This game was a treat. It was laser-focused on the best parts of the series, and everything served a purpose. It’s like someone went through all the content and cut out every second that wasn’t directly part of the vision.

Newfound Context#↑

This section is more about Mass Effect 1 than 2.
↓ Take me to the Mass Effect 2 review

I took a rather large break between the first and second games in this series. My frustration at the morality system made me unenthusiastic to continue. I gave it a bit of a pass. It was an old game. I still liked the worldbuilding even if some elements were dated. That pass I gave it led me to initially rate Mass Effect 1 an 8/10, but it did not mean I was excited for the next entry.

During that break between ME1 and ME2, I played several other RPGs that were even older than Mass Effect 1. I loved them far more than Mass Effect 1. They didn’t need the same pass I was giving Mass Effect 1.

I’ve come to realize that it was never the age of Mass Effect 1 that was the problem. It was simply poorly designed, beaten by games generations older than it.

Now I’ve played Mass Effect 2. It improves on Mass Effect 1 in every way. It fixes so many things that frustrated me in the previous entry. It had its own share of problems, but it really showed off the potential of the series.

This made Mass Effect 1 look even worse in retrospect. It didn’t feel right that to rate Mass Effect 2 only 1 point higher, but it also doesn’t feel like a perfect 10/10. That leaves only one thing to change…

All of this has recontextualized Mass Effect 1 for me. I’ve dropped the score to a 6/10. The parts of it that frustrated me were bad enough that I think that score is more accurate.

I’m happy to say I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 massively more.

The Review#↑

Audio & Visuals#↑

I really enjoyed the upgrades over the first game. It’s clear that the first game got enough success that they were able to get a much, much better budget for the sequel. It really paid off!

Right from the start, I was compelled by this game’s visual storytelling and solid sound design. The opening is intense and is really well sold by the visual and audio effects. They managed to compact a lot of impact into a very short period of time.

Is it dated? Sure. I think it really aged well though. It stuck with simple textures that are largely composed of large blocks of color. It chose to primarily use shading and other light-reactivity of surfaces to distinguish them, rather than trying to create extremely detailed and granular surface textures. This allowed it to avoid looking like a mess when the texture resolution fell behind. The textures were all very smoothed-out looking due to this, but I think that gives the game a distinctive look rather than being an outright negative. It’s a look that they made work with the game’s art direction.

Man the level/environment designs were great this time. There were some truly epic setpieces. It was all crafted in such an interesting, artistic way. So many times I’d open a door or round a corner and have my breath taken away by an excellent view. So many times I’d be fighting for my life in the most dramatic possible location. Even just walking around and exploring was interesting thanks to this. I loved the Illusive Man for his ostentatious office alone.

Voice work also struck me as much better this time around. Clearly, once again, more budget and attention went into polishing every aspect than the first game ever dreamed of. It’s not the best I’ve ever heard, but it’s far more than satisfactory—and for the time it released, great.

Music was great, as always. I love me a good, classic sci-fi soundtrack. Give me those synth-heavy, flowy, dramatic jams.

Story#↑

I’m glad the first game got to set up this world, but its story doesn’t hold a candle to this one. I really, really like this one.

Drama, mystery, heavy emotions, and an epic journey. It had it all.

Right from the start, you’ve got questions, you’ve got strong motivations and clear immediate goals, and you’re immediately put in a difficult situation that will clearly lead to many tough choices. Stakes are established right away. Trust is tenuous at best, but you don’t have a choice. Can our hero manage, with everything stacked against them? It’s such an interesting way to continue the story. Take everything we thought we knew, flip it around, and dive deep into the dirty secrets of the universe. It’s honestly the perfect sequel.

At first, I was disappointed that I didn’t have access to much of my previous crew. I had spent the first game forming bonds, and I had clear favorites. I didn’t want to work with this new crew. I wanted to work with my crew. I didn’t have a choice—just like Shepard didn’t. After I played more, I found it fitting. I grew to slowly trust these new companions, as we tackled more challenging situations and survived more near-death experiences. By the time they were asking me for favors, I was ready to drop everything and help.

This made it feel even better when I started finding my old companions out in the world, doing their own things. They were no longer simply members of Shepard’s crew, they were powerful and influential figures in the world. Their reputations were similar in scale to Shepard’s, and in some cases even greater. This was awesome. It gave me more time to interact with these great characters, while also setting them free from Shepard’s shadow so they could shine on their own—and also making space for an even wider cast of new faces.

Speaking of those new faces, I really liked the structure of the loyalty quests. Generally, I’m not a fan of episodic content. I like when everything is tied together and has a grand story arc. “What would these characters do in this situation?” has never appealed to me. I want to know what the story of that character is. Mass Effect 2 managed to strike a balance that I really enjoyed. I think this was due to several things:

Each “episode” was the story of a particular character. This gave me that feeling I was looking for: experiencing a character’s arc. Instead of the same characters being thrown into very different situations, the stories were focused on the individual development and arc of each character. It not only made me care more about each character, it made each story far more interesting for me.

