Review: Mass Effect 2

G'day my friends

One of my most beloved games, I'm proud to even speak (or type) about a game that has written the line of adequate and brilliance. Mass Effect 2.

It's predecessor (Mass Effect - 2007) was portrayed to have the highest level of graphics a video game had ever seen. And they brought the money. Even by today's standards, Mass Effect is still held as a highly graphic game and is better than a select few that were recently released.....Mass Effect 2 was to follow the same protagonist, Shepard (Or in my case, Allan Shepard) still aboard the Normandy a month after your assault against the rogue Spectre, Saren.

My first delight at the game was the ability to follow your storyline of the previous game. As I was a highly good Shepard, my choices held very little effect on the world, but in different ways, a lot of major changes. For example, I let the Council live and made Captain Anderson a councilor (at this time of my life, a lot of Matrix jokes were made....)

The graphics in the sequel were phenomenal! As this game was released in January 2010, the hype of plasma TV's and Blu-ray was high, and this 2-disc game put both of these to shame, as the game itself is an average disc on my normal tv and looks stunning. The second item that I noticed was voice acting. An all Star Cast is always a show for concern within the company and the public too, but the voice acting was brilliant. Seth Green playing Joker once more was a fantastic touch and Yvonne Strahovski (voicing and giving her likeness, body and all to Miranda) may have been the only Australian in the cast, but she is a perfect example to all the world. That's what Aussie girls look like fellas!

While the Campaign was utterly brilliant (it taking me 4 tries to win the "No One Left Behind" achievement.....thanks Jack....) there was only one fault that I have seen, through the last year of re-playing the entire game. The DLC's. 

While "Search For The Shadow Broker's Lair" is a brilliant addiction to the game, as well as the "Kasumi" and "Zaheed" DLC's as well, the only one that I found to be a let down, was the "Overlord" pack.

This DLC was a complete let down. It was a return to the standard missions of Mass Effect and, while some parts challenging, others were not as great as they could. For example, in one part you are forced to cross a river of Lava and the developers have not given any direction as to how to use the car that you are in. Until I discovered the Jump ability, I was beginning to become frustrated at the DLC and how nothing was making much sense. The acting was fantastic, don't get me wrong, but this was a entire let down.

Mass Effect 2 is a marvel of today's gaming industry. The graphics, gameplay, storyline and many more are fantastic, but in the eyes of this gamer, this game was one dollar too short.

Out of 10, I gave Mass Effect 2 a 9/10