Anyone who knows me well knows I’m a total Mass Effect fangirl. Like, seriously hardcore. I own the soundtrack(s). And actually listen to them. I have serious issues.
My game arrived last Friday, just in time for a gaming weekend since both of my roomies were gone. I finished it Tuesday. About 36 hours of playtime, over 5 days. When I realized this I cried a little bit, but wiped away my tears and vowed not to turn on my XBox until this weekend’s Snowpocalypse (seriously, we’re getting 2-4 inches of ice in addition to 20 inches of snow. Virginia suddenly became Minnesota or something).
I don’t want to say Mass Effect 2 is better than the first, but I’m thinking it might be. It’s definitely (and understandably) darker than the first, but I also found it much more humorous. The story feels a bit weaker than the first, but it’s sort of understandable because the player already knows about the goings on in the Milky Way, granted they played the first one. There’s less to flesh out, so the story is more driven by the characters themselves. The characters are once again well developed and I found myself getting rather attached to my team. It gives you more impetus to complete everything before your “suicide mission” in order to ensure everyone’s survival.
Upgrading is definitely different this time around. You don’t have to worry about an inventory limit because you don’t have an inventory. Instead, upgrades are received by doing missions, scanning planets for minerals and using said minerals to research new technologies. I liked this system much better, if only because I spent an awful amount of time in ME1 sorting through my inventory.
Weapons are pretty badass. My infiltrator owned with heavy weapons, but even the pistols aren’t too shabby. Because I’m me, however, I mostly stuck to the Sniper and assault rifles. I fucking love sniping, and the sniper upgrade is absolute love. I do have one warning: for heavy weapons, be careful with the M-920 Cain. Make sure you aim at enemies who are far, far away from you. First time I tried it out I killed everyone, myself and my team included.
I really didn’t mind scanning planets for resources or side missions, but I know many people who absolutely despise it. The annoyance factor of planet exploration really depends on the player; instead of the Mako you scan planets, which I personally like because the Mako makes me so angry it’s not even funny. The cursor is rather slow at first, but there is an upgrade that makes it faster.
The romance scene remains awkward and creepy. My (male) Shepard hooked up with Tali. It was bizarre. It wasn’t explicit at all, even less so than the creeptastic romance scene in the first one, but there’s something really, really strange about it. That’s all I’m going to say about it.
There were some graphical issues, but no game busting ones that I found. Sometimes teammates would climb over an obstruction and suddenly be 20 feet above me. Also, for some reason husks kept falling through the floor when they died and ended up just sticking out of the ground like daisies. It was confusing, but my room mates and I lol’d pretty hard. Otherwise the graphics definitely looked better than ME1, and it’s still an absolutely gorgeous game to look at.
Basically, I love this game. I enjoyed every minute I played it, and my room mates enjoyed watching me play it (seriously, they gathered around like it was Project Runway). BioWare has never failed me yet, and I hope they never will. I do recommend playing ME1 first, though, if only for the starting bonuses and to get a feel for the Mass Effect universe. I definitely, definitely give this game an A.
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