Mass Effect 2: Post Game Review
Disclaimer: This post contains mid and endgame spoilers from Mass Effect 2.
I finally wrapped up Mass Effect 2 this past weekend and I am really happy with the experience. This game is what a sequel should be. Bioware took what they did with the first game and refined it into an even better experience. It is very obvious that they took to heart a lot of the fan criticisms of the first game (mainly the mako exploration and the inventory managing). Had this game come out a month earlier, it would have been a toss up between this and Dragon Age for my 2009 game of the year.
I finished as a paragon male Shepard and am already itching to start up as a renegade female Shepard. Between waiting to see if they put out any DLC and this week's release of Bioshock 2 however, I think I am going to put my second play through of Mass Effect 2 on the back burner.
My problems with Mass Effect 2 are really minor nit picks in the grand scheme of things.
I thought there were too many characters. It was not that the characters were not interesting. The only character I did not ever really use was Jacob. The problem was that I liked so many of the characters and you could only take two with you at any given time.
After being spoiled on party interaction in Dragon Age, I wish there was more banter between characters. I also wish the characters would also interact more in conversation with NPCs. Most the time, characters will only have conversation points if you are doing a quest for them or are talking to directly to them on the ship. But, I can understand that this game is supposed to be the story of Commander Shepard so he should have the focus.
I also thought it was very unfortunate that by the time you got Legion into your party, there was a time limit put on your character. Once you get Legion, your ship is attacked by Collectors and all of your crew is taken. The more time you spend running around the galaxy doing side quests at this point, the more of your crew dies. Legion is a Geth and so having him on your side makes for some very interesting interactions. I would love to take him to more of the character and loyalty missions, but I do not want to end with my crew being wiped out.
I was reading an interview with some of the Mass Effect 2 developers and apparently usage statistics are from people playing are getting sent back to Bioware so they can see which characters people use the most. They are going to take this information to give the more used characters bigger roles in Mass Effect 3.
The only other minor nit pick I have is that if you do 100% of the quests in game and hack and loot every locker and safe and body, you will still not have enough money to buy all of the games upgrades. I was using an imported character so I started with a bonus of 150k credits and by the time I reached the point of no return, I was still about 300k credits shy of being able to afford everything.
Nonetheless, these are relatively minor things. They are nothing like the glaring problems of the first game. Word in the pipeline is that they are going to put out some decent DLC for this game (unlike ME1) and that we could see ME3 as early as first quarter of next year. Between the top notch gaming experiences I have had with Dragon Age and Mass Effect, my confidence in Bioware to put out a great game has never been higher. It makes me wonder if The Old Republic could actually turn out to be the "Next Big Thing" in the MMO sphere.