Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages! Welcome back to the Assassin's Den!
Before I tackle the second game, I need to mention Mass Effect: Redemption. It takes place between when the Normandy SR-1 is destroyed and when Shepard wakes on the table in the Cerberus lab. It tells the story of how Liara got Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker and into Cerberus hands. It was a four issue mini-series released by Dark Horse, and started in January 6, 2010. On June 9, 2010, Dark Horse released a trade paperback that collects all four issues and a "special behind-the-scenes section with sketches and more" in one 96 page volume. That is all I can say about it, however, as I do not own it, nor have I read it.
Mass Effect 2 opens 6 months after Shepard saved the Citadel from Sovereign. It opens with a short scene with the Illusive Man and squadmate Miranda Lawson discussing the ending of Mass Effect 1 before cutting to the Normandy, which is attacked by the Collector ship. Now, the conversation is determinded whether or not you imported a character into this game or not. If you did not, you get the "internal canon" opening; Shepard chose not to save the Council, and Udina is elected human Councilor. If you DID import your game, your decisions are reflected in this opening.
I briefly mentioned the Illusive Bastard...I mean Illusive Man, in the novel, but he's a huge part of this game's story. His goal is simple; that of making humanity ascendant above all other races...at any cost, with him at the top. That includes manipulating both other species and experimentation on humans to "bring out their potential." He is a racist, a coward, a master manipulator and an all around example of what happens when people go too far. He epitomizes everything that is bad about the human race, seeing everyone and every as a tool to be used to achieve his goals. The worst thing is that he doesn't see what he is doing as wrong, and that he's the hero of his story, which makes him a very well written and motivated villain. I hate him, but I love hating him.
Anyway, the game picks up two years after the Normandy was destroyed, with Shepard waking up on a slab in a Cerberus facility, after being rebuilt. And this is where you see that the game engine is completely different. Gone is the different weights of armor, replaced with moddable armor (and non-moddable armor, which are DLC and Collector edition only). Weapons no longer shake and lose accuracy as you fire them, nor do they overheat; instead, they are always accurate so long as you aim well, and the overheating is replaced with a limited ammunition system called "thermal clips". In-universe, it's explained that they are detachable heat sinks, but for game mechanics, it's ammunition. But ammo can be found all over the battlefield, so that doesn't matter.
And since guns no longer require training to fire accurately, the entire class system was changed. The Soldier is still your weapons specialist, is still trained in the pistol, shotgun and sniper rifle, and is the only one who can use the assault rifle. (However, the Soldier is the only class that can't use the Submachine gun, which I will get into detail later.) But the soldier now uses ammo powers; disruptor ammo, which is useful against machines and shields, incendiary ammo, which is useful against armor, and cryo ammo, which freezes your foes once barriers/shields and armor is dropped. You also get concussive shot, which is useful as a knockdown and shatter. But the Soldier's bread and butter is the Adrenaline Rush, which slows down the battlefield for everyone but you; this allows you to move around and fire against helpless foes.
The Infiltrator is still the master of the sniper rifle, but gets a Tactical Cloak, to disappear from your foes, allowing you to move around the battlefield and place yourself in the best position possible. The Infiltrator has access to Incinerate, which burns off ammo, AI Hacking, which is useful against mechs and geth, and both disruptor and cryo ammo. To offset the lack of ability to use the assault rifle, the Infiltrator, as well as all the other classes, gain the submachine gun. The SMG doesn't hit as hard as the assault rifle, but the Kasumi DLC gives you an SMG that makes the lack of damage output negligible.
The Vanguard is still a master of close range, but you are a LOT better at it this time around. Utilizing incendiary and cryo ammo for your shotgun and SMG, the Vanguard can use the Biotic Rush to zoom around the battlefield and slam into your foes, giving you time to dish out a powerful shotgun blast right in the chest. Shockwave, a new biotic ability, allows the vanguard to toss foes on the ground away, and pull is simply a modified lift that goes up and toward you.
