenging shooting games, the rest of the experience precisely captures the vibrancy and wonder of BioWare’s expertly developed sci-fi reality. Much better utilized than the first game, the Unreal Engine 3 renders striking environments with an abundance of people and ambient décor that beg exploration.

Complete the effect with plenty of lens flare and film grain—though there’s still no in-game anti-aliasing support—and it hearkens a classic sci-fi cinema feel akin to Blade Runner and, of course, Star Wars and Star Trek.

EA could make a killing on a standalone mining game.

Unfortunately, multi-core PCs might experience a glitch that causes long level loads, which is ironic since the game takes a humorous “shot” at its predecessor’s annoying elevator rides used to hide long load times. You can at least use a bothersome manual fix every time you start the game: tab out, go to Task Manager, set MassEffect2.exe’s affinity to one core then back to all cores, and go back in game to reduce the loading times to their intended few seconds.

Gone, moreover, are the majestic vistas of Mass Effect’s Citadel: since Shepard traverses the galaxy’s darker, seedier underbelly, the locales appropriately portray smaller, lower class wards and club scenes. Add on top the distinct lack of “M4 Part II” quality music and the sequel doesn’t quite reach the memorable impression of the original, yet it still depicts salient places imbued with story nevertheless.

Mere exploration of the galaxy becomes a pleasure in and of itself. The galaxy map, updated since Mass Effect, provides a fun little course-charting system, where you physically move Shepard’s ship, the Normandy SR2, from planet to planet, and an addictive new planet mining mini-game, where you scan planet surfaces to gather minerals used for upgrading the ship, weapons, and armor. It’s no replacement for the Mako vehicle exploration, though, and I wish, as with the inventory system, that BioWare fixed the Mako’s unwieldy controls rather than removing it entirely.

As for the on-foot treks, the game consistently rewards the player who discovers and uncovers. The numerous mini-games—used for hacking computers and bypassing locks—make exploration even more enjoyable. Early on, the video journals of Miranda Lawson not only detail the back-story on Shepard’s rebirth and compel you to progress the narrative by finding her, but they also demonstrate a major motivational element: the appeal of finding all the bits of story and gameplay items embedded throughout the environment.

I love Shepard’s crib, if only to listen to the Mass Effect soundtrack.

By far, the one environment or “salient place” that most greatly facilitates the player’s personality and sense of belonging has to be Shepard’s ship. The redesigned SR2 model of the Normandy makes Mass Effect’s SR1 puny by comparison, and it more integrally hosts story events like the noteworthy sequence involving Joker, the ship’s pilot. It’s essentially a large, four-story mobile hub that the player can explore, check personal messages for missions, adorn the captain’s quarters with various purchasable trinkets, and interact with the crew.

Finally they let him sit down. These people can talk for ages…

Character interaction makes for the best reason to see Mass Effect 2’s fantastic narrative through to its conclusion. The dialogue, featuring an all-star cast, now conveys more natural, dynamic character movements. And as you choose your way through the Paragon and Renegade options, you’ll have even more meaningful options to “interrupt” the script at certain dramatic moments.

The ten crew members (more if you include DLC) are also a strange, yet fascinating group of misfits, and unlike the characters of the first game, many more of them can be potential love interests for Shepard. Perhaps there are too many characters, as the bulk of their development is relegated to dialogue and each one’s singular “Loyalty” mission.

I’d prefer a smaller crew, so that multiple Loyalty missions would more fully develop each of the characters. Nevertheless, the missions reward Shepard with special abilities, and many of them, including Tali’s trial on the Quarian Migrant Fleet and Thane’s effort to save his son, stand out among the best missions and story moments in the game overall. By the climactic end mission, with its surprisingly different, yet extraordinary structure, each of the characters’ specific roles will mean a great deal to you and to the story.

You’ll decide the fates of the characters in the fantastic finale.

Mass Effect 2 builds off the original game with a range of both improvements and failings. Exploration, dialogue, and character interaction work well in the sequel, but the lack of a central Saren-like antagonist to drive the plot seems to point towards a lack of focus. However, upon further reflection , you’ll realize that the story is simply different; its darker themes and initially ambiguous, faceless foes lend themselves to alternative analyses than those of the previous tale.

In the context of the overarching trilogy, however, the middle story seems oddly out of place and mostly inconsequential: the Reapers were coming at the end the first game and they’re still coming at the end of this one. Many of the fulfilling moments connect to the first game, of course, while the rest of sequel stands greatest on its own. Resolving the overly easy shooting with the strong RPG gameplay and storytelling, the adventure comes just shy of Mass Effect’s achievements, yet it upholds a worthwhile experience in its own right.