The original Mass Effect was an incredible achievement for developer Bioware to have accomplished. It not only established a new IP with such a wealth of rich and deep sci-fi lore, enough to rival some of the big boys like Star Trek and Star Wars; but also presented an RPG that was fun to play and different from anything else on the market at the time. But it wasn’t without its problems; some awkward gameplay mechanics and (for the original releases) some technical hiccups held it back from achieving universal acclaim. But for a first outing Mass Effect was better than it had any right to be and showed just how much potential Bioware had in their new property.
Unfortunately following the release of the game in 2007, Microsoft were unhappy with the sales performance of the game and a sequel was put on the backburner. But hot off the heels of their recent spate of more experimental, single-player focused releases, EA bought Bioware and set them to work on Mass Effect 2, with the only caveat being that they wanted it to appeal to a wider audience than hardcore RPG players, and by that they meant they wanted the gameplay to more closely resemble the popular third person shooter franchises of the time. That caveat could have been the death of Mass Effect 2, somehow though Bioware not only managed to retain the RPG core of the series, but they also managed to make the whole experience stronger in the process by cutting out a lot of the faff.
Following the defeat of Saren, and the destruction of the Reaper, Sovereign, at the Battle of the Citadel; Commander Shepard continues to scour the galaxy for information relating to the Reapers and how to prepare the galaxy for the impending war against a species that have systematically wiped out all sentient life every fifty-thousand-years.
Disaster strikes however when the Normandy is attacked by an unknown vessel, destroying the ship and killing the majority of the crew, including Shepard.
Two years pass and Shepard finds themselves awaking in a medical facility run by a pro-human splinter group called Cerberus. Cerberus has rebuilt Shepard using the most cutting-edge medical technology, and most highly skilled medical professionals’ money can buy. They’ve also built a new, better Normandy, and are giving Shepard their life back. All they ask in return is that Shepard work alongside Cerberus to investigate a spate of human colony attacks by a thought extinct race known as the Collectors. To interest Shepard further, Cerberus believes the Collectors to be working with Reapers, and they have confirmed that the ship that killed Shepard two years ago was of Collector origin.
So, Shepard must reluctantly work with Cerberus (a group sometimes seen as a terrorist organisation by other Council races) and recruit a new team of highly skilled specialists so that they can pass through the Omega-4 Mass Relay, where the Collectors hide, and find out once and for all what they want with human colonists, what the Collectors are, and what connection they have with the Reapers.
Unfortunately following the release of the game in 2007, Microsoft were unhappy with the sales performance of the game and a sequel was put on the backburner. But hot off the heels of their recent spate of more experimental, single-player focused releases, EA bought Bioware and set them to work on Mass Effect 2, with the only caveat being that they wanted it to appeal to a wider audience than hardcore RPG players, and by that they meant they wanted the gameplay to more closely resemble the popular third person shooter franchises of the time. That caveat could have been the death of Mass Effect 2, somehow though Bioware not only managed to retain the RPG core of the series, but they also managed to make the whole experience stronger in the process by cutting out a lot of the faff.
Following the defeat of Saren, and the destruction of the Reaper, Sovereign, at the Battle of the Citadel; Commander Shepard continues to scour the galaxy for information relating to the Reapers and how to prepare the galaxy for the impending war against a species that have systematically wiped out all sentient life every fifty-thousand-years.
Disaster strikes however when the Normandy is attacked by an unknown vessel, destroying the ship and killing the majority of the crew, including Shepard.
Two years pass and Shepard finds themselves awaking in a medical facility run by a pro-human splinter group called Cerberus. Cerberus has rebuilt Shepard using the most cutting-edge medical technology, and most highly skilled medical professionals’ money can buy. They’ve also built a new, better Normandy, and are giving Shepard their life back. All they ask in return is that Shepard work alongside Cerberus to investigate a spate of human colony attacks by a thought extinct race known as the Collectors. To interest Shepard further, Cerberus believes the Collectors to be working with Reapers, and they have confirmed that the ship that killed Shepard two years ago was of Collector origin.
So, Shepard must reluctantly work with Cerberus (a group sometimes seen as a terrorist organisation by other Council races) and recruit a new team of highly skilled specialists so that they can pass through the Omega-4 Mass Relay, where the Collectors hide, and find out once and for all what they want with human colonists, what the Collectors are, and what connection they have with the Reapers.
The story of the original Mass Effect was wide in scope, and despite it being packed full of interesting lore about the galaxy and the races that inhabit it, the information you could gather about the main story was relatively shallow. This was intentional as Mass Effect was always planned as a trilogy, but the fact that you end Mass Effect 1 with morsels of information as to what they Reapers really are and what they are capable of, meant that Mass Effect 2 has the ability to provide the main narrative of the story with a fantastic amount of depth. The scope of Mass Effect 2’s story is considerably narrower than the first games, but its double the length, meaning that you’re going to spend a whole lot of time getting to know the Collectors, the Reapers, the Protheans, and even more information about the Council races to give them even greater depth.
