Mass Effect 2 (PC) Mini-Review

Why a mini-review and not a full blown 1,000 word treatise on an epic space opera?  Simple, my first impression covered the material quite well, which is the entire point of those pieces.  What a first impression can’t do is cover the entire scope of the game, especially a story-driven piece of entertainment like Mass Effect 2.  For that, a mini-review is needed.

As noted in the mini-review headline above, I feel that I covered a good deal of Mass Effect 2′s flaws and achievements already.  Most of the time a first impression can be pretty spot on – the only reason the video game industry accepts “reviews” based on hours of play rather than completion – but there are aspects of these complex pieces of entertainment that may not be appreciated, or hated, until hours have past.  Such is the case with Mass Effect 2.

After Mass Effect launched, Ray Muzyka stated that the side quests had fallen short.  They were pointless, and non-captivating.  Their only purpose was give players another way to level up.  The second time around BioWare made sure that the side quest were of the utmost importance by making it them more than half the game, and the only way to progress the main campaign.  During the campaign Shepard has to rally the troops to fill the ranks of the new Normandy.  To do so players are put on a handful of missions to locate and recruit new members.

It is during these missions that we learn the ins and outs of the faction we are working for and piece together what has happened between the two games. Each of these missions is then cross woven with larger details of the universe and the greater campaign. After all these details have been filled in, the story truly begins.  Don’t get me wrong, the recruitment is of dire importance, but they are nothing more than side missions parlayed as part of the main story.  In turn, the generic distractions are left for the System Shock 2-inspired probing, which makes upgrading (and inventory management) far less painful, and unlocks the boring anomaly missions.  For me, it was clear that the space opera was broken up into separate acts, before recruitment and after.

I found it an interesting design decision.  Muzyka did exactly what he wanted, he made the “side quests” so important that most people wanted to do them, but still told this huge, all-encompassing story that the writers wanted to be told.  All that had to be done was to make these tasks appear as they could not be skipped.  Basically, it came down to good writing.

The downside to merging the the recruitment “side missions” with the main story is that it makes the campaign feel incredibly short.  The main story can easily be boiled down from the 20-25 hours of playtime to the last three to five hours of the game.  Because of this break Mass Effect 2 left me wanting, just like The Two Towers did.  It feels that because these two works of art are the middle of a trilogy the story isn’t driven as far as the bookends.

Aside from presenting a bridging story, Mass Effect 2 upgrades and tweaks everything wrong with the original.  There’s no innovation, but the improvements, from graphics to inventory, and the added lore makes Mass Effect 2 worth the purchase.

Amazon has discounted Mass Effect 2 for PC down to $39.99, the 360 version is also discounted but only to $49.99. $10 off either way.