I'm not made of money, so trading in and borrowing games is the only way I can pay for my habit. That being said there are games I keep, this only happens in an instance where I have really enjoyed a game AND can envision playing it sometime in the future. It's like some movies, they can be really great to watch but once you have seen them once you don't always feel the need to watch them in the future. I remember buying Mass Effect 2 back in 2010, I enjoyed it but afterward felt undecided so traded it in. About year later I wanted to play it again, so I bought a copy from Amazon and never looked back. You may or may not be asking 'why have you called this Mass Effect 2 - The Mega Review?', well, that's because I have included all the downloadable content as part of the review.
Growing up one of the meals I enjoyed was fish fingers, usually served with mixed vegetables and potatoes. They are basically low-cost fish, usually, cod, covered in breadcrumbs. Even thinking about them makes my stomach gurgle, or it could because I can smell lasagna and fresh cupcakes - thanks Nolls. I tried them again a few years ago and while I still liked them there was something missing, they just didn't taste quite as good, maybe my childhood just made them seem tastier or perhaps I had a much less developed palate back then? Playing Mass Effect 2 I found myself asking was it as tasty as ever or was there something missing?
Story
The game starts with an Alliance vessel being attacked by an unknown enemy. Quickly things go from bad to worse and a lot of people have their lives extinguished including the character you play as, Commander Shepard. Two years later and you have been resurrected and the group responsible for this is known to have a slightly checkered background. Shepard is tasked by the leader of this organization, The Illusive Man (voiced by Martin Sheen) to assemble a team made up of beings from all over the galaxy to help take on an enemy that few acknowledge even exist. As if this wasn't harder enough, you have to go to the enemies home turf, which no one has ever returned from.
Building your team is a lot of fun, I enjoyed assembling them and even better yet was gaining their loyalty. Unlike Bioware's Dragon Age, where you can upset your teammates easily by breaking wind and losing their loyalty, in Mass Effect 2 you just need help characters complete one mission which holds great importance to them, I think it's almost impossible to screw them up, apart from Zaeed's, who in fairness is a bell end anyway. My two favorite loyalty missions would be Jack's, the crazy powerful and angry biotic, and Grunt, part of a race called the Krogan who look like reptilian American football players in full gear. In both cases, I felt a real connection to the characters and I liked them both more after playing their loyalty missions.
Like any Role Playing Game, there are many side missions, some good, some not so good. Overall most of them help show the scale of the galaxy and help introduce different worlds and cultures, similar to the Dragon Age series.
There is a number of downloadable content for the game including, Kasumi: Stolen Memory, an interesting story with a non-interesting character. Lair of the Shadow Broker, which literally gave me chills, fantastic story. Overlord, which was both interesting, heartbreaking and asked the question how far is too far? Arrival, which teases the real enemy of the series.
Overall a great main story, some good DLC, some interesting character stories and a few side missions which for the most part weren't bad.
Visuals
I won't lie the visuals have aged and it certainly wouldn't hurt if it got remastered and got a little HD treatment, that being said overall it holds up okay. Mass Effect often focuses on the little details, for example in your quarters there is a large aquarium which can be filled with different fish, there are models ships you can collect and display, along with this you can have a framed picture of your love interest on your desk. Let's not forget you can get a Space Hamster! Okay it's just a regular hamster you can buy in space but it still looks cool.
The characters designs as a whole are solid, there are only two things I found very jarring; the eyes of human characters which looked dead/broken, and when kissing or touching it looks like you are groping the air. One of the characters you acquire, Kasumi has a really bad-ass cutscene which was both epic and disappointing, don't get me wrong it looked great but the character was nowhere near as cool when you actually use her, kind of reminded me of some the games shown at E3.
There are some picturesque moments, for example when you are in the middle of the storm approaching the Shadow Brokers Lair, in Overlord it is highlighted by your AI to check out the impressive ravine view which looked really impressive.