Where Mass Effect 1 was a massive lake that you could comfortably wade around in, Mass Effect 2 is a swimming pool where you can’t see the bottom.
A lot of what gives Mass Effect 2 its depth is the emphasis on building your squad from scratch, and giving them more diverse personalities, bringing more races into the mix, allowing them to interact with each other more, and making them a central component to the story. In the original Mass Effect, you had a full squad before the end of the first act if you completed missions in a particular order. With Mass Effect 2, you can start the final mission within the first few hours if you so choose to, but you won’t survive it. You’ll need to spend time travelling around the galaxy finding the people you want to be your squad mates, earn their trust by helping them with personal issues, and resolve conflicts aboard the Normandy between races that simply don’t get along.
Some friendly faces make a return such as Garrus and Tali, but the majority of the squad you’ll build will be interesting new characters with so much more to say and do than any of Mass Effect 1’s squad members ever did. My personal favourites are Thane, a Drell assassin; and Legion, a Geth unit. But you’ll also get to understand more about races like Hanar, Krogan, Salarian, Quarian, and Batarian along the way; all races that didn’t get quite as much attention as the likes of the Turian’s and Asari in the previous game. You’ll still get more about them too, but it feels a lot more balanced this time round.
Where Mass Effect 1 was a massive lake that you could comfortably wade around in, Mass Effect 2 is a swimming pool where you can’t see the bottom.
A lot of what gives Mass Effect 2 its depth is the emphasis on building your squad from scratch, and giving them more diverse personalities, bringing more races into the mix, allowing them to interact with each other more, and making them a central component to the story. In the original Mass Effect, you had a full squad before the end of the first act if you completed missions in a particular order. With Mass Effect 2, you can start the final mission within the first few hours if you so choose to, but you won’t survive it. You’ll need to spend time travelling around the galaxy finding the people you want to be your squad mates, earn their trust by helping them with personal issues, and resolve conflicts aboard the Normandy between races that simply don’t get along.
Some friendly faces make a return such as Garrus and Tali, but the majority of the squad you’ll build will be interesting new characters with so much more to say and do than any of Mass Effect 1’s squad members ever did. My personal favourites are Thane, a Drell assassin; and Legion, a Geth unit. But you’ll also get to understand more about races like Hanar, Krogan, Salarian, Quarian, and Batarian along the way; all races that didn’t get quite as much attention as the likes of the Turian’s and Asari in the previous game. You’ll still get more about them too, but it feels a lot more balanced this time round.
Gameplay in Mass Effect 2 is almost unrecognisable from the original game. Basic mechanics such as movement and environment traversal have been fine-tuned to make navigating the world much easier and allowing for more complex level design in the process. Add to this the combat mechanics feel more in line with a top of the line third person shooter, with snappy cover mechanics, a wider arsenal of weapons to choose from, and the return of an expanded squad power system.
The biggest difference though comes in the form of the stripped back skill tree and inventory management. Where Mass Effect 1 had a long list of skills with dozens of incremental upgrades to each skill available for every character, as well as a fully functional inventory and weapon upgrade system. Mass Effect 2 grants each character four skills, each with four levels to upgrade them to. The inventory system has been scrapped entirely, instead favouring research-based upgrades applied to weapons and armour aboard the Normandy, or at merchants on some planets. This simplifies everything but yields arguably better results. Whilst at first it can feel like much of the RPG identity of Mass Effect has been stripped away, once you fully grasp how this new system works, you’ll understand that it’s actually considerably more refined and enjoyable than the system in the original game.
A cool feature that’s also present in Mass Effect 2 is the ability to import your saved data from the original game across into the sequel. This means that any choices you made in the first game are carried across into ME2, making the story more personal as it reflects your own actions, and Shepard retains the same look and history you gave them during ME1’s character creation process.
The galaxy map has been expanded greatly too with more planets to explore than last time around, as well as the addition of Normandy resource management. A major complaint levelled towards the original game was the ‘uncharted worlds’ that you would explore with the Mako vehicle. A lot of them were very similar to each other, didn’t hold a whole lot of interesting stuff, and the Mako was at times difficult to drive. In Mass Effect 2 every planet has resources that can be collected for use on research projects for weapons, armour, or Normandy upgrades, with some planets also housing side-missions. These side missions usually contribute to the narrative of the main story, or to a particular character, giving them greater purpose in the bigger picture of the game and feeling less like tacked on extra content to keep you engaged. If you take the plunge to see as much of the game as possible, you’ll walk away with a wealth of extra knowledge about the galaxy, your squad, and your mission than you would if you just played the main missions.
