Familiar sights.
Because of its focus on story and character interaction, the first Mass Effect is one of my favorite games from this generation of consoles. Thankfully, Mass Effect 2 lives up to its pedigree and actually improves upon it in many ways. Mass Effect 2 continues Commander Shepard’s saga in what Bioware promises will be a trilogy. Two years after the events of the first game, someone is kidnapping humans from distant colonies. Because the galaxy’s governing body, the Citadel Council, does not view the kidnappings as a risk to the galaxy as a whole, humans have been left to resolve the problem themselves. Cerberus — the pro-human movement known for its extremist viewpoints and methodology — seems to be the only organization ready and willing to investigate the kidnappings. It’s leader, the “Illusive Man,” offers Shepard the resources to build a team and take on what is considered a suicide mission to eliminate the threat.
To be blunt, the main story of Mass Effect 2 is not nearly as engaging as that of its predecessor. It really does not take any interesting turns until the last few missions. That is not to say, however, that the story is lacking — it’s narrative focus is simply elsewhere. The more interesting story and character development is served in the missions where Shepard recruits his team members and then, if you choose to do them, the loyalty missions where you address the problems of your team members so that they can focus on the more important mission of saving humankind. Although you can rush through and finish the main game after you have recruited the requisite team members, skipping the loyalty missions would be a mistake. It is in these missions that the story of each of your team members is developed so by the time you actually launch the final suicide mission, you feel the sacrifice you are asking of your crew and want to ensure the survival of each one.
Intense stock trading. Don't worry, it's not a minigame.
Mass Effect 2 uses, and improves upon, the engaging conversation system of the first game in the series. Conversations play out in cinematic sequences. When another character is about to finish speaking, a dialogue wheel appears with basic types of responses available, instead of listing the complete dialogue that Shepard will espouse. This allows you to evaluate the options quickly and choose your response even before the other character starts speaking, resulting in a seamless cinematic sequence that you are steering on the fly. The sequel uses the Paragon and Renegade morality system from the first game. So, if you are understanding and follow the rules, you gain Paragon points. But if you are a selfish, uncaring jerk and do whatever you need to achieve your goals, you gain Paragon points. Gain enough of either, and additional conversation options become available allowing you to push the conversation in a direction that some characters will find more convincing. This time a round, there’s also an interrupt system, allowing you to either interrupt other characters with niceties or insults. In certain sequences, you can even stop characters from performing certain actions, or encourage them to take others.
For those who completed the first game and start Mass Effect 2 with an imported character, the payoff is even better. Many of the choices that you made in the first game are reflected here. You will run into or find out what happened to many of the characters from the first game, including your crew members. It’s extremely satisfying to see the results of your choices from the first game, making your choices in this game all the more difficult as you try to project how they will impact (and possibly haunt) you in Mass Effect 3. If you have not played the first game, you will not necessarily feel like you have missed out, and the world and story will feel self-contained. However, you would be well-served to complete the first game to get the deeper satisfaction of seeing how your past choices affected where the world stands two years later. After playing the second game, you actually may find yourself wanting to go back and play through the first one again so you can make different choices and see what the consequences will be in this sequel.
Bioware much improved the combat for Mass Effect 2. It is more intense and controls more precisely. If you are a skilled shooter aficionado, you could actually focus on gun play, saving your characters’ special powers for sticky situations. There are now damage bonuses for headshots and you can target individual body parts, either shooting weapons out of enemies hands or knocking an enemy to the ground. For example, if you aim for a robot’s legs, you may destroy the legs, but the robot will continue to use its arms to crawl towards you to attack.
Like the first Mass Effect, you can control when Shepard and his squadmates use their special powers. But you can also let your squadmates run on autopilot if you do not want to actively manage them. The AI seems somewhat improved from the first game, but in sticky situations, you’ll want complete control. If you are a an RPG control freak like me, you’ll disable allowing your squadmates from using powers on their own, especially because you can combine your squad’s powers to great effect. For example, one of your squadmates can use pull to raise an enemy into the air, then you could use throw to smash them against the wall, causing more damage than if you just used throw on an enemy standing on the ground. The increased level of strategy from combining powers is a welcome addition, especially at the higher difficulty settings where each power use must count.
Thankfully, powers can be used much more frequently this time around. If you play an adept or engineer and earn some cooldown bonuses, you can lean primarily on your powers most of the time, focusing less on gunplay. It’s quite a feat that Bioware has created a game that can either be played either mostly as a shooter or almost like a turn-based RPG. That makes playing through the game as a different class and using different squadmates all the more satisfying.
