Mass Effect 2

This is the game I bought an XBox 360 for. I couldn't stand this not being on PS3. I saw trailers, I saw video reviews and I so badly wanted to play. Eventually, I managed to justify it to myself, I picked up the console and the game and I'm so glad I did. I love it. If Mary Poppins was a gamer, she’d tell you that Mass Effect 2 is practically perfect in ever way. Just watch, in a few years it'll become the modern Final Fantasy VII. When someone asks you what your favourite game is and you answer “Mass Effect 2” they'll roll their eyes and say “Oh, everyone likes Mass Effect 2.” There are several elements that comes together to elevate Mass Effect 2 from 'good game' to 'friggin awesome'.

Game play is solid. In fact, it's so good, the game is relatively easy on standard difficulty because it just plays so smoothly. It's a definite step up from the original game where game mechanics, movements and combat were a bit rough around the edges. But for me, what really makes the game is the story and the world created. Worlds. Galaxies. The entire universe is your playground and that sense of freedom is so liberating. The game will guide you to mission specific planets, but there's nothing stopping you from just aiming your ship for a section of space to see what's there. What this ends up doing is allowing for a huge variety of settings. You might be in a war torn urban hell hole for one mission, then in a Jungle paradise the next. You'll be in a high tech state of the art alien city then a worn down old space station. There really is no limits on what the makers of this series could put in the games and because of this it feels so fresh and new.

The story comes in several forms. There is the main story to go on a suicide mission through the Omega Four Relay to confront the Collectors. You are told you need to put a team together and then you are left to your own devices. With the exception of one or two missions throughout the game, the main story really serves to bookmark the game, setting up the events of Mass Effect 2 and then picking up again after the group go through the Omega Four Relay. The rest of the game is made up of a series of mini-missions, and while this would normally irk me in a game, it works wonderfully here. They come in two forms, when you recruit them and when they need a special favour. What makes these missions so much fun is the stories involved around them. The team you are recruiting is not just a bunch of generic blank slate soldiers, they all have history and emotional baggage, and even characters I wasn't as fond of I still found really interesting, for example, Jack. I was gutted to discover I'd broken a Sinead O'Conner impersonator out of prison, especially one who's idea of upper body cloths is a strap that covers up her nipples. But her back story about being a test subject from birth is wonderfully done and as you walk around the smashed up remains of the research centre with her and listen to her 'reminiscing' about the place, you can't help but sympathise with her. I even softened up to super-bitch Miranda after doing her missions and after helping Garrus to kill a man I actually felt like I had bonded with him. That's what's so great about these missions. They aren't just excuses to shoot at people, they add layers to the members of the team and this is very important later on in the game when you have to make some difficult choices.

And while talking about characters I should talk about the main character, Shepard. Except that I can't really, because that's all down to you the player. You customize the gender, look and abilities to suit how you want to play the game. Other games have promised this before, but your character really just ends up a blank slate, your only character traits readable on a good/evil scale. While Mass Effect 2 also has that scale, it's more noticeable how it effects your character in the game. Choosing whether to be the good guy (a paragon) or the bad guy (a renegade) dictates how you can interact with people and the kind of choices you can make. For example, when on the fortieth floor facing off against a very nasty man I was given the choice. I honesty can't tell you what would happen if I made the paragon choice, I just kicked him out the window. The game never even says, “look what you did, you're a bad person,” instead it says, “wow, you're a bad ass.”

That's what I love about this game, the freedom to go anywhere you want and the freedom to be who you want to be. This is without a doubt the best game I've played all year. I'm so glad I finally picked up an Xbox to play this -

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