Review ==> Mass Effect 2 Review
Posted: 08-03-2010 08:51, By: admin
Following on from the award winning Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 continues to live up to the greatness of the previous game. The story has followed on from the first one and Commander Shepard gets into a horrible accident at the beginning of the game and is then revived by the controversial company Ceberus. Ceberus then enlightens Shepard about a major threat to the universe, the Collectors. The Collectors are destroying human colonies on a daily basis and everyday their army gets larger and larger. Shepard sets out on a journey to form a team and bring the Collectors down. The story telling ability in this game is what you expect of Bioware, top notch, with mountains of dialogue to explore and an interesting plot line you cannot expect much more.
Some favourites from the old game are back including Joker, Garrus, Tali, Kaidan and Captain Anderson. One of the strong suits of Bioware is definitely it’s character development. As you go out to form your own squad every member has their own detailed life story you can choose to explore. As the game progresses each squad member will request you do a certain mission with them, which reveals a lot about their back story and then in turn after completion you gain their loyalty plus access to another power of theirs.
Moving onto gameplay quite a lot of changes have been made since the first game. First and foremost the importing system they have introduced was a great idea. I didn’t use it myself because I played the PC version of Mass Effect 2 when I played the first one on the Xbox 360 but it is a nice touch to be able to bring decisions from the previous game into the new one. Mass Effect 2 has moved more into an Action Shooter genre rather than an RPG. A lot of the RPG elements of the first game have been sort of dumbed down or removed all together. The inventory system has completely changed, you can only hold one of each type of weapon at a time and you access your armor through Shepard’s personal computer on the Normandy in between missions. As you level up from killing enemies and completing missions you are rewarded with squad points to issue towards your talents. A higher leveled talent is more effective than a lower level one. Your allies are also issued those points also which you can attribute to their talents.
Some of the terrible features of the first game have been removed including; the Mako missions and long elevator rides and major improvements have been made to the combat system. It has more of a Gears of War type feel and plays a lot smoother. You can also purchase upgrades to a number of things such as; armor, weapon damage, biotic power and the Normandy by spending the minerals you have mined from uncharted planets. The most boring thing out of the game I feel is playing the stupid mining mini-game trying get those extra minerals for that special upgrade.
The graphics no doubt look a lot better especially with the models and level design. It’s definitely no Crysis but the graphics are adequate as is. They have used sound effectively during those heated battles action music is playing which works well. Voice acting is top notch everyone I came across sounded believable. The game is definitely replayable. There are so many routes you can take in this game and in many oppurtunities you can chose to be good, a complete prick or somewhere in between. Also once you have finished a playthrough when you start a new game you can opt to import you finished Mass Effect 2 game stats to your new game. You keep your credits, resources, Renegade/Paragon points and allocated talent points. If you wanted to get to a high level it can be enjoyable to do it this way. Also there is some DLC out at the moment with some more coming to keep this game fresh and enjoyable.
Overall I think Mass Effect to is both a solid game and sequel. I will give my scores below for this game.
Sound: 9.5/10 – Great voice acting
Graphics: 8.5/10 – Models look great
Gameplay: 9/10 – Gunplay is smooth, fun RPG elements still there
Replayability: 9/10 – Many different routes to take, import your stats to level up quicker
Overall: 9/10 – Solid game, highly recommended
Posted: 08-03-2010 08:51, By: admin
Following on from the award winning Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 continues to live up to the greatness of the previous game. The story has followed on from the first one and Commander Shepard gets into a horrible accident at the beginning of the game and is then revived by the controversial company Ceberus. Ceberus then enlightens Shepard about a major threat to the universe, the Collectors. The Collectors are destroying human colonies on a daily basis and everyday their army gets larger and larger. Shepard sets out on a journey to form a team and bring the Collectors down. The story telling ability in this game is what you expect of Bioware, top notch, with mountains of dialogue to explore and an interesting plot line you cannot expect much more.
Some favourites from the old game are back including Joker, Garrus, Tali, Kaidan and Captain Anderson. One of the strong suits of Bioware is definitely it’s character development. As you go out to form your own squad every member has their own detailed life story you can choose to explore. As the game progresses each squad member will request you do a certain mission with them, which reveals a lot about their back story and then in turn after completion you gain their loyalty plus access to another power of theirs.
Moving onto gameplay quite a lot of changes have been made since the first game. First and foremost the importing system they have introduced was a great idea. I didn’t use it myself because I played the PC version of Mass Effect 2 when I played the first one on the Xbox 360 but it is a nice touch to be able to bring decisions from the previous game into the new one. Mass Effect 2 has moved more into an Action Shooter genre rather than an RPG. A lot of the RPG elements of the first game have been sort of dumbed down or removed all together. The inventory system has completely changed, you can only hold one of each type of weapon at a time and you access your armor through Shepard’s personal computer on the Normandy in between missions. As you level up from killing enemies and completing missions you are rewarded with squad points to issue towards your talents. A higher leveled talent is more effective than a lower level one. Your allies are also issued those points also which you can attribute to their talents.
Some of the terrible features of the first game have been removed including; the Mako missions and long elevator rides and major improvements have been made to the combat system. It has more of a Gears of War type feel and plays a lot smoother. You can also purchase upgrades to a number of things such as; armor, weapon damage, biotic power and the Normandy by spending the minerals you have mined from uncharted planets. The most boring thing out of the game I feel is playing the stupid mining mini-game trying get those extra minerals for that special upgrade.
The graphics no doubt look a lot better especially with the models and level design. It’s definitely no Crysis but the graphics are adequate as is. They have used sound effectively during those heated battles action music is playing which works well. Voice acting is top notch everyone I came across sounded believable. The game is definitely replayable. There are so many routes you can take in this game and in many oppurtunities you can chose to be good, a complete prick or somewhere in between. Also once you have finished a playthrough when you start a new game you can opt to import you finished Mass Effect 2 game stats to your new game. You keep your credits, resources, Renegade/Paragon points and allocated talent points. If you wanted to get to a high level it can be enjoyable to do it this way. Also there is some DLC out at the moment with some more coming to keep this game fresh and enjoyable.
Overall I think Mass Effect to is both a solid game and sequel. I will give my scores below for this game.
Sound: 9.5/10 – Great voice acting
Graphics: 8.5/10 – Models look great
Gameplay: 9/10 – Gunplay is smooth, fun RPG elements still there
Replayability: 9/10 – Many different routes to take, import your stats to level up quicker
Overall: 9/10 – Solid game, highly recommended
Jarrod: [Don't forget "Holy Christ!" Kevin's new blockbuster, in which Scott Mosier fights Jesus himself! "Jab, motherfucker,Jab!"] Yeah man, that was funny as
Jester: Don't forget "Holy Christ!" Kevin's new blockbuster, in which Scott Mosier fights Jesus himself! "Jab, motherfucker,Jab!"
Anonymous: It's not in a comment, you're an idiot.
admin: "If you look closely, it appears to be test code inside a comment.... not that I wouldn't put it past them to actually use something like that." I mirrored the source code http://puregeekdom.com/pdfs/dbcde-mirror.txt if you want to check it out. The section about removing "ISP Filtering" is not inside /*comments*/ or //comments
Anonymous: Hmm, this could actually be javascript that is contructed server-side on the fly and piped to the client page. Still, makes you wonder....