Mass Effect 2 Review

Mass Effect 2 was a game I played on the PS3 back in 2011 when the port came out, and I don't fully recall my inital impressions of the game but I remember the story being nothing special and now playing Mass Effect 1 and jumping into this game years ago and now, I still don't think it's anything special. Nowadays I am in the camp that thinks Mass Effect 1 is the better game. 

Let's start with how ME2 opens and right away I start asking questions. Why is Shepard hunting down some random Geth instead of leading a new Council against the Reaper threat? Where did the Illusive Man and Miranda come from despite them both not being mentioned if someone went for main story quests only in ME1? What is Cereberus and why does everyone hate them so much? If Bioware wanted to make Mass Effect into a trilogy, they should've let people who did main story content only to know about all this stuff. For example, my Shepard said she "fought her fair share of Cerberus troops" yet I played as her in ME1 and never fought any. Where is the Council and where is Captain Anderson? Why is this stuff relegated to side missions in ME2 and can be skipped? These are important plot points continued from ME1, if Bioware is telling me I can skip then it tells me they aren't important, yet they are if ME3 is anything to go by. 

Then there is the whole killing off Shepard and resurrecting him which first of all having Shepard die at the start of ME2 getting killed by some random Collector laser canon is a cheap way of establishing stakes since Shepard killed Saren and stopped Sovereign's raid on the Citadel and after all that Shepard gets beaten by some random laser beam by a bunch of repurposed Protheans? It makes Shepard look incompetent and an idiot after how capable he was in ME1, in comparison to the video game trope of having the player character getting defeated at the start of a game sequel, at least Metroid only had Samus lose her power ups, God of War's universe already had an afterlife Kratos previously escaped from so it is a bit more plausible by comparison to have Kratos escape death again, and to use a non gaming example, Goku at the start of the Android Saga was suffering from the heart virus, so when he lost to Android 19 despite achieving the ultimate power, at least him losing to some nobody was easier to comprehend. Then ME2 even pulls a DBZ and has Shepard get brought back even though ME doesn't even have the supernatural in it. The Illusive Man with millions of dollars can perform a Shenron. How? Who knows. Money can do the impossible apparently. 

Speaking of DBZ and anime, ME2 is basically an anime filler arc that is interwoven with some "canon" scenes from the manga. ME3 will have Cerberus, Illusive Man as the villain, and EDI, Thane and Mordin and that's about it. Almost everything in ME2 is filler that barely contributes much to the overall plot of Mass Effect, much like Dragon Ball Z's Garlic Jr Saga except I have to watch it because ME2 has the whole save game system. 

Instead ME2's "plot" is basically a combination of something like DBZ's Garlic Jr Saga and something like an anthology movie based on a long running established series like Halo Legends and the Animatrix. The difference is Halo Legends was made after the Halo trilogy was wrapped up, and since the Halo story at the time was already told, having anthology stories exploring the lore of the Halo story was easier to accept. If Halo 2 was like Halo Legends and had a bunch side stories in place of the story taking place past Halo CE, H2 would be a lot harder to swallow. 

What Mass Effect 2's "plot" consists of is basically Shepard building a team about a filler enemy known as "the Collectors" where he recruits a bunch of them, he does some of these missions for a while, gets an Illusive Man update, does a couple of Loyalty missions, then gets some updates then depending on how many loytalty missions they do, go to the Collector base and beat the game. The plot is as paper thin as I described. 

As misguided as this approach to making a direct follow up to ME1 is maybe this is Bioware's attempt to appeal to newcomers after all this was the first ME game on PS3 and that is another issue I have, ME2 can't decide if it wants to be a game for newcomers or for returning fans. You have the thin plot that barely follows up on ME1 like I previously discussed but then you have all these callbacks and mentions to ME1 which will mostly likely go over a newcomer's head. Who's Garrus? Who's Tali? Who's Ashley? Who's Saren? Who's Sovereign? Who's Captain Anderson? Who's Joker? All of these things won't even have the same impact unless you play ME1. The Vigil theme playing when Shepard meets his former crewmates is going to fly over many people's head if they never played the first game. 

