Mass Effect 2 is well-made, but with a weaker story and too many changes, it feels inferior to its predecessor.
Over two years later, its sequel, Mass Effect 2, has now been released. The main question asked of it will be: is it better than its predecessor? Well, my answer would be yes and no. Mass Effect 2 certainly took out a lot of the bad aspects of the first game, such as the long driving sequences using the Mako, and those boring side missions where you go kill someone on some desolate planet. However, like most sequels, it also changes some aspects of the first game that were actually good, which I'll cover later on in this review. Nonetheless, this is still a well-made sequel despite its flaws.
The beginning of the game starts out with the Normandy scouting different galaxies for any signs of remaining Geth forces after the battle with Sovereign. A gigantic, unknown ship appears, seemingly out of nowhere, and uses some sort of laser to destroy large chunks of the Normandy. Commander Shepard rescues Joker while the rest of the crew escapes via shuttles, but ultimately is unable to escape himself as he flies through space until he disappears from view. This event is a good enough way to start the game off, but the same idea has already been used before (remember when your character in Saints Row got blown up, too?).
Two years after this event, an organization known as Cerberus revives you using the best available medical equipment technology has to offer. Using the same customization system as in the first Mass Effect game, you can change the physical characteristics of your Commander Shepard, or choose to import the one you had in the first game. You wake up and realize the station you're in is under attack. You'll learn the basics of combat as you fight a bunch of robots, or mechs. You eventually team up with Jacob and then later Miranda (they basically act like Kaidan and Ashley from the first Mass Effect). Then you're introduced to the Illusive Man, the head of Cerberus, and he informs you that the Reapers are still a threat and so on. The only times you really see him are when he briefs you before a mission and when you report back to him after the mission is completed. After beating the first mission, you gain knowledge that a rare species called the Collectors were the ones responsible for the destruction of the original Normandy, they're abducting hundreds of thousands of human colonists, and it's up to you to stop them. I was disappointed by how trivial the differences were when I imported my character from the first game versus simply starting fresh from Mass Effect 2 with default story options. The only really important difference is whether you decided to save Wrex, and that's about it. If the council is saved, they will reinstate your spectre status, but the encounter with them is brief and makes virtually no difference for the rest of the game. The main problem I have with the story is that there is a complete lack thereof of a good antagonist, like Saren from the first game. Sure, the Collectors are some heavy-hitters, but the game doesn't make your hunt for them feel as important or urgent as it could be. There's also Harbinger, the lead Reaper, who morphs into a common collector frequently during the main story missions, but he's too much like a common enemy to really be considered a good antagonist. This game doesn't have any real twists or surprises in its narrative, and most of the significant characters from the first game have insignificant roles here, or are just cut out completely.
All you really do for a majority of the game is recruit various people onto your ship to help stop the Collectors. You'll recognize a few familiar faces, such as Joker, Garrus, Tali, Wrex (if you saved him from the first game) and Liara from the first game. Assuming you recruit everyone, and if you got the two downloadable allies, the total number of squad members you have will be around a dozen or so, which is twice as many as in the first game. Believe it or not, there are only a few actual story missions to complete. And if you recruit the minimum amount of people into your team, the game will take you no more than around 10 hours to complete. So, what is there to do that will make the game longer? Well, in order to recruit them, you usually have to fight a bunch of people to get to them. And after they've been recruited, they'll request to talk to you and you'll have the option to complete their loyalty mission. Unfortunately, I found most of these to be pretty linear and not very interesting. A few examples of ones I didn't like: Jack's, Jacob's, Mordin's, Miranda's, Legion's, Garrus', and Zaeed's. These missions followed nearly the exact same pattern in that your teammate is looking for someone and Commander Shepard chooses whether that character lives or dies at the end. I'd be fine if merely a couple of them followed this pattern, but since several do, they act as more of a plodding chore than anything else. A couple of them are really interesting, such as stopping Thane's son from killing someone, proving Tali shouldn't be exiled from her people, and helping Samara find and kill her daughter.
