Review: Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360)

 

 Having covered my feelings about the first Mass Effect game a few days ago, I figured I'd follow up with a short review of the recently released sequel. This game had some pretty massive hype building up over the final months prior to release, and some may be curious if it lives up to it. In short: absolutely!

Picking up where the first game left off, you are once again in the role of Commander Shepard, again tasked with saving the galaxy. This time, whole human colonies are going missing, the Galactic Council isn't paying attention, and you are the only hope humanity has. You must assemble another team and stop the threat before it's too late. And once again your Shepard can be as unique as you are. There is even an entire website dedicated to showing off the character you've built so others can use it too!

I cannot state clearly enough how many of the issues I had with the first game have been improved for the sequel. First off, this is one of the most beautiful games on the Xbox today. Some of the facial features even approach photo realistic. Not only that, but the entire game moves with almost no slowdown! I don't know what kind of voodoo those guys at Bioware are up to, but I approve! Second, the combat system has taken it's cues from more recent games like Gears of War: just hold down a single button to snap your character into cover, where you can fight from around corners or pop up to take shots. In fact, combat as a while feels much more like playing Gears of War, and that's not a bad thing in my book. Also, they have completely removed the Mako, meaning no tedious driving around and getting stuck on random planets. And finally, the game autosaves almost every time you change rooms, meaning that you should never have to restart that far back after dying, even if you don't manually save that often!

The story is again the thing that should drive most people to play this game, and again Bioware doesn't disappoint. Even more branching story paths, more romance options, not to mention all the small things you discover by bringing a save game over from the first ME game! I was constantly being approached by characters that I had helped (or hurt) in the first game and going "oh ya, I forgot about that." This story is also much darker, with many more choices that end up costing (or saving) lives.

The "...best game BioWare has ever made and the best action RPG in history," says Joystiq. In the end, I can only say that Mass Effect 2 is about as perfect a game as I've played in a while.