Mass Effect 2-The Review

Before I start I have to confess something. If you check in my profile you will read about the part of my life as a gamer. I know I say that I stopped playing one game after another and I play 2 games per month and there are periods I do not touch a game for more than 2 months. Although it is absolutely true I broke this habit with this series of games.

The moment I finished Mass Effect 1 I had already installed in my pc Mass Effect 2. I took a brake only for a couple of days just to catch up with my training ( let's say that I missed 3 or 4 trainings ... big mistake ) . You may think I am crazy or something but hey we all have some weaknesses right? My weakness lies in quality. You are confused? You shouldn't . It is pretty simple. I stopped playing every game I could put my hands on and I started looking for games that they had really to offer me something.

The Mass Effect series offers QUALITY !!!! Like I said in Mass Effect 1 lens the story or the scenario if you want, was the part of the game that blew my mind away (apart from everything else of course). Keep reading boys and girls and you will see why.

I enjoyed so much making this lens but at the same time it is so, so hard. And I am not talking about the time that I have to spend gathering all the photos, videos, writing all the text, put the modules in the right order etc......etc ..... you know all the stuff that a serious lensmaster has to do if he wants to present to his readers a quality lens. Because a really good lens takes a lot of time and effort to be built. PERIOD !!!!!

No I am not talking about those difficulties ! I 've tried really hard not to reveal so much information so that it would spoil all the fun and joy of discovery of something new. I want the people to see the game through my eyes but I have to be careful what to write. You have no idea how many times I wrote and deleted huge blocks of text because my enthusiasm and love for this game kicked in and I started writing a novel revealing every little thing about this game.

If you are a gamer and you are looking for a review of a game so to decide if it is really worth of your time, you only need to learn about the good and bad features of the game, but nothing else because if you decide that you like it you want to see it for your self. Right ? Now if you aren't a gamer and you are looking for some information or ideas for a gift, for example, and you are not sharing the enthusiasm of the writer, you do not need huge blocks of text and unnecessary info. It is really a thin line.

Let's begin there is so much to cover.

In Mass Effect 1 although the story its self was extraordinary if you really followed it and you didn't just played the game like any other fps ( first person shooter) or tps (third person shooter) then it is certain that you finished the game with more questions than the time you started it.

So Mass Effect 2 comes to fill in all those gaps. Questions will be answered, truths and secrets will be unveiled and there are so many of them.
The story continues 2 years after the previous ,galactic scale effect, events . And this is where the great minds of the script writers came into play.

It is like entering a whole new world. Many, many I mean MANY things have changed. Since the first cinematic I wide opened my mouth of surprise. And the more I continued playing the more surprised I became. Several events happened that changed the lives of everyone you knew, crew mates, companions and also the rest of the galaxy. There were times that i was screaming with excitement (not like a girl but like a MAN ) and there were times that i was holding my head with my hands shouting "YOU' VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME" , "THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR MY BRAIN", "THIS IS NOT HAPPENING" .... and things like that.

Of course you are facing a new enemy a new threat and they are really tough I tell you. But are they actually a new enemy? Do not ask me I won't tell you just play the game. The thing that I WILL tell you is that what you see it is not what you think you see. If you think something is white well maybe it is actually black. Most of the things you thought you knew and took for granted whether do not exist anymore or they are just heavily altered. Confused? I know !!! Maybe I am the one who can't explained it very well because it is more complex than you think.

Oh man I do not know where to begin ! Ok here I go

There are game developers that do not even listen the gaming community. And I mean never !!! Fortunately for us the developers followed to the letter what the Mass Effect players asked them to do.

1. NO MORE SLOW ELEVATORS
Thank you, thank you, thank you game developers and again thank you. Waiting in an elevator for 45-50 secs was an nightmare. Instead there is a loading screen which it lasts only for a few secs. You can't even imagine my frustration when I had to enter an elevator in Mass Effect 2 and how much relieved I was when i saw the result. And again thank you !!!!

2. NO MORE WEAPON HEAT SINKS SYSTEM
Thank you, thank you, thank you game developers and again thank you. When you were in an intense battle in Mass Effect you always had to monitor the heat sinks because sometimes if you were firing constantly your weapon was overheated and it could take some time to coll down or it was remained locked for the rest of the mission. Which was totally unacceptable because there were time that 2 or even 3 of my weapons were overheated and locked due to my fault or the use of enemy skills on my weapons. Thank you one more time.

3. NO MORE ENDLESS AMMO
They removed the heat sinks and they replaced the endless ammo you had with magazines. Well they had to do one thing or another thank god they ve made the right choice. But do not worry you will never run out of ammo. Unless you think you are Rambo or something and you are firing like crazy . Use your head instead of your fingers and you will be fine. I never had an ammo problem and when I did it only made the battles even better baby, hell yeah. And also remember that there are 2 more people or aliens in your team, you are not fighting alone.

4. BETTER GRAPHICS AND ANIMATIONS
The graphics are better than its "father" not that i complained . Some may disagree with me. Or is it because I ve made some little changes in my pc hardware, hmm I do not know. More colors, more special effects...more...more..more of everything. This game will put to the test your pc. Mine passed the test but there was some lag here and there but nothing to spoil the fun. Moreover the characters have more face and movement animations. They also have better designed and more complex animations and you CAN tell the difference.

