Epic sci fi TPS/RPG and fascinating intergalactic encyclopedia in one.
Mass Effect's story begins in epic fashion and once again you'll be using captain Shepard and will be trying to save the galaxy from alien beings known as 'Reapers' who show up every few thousand years and try to destroy all life in the galaxy.But it's not only the Reapers who are the problem,because a powerful insectoid-like race known as 'Collectors' serve the Reapers and the Collectors are going around to different colonies and when they do,every every person from those colonies disappear(yes,entire colonies are being wiped/disappearing when the collectors show up at the colony's planet!).
Shepard starts working for a human-run company known as 'Cerebrus' because Shepard owes his life to Cerebrus and Cerebrus want to stop the collectors/reapers and have a good amount of knowledge about the collectors which is crucial for surviving an attack on the collector's base and to find where the collectors come from.However,Cerebrus are looked at as being an evil organization because they've been guilty of doing some horrific things in the past and you'll learn what they are when you play the game.
Besides Shepard,there's other characters you'll meet who will either join your party or be interesting NPCs and some of these party members/NPCs will be familiar faces from the first Mass Effect game.Your party members and the NPCs will be from a good number of different,diverse races and genders.Some of the party members are humans who are loyal to Cerebrus or who have suffered greatly from the evil things Cerebrus has done.Where as some of the other party members are aliens who who come from very interesting and diverse cultures which greatly affects their personalities and mannerisms.The physical appearances of the aliens are very detailed and creative,such as a race of aliens who wear breathing apparatus,as well as a race of aliens named 'Krogan' who look like giant,amphibious toad things and often have boarish manners and are often violent,as well as a race of skinny,long headed,intelligent,good with computers/science,fast speaking aliens known as 'salarians' and other aliens with scaly skin or yellow,green,blue skin(some races have very bright colored skin).
What also makes the characters interesting is they have deep backstories to reveal and not only will you get to learn about their culture/backstory,there is times when you can or will have to involve yourself in their backstory and their race's political affairs,which means you'll need to travel to the planet that particular alien comes from and help them with problems they have with other people of their race.Or the backstories can be purely personal but not politically or racially related and can be quite emotional or make you want to help that character.Also,when you're trying to help out an alien party member,saying or doing certain things to members of their race could result in bad things happening to that alien character because their race will have a different way they look at logic or different moral values which humans are used to as well as different or more extreme ways they punish people from their race.
The story is often neither black or white and sometimes you will have to make decisions which are neither black or white and can be seen as good or evil decisions and sometimes your party members will have conflicting opinions about things and will argue with eachother you can choose which character to side with or be neutral and you can allow/assist a party member to get revenge or prevent them from doing something evil to get revenge against somebody who did something bad to them or to protect their family members.
As for the gameplay,during combat it's very much like a TPS.You'll need to get behind cover to avoid being shot and killed.You'll need to find ammo for your guns.The shootouts can be intense and having good accuracy and reaction time is very important.The shootouts can reward you for being tactical because you can order each party member to move to a certain place on the battle area to draw the attention of enemies so you can sneak up on enemies from side-on.
I choose to play as the soldier class who specializes with guns.But there is other classes which allow your character to use biotics in combat,which are Mass Effect's version of spells and their biotic abilities can do things such as lifting up enemies in the air using gravity and crushing their body or disabling the shields of enemies.Even though the soldier doesn't have biotic abilities,he can do special types of gunshots which can greatly damage an enemy with one shot or freeze an enemy and kill them with one shot(your gunfire will shatter their frozen body and kill them easily).
The game has RPG elements such as being able to level up and choose which stats of your character you want to increase,as well as selecting what you want to say to your party members which affects your relationship with them and can lead to romance or allow you to have sex with certain party members but saying something a character doesn't like or not doing enough to make them happy or aroused can ruin your chances of creating romance or a sexual encounter with that character.Making the right decision to create romance or a sexual encounter or making the wrong decision to ruin your chances of creating romance of a sexual encounter are not as clear cut as you might think)and certain decisions you make can cause certain characters to die(not just your party members but some NPC's as well)and making a decision to stop characters from dying isn't as easy as you might think.Some characters flirt a lot in very descriptive sexual ways which makes the sexual inneundo in the Ar Tonelico games look mild.
I like how your party members and some NPCs can constantly have new things to talk about as the story progresses.The story can be emotional when certain characters die and the story becomes very intense and exciting near the end of the game.
However,the gameplay is not perfect because there's long loading times when you want to travel to different parts of your starship,as well a slight unresponsiveness for the cover mechanics when you want to make Shepard get behind cover.In my first playthrough,I had to reload the game twice due to glitches.One of them was the game froze up.The second one was my party members kept shooting at nothing and wouldn't move and kept shooting and I couldn't progress through the mission.Even though it was only 2 times I had to reload the game in a 30 hour experience,it's still frustrating having to redo gameplay sections.
Some of the environments in the game have so much atmosphere such as a beautiful metropolis on an alien world that has lots of flying cars flying around,or a world that's an industrial wasteland with powerful gusts of wind blowing across it's surface and some space stations have dance clubs,some of which look like they might be red light district style because feminine looking Asari aliens will be doing seductive dances in front of male patrons while wearing revealing clothing but some dance clubs look like they're places just to get a drink and dance and have nice looking hologram lighting effects on the walls.You also will or can travel to planets with very hot temperatures and stormy atmospheres or tropical planets as well as a variety of other styles of locations.
The cinematics show beautiful footage of space station exterior or beautiful footage of cities with flying cars or regions of space with nebula clouds and some of the cinematics can be very exciting and intense to watch as emotional or epic events will unfold.
However,a few of the environments in the game have objects in which the surface of them will fade and come back and some objects fade and come back in the distace.There's other occasional graphical glitches such as dead enemies being stuck in the air or party members walking in the air.
The voice acting of Shepard suits him well.Miranda's Australian accent makes her more noticable.I like how the alien assassin in your party speaks very softly but very religiously/spiritually too.I thought the alien who wears the breathing aparatus has a bit of a weird,Eastern European sounding voice but because her voice is affected by the breathing apartatus it makes her more unique.I like how the Krogan speak with very rough voices and don't focus on manners when they speak.I like how the Salarians speak very fast and like intelligent creatures.
I like how the music doesn't overpower the gameplay too much but the title screen music is very intense and awesome and is used during the intense story moments and makes things feel more thrilling.You'll hear the flying cars going past and aliens and humans having interesting conversations about a variety of things(giving you an idea of what living in Mass Effect's multicultural future is like)and when you go to dance clubs you'll hear awesome music that has an electonic/techno sound to it.
Overall,Mass Effect 2 is an epic sci fi journey,one of the most detailed sci fi universe you'll experience and has a good mixture of TPS and RPG elements.