Written by Nateeasy

Time magazine calls Mass Effect 2,”The Avatar of video games- except it’s better written.” I can’t comment on Avatar since I have yet to see it, but I can say the game is a near perfect sci-fi action shooter.

Mass Effect 2 allows you to either import your character from the first game or start a new one. If you import a character you will start the game at an advance level with some credits and minerals to use. Decisions made in the first game, will come back to you in the second one. Deciding to start a new character will allow you to choose from six different classes. You can be a soldier, infiltrator, vanguard, sentinel, adept or engineer. Each class has their own abilities, strengths and weaknesses.

The majority of the plot of Mass Effect 2 is revealed within the first 3 hours of gameplay. The game reveals the enemy, and you spend the majority of the game recruiting a team to take on the enemy. You can recruit up to twelve squad mates if you include the free DLC. While each character has an interesting back story, you never get much of fell for them outside of their specific missions. You only have two squad members with you for each mission. Before the last mission I discovered there were five or six team members that I only used once. The otherwise mediocre story is saved by the tremendous dialogue.

Mass Effect 2 features 90 voice actors including Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now), Seth Green (Family Guy), Adam Baldwin (Chuck), Keith David (Crash) and sci-fi actors Michael Dorn (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Michael Hogan (Battlestar Galactica) and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix). There are over 31,000 lines spoken in Mass Effect 2. The dialogue gives the characters a personality and a connection with the player, like no other video game has done before. The dialogue tree is back from the original Mass Effect. The majority of RPG’s give you a few selections of several lines to choose from when selecting what to say. The Mass Effect franchise does is different. You will have a few short selections to choose from, and then Commander Shepeard will express it in his own unique way. You may select “no” and the commander will say “Fuck off Krogan, this is my ship and what I say goes.” This is much more interesting then the tons of reading in a game such as Dragonage Origins.

The first Mass effect was a RPG with shooter elements. Mass Effect 2 has involved into a shooter with a few RPG elements. You no longer get XP after each kill. You collect XP after completing missions. Main missions will net you 1000 XP, side missions range from 40xp to 750xp. You can reach the max level of 30 and gain all of the achievements in one playthru. Enemies will occasionally drop ammo but nothing else. You start with only 4 abilities to upgrade. Your squad starts with 3. Squad mates can gain a 4th ability by gaining their loyalty. Commander Shepard can gain abilities through level ups and research. There is a noticeable difference between each level of an ability.

To survive in Mass Effect 2 you must use cover wisely. You must also actually aim your shots unlike the first game. Head shots will do tremendous damage. Ammo can be equipped with fire, freeze or other powers to do bonus damage to your opponents. You can send the enemy floating in the air or instantly destroy their shields or armor. The action is nonstop and very enjoyable. The graphics are out of this world gorgeous. From the characters to the background the imagery and attention to detail is fantastic.

Mass effect 2 has an impressive arsenal of 19 guns. Sounds weak compared to a Borderlands, which seems to have thousands of different guns. But Bioware did this right. Each of the game’s guns feels and fires differently. The whole inventory from the first game has been tossed out. In fact, there isn’t much of an inventory system at all. Before each mission you select what guns you want each squad member to carry. To change your armor, you must go into your private quarters and select from the pieces you have researched. You can not change the armor of your team mates. There are very few pieces of armor to choose from. However, you can research upgrades to your armor and weapons.

To research an upgrade you must first collect minerals. The mineral collection process of the first Mass Effect involved driving your Mako vehicle on random planets searching every inch for the minerals. It was not very fun and was quite tedious. The 2nd installment replaced Mako driving with the scanning of planets, which also turns out to be very boring and tedious. You first enter a planet’s orbit then launch probes in hopes to collect minerals. Try probing the planet Uranus. It is fun. The game gives you a chart telling you which areas are rich in minerals. The scanning of planets is by far the weakest part of Mass Effect 2.

The original Mass Effect was full of glitches. Mass Effect 2 has the same glitches. I have had the sound cut off in the middle of a cut scene, I’ve gotten stuck in the background and I have started floating in the air. Some have reported full game crashes. Fortunately the glitches are rarer. The autosave feature saves you from losing hours of gameplay.

The shortcomings in Mass Effect 2 are outshined by its greatness. It is one of the best games on the Xbox 360. Metacritic has it ranked third best on the 360, only under Bioshock and GTA4. The game is nonstop fun and is the first game since Fallout 3 that I think about constantly when I’m not playing. I am eagerly waiting the third installment.