1. NEW COMPANIONS
Yeah babyyyy !!! Like already said a lot of things have changed in 2 years. Some of your old partners will be with you some won't . In return you will get some new partners with new abilities weapons, skills, animations, behaviors, characters, ideas, etc, etc,
Trust me YOU ARE going to enjoy this !!!

2. NEW SHIP
Yeah Babyyyy !!!! Again the same deal. A lot of things have changed bla, bla, bla, bla.....So you get a new spaceship which is UPGRADEABLE !!!!!!!! Isn't this cool or what? It is also more superior than the Normandy....it is a whole new world by its self.....ok enough said I won't say anything more so I won't spoil the fun. But you are going to spend some time exploring it ;D because it IS big !!!

3. NEW WEAPONS
And again yeah babyyy !!! You still carry the 4 basic weapons ( assault rifle, handgun, sniper rifle, shotgun ) but grenades are gone. The new weapons are heavy weapons. Oh yeah !!! I won't tell you what kind of weapons you get but there are some cool and weird ones. You won't use them all the time but they are useful when you do...maybe extremely useful !!! Moreover some of your companions have new weapons and even you can use them !!!

4. NEW HEALING SYSTEM
In Mass Effect 1 you could use medi-gel to heal yourself. Now you do not need it anymore. There is a new regeneration system. When you get hit too many times and your shields are gone or your life is dangerously low...you can stay in cover for few secs and they will both regenerate. In one way it is cool because you do not have to worry about if medi-gel runs out but there are some restrictions. You can still use medi-gel to revive fallen teammates.

5. NEW UNLOCKING SYSTEM
That was a nice touch !! You can now play a new minigame to unlock crates,doors,safes, etc.... In Mass Effect 1 after a while it got boring now it is a bit different....maybe I was too excited to get bored with little things like that. Anyway it is a cool feature it adds some variety PLUS you do not need any particular attribute to unlock high level locks.

As I have said before, everywhere, there is beauty and ugliness at the same time. Nothing is perfect and bla,bla,bla,bla...... Mass Effect 2 is much more improved than its brother but still there are some flaws. At least for me because I always ask for something more from a game. So these are not necessary bad features but more like personal dislikes (Wow I didn't create a bad feature list, that is rare !!!! ) . Enough said, here we go.

1. Too simple skill tree
Its not even a tree so why they call it a tree never got that....Anyway. At Mass Effect 1 the skills were on the one hand too many which it was bad because you didn't know where to specialize, on the other it was good because you had variety which is good, but too many choices are bad. So one more time the developers listened to the community and they reduced the skills and specializations only to 4. What the hell people !!!! Only 4 ???? Why not 1 ?? That would be even easier !!! And the worst thing of all was that some of the specializations would never be used to me because I considered them useless.

2. Cover system
the cover system got better but still it feels weird, slow and non practical. This time you have to press a button to get in cover and then push it again to get out of cover. All this takes time. Valuable time and sometimes adds more problems to an already crazy situation.

3. Not all planets are explorable
On the one hand I totally understand that the developers would have to do much more work because the planets are way too many. But still it feels really bad not being able to explore every planet you discover. Instead you are able to explore only very few planets and only a small area where an independent side mission is available.

In Mass Effect 2 It Only Gets Better And Better ♦ And The Journey Begins ♦ My Favorite Features In Mass Effect 2 - Part 1♦ Picture Time Baby !!!♦ My Favorite Features In Mass Effect 2 - Part 2♦ My Less Favorite Features In Mass Effect 2 - Part 1♦ My Less Favorite Features In Mass Effect 2 - Part 2♦ A Great Idea For A Gift♦ Made In Psycho-Gamerland♦ Meet The rest of The Family ♦ You know what to do good people

4. No Maiko
Yeah that's right no Maiko available this time. In Mass Effect 1 Maiko was a 6WD all terrain tank with a heavy cannon and a machine gun. If it was used properly and with caution you could take down anything and I mean anything. It could fall from a really high mountain and it would still be ok. It could climb to mountain side of 60 degree angle with ease. It was the perfect vehicle. But it got destroyed after the events and the attack at the citadel. Really disappointed not having the Maiko or at least something similar available.

5. Boring resource gathering system
There are dozens and dozens and dozens of planets for a player to discover. Every planet can be scanned for metal and mineral resources but from an orbit in the spaceship. Probes can be launched to help scanning. All the minerals and metals that are gathered can be used for research which is totally great and so cool. The thing is that after 20 or 30 planets the whole scanning thing becomes really, really, really boring. Always the same and same thing. Nothing changes. They add something really cool, a wonderful feature but it lacks of variety. They do something good but then they screw it up.

6. DLC
That stands for Downloadable content. Game companies do it all the time so Bioware wouldn't be an exception. When they publish a game after a while they announce that there is available some extra content to be downloaded from their site for a charge of course. It is totally understandable why they do it the way they do it but I believe it is so freaking disgusting. It makes me so furious. The "extra " content is already available way before they publish the game so they could actually put it IN the game. The gamers have already paid a really handsome fee for the game why not give this "extra" content as a gift in the first place. Why they have to take their money? Why they have to be so greedy? The good thing is that this "extra" content doesn't affect the original game and the basic story. The original game can be played the way it is and the "extra" content is not necessary.
But still it makes me sooo mad !!!! I will explain everything about it in a future update.