Mass Effect 2 - Part 1
0I'll start this review by saying that there is absolutely no wonder that many consider this game to be the jewel in BioWare's crown. It takes everything from it's predecessor that was outdated, clunky and downright annoying - and improves upon it in every way. Graphically, a lot of the animation problems and human movements have been fixed, with the characters able to convey much more emotion than before and the cover and shoot combat is fluid and more responsive - and goddamn is ammo more welcome than cooldowns! Gone are the days that the Mako can be flipped over by a pebble - instead replaced with the much more user friendly and fun to drive Firewalker! Areas are far less barren and uninteresting and the environments have all been fleshed out, and given individual characteristics - the Geth ship no longer looks exactly the same as a warehouse for example. There's a lot more than just skin and asset changes. It's just significantly improved.
You once again take control of Shepherd, who continues two years from where the first left off as captain of the Normandy. The Reapers (who threaten all of organic civilisation throughout the universe) have indoctrinated a race called the Collectors in order to achieve this goal, by kidnapping entire colonies of humans. Bankrolled by the Illusive Man and Cerberus (an organisation with unclear and shady motives), you must assemble a team of individuals to embark on a potential suicide mission to the darkest reaches of the galaxy to stop the Collectors. Sounds complicated? BioWare have written this story in a way that it's accessible to all, easy to follow - and thoroughly exciting and engaging. Something that other science fiction media fails to oftentimes do.
In fact, as far as the writing goes then that is a monumental achievement in itself. BioWare has poured so much effort into ensuring that each recruitable character or NPC crew member has been thoroughly fleshed out. Unlike ME1 or Dragon Age Inquisition, I gave a shit about every single one of them - and their loyalty missions had me fully invested. Even EDI, the ship's AI had won me over by the end. It's exactly this kind of fleshing out and forethought that made choices such as relationships, paragon/renegade or actions taken seem to carry that much more weight.
The game is not perfect. Mining for materials is frustratingly boring - and planetary exploration, whilst improved, is still a chore with some meaningless content that is dull. Like VR missions or tutorials or target practice. I understand that galaxies are huge - but there could have been a bit more significance of 'Anomaly detected' outings. But all in all, Mass Effect 2 is a masterwork in it's own right - and so far I've not played anything from BW that comes remotely close.
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