SPOILER WARNING: This review contains videos of the first 25 minutes of play and spoilers regarding the stories of both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. While I do avoid discussing some particulars of the second game’s story, including its overall conclusion, the mere mention of the existence of some characters could be considered spoilers. Also, this review assumes the reader has already played the first Mass Effect, meaning I hold nothing back in spoiling it. So if you do not wish to lose your Mass Effectian virginity before playing either game in the series, you can stop reading now and avoid clicking the link below.

An Epic Introduction

The first eight minutes of Mass Effect 2 are nothing short of epic. The scene is one of the most memorable story-driven portions of a game I’ve experienced in all my time gaming. Being a literary geek, that’s not to say Mass Effect 2′s message is poignant, but the cinematography, voice acting, and overall presentation is amazing.

(Note: I am temporarily using videos that are not my own, until I can resolve some issues with recording on my machine.)

So Shepherd dies during the destruction of the first Normandy. But this is not his (or her) end. He is recovered and resurrected by Cerberus, the formerly fascist pro-human organization he may (or may not) have quarreled with in the first game.

These videos show the game’s high points in storytelling. And while it is disappointing for me to say this is, indeed, the pinnacle of its story, that’s not to say it isn’t interesting overall. It definitely is, but the first fifteen minutes serve as its peak. That said, the gameplay counteracts this lack of climactic improvement and makes the game one of the best I’ve played over the past ten years. It is, however, not without its problems. But no game is ever perfect, nor designed for every individual gamer.

Gameplay

The biggest difference between the first and second Mass Effect resides in how each game is played. That said, the basic fundamentals are the same. You have multiple weapon types to use at any given moment. You can train different abilities and improvements, depending on your class. Ducking in and out of cover is an essential feature. You have to choose two other characters to be a part of your squad during missions and shore leave. And you can micromanage your squad members’ weapons and abilities effectively.

Ducking in and out of cover in Mass Effect 2 is much better than it was in the first game. Instead of automatically entering and leaving cover, you can now press spacebar (or another assigned key) to leave and enter cover as you please. This prevents the problem of entering cover at inopportune times, as was often the case in the first game. It also adds another layer of complexity to Mass Effect 2′s gameplay which can serve to create interesting challenges, particularly on “Insanity” (the most difficult level of play).

Unlike its predecessor, ammo is used in Mass Effect 2. However, this ammo is universal and can be used for any gun except your heavy weapons, which have their own unique ammo. Ammo- and ability-management become issues at higher levels of difficulty. This is especially true during the last mission of the game, when ammo is especially scarce. It doesn’t technically add a level of complexity to the game, however, considering ammo merely replaces weapon overheating from the first game.

Armor and weapon customization is not as robust in Mass Effect 2 as it was in the original. I find this an improvement, as searching for licenses in the first game was often tedious. In the second game, most of your upgrades come from a small number of vendors, research terminals, and from research done on your ship. That said, I dislike how you acquire the resources needed to purchase these upgrades, which you can read about two paragraphs down.

You never drive the Mako in Mass Effect 2, as you did in its predecessor. This is both a positive and negative situation. On the one hand, I’m glad I’ll never have to bounce around the surface of some arbitrary planet to complete objectives irrelevant to the overarching storyline. On the other hand, there were times on primary missions when I actually enjoyed the vehicle-based combat (such as on Virmire). So I am rather indifferent to its exclusion.

Mass Effect 2 replaces the Mako with a very annoying mini-game of scanning planets to collect resources. And by scanning, I mean literally taking your cursor and scanning it over the entire surface of a planet looking for spikes on your instrument. This mini-game would be tolerable, if not for the fact that you must gather these resources to upgrade your ship and achieve the best possible game ending. Fortunately, you only need to perform certain upgrades, so you don’t spend too much time on this tedious task. But it’s enough to taint the game’s perfection. And, honestly, I’m still baffled by game developers’ tendencies to think resource gathering and management is awesomely fun in any simple form. I’m sorry, but resource management is only fun if I can do something like take an axe to a tree and have real physics play a part as it smashes into buildings, other trees, my AFK friend, etc.