Like I said before, there are only a handful of actual story missions to complete. While you're technically not required to complete the characters' loyalty missions, the game strongly encourages you to do so, so they essentially act as main missions. Now, as for these "actual" missions, they consist of either going to a human colony after it's already been attacked (Freedom's Progress), during an attack on it (Horizon), boarding the collector ship, and collecting a reaper IFF to get through the Omega 4 Relay, which leads to the Collector homeworld. These are literally the only story missions available to you, aside from the final suicide mission and being forced to recruit a default amount of people to your team, and they only take around 10-15 minutes to complete. The suicide mission revolves around you and your team going into the Collector homeworld, and depending on whose loyalty missions you completed and the choices you make during the mission, you can end up fine with everyone surviving or with several of your teammates killed in action. Aside from this, though, the actual mission itself isn't very challenging, so I don't think it lives up to the hype in that category. So if you recruit the bare minimum amount of people and complete no loyalty missions, you could easily beat the game in about 5-6 hours.
The gameplay itself has been altered considerably. Gone is the infinite ammo from the first game. In my opinion, this change was completely unnecessary and wasn't even implemented with a solid explanation to the story. Even on the lowest difficulty level, you can no longer run around in the open during combat for very long without getting killed. The game more often than not forces you to take cover behind something solid, similar to Gears of War. The gunfights here are generally more exciting and require more strategy, even if your character has reached the maximum experience level. In case you manage to run out of ammo, you can always use your biotic powers or even a heavy concussive shot if you're playing as a soldier. This allows you to pause the action and scroll around a power wheel to select which power either you or your teammate(s) can use. This is a bit too cheap in my opinion, as it not only allows you to set up a perfect shot on your target, but also to see more of the surrounding area and where other enemies may be hiding behind cover. The weapon you'll most likely be using the most is the assault rifle, as the shotgun has limited ammo, you usually won't get close enough to enemies to get the most out of it, and it doesn't inflict nearly as much damage as you'd think. The new addition of heavy weapons is welcome. These come in handy against tougher foes like heavy mechs. The main enemy in the game is no longer geth; you're generally fighting human and asari biotic soldiers, the collectors or a bunch of mechs. Frequently during the main story missions, Harbinger will try to take you down, but he's easy to defeat with a few concussive shots and some assault rifle fire. The enemy AI is generally not all that smart, and they're easier to beat because they don't rush at you like the geth and they pop their heads out from behind cover about every five seconds. Squad AI has been improved, as they won't get downed too often on the lower difficulty levels; also, you can command each individual squad member to move to a certain area, where as in the first game both of your teammates moved to the same place. As for weapon upgrades, the whole entire upgrade system from the first game is gone, along with the many different types of weapons. In its place is mineral scanning planets in order to purchase upgrades. This is generally a long and tedious process that bored the hell out of me. Thankfully, you'll probably never feel like you have to get these upgrades, as they don't actually make that much of a difference and the game can still be beaten on the lower difficulty levels rather easily without them. The same paragon/renegade system is here, but instead of spending upgrade points on dialogue, you can automatically choose the colored dialogue lines (either blue or red) if you progress far enough in either option. A new option they added is hitting LT or RT to perform a paragon or renegade action. For example, a paragon action would be to physically hug someone or say reassuring words to them; a renegade action would be to punch someone or insult them. Another feature that relates to the paragon/renegade system is that Commander Shepard starts out with scars on his/her face at the beginning of the game. Depending on which route you take, your face could end up looking completely normal or with large, red scars covering a good portion of it. Also, Shepard's eyes either have a bluish tint when paragon or are completely red when renegade.