The biggest difference though comes in the form of the stripped back skill tree and inventory management. Where Mass Effect 1 had a long list of skills with dozens of incremental upgrades to each skill available for every character, as well as a fully functional inventory and weapon upgrade system. Mass Effect 2 grants each character four skills, each with four levels to upgrade them to. The inventory system has been scrapped entirely, instead favouring research-based upgrades applied to weapons and armour aboard the Normandy, or at merchants on some planets. This simplifies everything but yields arguably better results. Whilst at first it can feel like much of the RPG identity of Mass Effect has been stripped away, once you fully grasp how this new system works, you’ll understand that it’s actually considerably more refined and enjoyable than the system in the original game.
A cool feature that’s also present in Mass Effect 2 is the ability to import your saved data from the original game across into the sequel. This means that any choices you made in the first game are carried across into ME2, making the story more personal as it reflects your own actions, and Shepard retains the same look and history you gave them during ME1’s character creation process.
The galaxy map has been expanded greatly too with more planets to explore than last time around, as well as the addition of Normandy resource management. A major complaint levelled towards the original game was the ‘uncharted worlds’ that you would explore with the Mako vehicle. A lot of them were very similar to each other, didn’t hold a whole lot of interesting stuff, and the Mako was at times difficult to drive. In Mass Effect 2 every planet has resources that can be collected for use on research projects for weapons, armour, or Normandy upgrades, with some planets also housing side-missions. These side missions usually contribute to the narrative of the main story, or to a particular character, giving them greater purpose in the bigger picture of the game and feeling less like tacked on extra content to keep you engaged. If you take the plunge to see as much of the game as possible, you’ll walk away with a wealth of extra knowledge about the galaxy, your squad, and your mission than you would if you just played the main missions.
There’s a considerable graphical upgrade to Mass Effect 2 with a greater emphasis on cinematic presentation. In the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 2, the graphical improvements are less visible than in the original releases, but even the art style has undergone revisions to make it feel more original in comparison to the numerous sci-fi properties on the market. The game also has smoother animations, and for seventh generation versions of the game better performance (ME2 Legendary Edition runs at a smooth 60FPS, much like ME1 Legendary Edition), then Mass Effect 2 is an all-round upgrade from what we saw in the original game.
The fantastic score returns too with an expanded tracklist, and some returning tracks having small tweaks made to make them sound even more impressive. It feels less wonderous than the original game and more action-oriented, but that adequately reflects the mood of the game overall.
Voice acting is also stellar across the board, save for the voice actor for the male Shepard model. Much like last time I would suggest sticking to a female Shepard as Jennifer Hale’s performance has so much more emotion put into it.
Mass Effect 2 is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time and it’s easy to see why. It improves upon the original game in almost every conceivable way, and it also makes the game more accessible than ever because it simplifies or removes anything that made the original game cumbersome.
The story is just as incredible as the first game, but the fantastic cast of characters makes it so much more memorable and enjoyable. Add to this that your choices from Mass Effect 2 will determine how Mass Effect 3 plays out and you put so much more consideration into everything you do. If people die, they’re dead forever; and add to this that even Shepard can end Mass Effect 2 dead, making Mass Effect 3 never happen, is a ballsy move that I’ve never seen a game try before.
The fantastic score returns too with an expanded tracklist, and some returning tracks having small tweaks made to make them sound even more impressive. It feels less wonderous than the original game and more action-oriented, but that adequately reflects the mood of the game overall.
Voice acting is also stellar across the board, save for the voice actor for the male Shepard model. Much like last time I would suggest sticking to a female Shepard as Jennifer Hale’s performance has so much more emotion put into it.
Mass Effect 2 is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time and it’s easy to see why. It improves upon the original game in almost every conceivable way, and it also makes the game more accessible than ever because it simplifies or removes anything that made the original game cumbersome.
The story is just as incredible as the first game, but the fantastic cast of characters makes it so much more memorable and enjoyable. Add to this that your choices from Mass Effect 2 will determine how Mass Effect 3 plays out and you put so much more consideration into everything you do. If people die, they’re dead forever; and add to this that even Shepard can end Mass Effect 2 dead, making Mass Effect 3 never happen, is a ballsy move that I’ve never seen a game try before.
STORY: 10/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
PRESENTATION: 10/10
LIFESPAN: 9/10
SCORE: 10/10
Mass Effect 2 is the pinnacle of action-RPG’s and is an essential game in any collection. If you’ve not played it yet then you need to go out of your way to change that, and with the release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition there’s never been a better time to return to Mass Effect 2.