Planet-scanning shouldn’t scare people away from playing Mass Effect 2, however. It’s a small percentage of play in the long-run. The majority of the game is filled with combat and plot advancement, both of which are quite good.

Story

To be clear, story development is a large part of Mass Effect 2′s gameplay. You get to control the tone of the story by choosing various conversational responses in every dialog sequence. These decisions often focus on two distinct routes: that of a “paragon” and that of a “renegade.” In essence, you get to decide if your Shepherd is noble, rough around the edges, or shades of both.

Mass Effect 2 makes more of an effort than the original to define the lines between paragon and renegade decisions, by including more charm and intimidation options than the first game. It also has a real-time intervention system, where you can perform actions mid-conversation as either a paragon or a renegade. When having the option to intervene as a paragon, for example, a blue icon will flash telling you to use a certain mouse or gamepad button. If you opt to perform this action, you might prevent a character from killing someone else. Or, if you choose to intervene as a renegade, you might actually kill them. I think my favorite renegade action, so far, has been stopping someone mid-sentence to push them out a window.

Another way the story serves as a gameplay element is by allowing you to make some impactful choices for Shepherd. For example, you get to choose with whom Shepherd has a romantic relationship. Your choices can also affect major plot elements. To avoid spoiling the second game, I’ll use an example from the original. In the first game, when you’ve defeated Sovereign and the geth, you get to choose whether or not to save the Council. If you choose to save them, the Council persists as multi-species. If not, humanity takes sole control over the Council. There are a couple similar choices to be made in Mass Effect 2.

I’ll admit there are some awkward consequences that can arise due to your loyalty-based decisions and choices made during the last mission. This issue deserves its own entry, however, because people are still figuring out how it works specifically. Also, the topic is liable to turn into a long treatise about how moral consequences are portrayed in RPG’s, and the thematic role they can have in the medium. This is actually something I’d like to write about in another outlet of mine.

Conversational Oddities

One of the strange things in Mass Effect has always been how conversations actually play out. To elaborate, you’re given response options after another character says something. However, what Shepherd actually ends up saying can sometimes be completely different than the apparent tone the option implies. For example, one option might be “You’re lying,” but the actual response Shepherd gives is “Somehow I get the feeling you’re not telling me the entire story.” Which isn’t exactly a blunt accusation of lying, which any player could interpret the option to mean.

This is a minor issue, but sometimes it can result in a slight paragon bonus, when maybe you were intending a renegade response. But usually the impact in these situations is very minor, and decisions that have major consequences are usually very clear.

The Overall Story

I actually liked the story of the original Mass Effect more than that of the second. The general reasons are simple:

1. Saren was a more layered and interesting villain than the Collectors.
2. The squad members in the original are more interesting than those of Mass Effect 2.

In the original Mass Effect, most of the plot revolves around Saren’s treachery and his motivations. By the end of the game, I found him an extremely interesting tragic figure. The Collectors, on the other hand, are pretty generic. You do learn about their history, which has great potential for affecting the present, but it doesn’t translate into good story development.

Personally, I believe the main reason the story in Mass Effect 2 was worse was because Bioware lost its focus from the bigger picture. Some of the characters in Mass Effect 2 are simply filler and serve no narrative purpose in regards to the main arc of the story. This is quite unlike the original, where every major character served to advance the story or provide perspective on the game’s overarching themes. This is not the case in Mass Effect 2, where you have characters who are nothing but insular figures. Perhaps, however, I wouldn’t be complaining if the best possible outcome of the last mission didn’t depend on gaining everyone’s loyalty.

