22 hours and 15 minutes is how long it took me to complete Mass Effect 2′s main story line whilst completing a big helping of side quests. Judging from how much I played the game for shows you just how immersive this game is as I played it that much in just a few days. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the outset this game will just blow you away even if you are not an RPG fan, This game is more of a Gears of War 3rd person type shooter with alot of dialogue thrown in. Now if you played the first game in the series you are in for a treat because the choices you made in that game roll over into this one in a huge way. For example crew members who died in the first game will not reappear and even more subtle is you will get full blown quests from people you chose to help in the first game.

 

Knowing that every choice you make in Mass Effect 2 will effect many things in Mass Effect 3 makes the game even more immersive and you genuinely stop and think about the choices you are going to make. Everything from the great voice acting, facial animations, great graphics and all the places you visit just makes you feel that you are in that world and you must fight to save it.

The shooting mechanics have improved immensely since Mass Effect 1 and it rivals even stand alone 3rd person shooters. The controls feel very fluid and smooth. The added bonus of being able to use your D PAD to control your squad mates makes it feel more like a tactical shooter like Brothers in Arms which just brings the whole game together.

 

The upgrade system is a very nice feature, you assign upgrade points to various ablities and once you have maxxed out a certain ability you get 2 choices of how to make that power better. You can also upgrade your weapons, armour,Tech, prototype weapons and even your ship but to do so you must have materials, The way you gather materials is mostly by visiting unexplored planets which is alot different to Mass Effect 1. Instead of driving around a boring baron wasteland aka Mass Effect 1, You have a planet scanner and you scan the planet for materials and when you controller vibrates and the scanner shakes you launch a probe which collects materials. This can get quite tedious and boring but you will find yourself doing this just to get one more upgrade to make your crew even more powerful.

 

The Paragon and Renegade system is very good and it’s not like Fable where you are either good or bad but you can be a mixture of both. You could max out both your paragon and Renegade status to unlock all conversations topics. A nice little twist is that you can interupt conversations with a press of the left or right trigger. You can only do this when the option pops up but with that extra little option there you sometimes sit there thinking to yourself ”shall I or shouldn’t I”? Especially if its a bad action.

Overall I really enjoyed this game but I am still abit dismayed by EA and Bioware putting codes in the game cases to unlock extra content. It wouldn’t usually bother me but I rented this game and I couldn’t even go online to use the Dragin Armour from Dragon Age on this game as you need a code to use the online service or pay 1200 points for the service which I think is going too far.

 

Even with a few niggles this game really is a true gem and as I said before this game may even appeal to non RPG fans as in my opinion this is more of a 3rd person shooter.  The story line is second to none, sometimes you feel as if you are playing and interactive movie. Every character has a story to tell and it is done so well and with the added element of building relationships with your crew members and seeing their reactions it just brings this game out into it’s own. This is definately a game you should definately atleast try.

 

Hope you enjoyed my short review. Listen to my opinions of the game in more detail on episode 104 of 360GamerCast