Mass Effect 2 Review

The research lab holds the research terminal, a place where you can upgrade the tech you have managed to scrap during missions. This gives way to the conventional inventory system for a more categorical upgrade system. That means you will longer find crates, safes and locked doors full of loot; rather you will find these upgrades lying in strategic points during missions which then you will have travel back to the Normandy and research them. There are four categories of upgrades: Weapons, these will increase damage and effectiveness of different weapons for the entire squad; Armor, giving shield and power boosts, and medi-gel upgrades; Ship, allows you to upgrade the Normandy’s armor and install high-powered guns; and Prototypes, provides character specific upgrades and advanced training options.

As I mentioned, these upgrades will have to be ‘researched’. Researching is another important addition to the game, giving way to the Mako and planet exploration that we all came to…well, dislike. Researching is possible by gathering minerals by scanning the surfaces of planets and launching probes to collect them whenever the Guitar Hero-esque scanner shoots up. This has to be the worst mini-game to ever feature in a video game. And this is the most bored I have been with a video game in a long, long time. Scanning is done by holding the left trigger and moving the infuriating slow scanner across every inch of the surface. When the scanner detects a mineral, you send in a probe to collect them, which by the way, you have to buy them at fuel depots along with ship fuel which has to be considered when moving between systems. Each planet requires at least 50-60 probes and takes up to 20mins each if you are thorough with your search. Twenty minutes! Each! There is no escaping this torture as it is vital for survival. It’s mundane and laborious and I see no reasoning to replace this with Mako, which is by far much better. This seems like a cheap way to lengthen game time and a cope out of retaining the planetary exploration. Sci-fi buffs may love it to bits, and NASA employees will go nuts on it but for us normal folks it is just criminal.

Combat largely remains the same, thankfully. Only that now it’s much tighter and smoother even with no apparent visual or technical change. You still have the weapon and power dials assigned to the left and right shoulder buttons, respectively. With greater emphasis on level design and enemy placement, the combat is easily the best part of the game. Orchestrating an attack on a group of enemies with devastating back to back biotic and tech powers is incredibly fun to watch. The level cap is at 30 this time around, receiving two experience points per level till Lvl20 and then one experience point per level after that. Experience points can be allotted to your set of powers. Upon maximizing one, players are given an option to choose one of the two variants of the power: one stable and one unstable, both having different properties depending on the power.

The enemy A.I has seen some tweaks. They behave a lot more intelligently and place themselves strategically, distributing raw firepower and biotics appropriately for maximum damage. Squad A.I. lies somewhere in the middle, though. In most situations they do seem to manage for themselves but there were times more often than it should be when I found them running at enemy fire and failing to take cover. This resulted in many medi-gel uses. And for a player that likes to stick to a safe spot and take out enemies as they place themselves around me, I also found my squad mates running off to unlocatable places making it difficult for me to judge their distance to spots where I would like to place them to maximize my strategy.

Mass Effect 2 will easily take you around 40 hours to complete, thanks to a large contribution of the mentally taxing mineral scanning mini-game. Other than the main story arch, players will have to complete ‘loyalty missions’ for each character. Upon completion, it will unlock a special ‘power’ that can only be attained when the character turns loyal to Shepard. This power can also be learnt by Shepard by getting one of the prototype upgrades and can be repeated as many times as one wants to learn any of the different ‘loyal’ powers.

BioWare has done wonders with the Unreal Engine 3 and it is apparent. Mass Effect 2 looks significantly more gorgeous than the first did with diverse range of effects and environments combining into creating a deeply immersive and believable world. The character models are of special mention – the details on some of them is staggering, like for that of the Krogan Grunt and the stylish assassin Thane. On the technical side of things, we encountered no frame rate drops which goes a long way in keeping the combat dynamic and spectacular. Oh and no texture pop-ins though the loading times can get a bit nerving. There have been complaints about disc lockups and unpolished environment interactions, which I have not personally encountered but cannot be neglected as they very much present. But they aren’t buggy enough and can be overlooked and fixed with a title update easily.

The score and voice acting is of BioWare standards, i.e. nothing short of fantastic. The award winning video game composer Jack Wall does a superlative job of tuning up the right balance and pace. The game weaves from super techno stuff to lyrical orchestra with ease and even uses silence as a medium to create the immersion. Voice acting, aided by some of the best writing in the industry today, works phenomenally rendering characters rich and deep.

Mass Effect 2 is seminal in its genre. It is individually brilliant in every aspect of itself. The combat, the writing, voice acting, visuals, score and direction comes together to create an unmatchable experience, and we fear it will be a while before we see one of this quality and standard. It comes highly recommended from me.

And, now if you will excuse me, I have a galaxy to save. Again.

[Editor's Note: We have learnt that Mass Effect 2 has been banned in the UAE. Possibly due to the multiple choice-based sex scenes. While that is disappointing it shouldn't stop you from getting it elsewhere. :p]