Mass Effect 2 is the 2010 sequel to Mass Effect initially taking place sometime after the battle of the Citadel at the close of Mass Effect. At the beginning of the game, Shepard’s ship, the Normandy is attacked by an unknown ship and destroyed. While most of the Normandy’s crew escapes, Shepard gives his (her?) life to save others. The game picks up two years later as the mysterious organization known as Cerberus has resurrected Commander Shepard hoping he can get to the bottom of mysterious alien abductions from Earth colonies on the frontier by a race known as The Collectors, an insectoid people of unfathomable purpose. Shepard is given a new Normandy staffed with some old friends and two Cerberus agents to help him while he recruits an assault crew, made of new allies and old ones, to take on the Collectors. Very quickly is becomes apparent that the Reapers are behind The Collectors and are still very much a threat to the Milky way. Sovereign, the Reaper from the first game, was only a single scout.
The story of ME2 continues where the first left off, and actually references flags in your last save game of ME1 to determine how pieces of the story will go for ME2. Don’t worry – in true Tragic Hero tradition any decision will bite you in the ass, it just makes sure to do it in a unique way. ME2 also continues that tradition and decisions and events that transpire based on you during ME2 will happily come and bite you in the ass in ME3. Does that make Mass Effect players a little masochistic? Yes, yes it does. Happily so. In addition to combat and space exploration ME2 provides a number of very moral compass decisions that have become the cornerstone of BioWare RPGs. Everything from calling in the morality of Cerberus, and its CEO the Illusive Man (voiced by Martin Sheen) to being like Captain Kirk of Star Trek and bedding anyone (thing) willing if that’s your play style. The main narrative surrounding The Collectors and the Reapers gets more and more disturbing as you follow it deeper toward the assault on The Collectors home at the end of the game. The truth behind The Collectors and the abductions is one of the darker revelations in gaming.
The customization in Mass Effect 2 is right along with Mass Effect. Though now, many of the customizations affect stats and abilities and with advances in graphics they tend to look a lot cooler. Again if it suffers from anything, it suffers from too many choices.
ME2 maintains the sound and visual quality of its predecessor. Scene specific music and professional voice actors, including some famous film and TV stars, round the experience out audibly and the graphics are the expected advance and hold up even five years later. The Mass Effect series of games are a sensory joy to play.
There are a couple of control level changes in Mass Effect 2 that I want to address. One breaks a continuity element and the other I felt was just a little lazy. In ME1, guns were unlimited ammo. Odd? Yes but they generated their ammo through a replicative process that caused a lot of heat. So when the gun overheated, you had to give it a few moments to cool down that was congruent with how long you were firing it. In ME2, guns are on an ammo basis. This is literally moving from an advanced technology back to a current day mechanic. That was very jarring. I liked it better than the overheat mechanic, but it was still surprising.
The other mechanic change was in exploration. In the original game as you went from planet to planet you often were able to land and explore planets with your team in a rover, getting out to perform certain tasks. It made for a larger experience than just hitting a scan button and getting a narrative only being able to land on planets that were part of the story. Now ME2? Yeah, you orbit a planet, scan it, launch probes to gather materials, and are able to land only where there’s story. It is a much more closed exploration system and has been almost universally decried by fans of the original system.
Summing up Mass Effect 2:
Story: 5/5: Yes, I’m one of those masochists who love a good heroic tragedy and gets a good giggle out of having something I did previously bite me in the ass. I’m also a big fan of horror and make no mistake, the big reveal in this game would have given Rod Serling the creeps.
Sound: 5/5: Sound is such an important part of a game and BioWare’s investment in their music and voice really speak to the quality of the game and the company. With consistent cinema quality sound the Mass Effect series is among the best ever.
Graphics: 5/5: Still state of the art, and still beautiful five years after its release. The ME games are among those that I’d consider breaking my long-standing view on VR technology as being a gimmick and I’d love to see these through an Oculus.
Control: 3/5: Overall improved controls in combat particularly where cover is concerned helped but the loss of the exploration system hurts this score keeping it on par with the “nothing special” of the original. It does gain a crafting system which is cool but the resource gathering component in place of the hard exploration is just a quick substitute for me.
Playability: 4/5: This is my third time through the game. I think that should tell you everything you need to know. It is a fun game and it’s a fun replay choosing the options you didn’t pick before or switching out your class. There are multiple ways it can play out depending on how you treat your crew and let’s not forget, what feels like a victory will come back in ME3 and bite you in the ass. Happy hunting!