The Sentinel is still the biotic/tech class, and like the Adept and Engineer, are restricted to the SMG. (All classes can use the pistol, so no need to mention it every time.) But this time, the Sentinel is distinct with the Tech Armor. Tech Armor makes you a tank (in the RPG sense), and you can still debuff your enemies. The Sentinel can use throw, which functions as before, and Warp, which is now used to drop barriers of your biotic foes. Sentinels use Overload, which drop enemy shields, and cryo blast, which function cryo ammo, but as a single, more potent, projectile.
The Adept is still your crowd control, using the same abilities in past games. Singularity still pulls your foes into a single point, and shockwave, pull, warp and throw function as stated previously.
The Engineer has had some of the most changes of all the classes. The abilities Overload, Incinerate, AI Hacking and Cryo Blast have already been explained, but the Engineer has a new ability; Combat Drone. This gives you an extra companion on the battlefield, doing damage to your foes as well as draws aggro.
Now, the guns in this game are fewer in amount, but you can now upgrade the damage output that they do. In fact, upgrades are what this game focuses on; once you recruit a certain companion, you get a station to use the resources you gather to purchase upgrades to yourself, companions and the weapons they all use. This is both a good and bad thing. Good thing, in that you no longer need to worry about equipping better guns for yourself of companions; this does it for you. Bad, because you need to spend a LOT of time scanning planets for resources. And you won't know which planets are rich in what resource unless you either have an FAQ or have completed the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC.
Also, at the point where you go to the Collector Ship mid-game, you gain access to the ability to add another gun to your arsenal, or upgrade the guns you have. If you already have an assault rifle, shotgun or sniper rifle at this point, you can upgrade to the Claymore shotgun (the one that Grunt can give himself as an upgrade), the Widow Sniper Rifle (Legion's upgrade), or the Revenant Assault Rifle (which only NPCs have.) Otherwise, you get to pick up that weapon for use for the rest of the game. My advice for this though, is to go for either the sniper rifle talent or the shotgun talent, as the assault rifle is pointless if you have the Kassa Locust from the Kasumi DLC.
Now, because of the change in game engine, importing your character isn't what you'd think; you still retain all the decisions you made in ME1, but because of change in how combat works, you are forced to start from scratch. However, how high you got in ME1 determines how many levels you start with in ME2. If you import a character up to 49, you start at level 2, get 20,000 credits, and 2,500 of each scannable resource. 50 to 59 gets you to level 3, and you get 30,000 credits, and 5,000 of each resource. And level 60 gets you to level 5, 50,000 credits, and 10,000 of each resource. Also, completing ME2 once gets you 200,000 credits and 50,000 of each resource on top of your import bonus.
Returning characters are Udina, who is the Human Councilor in the default opening, and the assistant to Anderson if you made him Councilor in ME1. Anderson returns as either the human Councillor, or an Admiral who is the assistant to Udina. Kaidan or Ashley return for a cameo on Horizon, depending on who survived Virmire. Wrex also returns for a cameo on Tuchanka if he survived Virmire. Joker and Doctor Chakwas return on the Normandy, and Garrus and Tali return as recruitable companions; Garrus in Act 1, and Tali in Act 2. Garrus left his job at C-Sec, and went to Omega to be a vigilante, while Tali completed her pilgrimage and is finishing a special project for her father when you are able to recruit her. Garrus is a ranged DPS who can drop shields, and Tali is an engineer with a shotgun. As for new companions, you get Miranda Lawson, the woman in charge of the project to bring Shepard back from the dead, who functions as a biotic DPS with the overload ability. You have Jacob Taylor, a former Alliance soldier who joined Cerberus because he believed the Alliance wasn't doing enough. He functions as a biotic crowd control. You get Doctor Mordin Solus, a salarian biologist who functions as tech based debuffer. Thane Krios is a drell assassin with a biotic barrier dropper and long range DPS. Grunt is a krogan weapons specialist who works best at close range. Jack is a powerful human biotic who is used for crowd control. Samara is an asari justicar who single foe biotic DPS. Morinth, whom you can switch out for Samara later in the story, does the same as Samara. (You get to choose at a certain point in Samara's story, which I will get into later.) And the final companion you get, Legion, is a geth who wants to stop the Reapers. He functions as a DPS focused hacker. You also get two DLC characters; Zaeed Massani, who is a weapons focused mercenary who, like Shepard, has a reputation for doing the impossible. And finally, you get Kasumi Goto, the best thief in the galaxy, who is a master hacker and infiltrator. She is also the only one other than the Infiltrator who can use a cloak.
