Mass Effect 2

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Mass Effect 2
"We have to give everything...even if that means our lives. We will stop at nothing! We will fight for the lost!" — Commander Shepard
Protagonist(s): Commander Shepherd Genre(s): Action role-playing Developer(s): BioWare Publisher(s): Electronic Arts (PS3) Microsoft Game Studios (Xbox 360, PC) Country: Canada Predecessor: Mass Effect Successor: Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 2 is the second main installment in BioWare's Mass Effect series. It was initially released on the Xbox 360, PC, and eventually the Playstation 3.

Plot

One month after the events of Mass Effect, the SSV Normandy is destroyed in a vicious attack by an unidentified aggressor and Commander Shepard is killed. Two years later, Shepard reawakens to find that a human-supremacist terrorist organization known as Cerberus has retrieved their body and revived them at great expense; human colonists have been vanishing at an alarming rate and the Collectors, an enigmatic and advanced alien race, are behind the mass disappearances. Forced to work with Cerberus and their mysterious leader, the Illusive Man, Shepard must now assemble a team and take the fight to their mutual enemy.

Why It Will Stop At Nothing

1. Hugely improved combat over the first game, with a proper cover system now implemented, weapons using a more conventional ammo system and powers being much more fun to use than they were in the first game.
2. The much-hated Mako from the first game is gone altogether from the base game and relegated to a cameo appearance in a DLC mission, with planetary exploration being eliminated altogether (and frankly, it's no big loss).
3. The first game's notoriously complicated inventory system is eliminated; any upgrades you buy are now applied directly to your characters or weapons.
4. Greatly improved graphics and art direction over the first game, with much more variety in the way of places that you can visit.
5. It doubles the amount of squad mates from 6 allies in the first game all the way to 12. With the DLC, you can have 14 squad mates.
6. The Suicide Mission is considered to be one of the best final levels in gaming history, where every decision you make could end up having disastrous consequences. If you mess up really badly, the mission will end with Shepard and the entire squad dying.
7. Greatly improved level design over that of the first game, with next-to-no recycled level designs and more opportunities to use the environments to your advantage, such as using biotics to throw enemies off ledges or detonating explosive and electrical objects with your tech powers.
8. The ability to import your save file from the first game, thus meaning that your choices in that game actually end up mattering.
9. Most of the new squad mates introduced in this game are very interesting, especially Miranda, Thane, Jack, and Mordin.
   • Garrus and Tali'Zorah return from the first game, with both of them now being romanceable.
10. Your new ship, the Normandy SR-2, is much larger than the first game's Normandy SR-1 (which gets completely obliterated by the game's new villains, the Collectors, in the opening sequence)
11. A proper map telling you which nebulas you already visited so that you don't have to keep track.
12. There are more romance options. Including the aforementioned Tali'Zorah and Garrus, you can romance Miranda and Jack if you play as a male Shepard, and Thane and Jacob if you play as a female Shepard. It's also possible to continue your romance with Liara in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC.
13. Morality choices generally have more interesting outcomes this time, and the new "interrupt" system adds in a few good bits as well. Your morality level also no longer has to be levelled up with your other attributes.
14. Your health and shields both auto-regenerate at a much faster rate, with medi-gel now only being used to revive your squadmates.
15. DLC packs that, unlike the first game, are actually worth the money, with Lair of the Shadow Broker being best DLC of the Mass Effect franchise, and even the weakest one in Mass Effect 2's DLC, Arrival, still managing to be a pretty decent prequel to Mass Effect 3.

Bad Qualities

1. Planet Scanning. In order to build upgrades for Shepard, their squadmates and the Normandy, the player has to scan and mine planets for resources. This was mind-numbingly tedious in the original release, and is still very annoying in the patched versions.
2. The Hammerhead vehicle included in the DLC packs is arguably even worse than the Mako was in the first game. It has slightly less annoying controls, but is also limited to a small number of generally uninteresting stages and, depending on what level your party is, might end up being able to take less damage than Shepard.
3. Overly simplified character and weapon leveling systems.
4. It's possible (albeit very difficult) to make the entire game unwinnable, if you end up spending all the money that it's possible to earn in the game prior to a certain plot-critical mission, thereby leaving you unable to buy the fuel you need to get to that mission's star system.
5. Some have argued that the main storyline of the game, although very good, hardly accomplishes anything in the grand scheme of things.
6. The survivor of the previous game's Virmire mission (Ashley or Kaidan) only appears very briefly in one mission, which is especially frustrating if you romanced them.
7. For some reason, you can't have actual conversations with the DLC squadmates on the Normandy and they become incredibly unimportant and superfluous after you do their loyalty missions.
8. One of the first games to make use of an online pass, meaning that, if you buy the game second-hand, you have to buy the pass separately to access certain bits of DLC (though, aside from the character of Zaeed and the useful Arc Projector weapon, it's mostly just minor fluff).

Reception

Mass Effect 2 was met with widespread acclaim from critics and gamers alike, with the Xbox 360 version scoring a 96 rating on Metacritic. The PS3 port was also very well-received, though it was criticized for having longer load times and a worse framerate, despite being on a more powerful (though admittedly harder to develop for) console.

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