In terms of exploration, there is unfortunately little of that to do in this game. The places you travel to for the main missions (aside from the suicide mission, where it looks similar to Gears of War) are generally uninteresting to look at. Horizon and Freedom's Progress, both human colonies, look almost identical except the former has vegetation while the later has an environment that consists of dark rocks and takes place at night. The Reaper and Collector ships you board are OK but since the places you walk are restricted in size and linear, they are surprisingly underwhelming. Also, the gigantic circular chamber inside the Collector ship looks very similar to the inside of the gigantic worm monster you fought in Gears of War 2. As for regular planets, there are four: The Citadel, Illium, Omega and Tuchanka. Unfortunately, you can no longer go into the Presidium on the Citadel, and the new Wards available lack the same unique artistic feel. Illium is by far the most interesting place to visit, though the city itself looks exactly like Coruscant from the Star Wars saga. Still, the city background is nice to look at, but even though the available area to walk around on Illium is more interesting than the other planets, I still felt as though it could've been much more. Omega also reminds me of Coruscant from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones when Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker pursued someone into a club at night. Omega is full of nightlife and features lots of dance music, and even though it has a prominent role early on in the game, it is unfortunately way too small to be that interesting. Tuchanka is probably the least interesting planet you'll go to, as it is very small, made up of just rocks, and there is essentially nothing to do there, and there are only two short loyalty missions that take place there and that's it. Thankfully, the game doesn't require you to go there. In fact, all of the available planets seem abbreviated and closed in. The only real thing that has been expanded is the Normandy, which now has more levels and each one is pretty large. There's simply no reason why they had to take the Presidium or the original Wards out, and these were some of the most interesting places in Mass Effect. Also, there isn't really much to do on any of these planets besides talking to someone (Captain Anderson on the Citadel, Liara on Illium, Aria on Omega, and Wrex on Tuchanka), but all these characters have trivial roles and are irrelevant from the main story, or doing a simple task for someone. You can talk to your teammates on the Normandy, but only a few of these characters are actually interesting (I personally think they shouldn't have included Jack, as she's an uninteresting jerk who's hard to care about at all), and unless you want a romantic relationship with someone for the love scene, then you'd just be wasting your time.
So far, there have been three DLCs for this game. The first is an additional character Zaeed for your team, who's honestly just a big jerk of a character, plus his loyalty mission is pretty short. The second is Kasumi, another downloadable character to add to your team. Her mission is more interesting and takes a longer amount of time to complete. The third one is called project Overlord. I personally think this one is long and pretty tedious. They added some kind of flying vehicle which handles poorly and isn't much fun in combat. There will be a fourth one coming up soon featuring Liara going after the Shadow Broker, which actually seems like it'll be a lot of fun. Out of the three that have been released so far, I'd recommend just getting Kasumi's, because it has a more engaging plot, the set pieces are interesting and it involves strategy. In terms of the audiovisual department, this game skyrockets in both aspects. Illium and parts of Omega are pretty contrived, but nevertheless are interesting to look at. All of the planets, in fact, look great visually, not necessarily artistically. There are a variety of different alien species to look at, and there is little to no clipping throughout the game. Character models look great, though a lot of the enemy designs are repetitive. However, I have run into a few bugs where the screen froze or Commander Shepard got lodged into a piece of the environment, which resulted in me having to reload the last save point. Overall, the graphics are nearly perfect. The audio is equally as superb as the visuals. The voice acting is strong, and the in-game sound such as explosions, gunfire, etc. all sound good. The game's soundtrack also features great music at appropriate times in the story.
Despite all of my complaints, I still think Mass Effect 2 is a very well-made game. While I would've appreciated more of a real story and antagonist instead of just recruiting people, and for some of the characters from the first game to have more prominent roles here, the game is still interesting enough to want to see through to the end. The worlds you visit may not be very large, and there isn't much to do on them after you've completed the game, but the core gameplay is pretty engaging and makes both the main story missions and some of the loyalty missions more fun to play through. While it may not have the same unique story and polish as its predecessor, Mass Effect 2 is still a helluva lot of fun to play and a solid sequel that stands on its own two feet.