Game Review: Mass Effect 2

Over 40 perfect scores, over 2 million copies sold in under a week, already talked about as the Game of the Year and its only January, and yes I'm talking about the latest hit from Bioware.

All these perfect scores from respectable reviewers must mean the game is perfect right? And all this hype generated by EA also mean its the greatest game ever right? EA can't possibly lie to consumers with their...well less than reputable past, am I right? It's no secrete that I love most of Bioware's works, but seems its up to me to provide an unbiased review of the year's biggest hit.

-Story
With any Bioware games, Story is the first thing you look at. In Mass Effect 2 you are back in the shoes of Commander Shepard, first human spectre and elite soldier of the system alliance military. Herald by Bioware as the dark second chapter of the trilogy, it is said that ME 2 has the feel of an "Empire strike Back". To me the first Mass Effect grabbed your attention with the epic story of human advancement and the struggle with other Alien species. You learned rich background story on how human achieved all these in such a short time as well as various alien races and their history/culture. It was a large and very well crafted universe with many interesting tales. Oh then there is the epic struggle of evil and good where you chase down the rogue spectre Saren but slowly learns the bigger picture of the incoming doom. It probably wasn't anything that hasn't been done before but through Bioware's careful craft it turned out to be one of the most epic story in recent memory. Now Mass Effect 2 had a tall order to live up to the original game, and let me be straight forward here, it simply doesn't measure up to the scale.



At the beginning of the game Bioware gives a little scare where you might think you will not play as Shepard this time around but that soon was squandered as you again return in the role of a hero/villain trying to save the galaxy from a certain doom. However after that the story is somewhat...ordinary. Shepard is send to compose a team of assassins, criminals, and terrorists to go on this suicide mission in order to save mankind. It all sound good except thats all you do through out the entire game, you really don't get to the bigger picture on the threat or any the galaxy affairs. And gathering these people and gaining loyalty from them is as easy as 1, 2, 3. There is just not much back story with these people at all, granted that there are alot of party members but I don't feel attached to any them by the end of the day unlike the first game. So all in all I felt that they didn't have the right focus on things and it just didn't have the epic scale/feel of the first game. The first Mass Effect will have you revisit the story in your dreams, but this one, not so much.

-Game play
This is probably the biggest improvement over the first game. Bioware games have never been known for game play AS MUCH AS story telling and character development but the first Mass Effect was probably one of their worst. The game play felt clunky, over simplified and uninspiring compare to everything else in the game. Most of that have been over hauled with game playing much more like a third person shooter, closer to the gears of war pedigree. Fire fights last alot longer and more intense with few times where I was actually frustrated and overwhelmed. Another thing changed from the first game is the inventory system, where majority of people disliked. I however was not one of them, I actually liked the inventory management aspect of an RPG however it was kind of unrefined. So I was one that was saddened to see them scrap the whole thing rather than just refine the system. In ME 2 the inventory is gone where you will no long get any "loot" from enemies, and now you will occasionally get upgrade parts and where you will be upgrading in the ships lab to be used for everyone. This is seriously disappointing as loots are an integral part of an RPG. And this is not the only thing that they have done to make game play less like an RPG. Most of the talents are stripped away as everyone only has only 4 or 5 skills, I guess its a more obvious sign of the game moving to a shooter. One more change to the game play was the lack of exploring planets, now instead of exploring the cut and past planets for the useless resources you just scan them for the ship. Also the resources now play a part where as they are used to upgrade you weapons, armors and ship. And Because of this all the planets you do visit have a lot more variety so I guess its a welcome change. It seems Bioware were true to their words when they said they will take everyone's opinion in to factor on how to improve ME 2, maybe just a little too much.

-Graphics
The game has more of a darker tone compare to the first one, I guess to display the impending doom. Over all the game looks very much like the first one using the same Unreal Engine 3, however the frame rate is much much better in the game and there were no apparent textures pop ups. otherwise the game has the same crisp look with awesome character design and facial animation. So in the end graphically this game is much better than the first one. Voice acting is also superb as many big name actors are used in various roles. Its almost shocking the amount of famous actors are willing to do small roles in the game.

-Presentation
Mass Effect 2 display the story in the similar Bioware fashion with the epic cut scenes and rich dialog tree. Although there were less of each in this game compare to the first one, less movies and the dialogs are simpler. However keeping with the tone of the game the line separating good/evil is a lot more blurry than the first. I chose go with my Mass Effect 1 Shepard import on my first play through and doing so I set out to go with good path the entire game. However shockingly the good path required a decent amount of lying and cheating, and few times I also executed people. If you don't have a file to import from the first game then most major decisions from original Mass Effect are pre-determined for you such as the destruction of the council, but I don't how some of the smaller ones will play out as with my imported files many of the small encounters shows up in Mass Effect 2 like the Reds and Shia'a contacting me again for quests. And I do feel a lot more attached to the story and some of the returning characters because I have played the original many times.
Overall the game is still a blast to play with beautiful and epic presentation through out even if you have not played the first one.



-Conclusion
So does Mass Effect 2 deserve all those perfect scores? It all depends on what criteria we are looking at. As a game its almost perfect at every angle, but looking deeper into the roots as it was an RPG first? then no its definitely not the perfect RPG. Is it the best game in this generation where we love simplified everything? probably as itself is a watered down RPG that most people will love, but is it the best game ever? no its not even the best game Bioware has made. It doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the conclusion of this series in Mass Effect 3 but I do hope Bioware will combine what was good with the first game with this one and deliver a what can be called the best RPG of this generation.