That said, the overall story is not terrible and I actually love the development involving both Tali and Legion. Miranda, Jacob, Mordin and Grunt also played their roles well in further advancing the story of the series. I do like the concept of the Illusive Man, but my interactions with him at times felt awkward. Perhaps that was because the elevation of Cerberus’ role in the main story was forced, but any awkwardness I had was dashed during my final interactions with him. Also, I enjoyed the interplay between Joker and EDI.

Unfortunately, however, I can’t say the same for the rest of the “major” characters:

1. I couldn’t stand Jack whatsoever. Even though the Illusive Man’s motivations are suspect, I can’t understand why even he would want to bother with a psychopath whose “loyalty” mission resolves in the most inane manner. I appreciate the effort put into her background, but I took away nothing from her subplot. In the end, all I got was a “fuck off” (if not literally, close enough to it). Any efforts I made to conclude her loyalty plot in a reformative manner resulted in nothing interesting. And, apparently, the only way to reform her completely is to romance her after resolving her loyalty mission as a paragon. Lame.
2. I tolerated Thane, because recruiting him and his loyalty story were both believable, but he had pretty much no impact on the overall story, beyond serving in Shepherd’s squad.
3. While Samara was a believable recruit, I hated the themes involved in her story and what she stood for. But because I disliked Morinth more than her, I was stuck with a character I couldn’t empathize with whatsoever.
4. I’m a little conflicted over Zaeed. I really loved telling him off during his loyalty mission, but the mercenary arc in Mass Effect 2 didn’t really have a direct impact on the major storyline, rendering the insight provided by his existence pointless.
5. And while I like Garrus in terms of his connection to the first game, I don’t exactly understand why he was included in the second game when he didn’t really contribute anything to the overall story in ME2. Perhaps Bioware felt the mercenary subplot was essential, but it really wasn’t.

You’ll also note references made to the mercenary subplot. While mercenaries played a role in the first game, their presence was usually limited to references and as actual enemies during optional side quests. In ME2, however, mercenaries have a presence in practically 50% of the game’s missions. Unfortunately, I think this is a mistake. Hopefully ME3 returns to the structure of the first game’s story, where most of the enemies you fought were connected to the primary villains in some manner, and irrelevant characters played only minor roles, or roles in optional side quests.

Production

While the story has its problems, the quality of production is immense. I don’t think I’ve yet played a game quite with this quality. Perhaps that’s to be expected, given advancements in technology over the past few years (I await the introduction of 16-core computers and GPU’s), but it’s obvious the amount of care that went into ME2′s production was heightened to a level nearly all other games exclude.

All you have to do is watch the interviews of the voice actors Bioware put out. It seems as though Bioware could have been producing a movie instead of a video game given input from the likes of Martin Sheen (voice of the Illusive Man), Seth Green (Joker), and Yvonne Strahovski (Miranda).

But the quality of production doesn’t stop at voice acting and dialog. It’s there in various forms: art design, engine improvements, sound design, graphical effects, etc. All of the game’s faults are overshadowed by the high quality in these areas, provided you would appreciate them.

It certainly elevates my expectations for the game industry from here on, and makes companies living merely a few years in the past seem primitive by comparison. And it is this area of the game which really inspired me to review the game.

The Game Overall, and What I’m Hoping for ME3

Overall, I like Mass Effect 2 and it’s actually one of the better games I’ve ever played, up there with Ocarina of Time and Half-Life 2. Where the story falters, the quality of its production, gameplay, and a couple of the characters (Tali and Legion) pick up the slack. Hopefully, Bioware learns from the successes of Mass Effect 2, and remembers to include what made Mass Effect 1 successful in its own right. Afterall, Mass Effect 2 wouldn’t have sold so many copies if not for the fact that the original Mass Effect was a great game in its own right.

In other words, get rid of the planet scanning (please), maintain or elevate the gameplay and production qualities found in Mass Effect 2, and rediscover the story elements that made the original awesome. These combined may possibly lead to the creation of what I’d likely consider the best game ever.