The original Mass Effect was one of the biggest and best new franchises of the past decade. Right around this time last year marked the release of the ground-breaking sequel to 2007′s Mass Effect, this release was an Xbox 360 release. After tons of speculations, with EA owning the publishing rights for Mass Effect 2, Playstation 3 owners get the chance to see what all the fuss is about. Has it made the transition or is this another crappy port?

Presentation:

Mass Effect 2 has a single player only component, that will span you anywhere between 25 – 30 hours maybe more, it took me a little less then 25 hours to finish it, with all side missions finished, but I have beaten this game a few times before, so more then likely for the general player it will take slightly longer. On top of that you can replay in a second playthrough manner, allowing you to import your Mass Effect 2 character back into the game in a new game, which will allow you to start from the start, with your level and skills in tact, they give you a bonus skill of your choice and substantial starting credits and resources. There is no multiplayer portion to this game even though you have a one time activation code to input at the start which gives you access to Zaeed, the Hammerhead vehicle and some different weapons and such, but most of the substantial, non-free DLC (Xbox 360) are included on the disc. For those worried about having missed something with Mass Effect, well you have missed something but don’t fret if you only have a PS3, a very lengthy comic book style cinematic will allow you to make the choices you had to make in the first game and explain the story from start to finish. The DLC is implemented extremely well, honestly you’d never even know that it was DLC, it fits on the game like a glove, with the same high quality cinematic quality and vastly different environments.

Story:

In Mass Effect 2 you play as Commander Shepard, much like the first game, without spoiling too much, things go way south at the very beginning of the game as your put through an extremely cinematic piece. After all that is done you find yourself working for Cerberus, a human-survivalist group who really just wants humans to have a greater place in the galaxy. In the first Mass Effect Cerberus was conducting very in-humane experiments on the alien races trying to create super soldiers, I don’t think it was explained in the story recap. Shepard killed his/her fair share of Cerberus soldiers and destroyed experiments in the first game, so when Shepard is healed by Cerberus and recruited they run a hostile relationship. The base story of this game picks up where the first one left off, you run into a new type of enemy and you have to build up a group of only the best to conquer this new foe. The story is enticing and can change depending on what dialogue you choose, depending whether your Paragon (Good) or Renegade (Bad). As you make slight decisions from actions you do to words you say, to certain in-cinematic moments, will affect your Paragon and Renegade, which will ultimately change the way the whole game plays out.

Graphics:

Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360 looked fantastic, On the Playstation 3 version it’s running on the Mass Effect 3 engine, and to be completely honest the textures look the same, which isn’t a surprise, they would re-model everything, but the lighting looks better in places and facial animations look slightly better, I noticed some framerate hitches here and there, but nothing that will disturb the game.

I did run into a bug where an enemy was stuck behind a locked door and his leg was clipped through, which would have made me have to restart, except he took damage on his leg. Anyways, all that to say that even though it looks slightly better then the Xbox and PC version I noticed a handful more problems in the quality.

Sound:

This game features some of the best background music out there with a wide range of calm and less calm electronic tracks, that have an impact on you as you play, the music will pick up when enemies are around and will calm down after you kill them all, which is something I really enjoy in games, only because it helps know when it’s safe to move on. On top of the incredible background music there is stellar voice acting. The characters are completely believable and really well voice acted. The sound of the guns and such are a little less impressive, but they’re okay, the overall sounds of the characters, both friendly and enemy are great though, and the fact that your squad talks while your walking is totally awesome.

Gameplay:

Mass Effect 2 is a third person shooter, RPG game, which stay really strong to both roots, think of the best third person shooter game, and mix it with your favorite western RPG game.. And you got Mass Effect 2. There are cover mechanics that work great, it’s really easy to take cover from enemies if you need to. When you want to switch weapons or pull up any kind of in-game menu the action stops, allowing you to take your time to target who you want to target.

“On top of that you can map three powers to your controller for easy access, and you have pretty extensive control over your squad.”

Not only can you direct them separately but you have power over their powers and you can upgrade them however you like, or you can auto level up. Mass Effect 2 is a very forgiving game, until you get close to the end, it’s very easy, you have a shield and health and if you get hurt they both regenerate, the only thing you have to do is stay in cover. On normal I was able to go through, only dying a handful of times, so if your an avid Third Person Shooter fan, I do suggest boosting the difficulty a bit. The RPG elements of this game mostly come in it’s story, The way you can choose what path you take, either Paragon or Renegade, and how it changes the game completely. There are multiple endings to the game, ranging from terrible to very good, and so it encourages more playthroughs. You will be able to import your character, with all the choices you made into Mass Effect 3, which is totally awesome. Something that I would have liked to see an improvement in, is the tech tree, there aren’t many upgrades to get, and you can’t really level up the way you should be able to in an RPG, but it’s a minor complaint, the more refined tree might make a lot of people happy. I’m glad they lessened the amount of safes and things you had to hack and bypass, which are small mini-games, but in the Xbox/PC version they were everywhere, they still are, but significantly less. They haven’t done anything to make the resource mining any more exciting, so Warning to anyone out there, have a tall glass of something caffeinated while mining, it gets boring… really boring.

Final Thoughts:

Mass Effect 2 is a simply fantastic game, would I suggest it for those who already have the Xbox 360 or PC versions, probably not, there isn’t much different here, the graphics look largely the same, and the DLC is cheaper then investing in this game, but that being said if you missed out on Mass Effect 2, I don’t see why you wouldn’t buy this game, whether a great story is what your looking for, or great gameplay or great character development, this game has it all, there is no reason to let this one slip by, do yourselves a favor and go pick up this game.

See larger image Mass Effect 2 (Video Game) List Price: $59.99 USD New From: $42.00 In Stock Used from: $44.98 In Stock Release date January 18, 2011.