Mass Effect 2’s release comes more than two years after the renowned success of the franchise’s first installment.
Space operas are officially exciting again.
Fans of Mass Effect have been waiting more than two years for a second installment, and the wait has been worth their while.
As a sequel, Mass Effect 2 has quite an act to follow. Mass Effect (released in 2007) was a hit among gamers, straddling the lines between conventional shooter and role-playing game. Players took control of Cmdr. Shepard, a veteran space Marine who proves humanity’s worth to the intergalactic community as he leads a small group of soldiers to defeat the villain Saren and powerful space predators called Reapers.
In Mass Effect 2, the stakes are higher as Shepard fights an even more dangerous threat. Two years after the original Mass Effect, the commander joins up with Cerberus, a group dedicated to preserving humanity in a universe of many species. Shepard recruits a new crew to defeat the Collectors, a race that is mysteriously wiping out human colonies across the galaxy. As a part of Cerberus, Shepard works under the Illusive Man and alongside operative Miranda Lawson, among other Cerberus agents.
To fight the Collectors, you have to build a team of the best (though not necessarily the most trustworthy) soldiers to fight by your side on what appears to be a suicide mission. These include an alien assassin, a psychopath and a savage warrior, all of whom you can only hope will last long enough under Shepard’s leadership to save humanity and the galaxy.
There are two important aspects to Mass Effect 2: decision-making and combat. Dialogue in Mass Effect allows for players to choose how Shepard responds — positively and with everyone’s self-interest in mind (Paragon), or negatively, caring only about the mission (Renegade). These choices affect your relationship with your crew, as well as others you interact with.
The choices you made in the original Mass Effect can be imported to the sequel with your custom character, allowing the story to continue as you left it. Those who died during your last mission will not appear, and the consequences of decisions from the previous game will be discovered. There are even more decisions to be made, allowing players to have several unique experiences playing this game. In fact, the game may not end the same for every player. These interactive cut scenes are often the best parts of the game.
Like with the original, developer BioWare has made dialogue a top priority in Mass Effect 2. An amazing voice cast makes the characters interesting and believable — players may even begin to relate to them. The voice-overs are extremely impressive. The star-studded cast includes Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck) as Lawson, Seth Green (Family Guy) as pilot Jeff “Joker” Moreau and Martin Sheen (Love Happens) as the Illusive Man, among other famous voices.
The company has also overhauled combat. In addition to your pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle and assault rifle, Shepard now has access to a missile launcher and some alien weaponry. Mass Effect 2 has switched to weapons that use ammunition called “thermal clips,” rather than the laser-based weapons of its predecessor. Luckily, ammunition is in abundance. Combat has also become more complex, forcing players to hide more often using the game’s cover system. This may draw more shooter fans, such as those who enjoy Gears of War and Halo.
The game is also more combat-oriented than role-playing oriented this time around. While you still attribute skill points to your characters to develop their proficiencies in battle, players spend less time outfitting characters with new armor and customizing their weapons (also, these actions may now only be performed in designated areas). More emphasis is given to intense combat than character customization, which will please some players but will upset others. Overall, Mass Effect 2 is still a decent blend of the genres.
It should also be noted that the game looks spectacular. The original Mass Effect pushed the Xbox 360 to its limits, causing objects to pop up as you approached them and textures such as grass and dirt to load as you walked on them. But BioWare has managed to fix these problems almost entirely, and, to top it off, this game looks even better than the original.
The problems one encounters playing Mass Effect 2 are few and far between but can still have an effect on the experience. Loading times can be on the long side, so players have to wait in between cut scenes and action — something that takes you out of the Mass Effect universe, if only for a minute. Also, the text on the screen, whether in the form of messages from other characters, subtitles or instructions, tends to be small, particularly on standard definition televisions. This makes it more difficult to read what to say in cut scenes and to solve puzzles.
Finally, Mass Effect 2 is a long game. Spanning two discs, players will spend quite a bit of their time leading Shepard’s team on their mission, as well as on side quests aiding their crew’s personal endeavors. It is worth playing more than once, making both Paragon and Renegade decisions, if only to see how the story changes based on your actions.
The Mass Effect series has proven that the people at BioWare are not only storytellers and designers but also creative visionaries. Mass Effect 2 is a spectacular achievement and easily among the best games on the Xbox 360 to date. Bring on the last of the trilogy, BioWare — your fans are waiting.
diversions@umdbk.com
RATING: 4.5 stars out of 5