Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 for the PS3 and Xox360 is a very good game. Here is my review for it, I hope you enjoy. Plot and Squad Characters: (minor spoilers) you are Commander Sheppard who is flying around in your ship called the Normandy. After searching for Geth (rouge robots created by the Quarrians another race in the ME universe) you get attacked by a giant dreadnaught ship that looks like a giant termite hill. After saving what and who you could from your ship, you get ejected out from the final attack of the attacker’s ship and sent into space plummeting to your death on the nearby planet. Fast forward 2 years later (this is where in the game you can choose what Shepard looks like, what class of fighter they are and their mini background story) where the base you wake up is under attack from mech’s aka security droids that were hacked. You are contacted by Maranda Lawson who helps you escape along with Jacob Taylor to a facility where everything can be explained. In this new facility, you meet the man in charge who is named The Illusive Man, He explains his company known as Cerberus. Cerberus is known in the ME world as a Human’s come first, human advancement in the universe comes 2nd and anything else other than humans comes dead last. The Illusive Man tells you entire colonies of human are being abducted without a trace of them every being there. The Illusive Man tells you to start gathering a team together so that you can find out who is kidnapping entire human colonies and to stop the Reapers from Invading. Characters: Commander Shepard, you can choose whether to be male or female and only human, sorry can’t choose which race you want to be. The classes you can choose to be in the game are The Soldier: who has the most health out of all the classes. The Infiltrator: who is a stealth based class who is better at fighting long range. The Vanguard who is best at close and person fights. The Sentinel who is a mid-range fighter with the best shields out of all the classes. The Adept who is the best at using biotic powers to fights. Last is The Engineer: who is best at fighting synthetics aka robot and other characters who use shields and barriers most of the time. During the game, you can choose whether to be Paragon (aka good/hero) or Renegade (aka evil/bad ass) by the decisions you make and threw the conversations you have with others. Maranda Lawson: she is the Illusive Man’s right-hand girl and pretty much the 2nd in command of Cerberus. She is a biotic who can use her powers during combat. She is a more by the book kind of person. You can have a romance relationship with Maranda, Male only. When asking for upgrades she could give she can help you upgrade planet mining scanner to move fast if you want. Jacob Taylor: he is a member of Cerberus and serves under Maranda Lawson. He is a good soldier with a minor in biotics. He is probably the easiest going and laid-back member of the team. He can help you upgrade the ships armor if you want him to. If you choose you can have a romantic relationship with Jacob. Only female Shepard Garrus: Returning from ME 1, He is found on Omega going under the name Archangel. He is a sniper at heart and is a very good shot. He loves working with weapons and can help you upgrade your ship’s main weapon when he comes aboard it and if you want him to. Garrus can have a romantic relationship with female Shepard only Jack: Jack aka Subject Zero is a biotic fighter. She is known as the biotic train who can use her biotic powers to cause a lot of damage to enemies. She is known for swearing more than anyone else on the team. Really great in combat with tons of enemies, she is great at crowd control. Her upgrades are making her biotic powers even stronger. Jack can have a romantic relationship with Shepard, male only. Grunt: Grunt is the perfect Krogan. By that meaning he is genetically perfect, he is genophage resistant. In your squad, he has more health than anyone and the best shields. He works best at close range because his upgrade choice is a shotgun called the M-900 claymore, which is the strongest shotgun in the entire game (DLC included). You cannot romance with Grunt. Mordin: aka Professor Mordin Solus aka Dr. Mordin aka Dr. Solus. He is salarian genius. The game calls him more hyper then a hamster on coffee. His strengths more or less help in the story line more than combat situations. His upgrade for the game is making his tech skills better. He is great in conversation and he is my personal favorite out of all team members. You cannot romance with Mordin. Tali Zorah vas Neema: Returning from ME 1, she is a Quiaren engineer and hacker. She is really good at fighting Geth opponents. She can summon up holographic combat droids to fight with. She can have a romantic relationship with male Shepard. Tali can upgrade the ships shields if you wish, Samara: She is a Justiscar. A Justiscar is an Asari version of a specter which pretty much means she’s a cop who can deal justice by any actions they deem necessary. She is a biotic fighter too so her powers are useful