A fine addition to the Collectors - Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition Review

Developer: Bioware | Platform: PS4 | Playtime and Platinum: 28:55

It’s not often I go straight from original game to sequel but Mass Effect had its claws in me. It’s one of those sequels that just improves on everything the first game did – it’s bigger, better and improves upon the original in almost every way.

Set two years after the first game, Shepard owes (her) life to a shadowy:organisation Cerberus. Run by the Illusive Man, Shepard is tasked with building a team to stop The Collectors, mysterious aliens who are kidnapping humans from throughout the Terminus System colonies.

Moderate story and gameplay spoilers follow, reader discretion is advised.

I love the story, it’s darker than th e first and manages to rerun a similar plot line to the first game but with a new lens. Working for Cerberus, a terrorist organisation rather than the generally benign Council of the first game did lead to some interesting conversations. I played my character as Paragon, much like the first game and I was keen to not associate too much with the human supremacy ideals of Cerberus as I enjoy the alien cast a great deal. The Illusive Man is an interesting foil of a character but an aside not related to the game – he is voiced by actor Martin Sheen, who I last heard in a really stupid OJ Simpson documentary Jade and I watched so that was a little off putting. Returning allies like Tali and Garrus are better than ever and I loved newcomers Mordin and Samara. I don’t know what it is, this series just can’t do interesting human characters – Jacob, Miranda, Kasumi and Zaeed are just not terribly interesting comparatively. Given Shepard’s mission, crew loyalty is important so unlike the first game when only certain cast members got loyalty missions, everyone gets one here so no matter who your favourite companion is, you get a special mission with them.

There are some major Gameplay changes, each of which I feel I need to address on their own. This time around, the cover shooting mechanics become more like the standard shooter meaning you choose when to enter and leave cover rather than the awkward sticky hold the original had. While in cover, your health will recover. However that’s the only way as health packs are used as currency towards Unity (reviving teammates) which I suppose works based on the below. Something I really didn’t like is the restricted access to weapons. In ME1, you had one of each kind of weapon, but here I didn’t unlock a non Pistol/SMG type weapon as an adept until halfway through. Weapons now operate off of Ammo rather than an overheat system which is an interesting change. Weapon heat is more of a Sci-Fi trope than ammo so it’s a curious change, one I’m indifferent on. Finally Powers are on a universal cool down rather than individual per power – Again, pretty indifferent. All of this makes for quite the change in combat scenarios but that’s just on the player side, the enemy AI is improved a fair bit and enemies are more varied in their types. On top of the normal health and shields, the game introduces Armour and Barrier to contend with – armour appears on Krogans and Robots while Barrier is more for Biotics. Definitely requires more strategy which is nice.

Once again, squads consist of three people – Shepard and two others and squad choice might be more important than ever. Each character has a lot less variety in their powerset but that also means there’s a lot less overlap between powers. I still picked my teams based on personality rather than powerset. It’s hard to balance around gameplay given there’s 9 companions but I suppose you can kind of gauge which enemies you’ll fight based on mission and locale.

The galactic map has seen some changes too, though I’m not sure it’s for the better. The overall galaxy map still exists but when entering star systems, you navigate via Mass Relays. The Normandy .has a fuel gauge that empties as you travel between the smaller groups of planets, fuel which can be replenished at fuel stations. I really like actually navigating with the ship rather than a cursor but the fuel is such a non-entity, only a use for the vast amount of credits you’ll obtain. Each planet is scannable like the first game but instead of it being one and done, each planet can be scanned manually. Scanning manually causes the controller vibrate for points of interest, sending probes down will gather the available resources. There’s no exploration of minor planets, only specific planets with quests. This means no Mako sections, instead replaced by the DLC mission Firewalker which uses the hover tank, Hammerhead. It’s alright I suppose, more on DLC later.

The New Normandy has some massive improvements over the original which are fun to explore. There’s not much to do here specifically but Shepard gets her own living quarters which will house some of the collectibles you buy or even a couple of small pets to have in there. Elsewhere in the Normandy are the Armoury and Labs, where you can deal with upgrades. Upgrades are found throughout the world and as rewards from quests.With the resources gained from the aforementioned probes, the player can ‘research’ the upgrades you find. These include improvements biotic/tech powers, healing capacity and various weapon upgrades – damage first then more specific upgrades like ammo capacity later. Finally, Armour is now customisable, which I very much appreciated. Individual pieces can be mixed and matched, each with bonuses to weigh up. Even cooler, the colour of the armour can be modified to make a Shepard truly on your own.

I enjoy the improvements to the morality system, once again being Paragon/Renegade. I ported my ranks over from the first game so I don’t know if that gave me too much of a boost but I felt like I could choose these options earlier than I perhaps would have. The addition of optional ‘Actions’ in dialogue makes things fun. During certain conversations, you’ll be given the option to interrupt with an action that nets you Paragon or Renegade points. These are interesting as not doing them doesn’t net you the opposite, they’re just a fun extra. Naturally as this was a Paragon playthrough, as mentioned prior, I did all the Paragon options but unlike my playthrough of the first game, I was more willing to let myself be a little bad when the situation seemed like it deserved it. I also like that the choices aren’t so binary – in one example, I headbutted a Krogan who was giving me grief. This was a renegade choice but was a Krogan act which meant I respected the culture. The game doesn’t distinguish this but the reactions from other Krogan in the area made it an interesting gamble.

As with the first game, I had to check what was DLC or not and I’m surprised and not surprised to see how much of what I did was DLC – companions Zaeed and Kasumi were DLC, which may explain why they aren’t as interesting and don’t have in depth dialogue options like the rest of the crew. The other DLC that was incorporated were Overlord, Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival. Overlord is good, Lair of the Shadow Broker is better, Arrival is really not good but is required playing for the sequel.

While a bit different to the original, Mass Effect 2 improves on all the problems of the first game to deliver a dramatic, well written and exciting sequel. It almost makes the original look like a beta. Not a perfect game but perhaps the perfect sequel.