Played on:
Xbox 360
After authoring a string of hit RPGs over the last 15 years, BioWare’s credibility in the role-playing arena is without question. At this point, some developers might be resting on their laurels or getting sloppy, but BioWare keeps pushing the frontier of interactive entertainment with its complex characterization and thrilling narratives. Due to last year’s hit fantasy RPG Dragon Age, the company is on fire and the flames show no sign of dwindling with the release of Mass Effect 2, the most hotly-anticipated sci-fi sequel in recent memory.
With its cutting-edge graphics and sophisticated dialog system, Mass Effect wowed gaming audiences in 2007 and left them impatiently waiting for the second installment in the trilogy. Finally, Commander Shepard has once again returned to save humanity--and the rest of the galaxy--this time from an insect-like race of aliens called the Collectors. Two years have passed since Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel and in that time, Shepard’s crew has been scattered. The first order of business then when starting the game, is assembling a team strong enough to face the Collector threat. The first extremely cool feature of Mass Effect 2 is that if you played the first Mass Effect, you can import the details of your old save game. That means you can continue on with a character you likely became very attached to, and the decisions you made in the first Mass Effect will have a direct effect on the circumstances of the second one.
That said, you can still change your character’s appearance and/or class (class choices are still the same: Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard) if you so choose. You can also customize your character’s armor texture and color--if you think fire-engine-red armor with orange detailing makes for good camouflage. Once the game starts, you discover that the inhabitants of human colonies are mysteriously vanishing. You're forced to form an uneasy alliance with your old enemy Cerberus--that shady, independent paramilitary group of the first Mass Effect--and set out both to build your crew and to look into the disappearances.
Your mission takes you to locations old and new, including the Citadel and the space station/city of Omega where various gangs rule. The faction fighting on Omega both gives you insight into your main objective and creates some interesting side narratives. Throughout your journey, you'll meet up with old friends and discover promising new recruits while gathering intel and getting an up-close look at different settlements’ versions of urban blight. After getting reacquainted with shooting and using your squad’s biotic powers through a brief tutorial, you’re ready to take on gang members, mechs, the Collectors, or anything else the galaxy can throw at you. You'll be even more ready than before, actually, since combat is now more intuitive and has been improved over that of Mass Effect.
For one thing, health now regens. When you’ve been seriously wounded, you'll see this creepy red vein-like effect around the edges of the screen until you take cover and give yourself time to heal. Another combat improvement is the cover mechanic. Taking cover feels more organic this time and rarely do you find yourself getting hung up on cover objects as you might have done before. You can carry multiple weapons at once and weapon swapping is done easily through the radial weapon wheel. There are more weapons now; different types of pistols for instance, as well as a Collector particle beam that cuts through enemies big and small like a hot knife through butter. While weapons have been diversified for Mass Effect 2, ammo has been introduced and you can use one kind of thermal clip for nearly all weapons, barring heavy weapons like missile launchers.
Your squad is a big help during combat and can be manually controlled and made to attack targets, stick by you or take point by using the directional pad. Most of the time though, they do what's right without being told so you don't have to think about it. You can set and access your squad's weapon and ammo types, not to mention their biotic abilities in the radial power wheel and map your most frequently used powers to the RB and LB buttons. This works great both for healing your squad and for using your favorite biotic power. Combat in general maintains a good level of excitement due to a fairly intelligent AI but players who choose the Sentinel class may find fights--even boss fights--to be less challenging than they might like.
As in the first game, half your time is spent fighting while the other half is spent gathering information. Using the tried-and-true BioWare radial dialog menu, you can talk to other characters and hear as much or as little mission info and back story as you’d like. A lot of the entertainment of the game comes from this mechanic, as you can choose from responses ranging from the noble (Paragon), the neutral, or the douche-baggish (Renegade). Even more fun are the new Renegade/Paragon actions that you can activate during conversations whenever their respective icons appear on screen. You can perform one or both of these, although it’s much more fun to do the Renegade ones since they allow you to suddenly shoot things and punch people. As in the first game, you use the radial dialog mechanic not only to gather intel, but to get to know your crew. Also as in the first game, this can be used to seduce members of the crew. Be warned; this can result in some disturbing inter-species exchanges.