The missions had a lot of variety. Each character was very different—in personality and in motives, as well as in the themes and tone of their stories. One mission might be a heist filled with a bit of social intrigue. The next might be a horror-inspired crawl through a dark, derelict ship. Another might be an action-packed assault on a heavily fortified location. There’s even a classic crime-drama story with the option for betrayal! This felt more like an anthology of cool sci-fi stories, with the added benefit that I could take characters from one story into the next, and they’d offer unique commentary on eachother’s situations. Really excellent stuff.

I could choose the order I wanted to tackle them. If I happened to be more intrigued by character X than character Y, I could just go do character X’s story first. This happened a lot. I saved characters like Jacob for last, because I just didn’t care. However, I then ended up interested in these stories once I actually played them. If I was forced to do them in a certain order, it may have contributed to me losing interest faster.

Each story had a good gameplay reward. Less on the story side, but definitely something that helped keep me engaged. Each completed Loyalty mission provided that character with an additional (powerful) ability. Additionally, it unlocked that ability for Shepard, though you could only have one active at a time. It opened up more possibilities in combat and kept the gameplay feeling fresh, in a way that was directly tied to my story progress and the bonds I was forming with other characters. It was a simple, but effective reward structure.

The main story arc stayed relevant. This was a clever pacing trick. Every couple loyalty missions completed, the game would interrupt with an emergency related to the main story. This was excellent. It meant that the main story was never far away from my mind. It gave the main story a real sense of urgency by imposing its timing on me, instead of me being allowed to delay it. It kept the pacing of the game fresh by shaking things up every once in a while. It made the time I spent helping my crewmates feel… natural? Sure, the main story was urgent, but it had time gaps in it. It made perfect sense to fill those time gaps helping out my crew.

The main story was also quite good. I happened to lean a bit renegade with my Shepard throughout all the games, perhaps a 60-40 split. So, the “working with Cerberus because there’s no other choice” angle worked quite well for me. My Shepard was constantly making choices based on getting shit done at any cost, and leaning more on the aggressive side. It all made perfect sense to me. I could see it working a bit less well if you leaned Paragon in the first game though.

The system at the end for making a big assult with your whole crew involved was very cool. I had really grown to like all the characters, so being forced to choose people to put into various jobs with different levels of risk was very effective. I also enjoyed feeling rewarded for understanding the strengths of my crewmates, even if that was pretty simple. It felt awesome to have it all come together and achieve victory. Much cooler than if the normal squad structure was used.

Overall very cool. There were some legitimately tough choices that I had really consider before making a decision. There were some cool twists and fantastic character arcs. The story is the best part of this game.

Gameplay#↑

This was also an improvement over the first game, but it still shows its age. I don’t have as much to say about this compared to the story. It was… fine.

Abilities and gunplay all felt better. The skill system was more satisfying to progress. The cover mechanics in particular felt more fleshed out.

I really did not enjoy the scanning system. It felt like needless busywork that really slowed the game down. I would have been happier with that entire mechanic (and the accompanying research system) stripped from the game. It did nothing but slow the game down, without any fun attached. It wasn’t exciting to explore, it was cheap, meaningless filler.

I’m glad, at least, that there was no longer a need for the Mako exploration. They should have skipped that Firewalker DLC too.

I also still hate the morality system, but it felt better designed this time around. It felt less like it was getting in my way by gatekeeping possible roleplaying choices, and more like a tracker for my previous decisions. The scars on the face were a nice detail. I could see, over the course of the game, how much I was leaning one way or another without having to go digging into a menu to look up a number. It helped that the renegade options were generally more intimidating, and the scars made Shepard extremely intimidating. Well handled.

I liked the interrupt system. Call me a sucker, but I actually like quicktime events. Sure, the quicktime events that are like “here’s a string of 7 things to input in the right order” or “pass the QTE or reload” suck, but I like when they’re done more tastefully. There is a meaningful difference for me, psychologically, between a quicktime event and a dialogue option. It’s a great way to change the context of a choice. When my character has a gun pointed at someone’s head, and I have to pull the trigger myself, it just hits different. This game has a great implementation of them. Simple information, simple controls, and sometimes difficult choices. The QTEs also have consequences if you succeed or fail, they aren’t a requirement to pass, they’re a story choice presented in a more time-sensitive manner. It applies a pressure and tension to cutscenes in a really effective way.

Final Thoughts#↑

Rating: 9/10
Playtime: 25 hours

I really liked this one. It will be hard for 3 to surpass it. It still has some flaws, for example the morality system and near-pointless exploration features, but the actual main story is really good. That’s what’s most important in a game like this, so I’m giving it a very high score. With just a few modifications, it could be a perfect 10.

Next Up#↑

Mass Effect 3! Time to wrap this series up. At the time of writing this, I’m actually already most of the way through it. Hopefully I delay the next review far less than this one!