Burnam09

Welcome, my fellow gamers. Right now you are looking at CEG's first hand look into one of the years biggest releases of 2010. I'm Burnam and I'm bringing you Buy It or Burnam, where hopefully I can help to some of the thinking out of getting that certain game. I'm pretty sure you've noticed by now that I'm doin my first review on, that's right, Mass Effect 2.
The story starts you off with an image of a burning world or a dying sun, I don't know which, but it's an impressive setting for to people plotting on the side. Your introduced to the Illusive Man, and he explains how something is making entire colonies disappear. Here's where you come in. Your taken to the Normandy, one of the few familiar sights from the first game, until someone comes blows the crap out of it. It then jumps ahead two years, where you get a second chance to save the galaxy. Dealing with cover ups, betrayals, and shady corporations you have to recruit a crack team of killers to save humanity again.


Yup, it's that kind of thing again. At least the shooting in this game is fun. It seems like most of the time is running through intense little skirmish battles, and that's not the best part. Your teammates actually show some intelligence. I played most of the game letting them take up their own cover, and they actually go to decent spots. Now don't get me wrong, in tougher fights I did have to use the simple commands to put them in better cover. And it seems you also need to tell them to use their powers so they don't go running out into the open. You can also upload your character from the first game, which means more experience, money, and side quests. And when the end of this trilogy comes out, you will be able to keep the story going wih the same character.

Now for the downside. Gone are the days of driving the Mako. You can't roll up shooting planets, or look for minerals, or go to side quests anymore. Now you are given a radar scanner thing, with probes and slowly try to sniff out various resources. This really made me angry, because you need these resources to upgrade your weapons, armor, and ship. The radar will also point out areas of interest and a dropship will take you to whatever mission your doing. The hacking scenes are a bit of a disappointment. They are real simple and can be mastered on your first try. It can get pretty aggrevating though, so don't mess up or else whatever your trying to hack will lock.
One more thing, there is no more finding armor. So you can't just run around trying to find that "ulitmate" set up. This is done now by upgrades to your given armor, and these upgrades barely change the look of your armor and add small boosts to your stats.

There is hope for this, though, and it goes to the storyline. Bioware put a lot of effort into the depth of the characters. Each one has their own history and personal issues. You get the chance to help your crew through their problems, either in a good or bad way. You really do get total control over how the story flows, as you become the ultimate bad ass or ultimate server of justice. Pay attention though, your choices affect how your player looks. No matter what road you take, your going to be rewarded with all the crazy plot twists, discounts, and intergallactic romances your confused mind can take.

Overall, this game was fun to play. The depth of the story, and intense firefights definately made up for the resource gathering and lack of skill hacking jobs, or just when there isn't some alien or mercenary to shoot up. So, finally, I would say that this game is worth the buy. If you spend the time to play through the character sub plots, you will enjoy seeing what kind of person you can turn them into.

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