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Realm of Rikonia
Rikonian Revuze
(Video Games)
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Reviewed By: Lord High Rikonian ( 2/6/2010 8:07:07 PM)
Overall Rating: 5.00 biotic boogaloos
Quality:
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Review: In many ways this game is an improvement over the already great Mass Effect.
For one, the graphics are stunning. The planetscapes and city hubs and even the characters look truly exceptional and detailed. Really, the only weak points of the character rendering are the teeth and eyelashes of humans. And that's something that's only detectable in the dialog extreme close ups.
Gun combat is for the most part similar, except that they've added a need for ammo. I have a bit of a problem with this, because guns have actually been advanced to a less useful level of technology. They try to rationalize it with some lame "oh hey our guns used to overheat so now we use disposable heat sinks to cool them, so we can shoot at a faster rate than the old guns", but these guns aren't all that much faster. Also, why can't the braniacs at the Alliance make a gun that, when the heat sinks run out, fires at the same rate of cooldown as the old guns? Aside from the weaksauce rationale behind ammo use, gunplay is great. I tend to favor the SMG, but I also kick ass with the sniper rifle and the flamethrower.
Biotic/tech power use is pretty much the same. You pull up the power wheel, pick your power and it goes off. However, this is subjected another annoying change to the Mass Effect formula. In Mass Effect 1, every power had its own cooldown, so you'd use Lift, then use Overload, then Throw, then shoot a couple guys then use Lift again. In Mass Effect 2, however, you have a power cooldown that applies to all powers. Each power has a specific cooldown time, but that cooldown blocks you from using all powers. This sucks, but still, powers are a fun and useful aspect of Mass Effect combat.
COmbat difficulty is much better. I played through in normal, but out of curiosity, I replayed some fights in casual. It was actually super easy in casual (something that Bioware kind of frakked up when they did Dragon Age).
The economic system has been refined. In the original game, you couldn't swing a dead verren without hitting a hundred thousand credits. Bioware realised they made money too prevalent, and took things way the hell the other direction for Dragon Age, then swung the pendulum back, actually landing in the sweet spot with this game. Money is scarce enough to where you don't end your first playthrough with tens of millions of extra credits, but not so scarce that you leave most of the good gear unpurchased.
Levelling is simplified. Instead of a long line of tick marks to fill in, each power has only 4 levels. At first glance, this seems like a duplo-ification of the leveling process, and maybe it is, but really it is a bit of an improvement. In the last game, after all, when you got to the higher levels, it took a lot of slots in a given power for the differences to become apparent. This new system just groups that point expenditure into a single purchase.
The mini games are also much improved. Breaking into a lock looks like hacking a circuit, and hacking a computer actually looks like some sort of hacking, as opposed to the lame "Simon" game the last version had.
And of course, there is the witty writing we expect from Bioware. Cheesy pop culture refs, hilariously demented dialog options, and the classic Bioware pussy/douchebag morality scale. But there is one thing missing. In most Bioware games, there's one character that just annoys me: Carth, Mira, Ashley, Alistaire (though Al got less annoying and actually entertaining on subsequent playthroughs). But none of the characters in Mass Effect 2 were bad.
And that's the elements. So how do they all fit together? Brilliantly. The game is fast, clever, thrilling, funny, immersive. Prepare to lose your evenings. Prepare to look up at your clock and be shocked to see that it says 2 AM. Prepare to wonder where your weekend went.
Although I did find the ending a bit weak. It turns out that the colonists were not abducted at all, they were all just stuck inside their homes unable to pull themselves away from this great game :p
OK, seriously, the ending is very strong. It's an epic slog through the enemy army followed by a good crisp brutal but not tedious boss fight. This is how you do final boss fights, Bioware. Not making a rogue click a damn crossbow for 20 minutes.
Playing Advice: First off, as with any Bioware title, this is a buy, not a rental. There is a lot to keep you occupied, and you will want to revisit it.
Second, hold off on mining systems that are away from the mass effect relays until you upgrade the number of probes your ship can hold. It'll save you a lot of fuel.
Third, always have at least one squad member with overload and one with warp.
Fourth, save often.
Aside from that, everything really falls down to playstyle.
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