KyotoJack's Blog

Well chaps no less that five minutes ago I just finished my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2. All I can say is WOW I never expected Bioware to make such a great sequel and to be honest I would even go as far as to say I prefered Mass Effect 2 to the original which is crazy since I adored the first game.

Bioware changed so much in Mass Effect 2; For instance the combat which going in five minutes already felt totally different to the first game, But in a good way. Bioware took what was bad about the jerky original combat system and mixed it up it something tottaly enjoyable, It plays alot like other counterparts such as Gears Of War and Uncharted in some ways but Mass Effect 2 brings new and original ideas to the table as well. In a sentence Mass Effect 2's combat is probably some of the most enjoyable I have ever played on the 360.

Bioware also did well to fix some problems in the first game, The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the texture popping which was very noticeable from the get go, Bioware have done well to improve this in Mass Effect 2 since now I think I seen the problem happen once for about a second then it was gone. Speaking of graphics Bioware has done a pretty decent job of making Mass Effect 2 feel like a new looking game, Rather than it just running on the original graphics engine. Alot of work has been done to the attention of detail on the characters, with a great use of textures and shaders they look alot more pretty than they did in the last game. However some characters at times can still look very bland. In whole though Mass Effect 2 has some great visuals to offer which will offer some really pretty eye candy moments.

However I would say the limelight of the game is infact the story arc. If you happened to finish the first game you had the ablity to adapt over your key decisions and character which implements into the story of Mass Effect 2, for instance something I did in the last game made a major difference to the story in the second game. Among that Mass Effect 2 in my view has to have one of the most enjoyable Science fiction stories I have experinced in a long time, I won't go into much to spoil the game but in a few words it has one of the deepest and most enjoyable stories on the Xbox 360 console.

That's not to say that the game is perfect, it is close but there is still a few gimmicks in Mass Effect 2 which I thought didn't work to well. I thought the mining was really dumb to be honest, it was slow and got tedious very quiclky and the only motivation to do it is to realise that in the long run it will make your team even more elite.

In conclusion Mass Effect 2 is defenitely one of the best games this year despite it being a January release title. With one of the deepest and enjoyable stories out there along with a fairly fun and unique combat system Mass Effect 2 is a must buy for any user on the Xbox 360.

Final Score: 10/10