in combat. She can have a romantic relationship with either male or female Shepard. Her ship upgrade is increase fuel for the ship. Morinth: Morinth is choice character. (Minor spoiler) In Samara’s loyalty mission you can choose whether to help Samara kill Morinth or help Morinth kill Samara. If you choose Morinth, she is pretty much the same as Samara in every way except she has one new biotic power call dominate, which used can make organic enemies attack other enemies temporally. She can have a relationship with both male and female Shepard. Thane: Thane is a Drell assassin. Because he is a Drell, like all drell he has perfect memory and can remember everything he has ever done with perfect detail. He is best at long range fighting because he is a sniper in your party. He is also a minor biotic. He can have a romance with female Shepard. His upgrade is upgrade the number of planet searching probes from 30 to 60. Legion: Legion is a Geth fighter acquired late in the game. He is a hacker like Tali. He is good at mid rage and long-range fighting. Legion and Tali have a tough history because Quarrians created the Geth and the Geth rebelled driving the Quarrians from the homework and taking it over. His upgrade is a sniper riffle called the X-98 Widow which is the best sniper riffle in the game (DLC included) Katsumi Goto: (can only get if you have the DLC called Katsumi’s Stolen Memory) she is called the best thief in the galaxy. You can acquire her when you get to the citadel for the 1st time. Her combat is alright, not someone you put on the front lines. She has no upgrades to give and you cannot romance her. Without the DLC, Cerberus is unable to find her and cannot hire her for your big mission. Her DLC mission I’ll review that later in the main review. Zaeed Masani: (can only get if you have the DLC called Zaeed’s Price of Revenge) he is a mercenary/thug/bounty hunter for hire. He is best used in combat for crowd control. He has no upgrades to give and you cannot romance him. His DLC mission I’ll review later. Liara T’soni: (is temporary and only can be used in the DLC called Lair of the Shadow Broker) she returns from ME 1. She an Asari biotic user. After ME 1 she became an information broker trying to find the Shadow Broker. Her combat skills are good for the 1 and only mission you can use her in. Weapons: depending on what class you are you can have 4 weapons but there are 5 in total. 6 but the 6th is a technicality, you can have the pistol, shotgun, sniper riffle, sub machine gun and assault rifles and last is the heavy weapon. Heavy weapons require special ammo and once it’s all used up you need to find more, it’s not common but not rare. Heavy weapons are the strongest out of all the weapons. DLC aka Down Loadable Content, I’m going to focus on the mission DLC’s and not the guns and outfits DLC. Cerberus Network: is a free DLC which you can download to get some other DLC. Zaeed’s Price of Revenge: this is where you can get the character Zaeed Masani (mentioned above) and his loyalty missions. This is an interesting mission where you hunt down someone who wronged Zaeed and he wants his revenge on him. This is about a 15 to 30-minute DLC depending on fast you play threw it. If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? No, it won’t impact it in any way possible How much does this cost? Free, it’s a 100% free DLC because of the Cerberus network Is it worth it? well because it’s a free DLC I would say yes only because it cost you nothing and it gives you extra time to play and some experience to collect in the ME2 universe also its nice to have a new character in your squad to bring along for the main missions but it won’t take away from the overall story line Normandy Crash Site: this is a single mission with NO enemies shooting you or nothing bad happening. You visit a planet where the 1st Normandy ship crashed and you only objective is to collect dog tags from fallen people from the ship and anything else you want to collect off the planet. If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? None what so ever, it’s just a nice yet sad memory of seeing the old Normandy destroyed and all people who died during the collector attack at the very beginning of the game. How much does this cost? Free, it’s a 100% free DLC because of the Cerberus network Is it worth it? well because it’s a free DLC I would say yes only because it cost you nothing and it gives you extra time to play and some experience to collect in the ME2 universe Firewalker pack DLC: This is where you get 5 missions in a floating tank like vehicle. You can do these missions for experience and extra game play If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? No, honestly, I find this the most pointless DLC in the whole game, sure you can collect elements for upgrades and other stuff for experience, this DLC is totally skippable and no one would care if you played this or not. How much does this cost? Free, it’s a 100% free DLC because of the Cerberus network Is it worth it? well because it’s a free DLC I would say yes but it’s a dumb DLC, I’m