I went into Mass Effect 2 with no experience in Mass Effect 1 so it was almost a blind leap of faith, putting my trust in both the reviews out there on the internet as well as my friends judgement, but said friends aren't all always the best judges of such things, for example suggesting Assassin's Creed.
Yet, with reckless abandon I surged forward into the world of Commander Shepard and his alliance cohorts. I can report after completing the game twice over, one as a soldier and once as a infiltrator. Both times I found that the story was very entertaining and engaging. You first find yourself on the Normandy, a ship travelling in space, when it is suddenly attacked by what looks like the combination of spaceship and dog muck. You travel through the wreck of your vessel to rescue Seth Green because he's being a selfish annoying teenager and won't leave his seat, even though the entire vessel is likely to explode around him and crumble to dust. So you'll throw him into an escape pod in just enough time to wave him goodbye, shed a tear and let the growing ball of flames engulf you. You then watch as you fall lifeless to the planet below. All for Seth Green. Personally I would have left the cry baby where he was.
Anyway, the rest of the story takes place as you have swapped sides and joined the opposing fraction who have brought you back from the dead in a space aged montage that puts most sci-fi movies to shame. You head round the galaxy, going where you are told to do by 'The Illusive Man' who does as his name suggests, only poorly. He shows himself at the mere drop of hat, sat in a room, on the same chair, surrounded by holographic images, always smoking a cigar. Apparently either in the future we have eradicated lung cancer or the memo got lost in the hyperspace of galactic mail. However you can also visit other planets in other parts of the galaxy to collect resources by probing their surfaces. From this you can buy upgrades for your ship and weapons. You also head around collecting squad mates that you can use to aid you in the final battle against the collectors.
On my first play through I didn't think to upgrade my replacement Normandy ship and so blindly went into battle for the final mission having upgraded all the weapons as much as I could only to find that I really should have as half my team were dead before we even got near to the collector ship. And only two remained after we went through the ship. And all my crew who we needed to rescue from collectors died while making their escape so it was me and 2 others left to fight. 'I must have missed something' I thought so immediately selected to try the story again, swapping my class and this time visiting EVERY SINGLE planet in the galaxy and then upgrading EVERY SINGLE weapon to the maximum I possibly can. Once my ship's stats basically told me I would be able to wonder in to any battlefield unabated, kill everything in sight and still royally mess up an aliens day with only a meer scratch to both ship and ego, I decided it was time to once more march into the Mass Effect equivalent of Mordor. This time was a lot more successful, I was was able to take the full force of the enemies attacks with no damage to the crew, I then chose my squad mates more wisely and set about giving them the right roles to do. At the end we all regrouped, all squad and crew to the merry tune of bleep bloop as an achievement told me I had gained more gamerscore to add to my worthless score.
Yet after all my digressing I must say something that bothers me about this game, it was the best done of it's kind, but still bothers me, the speech system gives you a choice of various different responses each with a different attitude that helps you steer one way or the other, nice or nasty. However I would often find myself selecting what I would perceive to be a reasonable answer based on the small line of text given to you but Commander Shepard proceeds to let of a stream of child like talk that come fresh from is perfectly rounded arse. Thus making me nasty and thus making me feel like a total arsehole.
Which brings me to my only big issue with the game, quick time events. These are used in moments when you can either do an extremely nice or a violent and psychopathic response to the NPC in front of you. Now, I see why they did it, but please Bioware, no more in number 3. Thank you.
An game that had me as hooked as Bioshock, must of course have the same rating, 9 out of ten. Immensely fun and engrossing.
J Stanley
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