The villains in ME2 are equally as weak. Illusive Man barely shows up and he only ever had maybe 1 or 4 scenes and most of them just consist of him talking about humanity and giving Shepard orders, outside of his theme and his voice actor, there is nothing that works in the way Saren did. Sure Illusive Man and Shepard both work for the side of humanity but all Illusive Man does is say things about the betterment of humanity and give Shepard orders behind a screen while everyone keeps on saying they don't trust him. Compare that to Saren where he killed a Specter, tried to mislead the Council, got one of your squadmates killed, and tried to turn Wrex against you. Saren also gave everyone in the cast of ME1 to join you and challenged them. Garrus hated Saren for being a disgrace against his people, Tali hated him for aligning himself with the Geth, Wrex wanted a bounty but later is conflicted about the Genophage possibly being cured and of course the scene where Saren asks you to join the Reapers and wants you to join alongside him. 

Where was all this for the Illusive Man? He never directly gets involved and just says things, he never backs them up with anything making him hard to buy as a villain. 

Then there is the Suicide Mission label which is the game being silly. Isn't Shepard being a specter make him the kind of guy to go on suicide missions by design? Stopping the Rachni and defeating Matriach Benezia was a suicide mission, stopping the Thorian was a suicide mission, stopping Saren on Virmire and later stopping Sovereign were suicide missions and ME1 didn't have to straight up beat you over the head with them either. 

Then there is the Collectors being repurposed Protheans and the "Human Reaper". How does any of this benefit the Reapers at all? The Reapers are a hyper advanced lifeform that can destroy human civilizations with ease, why do they need Protheans to do their dirty work or build an inferior version of their own kind? What can a Human Reaper do that a normal Reaper can't? This plot point never gets brought back in ME3 because it's too implausible to take seriously. Plus in ME1 it's established that the Protheans were wiped out, so this also comes off as awkward retconning that never gets mentioned again.

It's also harder to "role play" in ME2 compared to 1. I can make Shepard act like a kind hearted boy scout and then have him do some QTE Renegade actions and none of the characters ever question any of it. It's inconsistent and it never gets acknowledgede either, 

Loyalty missions make no sense philosophically, why does being loyal to Shepard undermine my teammates basic need to survive? Shouldn't them being loyal to Shepard have them be more prone to die in the "Suicide Mission" since they are relying on Shepard to bail them out and they won't rely on their own ability. It detracts Shepard's agency, allies should make Shepard and by extension the player look into their problems if they act weird during gameplay or act out of line during conversations. Professionalism involves not bringing your problems into your field work. Shepard just feels like a teacher or outsider solving petty family problems and school yard conflicts, Shepard's strength of character should inspire loyalty not solving petty issues that doesn't concern the galaxy. You don't even have to do all the "loyalty missions" in order to have everyone survive at the end end, you can just do 5-6 of them and everyone will live as long as you know who to assign and what Normandy upgrades to have. 

Some good things about ME2 are that the characters, their interactions and the voice acting are pretty good, favorites are Mordin, Garrus, Tali, and Thane. Rest are just okay and also not as good as the first game. Some characters like Jack are just characters whose sole trait is to be angsty and some characters like Jaccob are there just there to be your fanboy and nothing more. 

Lair of the Shadow Broker is a better sequel to the first ME than 2's entire base campaign. I really do mean that. Here's my previously written review of that here:

Decent DLC that has a story and writing that surpasses the main game for having an actual overarching plot and not hours of filler of doing recruitment missions, get Illusive Man update, then Loyalty Missions where your supposed team of professionals can't problem solve on their own. The cutscene cinematrography is at it's best and does a good job at foreshadowing that Vasir could be on the enemy without it making it too obvious.