Shout out to a creature known as Varren, imagine crossing a dog with a shark and that's pretty spot on.
Overall some good if not slightly aged visuals, attention to smaller details make you feel more part of a real world.
Music
The music style used can be best described as a cross between, a space opera and a late 90's early 2000's thriller soundtrack. Being honest this combination works really well and always managed to strike the right balance while playing. The main composer is Jack Wall, who is also joined by, Jimmy Hinson, David Kates, Sam Hulick, Sascha Dikiciyan, Cris Velasco, and Christopher Lennertz. Between they have worked on major titles and franchises including; Unreal 2 The Awakening, Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Borderlands, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Quake 3 Arena, Resident Evil 7 Bio Hazard, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Darksiders and Medal of Honor.
The soundtrack runs at over two hours (including the add-ons) and features some great tracks, my favorites being; 'Humans Are Disappearing', 'The Attack', 'Normandy Reborn', 'Samara', 'Normandy Attacked', 'Jack', 'Jump Drive', 'Crash Landing', 'The End Run', 'Agent Combat' and 'Final Combat'.
Overall the soundtracks stand up well versus the test of time, the add-ons certainly provided a change of pace to the rest of the game.
Gameplay
When it comes down to it Mass Effect plays like a third person tactical shooter with RPG elements, the games strikes an almost equal balance between conversations and combat. Both of these are key in the game, while the answers you give won't always have repercussions certain decisions you make can. Additionally, your answers will either be deemed as positive (paragon) or negative (renegade) which build up and can open up different dialogue options as the game progresses. I imported my save file from the original Mass Effect which provided changes to the story in Mass Effect 2 and some will carry over to Mass Effect 3, this element I found to be quite interesting, especially when they came in the form of moral dilemmas.
Before talking about the combat it's important to focus on building your character. There are certain things you can choose, some of them are cosmetic and others focus on your class and starting abilities. I found with the starting abilities you can choose there is a lack of explanation about them, which is a little frustrating, admittedly later in the game, you can reset some of these but still, it can make it difficult to decide what to pick. I can tell you from experience if you are playing on insane difficulty don't pick a class which gives you pistols to start with, I found them simply too slow and lacking in power. Combat itself can be quite fun, if things are getting too crazy you can pull up your tactical wheel to help give you a moment to breathe and consider your options. What isn't fun is when your character fails to get into cover even after trying multiple times, on harder difficulties it becomes frustrating.
As you complete missions great and small you gain experience points, these can be used to upgrade current abilities or open new ones. The retrain ability means you can always redistribute points if you mess up or if you want to try something new. There are two hacking mini-games that reward you with credits and new upgrades. There is also planet mining which is simple enough and use to gain materials to upgrade equipment and abilities.
Watching your crew grow as you gather more galactic badasses is a lot of fun, there are some really strong characters that have both good backstories and abilities such as Samara, Jack, Grunt, and Legion. There are some weaker characters such as Jacob, Kasumi, and Zaeed. No matter how you feel about them you need to make sure you gain their loyalty as the final mission will be a pain otherwise.
The mission themselves vary greatly, some don't even register, some are really annoying and drawn out like the Firewalker Mission, others are really intense like Overlord, and in the case of loyalty missions, you feel closer to your team.
I have to give a big shoutout to Niftu Cal the Biotic God, he has a small role but a funny one, people have uploaded his contribution to Mass Effect 2 on YouTube.
Overall the gameplay is pretty good for the most part and the only major flaw is the wishy-washy cover system, which if memory serves Bioware has made massive improvements for Mass Effect 3.
Final Thoughts
So, after thirty plus hours how do I feel? Pretty good for the most part, story and music are mostly strong, however, the visuals and gameplay sometimes felt a little lacking. The game has definitely lost some of its charm since it was originally released, that being said I had a lot of fun playing it and will likely play it in the future. Overall I would have to give this one 4 out of 5
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