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 Hello
and welcome to another installment of our reviews. I am Scott H from
gamertag360.ca and I am going to review Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360.
Controls: The
controls are the same as the first Mass Effect. If you played the first
Mass Effect, you won’t need to worry about learning new controls. The
layout is simple and the buttons are good. There are different control
layouts as well as stick layouts. This gives you a broad choice of
styles to play in Mass Effect 2. It feels good, nothing out of place
and it feels like the average third-person shooter.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 8/10 for Controls.
Music: The music
in the game is good. The galaxy map segment of the game is the same
sound bite from the first Mass Effect. The dance clubs in Mass Effect 2
had some cool techno songs, but nothing out of the ordinary. There are
dynamic sounds when acting out a Renegade action or Paragon action in
the middle of a conversation. The music played a good role in the game,
it wasn’t very dynamic but it offered a good sense of what the
environment was like. Also the guns sounded awesome, when the shields
broke, I loved the sound. It was what it should have sounded like in
the first Mass Effect, like glass shattering.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 7/10 for Music.
Graphics: The
graphics have received an upgrade since Mass Effect. Now running on the
Unreal Graphics Engine, it helped the game visually compared to the
first Mass Effect. During conversation sessions you can notice some
poor character shading graphics (blocky), especially during cut scenes.
Some of the motions (like the cigarettes that some characters smoked)
were a bit off. During gameplay the free roam graphics and game models
were fantastic. The character modeling got an overhaul in this series
and is a step ahead from other developers. While traveling through the
Traverse, you will notice that the environment didn’t reflect on
specific cultures. The shadows are a little flakey, and sometimes you
see outlines (while playing HD 1080P, which sucks). Colors are vibrant,
and it’s great eye candy.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 9/10 for Graphics.
Replay ability.
Mass Effect 2 has replay ability. Right at the beginning there is DLC
(downloadable content) for the Normandy Crash Site (an additional
mission) which you can play later in the game. The alternative endings
make you want to replay Mass Effect 2, also the Paragon and Renegade
system for your character. It has replay ability with all the classes
you can pick from (Soldier, Infiltrator, Vanguard, Sentinel, Adept, and
Engineer). All classes have newer abilities so it is fun to replay them
and test them out. Mass Effect 2 has a rewarding gameplay because you
can upgrade your amour, purchase upgrades, upgrade your weapons, and
upgrade the ship itself. Also, you have to recruit your own team for
the final mission. It feels rewarding to get those NPC’s to trust you
and give you their loyalty.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 8/10 for Replay ability.
Achievements: The achievements for Mass Effect 2 aren’t very difficult to obtain.
Most are on the 20G scale and require a bit of work to get them. There
is a lot of running around to do and people to see while playing Mass
Effect 2. There are little things that you need to do to collect the 5G
achievements (like start the game, and shoot 30 head shots). So in a
sense, the achievements were on a medium scale. Some were kind of hard,
many weren’t. The hard achievements made up for how many easy
achievements there were in the game. The achievements kind of made the
gameplay a bit longer, like the achievement “Agent”. You had to do 5
missions from planets that you can survey. I found that once finished I
got back on the storyline and completed the game. So in essence, the
1000/1000 is very do-able and you shouldn’t be too worried about not
completing it on your achievement list.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 8.5/10 for Achievements.
Delivery: Mass
Effect 2 has loading times. There is no getting around it, it has
loading screens. Similar to Mass Effect, there were some lengthy
loading screens, but it didn’t hinder the experience when playing the
game. Good news also, there are no elevators from Mass Effect to bother
you. The flow of the engine was good, I didn’t notice any FPS issues,
so it was solid. It got an upgrade from Mass Effect, so I was happy
about that. The length of gameplay depends on how you really play the
game. If you are like me, I explored a lot, listened to every
conversation, and watched all cut-scenes. I squeezed out 33 hours, and
others have gotten around 10 hours. So it has a good length of campaign
to keep you going.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 8/10 for Delivery.
Single player: There was only the single player campaign to be had, and it was solid.
The length was great and the campaign was fantastic. It brought more
color to the games storyline, more characters to interact with and
discover who they were, and a never-ending threat for humanity. The
game isn’t really challenging on Normal but on Insanity, it is very
challenging. Every time you go up on the difficulty, enemies receive
bonus amour and gain more flanking maneuvers, OH and they do way more
damage. I found the campaign to be fun in more cases, but in some areas
I got bored of the running around and having to do some side quests.
Less running and more gunning is all I ask.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 10/10 for Single player.
Multiplayer: N/A.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 10/10 for Multiplayer because there isn't any.
Story: The story
flowed well because it is a direct sequel to Mass Effect. For character
development, you get to find old friends and new friends while playing
the game. Mass Effect 2 has a great system of character development
because you have to gain their loyalty. While trying to receive their
loyalty, you learn about who they are, what they did before joining
your team, and then you have to go with them on a specific mission to
gain their loyalty. This was the best way to develop new characters in
a well known storyline to give you a sense of understanding of who they
are. The character movements were great, Bioware really tried to
capture the movements on a dime and did a phenomenal job. If you have
played Mass Effect then you’ll understand the storyline for Mass Effect
2. If you didn’t play Mass Effect it is okay because you can pick up
the storyline in Mass Effect 2.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 10/10 for Story.
Gameplay: The
options in Mass Effect 2 were good. The options menu displays the
regular controls, the difficulty of the game, and all the good stuff
(subtitles, invert controls, audio, etc). There is tons of options in
the dialog, weapon selection, amour add-ons, and upgrades. For the NPC
intelligence, they knew what to do in various situations and were able
to work together. This helped me not get frustrated, so it was VERY
nice. Mass Effect 2 has some great unlockables when you’ve completed
the first Mass Effect. When you pre-oder the game (won’t get into
details, but mine didn’t work) you get this special armor and a network
card code to gain access to the Cerberus Network. For strategic ability
there’s tons in Mass Effect 2. With the mix of biotic’s and guns, it
makes for great strategy. Your NPC team knows when to use biotic’s when
in a fire fight. They also have the ability to flank and do call outs
in the middle of the fight. This adds another huge step in strategic
gameplay in Mass Effect 2. The game kind of gets repetitive though in
time as you play more and more. For the loyalty missions, you simply go
to a location, kill whatever is there and then fix the problem. Like
the gameplay, you tend to just get in cover, shoot, move up, cover,
shoot, and win. I don’t think it is too appealing. With biotic’s, it
brings a bit of color to the combat style. At the same time the game
can be non-repetitive. A method to making the game non repetitive you
can do a mission and then go explore for an hour and then go back into
a mission. This helps make the game feel not as repetitive as before.
So essentially, it really depends on how you play the game and which
party members you are doing the special tasks for. All in all, this
makes for great play time because you can mix it up instead of just
playing the main storyline and letting it get repetitive.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 9.5/10 for Gameplay.
Overall, Mass Effect 2 was a huge improvement upon the Mass Effect franchise.
Mass Effect 2 gets a 88/100.
Hit’s:
Storyline
New characters
Graphics
Sounds
Achievement progression meter
Misses:
Not as different from the first installment
No destruction in the environments
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