Speaking of Vasir, this is the first time or at least the first time not in side quests where you get to see other Specters besides Shepard which is nice. The Specters and the Council get mentioned and have more importance to the story unlike the main game where they were just pushed aside and won't become important again untill ME3. Vasir was a better foil to Shepard than any of the villains in the main game especially with how she is corrupt Specter like Shepard except she is willing to do dirty deeds to get the job done and is aware of it too. Her death was solidly handled too.

It also sort of addresses that massive unanswered question of how Shepard was able to survive after being blown up and left to sit there in the vaccum of space, it's far fetched but there is sort of an explanation unlike the main story.

Shepard and Liara's interactions were fun and enjoyable too and it showcases that despite being separated for 2 years, they know each and have each other's back where they can wisecrack during battle.

Liara's character growth was decent, her becoming the New Shadow Broker comes a little too out of nowhere for my tastes.

The DLC does have the main story's problems of being too much cover based shooting and talking with not much inbetween. It does try it's best to throw in stuff like a scripted car chase, lighting thethers that can hurt enemies, and final boss with multiple phases that you need to occasionally do melee on. It's nothing special considering so much of ME2 to begin with is just talking and cover based shooting but this is somewhat admirable.

Overall, it's a solid DLC that I prefer over the main story and it's cool the Legendary Edition comes with it. If ME2's writing was more like this DLC, I would be much kinder on it as a whole.

The gameplay in ME2 is both taking two steps forward and two steps back. Moment to moment shooting and controls are improved, you have a deciated cover button now and the sound design and weapon feel for the guns are still good and the damage animations when you kill enemies are even better here and it, the animations are generally enjoyable and fun to watch, I love decent to great death animations and they can carry me through the most monotonous of games and since ME2 can be that, this helps more on that later.   

The bullet time and ability you get with the solider is nice and it does help give you more options in combat even if so much of it is just cover based shooting 

Tali's recruitment mission was decent situational depth, I like how you have to avoid the sunlight to avoid having your shields from frying, I did wish the game had more moments like this to break up the gameplay. 

Now on to the bad, the probing mini game has been derided many times and yes, it is very dull and has the bare minimum for basic interaction. Plus, you just do the "main story" quests and just stock up on resources early game, you can have tons of resources to buy later upgrades, you will have tons of credits to buy more probes and the game just throws all that stuff at you with how much they are scattered throughout the levels and if you keep doing the hacking mini games. 

The lack of the Mako is missed and should've been improved instead of being removed entirely. The lack of RPG elements can make the game feel pretty samey at time considering how long the game is, I miss being able to put XP into different skills and talents, I also prefer the old idea of getting stronger guns rather than researching them. 

As a result, ME2 is basically at it's core a cover based shooter with lots of dialogue than a full on RPG but since there is so much combat and while I have chastised Gears of War 1 a lot in the past, that game was 8-10 hours, gave you more to do in combat like dodge rolling and active reload, and can't be beaten with primarily one or two guns like ME2 can since ammo isn't universal like in Gears 1. 

The game's level structures can get pretty one note, so much of the recruitment missions consist of talking, getting into shootout, earning the member you want to add's trust, they do some stuff and then you kill the boss for that mission. The "loyalty" missions revolve around the same formula except now there is what is mostly family issues. The occasional "main missions" just consist of talking and killing Collectors and end with the Illusive Man does his thing of talking to you behind a hologram and not doing anything interesting besides saying his ways will help humanity in some way. 

Overall, Mass Effect 2 is a sub par sequel to a game I consider nowadays to be pretty good. The anime filler arc crossed with anthology movie based on popular franchises in disguise of a "direct sequel" and the gameplay being even more one note and monotonous than it's predecessor due to the lack of the Mako and RPG systems just makes this game nothing more an "okay" cover based shooter with lots of dialogue. I wouldn't mind this so much if there was an interesting and geniune overarching plot to accompany the hours of dialogue and cover shooting.