Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 begins with a gripping intro, in which SSV Normandy SR-1 gets destroyed. Commander Shepard is killed, but not before he/she saves the crew. Death is not final, however, at least not when an infamous group, Cerberus (whose existence I had completely forgotten), and its mysterious leader, the Illusive Man, think you are the most important person in the galaxy.

And so your character is resurrected to save the universe again, this time funded by the said organization. You are given a new ship, Normandy SR-2, and a base crew but you still need companions to succeed in your new mission; to find out why these Collector aliens are attacking and capturing whole human colonies. This time Shepard's motivation seemed much more believable.

In the previous game, the actual story wasn't very long. In ME2, the main storyline is even shorter, consisting only of a handful of missions. Instead, most of the game you are gathering your new party members, who are many and who each follow the same pattern; after they've been aboard the Normandy for one mission, they will inform you that there's something they need to do before they can fully focus on the mission. It gets quite repetitive, although the missions themselves are quite enjoyable. So typical BioWare -- they will probably keep reusing the same formula till the end of time. It works, though, and it is sort of a trademark of theirs.

Galaxy exploration is still there as well. However, they decided to ditch the Mako vehicle due to negative feedback. Instead they added manual scanning and probing of planets which is equally time consuming -- you just don't get to see pretty skydomes. Some planets have mini-missions hidden on them, but they are far too few. But if you don't at least try the scanner on each planet, you might miss one. The probing also brings in the resources you need to be able to buy upgrades.

I was positively surprised to find out they had actually removed the horrendous inventory management as well. With the words of Yahtzee, "Thank fuck for that." Mass Effect 2 really improves the gameplay in every aspect compared to its predecessor. Although, some (like TotalBiscuit in his recent "review" of ME3's multiplayer demo) could raise the issue that the space-key does too much. I didn't have too much trouble with it and I think context-sensitive controls are a good thing. There were times, though, when I was trying to leave a cover storming (w + space) and instead I ended up vaulting (w + space) over the cover.

Generally, shooting and the cover mechanic both felt nice and better, though, and I spent many hours hugging rocks, walls, and boxes. This was also partly because they removed the Overkill talent, which made assault rifles pretty damn awesome in ME.

In fact, the whole skill system got a revamp, and in ME2 there are notably fewer ranks to purchase. However, you still spend points for few funny number increases and it never feels any different if you have one or max four ranks in a power. For some reason power-specific cooldowns became a global one, too. I'm not sure what purpose that served.

And speaking of cooldowns -- weapons in ME2 don't overheat like they did in ME. This time around, the heat generated is stored in thermal clips, which are then ejected to continue shooting. Clips are dropped by enemies and they can be found laying around as well. They really work much like universal ammunition, and for a moment I thought they had revamped the lore.

And thus, there is no permanent overheating bug anymore. In fact, the only bug I encountered in the whole game was in the Archangel recruiment mission, where I managed to get into a s'posedly non-walkable area, and from which I couldn't get off without reloading.

The game uses the same Unreal Engine 3 as the previous (and subsequent) one and looks lovely as always. There might have been some increase in details now that I compare the screenshots that I took, though. I like the engine; it's rather light and seems stable. One minor issue I noticed is how sometimes character textures get unreasonably dark, like they were standing in the blackest night, even though it's quite bright otherwise.

I also like what the art team has done with the game. They do know their palettes and color combinations. Their ship design is still weird, though; I find the Normandy somewhat odd-looking. And her shuttle's shape always makes me frown.

Character models, animation, and lip-syncing in ME2 dialogues are easily the best in any game I've played. Sometimes there are so subtle expressions on Shepard's face, making the character seem so very real, even though the engine is not as advanced in that aspect as it is possible nowadays. Jennifer Hale's stellar voice-acting probably makes a big part of that as well. It is funny how you learn to connect Hale's voice to the looks of your character, and seeing someone else's Shepard speaking makes you wonder why that character has Shepard's voice.

In addition to Shepard's lines, there are countless hours of voice-acted dialogue in Mass Effect 2 by other people as well. And it is all top-notch, crème de la crème. I recognized Claudia Black as one of the quarian Admirals (oh hi, Morrigan) and Michael Dorn (Star Trek's Worf) had a small role as a krogan, and of course Seth Green as Joker. Looking at the complete list of the voice actors, I can see couple other names I know (Carrie-Anne Moss and Armin Shimerman) but didn't recognize in game. But quite a cast, once again.

Too bad ME2's soundtrack couldn't keep up with what the game trilogy started with. The composer was the same, but I guess he ran out of new ideas and soundtrack sounds pretty standard fare as a result. I'm not even sure how much there were new tracks. At least the galaxy map tune was from the first game. They could've used the Spectre theme somewhere; I really liked it. The end credits were yelling at the lack of a good song as well.

Mass Effect 2 has some genuinely funny stuff in it. For instance, "That may go down in history as the shortest interrogation ever." made me laugh out loud. BioWare hit the sweet spot multiple times in this game. At least for me.

Also, the resurrection process Shepard goes through doesn't get quite finished, and he/she's left with some facial scarring. Normandy's doctor hints the scarring will go away if you stay positive... Oh, was this Knights of the Old Republic I'm playing? Luckily, she then unlocks a medibay upgrade which removes the scars regardless of the "side of the Force" you're on. (I once again kept increasing both Paragon and Renegade levels, not quite maxing either one. The paragon meter might've hit the top just at the end, though. I'm not sure.)

While it has its flaws, Mass Effect 2 is a very immersive game; "effortless to understand, play and enjoy on a constant basis" as it was put in Eurogamer's review, and I can completely back up that claim. The game is very accessible and a joy to play. And the newly added paragon/renegade quick-time event actions you can use to interrupt a dialogue make the game delightfully interactive. (I had to supress my habit of pencil-spinning to be able to hit mouse buttons in time.)

My last save file says 46 hours, which is just... whoah. (ME2 confirmed as the longest game I've ever finished.) But I guess exploring and doing everything paid in the end, as I got the best ending -- everybody survived. I had been spoiled as much as to know that Commander Shepard can die. I thought it would be like a choice between the crew and Shepard, and I was already making myself ready to let everyone die -- I didn't really care about them anyway. But as it turned out, I guess it is a matter of having all the ship upgrades and your companions in loyal status.

The game ends on a bit of a low note, showing a huge fleet of Reapers approaching; like stating this was just an interlude and the actual universe saving will happen in the last game. Well, it's true, just not very rewarding. I wonder what they will pull out to make them stand a chance.

The Star Wars of our generation, indeed.