Mass Effect 2 is an amazingly well crafted game and an excellent addition to any gamer's collection.
As a company, Bioware is renowned for their masterfully crafted stories, characters and exceptional dialogue trees. Their latest and greatest, Mass Effect 2, takes the polish and attention to detail that we know and love, to an entirely new level. The story is well fleshed out and includes plenty little tidbits and plot twists to keep things fresh and interesting. The game really shines when you utilize the ability to import a character from the first game, because the choices that were made and the relationships that were developed in the first game have an effect on the way that the player interacts with the world and how NPCs will interact with them. For instance, characters who died in the first game will remain dead and allies that were made will offer side quests in the best of situations and at the very least make an appearance, providing a level of player immersion that most games can only touch on, let alone provide for the entire playthrough. The story itself is well paced and progressed through cutscenes, which would normally be somewhat of a "con," but because the cutscenes never completely wrest away the control of the player via extensive use of voice acted dialogue, which is wholly guided by various options familiar to players of the first game and the addition of what I like to call, interactive cutscene moments where the player can, when prompted by an icon, pull the left trigger for a paragon action or the right trigger for a renegade action and interrupt the cutscene and do either a paragon or renegade action respectively. This allows for a level of immersion that cutscenes generally don't offer their players. A great addition to the Mass Effect formula from the first game, were an extensive amount of side quests. However, this time, instead of boring text based quests with generic Mako landing on random planet for intro scene, each of the side quests have at least a unique landing sequence.
Speaking of the dreaded Mako, players from the first game will be happy to know, it is gone and with it, the boring driving sequences from the first game. They have been replaced by a nifty planet scanner, which allows you to scan a planet's surface for resources (more on those and the scanner later) and to find the location of an "anomaly" which indicates a potential mission. The game will tell you before you even begin scanning a planet if there is a mission or not so you will never have to scan a planet looking for a mission that isn't there. Also the missions themselves are really well done and each one is different. Some are purely puzzle missions and others are more tried and true combat oriented missions. Thankfully, unlike the first game you won't find yourself going to a warehouse that looks suspiciously like a warehouse you just "liberated" from pirates and killing a group of suspiciously similar pirates again and again. One problem that I had with the original game was the fact that the enemies basically came in 5 varieties: Geth, Husks, Male Pirate, Female Pirate and Asari Commando and they seemed to be recycled over and over. What Mass Effect 2 does really well is it expands greatly on the first game's enemy list. Examples of new enemies that they have added are new Geth, several different mercenary "companies" each of which has their own style of combat and troop types, a new type of synthetic enemy called "Mechs" and even different types of husks and husk like enemies. The feature that was really excellent about the side missions was the fact that they put each of the enemies in context with the mission. You no longer find yourself running into a random base and finding the whole place full of random dudes who are seemingly there for no reason. Each mission has its enemies tied in with it and makes it very clear what their motivation for being there is, which adds to the "immersion factor." Although there are a lot more new enemy types, if you are a completionist like I am, and insist on playing every mission of the game, you will still inevitably tire of the enemy types that are available by the end of the last side mission.
The combat has been essentially redone from the first game. It's still the third person shooter style action from the first game, but several features of the combat have been modified. For example, the powers from the first game have been completely redone. Most of the powers from the first game have returned in some way or another and more than a few have been added. However, powers now share a universal cooldown making the game much more focused on gunplay and using your weapons to kill your enemies rather than spamming different powers. To compensate, powers have become much more devastating. The weapon overheat feature from the first game has also been replaced by an ammo mechanic that has you getting universal ammo clips which replenish all your ammo stores up to the max. The massive amounts of guns and ammo types from the first game have been replaced as well. Now, instead of magically being able to carry all of your weapons with you in your inventory (and having to manage them), you will have to carefully choose a handful of weapons you will take with you at the start of the mission based on what enemies you will be facing. This is compensated by the addition of new weapon types including, the heavy pistol, SMGs and Heavy Weapons. Each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses against certain types of enemies. The ammo types from the first game have been replaced a power rather than an item that you equip to the particular weapon. These can be switched out at will (provided you have the power that grants you access to that type) and give you certain benefits against certain types of enemies. The heavy weapons are a different story however. There are 5-6(depending on whether or not you download the free DLC) different heavy weapons available and they each have their own different effects although you cannot use your powers to give them additional properties like you can with standard weapons. In addition, they all share a special "heavy weapon" ammo type that is separate from the rest of the weapons, but they are much more devastating. However, the opportunities to use them are few and far between and some heavy weapons are simply better than others because of the way that they affect different types of protection. Which brings me to another change that I didn't particularly like; the health mechanic has also been redone. Now biotic barriers, shields, armor, and health are their own separate "bars" that one must work through (in that order) before you are able to drop anyone. Each of the different layers have immunities to some weapons and powers but, are susceptible to others making it necessary to strategically switch weapon types often and make careful use of your powers. This is especially true when facing very difficult "boss" enemies with multiple layers of protection. The game's difficulty is very steep however, and many players will find that insane mode is quite challenging, requiring you to "stop the action" using the power wheel just to assess the situation and figure out how you are going to survive. The new ammo "feature" means that it is virtually impossible to stick with a favored weapon for a lengthily encounter without running out of cover to look for more ammo (which in some cases, especially on the harder difficulties can be near suicidal). In addition to finding ammo, on harder difficulties especially, the game will often force you to seek out new cover to avoid enemies that, for one reason or another, completely eschew cover and decide to walk over and shoot you in the face instead. This makes some encounters which have large amounts of enemies that have both long and close range capabilities frustratingly difficult, and may even require you to restart the mission so you can change your weapon load out, or even bring different squad mates. Most of the same character classes from the first game make an appearance, and there has been a new class, the Infiltrator, but like I have already mentioned, the powers mechanic has been redone, so they utilize a different play style and many of the redundant features of previous classes have been more solidly fitted into more specialized niches.
The art style and the graphical presentation of the game is also very well done and polished. The graphics make use of the Unreal engine and while the engine itself is starting to show its age, Mass Effect 2 pushes it to its limit. The character and enemy models all look very good, although, sometimes there are some pretty big glitches, especially involving eyelids but for the most part they are very well detailed. Masse Effect 2 also has very well detailed environments which are also excellently done and are dramatically improved over the first game. Whereas in the first game you were fighting space pirates in the same generic warehouses, Mass Effect 2 has a huge variety of environments ranging from outdoor locales, to deep space stations that keep the game refreshing and immersive. Their use of a few really organic and truly alien environments is also a refreshing departure from the mostly synthetic environments of the first game.
The game's sound is, like the rest of the game, amazingly well polished. The voice acting is all excellent and it really brings the characters to life. The game's musical score is also masterfully done and does an excellent job of setting the perfect mood throughout the entire game.
All in all, Mass Effect 2 is a well polished and well done game that expands on an already exceptional framework and despite a few setbacks, it's built in replayability combined with Bioware's promise of future DLC makes Mass Effect 2 a worthy addition to any Xbox 360 or PC gamer's collection. You can expect a solid 40-50 hours of gameplay from a single playthrough if you want to complete all of the side missions, but it is possible to complete the game in about 20 hours if you want to rush through to the ending. The fact that it has multiple endings, several different classes and many, many different player choice possibilities gives Mass Effect 2 the potential to be a completely different experience each time you play. It earned its 9.5.