Mass Effect 1: 76/100
Mass Effect 2: 81/100
Mass Effect 3: ??/100
Average: 78/100
Mass Effect 2 review
Simple, down to earth story about building your own super team to take revenge on the mysterious Collectors in a world that is everything but “down to earth”. Literally. It’s space.
Mass Effect 2: 81/100
1. Combat: 8/10
2. Other Gameplay: 8/10
3. Story: 9/10
4. World and Characters: 9/10
5. Graphics: 7/10
6. Audio: 7/10
7. Price: 10/10 (16$ for 3 games)
8. Value (length, replayability, bloat): 8/10
9. Performance / Jank: 5/10
10. Vibe / Lock In: 10/10
1.I played on insanity as a Soldier class, and the first thing you’ll notice is the options you have to put level up points into has basically halved from ME1. It also takes increasingly more points to further upgrade skills so character progression can feel slow. Limited ammunition and reloading along with multiple different shields / armour types to strip from enemies while micromanaging your squad mates and keeping an eye on your shields / health makes the combat feel 1 step too complicated then it needs to be. It starts detracting from the enjoyment of the shooter combat, not enhancing it. Replacing the overheating mechanic with ammo and reloading is a downgrade in my opinion to overall combat enjoyment. If I want to only play with shotguns I should be able to only play with shotguns. However there are a lot more weapon types to try out, with different armor stripping capabilities.
2.Symbol matching hacking game is decent but the code string matching hacking game is a significantly less fun version compared to hacking / lock picking in the first game. Surprisingly, even to myself, I enjoy the planet scanning gameplay and got an absurd amount of resources before my first warp jump lol.
3.Honestly feels weird giving this a 9/10. It just works. A down to earth recruitment run for a team to take on the collectors. Then you take on the collectors. That’s it. It’s a ton of different missions thrown to you at the same time (recruitment missions) and you’re able to do whichever ones you want in whatever order. There are mandatory story missions sprinkled in that trigger and force you to do them then and there, so it’s a really nice mix of linear and nonlinear storytelling. The companions are all pretty great with their own dedicated loyalty quest on top of their recruitment quest. Which rewards you with a unique skill tree, some you may recognize from ME1.
4.Character writing is really good. For a game whose story is almost entirely just “recruit characters”, this was a make or break situation. Unsurprisingly, they make the game. I always walk into the engineering room just to hear what the two engineers have to say about the recent activity on the ship. Their back and forth is frequently laugh out loud good. My assistant flirts with me right out of the gate? Sure why not.
5.Graphics are an odd one because they seem very inconsistent. Graphics in cutscenes are an incredible step up, but in game sometimes character models actually look incredibly low res. Very odd. It’s a mixed bag on this one. Still managed to capture some great scenic photo ops like in ME1, and I think overall they are a step up from ME1 in most cases.
6.Music is a big step up from the incredibly generic synth music of the first game.
7.16$ for 3 entire games. Is a fair amount of old game design bloat, could definitely tighten up the campaign pacing. A lot of needless running back and forth between 2 people for side quests.
8.Length: took me just under 40 hours to complete my run on insanity. Decent. That’s what I’d expect from a game these days that’s not resident evil lol. Hey, they get away with it. There is some replayability in trying out different classes as they all play pretty differently, although it is a shooter still at heart. Different builds within classes don’t really exist as you’ll pretty much have every skill tree maxed except one by the end of the game. There aren’t a ton of “choices matter” moments, but famous to BioWare these will follow you through the entire trilogy, so some mild replayability there. It’s mostly in the classes, of which there are 6, and party member composition, of which there are 12 with the included DLC. No bloat in my opinion. There wasn’t anything I wasn’t having fun doing. Except maybe my 8th run on the notorious difficulty spikes on insanity, but the checkpoint saves right before hand made practically zero downtime between attempts.
9.Companion AI still leaves a lot to be desired. My character Constantly ducking into nearby cover when I’m just trying to sprint away from an enemy is brutally annoying and cost more than a few deaths itself. Shields and health just don’t regenerate at all sometimes for some reason ? I’ve had a squad mate call me out for friendly fire when they are standing directly behind me lmao. Shadow broker fight has to be the single most embarrassing AI script I’ve ever seen. Liara didn’t fire a single shot in any attempt.
10.Fully locked in. I wanted to meet every party member and find out more about them, then take my revenge on the collectors. Party members from ME1 sprinkled in here and there really help to maintain interest. When I really want to chill ? Planet scanning for resources my friend. Galactic space shooters: the vibe is always strong with this one.