Each companion has a loyalty mission that you must complete to unlock their character specific ability, which is how this game handles the bonus abilities; you unlock it for them once, you unlock it for you for all time. The loyalty missions are there to increase the survivability of that companion during the suicide mission. However, certain characters' missions can be completed in a way that won't let their loyalty; Tali and Zaeed, for example. Choose the wrong option or don't have enough alignment points to convince the parties involved in the quest, you don't gain loyalty. And two pairs of characters have crisis points where you can lose the loyalty of one if you don't have enough alignment points to convince both parties to cool off; Miranda and Jack, and Tali and Legion.
The story is simple; due to the events of ME1, the Reapers have taken an interest in the human race, and is sending their slave race, the Collectors, to begin harvesting us. You get many twists and turns through out the story until you finally launch the suicide mission to bring down their base. And the suicide mission is where things come to head. People can start dieing at this point. If you didn't upgrade the Normandy's weapons, shields and armor, companions start dieing; one per lacking upgrade. If you didn't gain loyalty, or you lost loyalty, people start dieing. And if you chose the wrong specialist for certain jobs in the suicide mission, people start dieing. It is possible to get every one one your squad mates killed if you didn't get the ship upgrades or do the loyalty missions, and chose the wrong people for certain points.
As for the DLC, some are more fun than others. Firewalker is boring, but it opens new sectors and gives you planets to scan that gives you lots of resources. Project Overlord has an interesting storyline, and uses the tank you got in Firewalker. If you don't download Firewalker though, you get the tank regardless. Zaeed's DLC gives you Zaeed, a shotgun and a mission. Same with Kasumi, but you get the best SMG in the game. Lair of the Shadow Broker gets you a mission surrounding Liara and her hunt for the Shadow Broker because of the events of the comic I mentioned earlier. This DLC nets you a location to get an easy few thousand credits as well as a way to get the locations of planets rich in certain resources. It also gives you an opportunity to continue the Liara romance.
And then finally comes Arrival. This is a bridge between ME2 and ME3, and is best played after you destroy the Collector base. Admiral Hackett (who makes his first physical appearance in this DLC) alerts you to a friend of his in a batarian prison, and asks you to break her out. This leads you to an artifact that shows that the Reapers will reach the galaxy in 2 days, and the only way to stop it drive an asteroid into the Mass Relay they will be using to get to us. But through this, Shepard essentially commits a war crime; destroying the Relay destroys the system it is in, and wipes out all life there. And the residents of that system? Batarians, who hate the human race for reasons included in the first book, game and this game. Shepard is told that they are going to be the scapegoat on this, which sets the stage for the opening of ME3.
There is also the Genesis DLC, which is a short animated comic that allows you to select MOST of the important choices from ME1 if you don't own the game, or choose not to import your character from 1 into 2. It's most important if you had the PS3 version before the trilogy version was released.
I enjoyed this game, though because of DLC, you end up buying the game twice with how much of it there is (at least if you bought it new). But I liken it to expansions for PC games back in the day. You can pick this up for about 15 bucks for a physical copy of ME2 on Xbox 360 and PS3, and for 30 for PC download.
Tune in next time for a synopsis of the in between comics, as well as a full review of the third novel, Retribution.
Happy Gaming! :)
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