Mass Effect 2 is big. Oh, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but etc., etc., more thinly veiled references to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Joking aside, that is the very first thing that has struck me about this game. It’s huge. It’s immense. It is heaving and pendulous, one might even say GROTESQUELY large. There’s just so goddamn much to DO in this game that the mind reels, and seems wary of ever truly accomplishing everything. And with the titanic avalanche of free DLC promised via the game’s Cerberus Network update system, to say nothing of further planned paid DLC, this is a game that I fully expect to be playing well into the middle of the year.
I’ll not wax poetic about the details of the plot: as with the original Mass Effect, the plot is sublime, if not even moreso than the original. The writing chops Bioware exercised the first time around have only grown more polished with the passage of time, and the characters feel much more 3-dimensional and grounded than before… an impressive feat considering the cast of ME1. There’s old faces, new faces, old faces you really don’t expect to see, and a whole host of surprises in store, none of which I’ll spoil. In addition, the dialogue system used to communicate with the rabble of the universe and your crew alike has been significantly beefed up, with more cinematic camera direction, and perhaps my favorite new game innovation, Interrupts, which let you throw out an OBJECTION! in the middle of a conversation and put mofos in their place, with either a heroic or sadistic bent, pending upon how much of a Space Jerk your Commander Shepard is.
The gameplay, too, is significantly improved. The RPG elements have been streamlined a great deal, and the game is much more of a shooter than ME1, which is a welcome change. Your squad is easier to direct, with you now being able to issue orders to individual teammates; the cover system is much improved, and far more useful; the weapons have been completely overhauled, favoring traditional ammunition systems in the form of expendable heat-sinks for your weaponry, and the introduction of heavy weapons, SMGs, light machine guns, and a whole host of other nasty little implements of death and destruction. The heavy weapons, incidentally, replace the grenades of ME1, which were fiddly, impractical things anyway, so no love lost on my part.
There’s far more to say, really there is, but the simple fact is I don’t want to stop playing long enough to actually spend time SAYING it. There will be more in-depth updates on the game’s content throughout the week, but for now, I’m charging back into the fray. HUZZAH!
