I have been asked by a few people to submit my review of the newest BioWare creation, Mass Effect 2.  First I would like to point out that Mass Effect 2 is already a great game with a great story line, but if you did not play Mass Effect 1, you are missing out on about 50% of the story.  Many questions are not answered or addressed in Mass Effect 2 that are answered or addressed in Mass Effect 1 leaving you clueless if you have not played the preceding game.  But without further adue, the review:

The Short
Pros – Mass Effect 2 has excellent story lines, and a genius way of “deleveling” your character without you becoming completely furious about it by masking the deleveling process in the story line itself.  Though the graphics could have been improved upon by allowing some higher resolution textures, the overall look of the game is still absolutely stunning.  But, this game is possibly the most immersive game yet to be released!

Cons – The game is based in part on a DLC system in which is the only means to add content to the game.  The community has been given no tool set to add their own content as of yet, and the game itself seems to have been released with pieces missing that are only buyable through their “Cerberious Network”; a site in which you can buy these DLC’s.  For instance, in Mass Effect 1, you could take an exploration tank called the Mako to planets and explore the surface of said planet to uncover resources, items, and quests in fact, this vehicle was also vital in some of the main story lines.  In Mass Effect 2, the exploration vehicle was intentionally left out, forcing players that have bought the game to have to pay extra to make use of this vehicle.

The Long
When you first start up Mass Effect 2, you expect to be Commander Shepherd, a high-ranking human whom has just saved life in the Milkey Way Galaxy.  BioWare granted the fan’s wishes, with the opening scene showing you’re star-ship, The Normandy SR1, hunting down remnants of the Geth (suspected rogue robot race of beings created by the Quarian race in which contributed heavily to the downfall in Mass Effect 1).  During this sequence, an ominous ship appears and starts to pursue the Normandy SR1.  Within seconds of this ship engaging the Normandy, its weaponry slices the Normandy in half effortlessly and shows Commander Shepard and Ashley Williams (depending on your story line in Mass Effect 1) evacuating the crew.  Navigator Presley is shown dying from the initial impact of the weapon impact.  As Ashly is refusing to exit the ship until you do, she states that Joker is still aboard and will not leave, even though it is totally obvious the Normandy is in worse condition than the Titanic is today.  Shepard makes his way toward the cockpit, and convinces Joker to abandon ship in the escape pods.  As you sit Joker down in his pod, an explosion “spaces” commander Shepard, but not before he hits the “evac” button for Joker.  Commander Shepard is then seen entering an unknown plannet’s atmosphere in the same dramatic way a meteor would on earth, burning on his way down.

Miranda Lawson

Jacob Taylor

At this point you are introduced to the Cerberious a pro-human organization (that border-lines terrorists), those playing host to the Lasurious Project, a project solely intended to bring Commander Shepard back to life as he was before he died.  You find out that this project cost in the BILLIONs price range, and with the price of comic book, that is more like tens of trillions of US Dollars.  After 2 years, you awake to the installation you are on becoming under seige by the robotic security centuries that are supposed to be guarding the installation.  You then escape and meet your first 2 squad members, Miranda a Cerberious loyalist, and Jacob, a Cerberious Operative skeptical of Cerberious.

At this point you meet the Illusive Man, a person in which only a video can truly describe — he is very ego-eccentrical, and appears to be synthetic.   He acts as the protagonist of the game, and requests communications with you through your Yeoman as you progress through the game, but at this point, he meets with you for the first time, and if you walked the path of a Paragon, you’re not happy to owe this person your life due to his organization’s track-record.  From here you find out that humanity is being plagued by an unkown threat in which entire colonies vanish into thin air, with no trace of battle, or any evidence of anything out of the ordanary except their posessions are still present at the colony and they are indeed gone.

It is now your responsibility to find out why, who, and stop it.

This game begins with a bang, and goes out the same way.  The game has a miraid of possible endings, though the focus of this game isn’t about your character, its about your team, and your ship.  You upgrade your ship, you build your team, gain the loyalty of your team members, and when you are ready, you go in and kick some ass.  Depending on how many of your team members that prove loyal to you, and depending on the upgrades you obtain for your ship, and depending on your timely responses to certain situations, well, things can go really well, or really bad at the end.  “Anything can happen” said BioWare, and they were right, your entire team (all, just a few, or just one) can die or survive, your entire ship crew can die or survive, and even Commander Shepard can die or survive.

“We wouldn’t be serious about calling the final mission a “suicide mission” if there wasn’t a good chance Commander Shepard dies at the end.” ~ Lead Designer, BioWare

In short, this is the most story rich, intensely immersive game released to-date in 2010!