A worthy port, Playstation 3 owners have no excuse to miss this one.
The game is a 3rd person shooter, however, and it's quite easy to forget about the combat side of the game when you're so immersed in the story. That's partly because the combat is unrewarding. You'll find yourself mostly ducking behind the cover of some ledge or wall and occasionally popping up to fire at your target. Unless you've set the game on its highest difficulty, combat is mostly straightforward and simple. You've got a number of guns, some magic (known as biotic powers in the game) which can be used by certain classes and an assortment of weapon upgrades that add effects like ice and fire to your bullets. Mass Effect 1 veterans will find that the combat is much smoother, but at the same time, stripped down. The amount of biotic powers is cut and the leveling system is stripped down significantly making you feel less in control of your character's progress. They will also notice the lack of leveled guns and equipment - which isn't such a bad thing considering the complexity of the system - but they could have been preserved in a simpler form without eliminating them altogether in order to make the game feel more personal. Perhaps removing the complexity from the combat system opened room for smoother game-play, because Mass Effect 2 does feel much more fluid and precise, but keeps the same premise of duck-cover-shoot that sort of makes the combat tedious after a while. While there's enough action to make the game feel like a shooter, you'll find that through the completion of the game, the plot stays with you much longer than the combat. Still, the combat does augment the story well, and fighting through the hoards of enemies helps to make the plot lines feel more intimate.
Speaking of intimacy, as with most Bioware games, your relationship with the other characters plays a significant role in the completion of the main quest-line. While there are a good number of them, each character brings their own unique set of skills and a distinct personality, and deciding which of them to accompany you on a mission can be quite a head scratcher. What's more, the character quests are perhaps the highlight of the plot. Each character has a fascinating backstory, and you become involved in their pasts during their introductory quests and their loyalty quests which invariably build upon the introductions. Probing deeper into their stories can unlock some of the more rewarding adventures you'll take. While they tend to diverge from the main storyline, they still feel as if their completion is a necessary part of your mission. Your relationship with your crew-mates will unlock better biotic powers for them if it is good enough - which gives added incentive to get closer to them. You can even unlock romance events, with characters of either sex, if you choose to pursue that route.
The atmosphere and setting of the game is what really pulls you into the universe. The story is very well developed and transitions exceedingly smoothly from where the previous game left off. While the beginning of the story is rather far-fetched, it sets up a great number of engrossing scenes and dramatic events which keep you playing on and on into the night. Your quest takes you all over the galaxy, in the center of civilization to the furthest reaches of space. Perhaps the strangest aspect of the plot is the method of travel; you merely enter a sort of portal which propels you about space in seconds - making the galaxy feel much smaller. There are a number of different races, each with its own unique traits, strengths, weaknesses and quirks. Some of the races seem rather useless, but that only adds to the background of the plot. You'll be involved in the dirty politics of the Citadel Council, fighting against rouge groups from uncontrolled space, battling and colluding with various mercenary groups of questionable repute and saving the galaxy from a powerful force that nobody really understands - and refuses to believe once you become aware.
Perhaps the most annoying thing about Mass Effect 2 is the resource collection system. Yes, you will find yourself floating above planets and littering their surface with collection probes for hours, all in the name of collecting four resources that are necessary to unlock better weapons and armor and improve the ship. Collecting these resources is absolutely necessary if you intend to end the game with the best outcome, but getting them is extremely tedious and mind rending. You can pick up small bit of resources in your exploration, but expect to spend a lot of time staring at a slowly rotating sphere while moving your cursor over it in the hopes that you just may happen across a good find here and there. The resource collection system is definitely the most disappointing aspect of the game.
The added content to the game that is included with the PS3 version is usually of lower quality than the main game, and this is pretty much par for the course with Bioware. Though I would have told you to skip it had you purchased the PC or 360 versions, you may as well enjoy them since you have no choice. The graphics tend to be disappointing and glitches can be frustrating, but they add another few hours of playing time that keep the story fresh.
The PS3 version actually has slightly better graphics than the 360 version (though not as good as the PC,) and that's mostly due to the upgraded game engine. The transition was not completely perfect as demonstrated by some strange glitches, but the visuals are stunning when they appear properly and it is something to be happy about if you've waited for the port. All in all, across all systems, the graphics exude atmosphere and beauty and they only serve to improve the game play.
Mass Effect 2 is, at its heart, an RPG that happens to have gunfights every now and then. While time was well spent developing the combat system, the plot and the characters therein are so engrossing and compelling that the combat segments serve mostly as a necessary component to advance the plot. The combat could have been much better had the mechanics not been so simple and without need for strategy, but they are smooth and do not detract from the game. The ambiance and music is rather boring and not noteworthy, so don't expect to remember them for too long. Mass Effect 2 has some annoying quirks and frustrating aspects of leveling and resource gathering, but it is chocked full of great stories and adventure and absolutely should not be ignored. Now that its come out for the PS3, you have no excuse to miss this one.