Mass Effect 2 Review

Originality: Where Mass Effect 1 stayed too close to the KOTOR games, Mass Effect 2 went in the opposite direction towards so many other games. I was disappointed that they got rid of the rather unique feeling recharge system and went towards ammunition. This forced myself to play with weapons I HATED using simply because I would run out of ammunition, rather than enjoying and perfecting my skills at one particular thing like I did in the original game, which felt very similar to so many other games. Also, the taking out the open worldness of this game and having missions which, upon completion you would often go straight back up to the ship. And the final boss fight felt like it was straight out of Star fox 64 against Andross in many respects, as opposed to a truly unique and challenging boss.

13/20

Graphics: Everything looked better from the first game, except for the ship animations. I felt like whenever there was a cut scene involving space, everything looked horrible.

9/10

Art Style: I really have nothing noteworthy to say about any particular planet and it’s individual beauty in art style or the game’s art style in general. It was the same average style of the first game, if a little less colorful feeling.

9/15

Story: Once again, the strength in Bioware is their storytelling, and not just the main one. In fact, I would argue the character developments and relationship develoments were some of the most interesting story pieces in this game. I spent a long time determining if I wanted my character to be interested in a girl or just be a hardcore rogue, and I was delighted to see how much impact the decisions I made would have on my relationships with other characters as well as the galaxy as a whole. I was a little disappointed with the ending of this game, which felt a LOT less satisfying than the ending of the original game. This felt like a “part one” of a two part special, whereas Mass Effect 1 had a proper ending with the build up to a sequel.

27/30

Game Interface: I found things easy to get to if they were on the screen. The problem is the game forces you to pick a weapons layout and then you only have certain guns you can choose from during a mission, which I didn’t like.

4/5

Controls easy and fluid or difficult and rigid? They took out like all of the quality of life hotkeys from the first game. I tried looking to see if I could set them up and even looked up this problem online and it looks like they just didn’t bother with the pc version. Super disappointing because I shouldn’t have to hit escape and click a bunch of things to pull something specific up. There should be a designated button!

2/5

Is it fun? The breaking up of this game into missions, eliminating hotkeys for the most part, replacing charging with ammunition, and some other minor things made me enjoy this game less than Mass Effect 1, but it was still a decent game to play.

10/15

Total –

76 / 100

Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition – 100 + 5 = 105

Shovel Knight – 95 + 10 = 105

Paper Mario – 90 +10 = 100

Shadow of Mordor = 95 + 5 = 100

Zelda Skyward Sword-98

Hyrule Warriors – 93 + 5 = 98

Overwatch – 90 + 5 = 95

Batman: Arkham Asylum - 93

Zelda Minish Cap – 92

Portal 2 – 87 + 5 = 92

Portal – 87 + 5 = 92

Assassin’s Creed 4 Wii U – 86 +5 = 91

Zelda Windwaker HD – 86 + 5 = 91

Bayonetta 2 = 91 NR

Bayonetta (Wii U) – 91 NR

Zelda Oracle of Ages – 91

Metroid Fusion – 91

Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story – 86 + 5 = 91

Zelda Twilight Princess – 90

Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon - 90

Guildwars 2 – 89                                        

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team – 89

Animal Crossing New Leaf – 84 + 5 = 89

Pokemon X – 88

Zelda: A Link to the Past – 78 + 10 = 88

Kid Icarus Uprising – 88

Darksiders 2 - 88

Fire Emblem Awakening – 88

Mass Effect - 84

Super Mario Maker = 84*

Dishonored - 84

Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark - 84

Paper Mario Sticker Star – 83

Rome 2: Total War - 83

Zelda: A Link Between Worlds-83

Mario and Luigi Paper Jam - 82

Super Mario 3d land – 72 + 10 = 82

Diablo 3 – 72 + 10 = 82

Batman Arkham Knight - 81

Batman: Arkham Origins – 81

Mario and Luigi: Super Star Saga – 80

Trine – 80

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze* - 68 + 10 = 78

Mass Effect 2 - 76

Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D – 74

Black Ops 2 - 74

Rome: Total War-74

Yoshie’s Wolly World – 73*

Just Cause - 71

Paper Monster Uncut (Wii U) - 70

Red Alert 3 - 70

New Super Mario Bros. U – 66

New Super Mario Bros.Wii – 57 *

Assassins Creed 3 – 57 NR

Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition – 53*

Puzzles and Dragons Z: Mario Edition - 46

Kirby Squeak Squad – 43

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3d – 42

Project X Zone - 18

* Means it was more fun than the score indicates. Scores judge the overall quality of the game (how fun it is only counts for 15% in my reviews)

NR means Not Recommended based on inappropriateness.

^Charm is rewarded to games that have an undefinable quality to them that makes them amazing and have high replayability value.

I only recently played through the ME Trilogy again, ahead of Andromeda's release, so reading this while it's all fresh in my mind is pretty interesting. I was surprised that you scored some categories so low, but each to their own, of course! I totally agree about some of the frustrations though, especially with respect to the ammunition system. I always feel it is a step backward, when games try something more daring, by removing ammo as a game play mechanic, only to then add it back in some sequels. I felt the same when playing Metroid Prime 2, when the Light/Dark beams were given the ammo mechanic, after Metroid Prime didn't use ammo for the beams at all.

Cool read, thanks for posting!

Yes! I found it much easier than ME1 lol. I hardly died at all compared to 1 in which I was constantly having to restart from save points. And I did a decent amount of side missions too, but after the crew ***SPOILER*** got captured, I was too depressed to do anymore missions in such an empty ship, so I moved along to the next storyline mission, which basically ended the game.

It was still a fun game, but not nearly as memorable as the first, other than how "real" the relationships felt in the game, especially my character's relationship with Miranda.

Yea, a Prothean game would be awesome. When though? I'd like it for when they first encountered the reapers I guess. 

I totally agree! I am at the point in games now where I could care less about realism and a whole lot more about what makes it fun and, to me, recharging things or cooldowns are a lot more enjoyable than the threat of running out of ammunition or conserving ammunition because you don't know when your next reload will be.

That would be really cool! Playing the 3rd one now.