Mass Effect 2 beats original (XBox 360, PC)
Alice Fisher and Ricky Davis | Staff Writer and Contributing Writer
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: Lifestyles
The characters are complex and interesting, and players will find themselves wanting to spend time with them. Spend enough time with them and special missions will be unlocked leading you to unlock a new ability. Players need to play through each character's side quest in order to make the final trip more satisfying, but these missions are so interesting that they never feel stale.
Mass Effect's character models and locations are impressive. It is hard to take your eyes off of the different creatures you encounter and the vast cities explored. The ship that takes players to these strange locals is more interesting and larger than in the first game. Countless hours can be spent exploring neat little nooks and crannies. There is even a space hamster you can keep in the room. The only big gripe here is that players still can't visit Earth.
Combat has greatly improved and that is in part because of the controls, the weapon accuracy and better AI. Developer BioWare also stripped down a lot of what made Mass Effect so tedious, allowing players into the action as quick as possible without having to navigate through menus and equip teammates with useless weapons. The game automatically equips the strongest weapon in your inventory and hands it out to all members of the squad.
Enemy AI is significantly smarter and there are varied enemy types. Squad mates can hold their own rather well, but often you'll find them climbing atop a large crate instead of taking cover. Your squad can't really impair victory, but they can make things a little frustrating.
The fights are frenetic and epic. When players fall in battle there are a healthy amount of checkpoints. You can also replay missions, but it has to be one that the player has recently completed and this can only be done once for the said mission.
There are a few weak spots in Mass Effects shiny new armor. Sometimes the sound will drop completely and there will be texture clipping (which means that certain objects will go through a character; for example, a hand resting on a character's chin looks like it's going through it). The elevator rides are replaced with load times and a lot of the mini games such as hacking and mining are tedious to the point of utter annoyance. Yes, it's true if these systems were easy then players would abuse them and obtain everything, but there could have been a better way to go about it. Also there was an issue importing the save on the PC. You have to manually tell the game where to find your save from Mass Effect 1 and the manual is no help. However, all of these are minor complaints against what is a very solid package.
Mass Effect 2 does what all great sequels do: takes what made the first game great and improves it to a noticeable and appreciable degree. Once players get sucked into Mass Effect's beautifully rendered world, they will find it hard to leave.
Mass Effect's character models and locations are impressive. It is hard to take your eyes off of the different creatures you encounter and the vast cities explored. The ship that takes players to these strange locals is more interesting and larger than in the first game. Countless hours can be spent exploring neat little nooks and crannies. There is even a space hamster you can keep in the room. The only big gripe here is that players still can't visit Earth.
Combat has greatly improved and that is in part because of the controls, the weapon accuracy and better AI. Developer BioWare also stripped down a lot of what made Mass Effect so tedious, allowing players into the action as quick as possible without having to navigate through menus and equip teammates with useless weapons. The game automatically equips the strongest weapon in your inventory and hands it out to all members of the squad.
Enemy AI is significantly smarter and there are varied enemy types. Squad mates can hold their own rather well, but often you'll find them climbing atop a large crate instead of taking cover. Your squad can't really impair victory, but they can make things a little frustrating.
The fights are frenetic and epic. When players fall in battle there are a healthy amount of checkpoints. You can also replay missions, but it has to be one that the player has recently completed and this can only be done once for the said mission.
There are a few weak spots in Mass Effects shiny new armor. Sometimes the sound will drop completely and there will be texture clipping (which means that certain objects will go through a character; for example, a hand resting on a character's chin looks like it's going through it). The elevator rides are replaced with load times and a lot of the mini games such as hacking and mining are tedious to the point of utter annoyance. Yes, it's true if these systems were easy then players would abuse them and obtain everything, but there could have been a better way to go about it. Also there was an issue importing the save on the PC. You have to manually tell the game where to find your save from Mass Effect 1 and the manual is no help. However, all of these are minor complaints against what is a very solid package.
Mass Effect 2 does what all great sequels do: takes what made the first game great and improves it to a noticeable and appreciable degree. Once players get sucked into Mass Effect's beautifully rendered world, they will find it hard to leave.
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