Although the level cap in Mass Effect 2 is only 30, the upgrades that come with each level are more substantial, so the leveling system actually feels more satisfying. When you fully upgrade a power to the highest level, you choose between two ways of upgrading the power a final time. With the throw power, for example, you can choose at the highest level to either throw your enemy at a higher velocity to do more damage or create a throw field that throws several enemies at once, but at a lower velocity. Because the final versions of many of the powers are quite powerful, the system encourages focusing on two or three powers, allowing a great variety of customization to your characters and squad strategies.
Mass Effect 2, however, does away with individual weapon customization. Now, when you pick up a new weapon, it becomes available to all characters who can use that type of weapon. Although you can obtain damage and ammo upgrades, there are no weapon customization options like there were in first Mass Effect to, for example, make weapons do more damage but fire less, or do more damage to a specific type of enemy. The Diablo/Borderlands loot fiends and some RPG equipment fanatics may well lament this absence. Personally, I do not. I like the new equipment system because I would rather not spend a lot of time evaluating weapon upgrades in menu screens and would prefer to have several different weapons with clear strengths and weaknesses to choose from. But it’s really a personal preference. Which is probably why I also appreciated that Bioware dumped the customizable grenades and, instead, allows you to carry one heavy weapon. You find or unlock these through research as you progress in the game, and they offer another way to change up play style and can be pivotal in difficult battles because of their strength. The heavy weapons have limited ammo and range from a grenade launcher helpful for attacking groups of enemies from far away to a flame thrower for dispatching enemies that get a little too close. The heavy weapons you find later in the game are a blast — both literally and figuratively. I’ll spare you the details so you can experience the joy of trying them out for the first time (e.g. the M-920 Cain). In any case, you will not miss the grenades.
Afterlife. Not sure if I want to hit that bar quite yet.
Bioware’s focus on updating the graphics for the sequel really shows. Thankfully, especially with the more intense combat, there is very little slowdown in the game. And overall the graphics in the game are crisp and pop a bit more. The shadows were exceptionally buggy in the first Mass Effect, sometimes moving on their own or making it difficult to see graphical details. Whatever tweaking they did to the shadow rendering helped significantly. There’s also much more detail to the world making it feel more alive. For example, there may be birds or dust particles flying around as you explore worlds. In the cities, there are more moving cars and people in the background environments. The exceptional level design places barriers that feel more natural and allows you to see further into the background, so even though you are confined to certain areas, the world feels much more open.
The music in Mass Effect 2 is also exceptional. Bioware continues its use of electronic music that hearkens back to old science fiction movies . And the orchestral work emphasizes the momentum of both combat and cinematic sequences. The music truly intensifies the experience of the game and immerses you more in its world.
Despite all of these accolades, I do not want to give the impression that Mass Effect 2 is perfect. There are still significant load times, although I did find that loading the game on your Xbox 360′s harddrive helps a little bit. At least we are spared staring at the walls of the slowest elevators in the universe from the first Mass Effect, though. Now, instead, there is a graphical map representing where your shuttle is taking you, along with random hints displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Additionally, Bioware removed the Mako vehicle that you drove on planets in the first game. I know that many view this as an improvement. However, I actually enjoyed driving around the planets and the sense of exploration that came in the first game. And when you came across something that was happening on a planet — a rogue colonist or an isolated lab that had been attacked, there was an amazing feeling that you could well have missed it if you had not explored the planet so thoroughly. The problem was that most of the time, there was not enough payoff. You should only be able to land and explore when there is something interesting to find. So, unlike many, I do miss the Mako at least a little bit, recognizing that there were definitely issues with that component in the first game. In Mass Effect 2, planet exploration instead occurs by scanning planets — running a circular scan reticule across the surface of planets while pushing a button intermittently to scan. You can mine for minerals to buy upgrades to your ship, weapons, or powers and you will occasionally run across a mission. When a mission is available, you choose to land and jump right into the mission. That does give immediate satisfaction, but getting there is no more fun than driving around empty planets. The scanning mini game is simply not fun because it essentially has you staring at a graph while you move the reticule around the surface of the planet and push another button until the graph moves to indicate that you have discovered some minerals. Not so thrilling . . . but yet required if you want to max out the upgrades for your weapons and powers. However, I did appreciate that as soon as you zoomed in on a planet that an indicator immediately informed you when a mission was present on it. So, thankfully, you do not have to fully scan all of the planets’ surfaces to discover all of the extra missions available.
The negatives, however, do not even begin to taint the quality overall experience of Mass Effect 2. The stories of your crew members, the engaging conversation and morality system, and the improved combat may well have vaulted the game to the top of my favorites for this generation of consoles. For RPG fans and shooter fans . . . really fans of videogames whatsoever, you owe it to yourself to run out and purchase this game immediately. It’s only the very beginning of the year, but the bar for game of the year has already been set extraordinarily high. I cannot wait to see how Bioware develops the gameplay and story in Mass Effect 3.
Rating: 