Mass Effect 2 – The MMOMFG Review

Posted by Contributing Writer On February - 2 - 2010

Mass Effect 2

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.” The six million dollar man? This isn’t your momma’s 1974 TV show. How much does it cost to revive a dead Spectre in 2185? Four billion dollars. Eat that Steve Austin.

An ambitious and highly anticipated sci fi epic, the second installment in the Mass Effect series comes two years past its award winning prequel yet feels as if the first game was in your hands not a day ago. As the opening credits roll, the familiar Commander Shepard is killed in action, and his body rebuilt by a Cerburus, a shadowy organization of pro-human political motives. The series’ iconic protagonist is freed from the Council’s constraints and tasked with taking on the Collectors, a far away race seemingly working for the Reapers, an army of robotic aliens threatening the entire galaxy. Sound tough? Somehow Shepard doesn’t seem to mind.

What’s Good

Let’s not forget where we came from – Mass Effect 2 doesn’t just continue the series’ story, it continues the social path you began to cut in your play through of the first installment. There are little things – a picture of a former lover in the captain’s quarters (totally forgot I hooked up with Ashley in the first one which led to an awkward encounter in which she made me pay for not remembering). And big ones – dealing with an all-human Council if you neglected to save the original Council in the first game’s final battle. This is part of how Mass Effect draws you in and will not let you go: it draws you into an environment that you helped to create, and never lets you forget it.

Combat, evolved – Mass Effect 2′s combat systems feels more refined, a tighter and more tactical shooter thanks to a wide array of biotic abilities, different ammo types, and tech abilities. This provides for a chess like approach to picking apart the waves of diverse enemies that are sent at you. The trick is to bring the correct team for each mission, otherwise you’ll just be bouncing warps and overloads off of enemies with shields and armor.

Two years sounds familiar – It takes two years for the scientists at Cerburus to rebuild, replenish, and enhance Shepard, roughly the same amount of time since the first Mass Effect launched. Coincidence? Methinks not. It seems another device of BioWare’s aimed at accentuating the continuity between titles. Or is it an allegory on BioWare’s replenishing of the franchise? I’m getting metaphorically confused.

Can’t we just talk – Dialogue and conversations have a much smoother flow to them this second time around. Each response is quick, immediate and feels genuine. The ability to intimidate or persuade has been enhanced to more than simply unlocking new dialogue options. Bioware has added a feature where quick time events trigger Paragon or Renegade actions within dialogue, asking players to pull the left or right trigger at a certain time in conversation. This leads to some fairly interesting sequences, like socking an annoying reporter in the grill!

Tighten it up – Many non-core aspects of Mass Effect have been refined and enhanced for the better; little things like space travel, planetary exploration and upgrading. Moving from the static cursor-over-map navigation to actually controlling the Normandy is a total plus. Exploring planets and harvesting their minerals has introduced a cool new mini game where the Normandy scans and fires probes at unexplored planets. Using these minerals and other resources for combat and ship upgrades is …well…a big upgrade. Gone are the hassles of having to constantly Omni-gel unused equipment and aimlessly wandering the planet side in search of random mineral nodes. Streamlined, that’s what Bioware went for and achieved perfectly.

What’s Bad

You’re creeping me out – There is something that nags me about the character’s eyes in Mass Effect 2. Like that creepy doll your sister had as a kid, it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is about them that makes them so…creepy. Half the time characters look cross or lazy eyed. Whatever it is, it has been that way since the first game, and I still haven’t gotten used it it. Or the Child’s Play movies.

I can haz that back? – In streamlining Mass Effect 2, BioWare didn’t leave out armor. There now much fewer types of armors to customize your main character with and none for your teammates, who wear the same armor throughout the entire game. The only way to change squad members garb is by completing a teammate’s side mission and gain their loyalty. Even so, this only unlocks one alternate costume.

Worth Remembering

The side missions required to gain the loyalty of your squad members work brilliantly to bring about tough choices as well as invest the player in the relationships built with teammates. After completing each quest it becomes difficult to choose who to take on your next mission. When you know that Zaeed will literally set you on fire if you cross him, squad choices become…complicated.

Worth Forgetting
It seems to me that on a ship as big and as cool as the Normandy there would be some hustle and bustle. People should be moving around, getting to posts, going about routines and such. But the entire environment is stuck in place, with characters seemingly affixed to the floor with glue. Thane does nothing but pray, the Justicar meditates, and Jack stays angry underneath the engine room. It almost takes away from the homey nature of the ship…at least until you get to the Captain’s Cabin.

The feel and flow of the first Mass Effect boils over into its sequel, calling back waves of emotion and nostalgia that remind us of our greatest memories of the first installment. But it’s more than just that, more than a continuation of a series. Mass Effect 2 holds up as a great game on it’s own, it forges new memories. Regardless of it’s predecessor’s pretense, Mass Effect 2 is an achievement in gaming so polished, so epic, and so damn fun that it cannot be denied. More than it reminds the player of it’s past, Mass Effect 2 reminds the player how a great game can captivate, entertain, and stay with us. That is, until Mass Effect 3.

**MMOMFG reviewed the Xbox 360 version of Mass Effect 2.

Contributing Writer: Ryan Finley