just happy its free Mass Effect: Genesis DLC: this is a comic book story, it enables when you don’t have the first ME game saved, this gives you a small recap of what happened in the first game and you can make some choice in Genesis comic book that could impact the story in ME2 a bit, not much over all but a bit. If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? Only a little bit for story purposes but you don’t need it over all How much does this cost? Free on PS3 but for Xbox 360 you need 320 BioWare Points or $3.99 USD Is it worth it? For the PS3, unless you get the ME trilogy where you can play all 3 games yes, but for Xbox360 NO because you can buy each game separately and get the stuff downloaded/uploaded to ME2 without needing this Kasumi - Stolen Memory DLC: this is where you go on a mission with Kasumi the thief companion in your squad and steal back a valuable object she once had that was stolen from her. Its an alright story line, very short DLC, some people say only it’s only an hour-long game play, my personal best is 25 minutes without speed skipping. If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? Nope, it’s nice to have a new character in your squad to bring along for the main missions but it won’t take away from the overall story line How much does this cost? Free on PS3 but for Xbox 360 you need 560 BioWare Points or $6.99 USD Is it worth it? For the PS3 since it comes free why not, but for Xbox 360 I would say no only because you are not getting much story for about 7 dollars. Project Overlord DLC: you get a message from Cerberus saying they have a problem with a rouge VI taking over a compound and they need you to fix it. When you go down onto the planet you find out that there is one scientist left alive trying to survive and he wants to help you shut down project overlord. If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? Not in ME2, only a very small part in ME3 will it affect the game play but not the overall story. How much does this cost? Free on PS3 but for Xbox 360 you need 560 BioWare Points or $6.99 USD Is it worth it? For the PS3 since it comes free why not, but for Xbox 360 I would say yes because it’s a good DLC with a lot of combat and a good side story line to follow. I like it to be honest. Arrival DLC: this DLC is the side story of Admiral Hackett calling Shepard (aka you) to save Dr. Amanda Kensen from Batarian space, when you save the doctor you go back to an asteroid where she tells you that the reapers are coming in 2 days, when you go with her you find out that the entire asteroid except you are reaper indoctrinated and want the reapers to kill the entire galaxy. So, it’s up to you to stop the reapers from invading the universe. If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? No, if you don’t play this it will very minorly change a tiny part of the story in ME3, otherwise you will never notice the difference in the 3rd game if you don’t play this DLC How much does this cost? Both for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 it cost 560 BioWare Points or $6.99 USD. This is the first and only mission DLC for the PS3 you need to pay for. Is it worth it? It’s a very good story line which I like, good action to fight threw, gain experience, I like this DLC. I feel like for the PS3 this should be free and the next DLC I’m going to talk about for the PS3 should be paid for. Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC: When you meet Liara on planet Illium, she is an information broker where she is searching for the illustrious and mysterious Shadow Broker. The Shadow Broker is a person who has ALL the information in the galaxy and is very power. He will buy, sell and use information as they want to how they want the galaxy shaped. Liara wants to find her friend who is held captive by the Shadow Broker. So, you, Liara and someone else in your group go after the Shadow Broker and stop their reign of terror. If I don’t get this will it impact they story line? No, but in ME3 it explains a few minor things when you meet Liara in the 3rd game, depending on if you play this or not is how it will affect the 3rd ME game How much does this cost? For the PS3 free, but for Xbox 360 it will cost you 800 BioWare Points or $9.99 USD. Is it worth it? Yes, defiantly yes. To me (only) this is my favorite DLC in the entire game, it is the longest, most action and has the most story out of all the DLC missions you can download and play. I believe that for the PS3 it should cost $9.99 aka 10 dollars because of how good this DLC is, it is the longest DLC out of all the ME2 DLC out there. Plus, once you’re done with the DLC you can go back to Liara and get other upgrades and planets to visit and search. Overall: this is very great game. I have this both for the PS3 and Xbox 360. It is the best out of all 3 ME game. I would say BUY THIS GAME!!!!!

First let me say that, having played a friends copy of this game, that it is awesome and possibly the best installment in the Mass Effect series. Unfortunately the copy I received from the seller C&W Direct was too scratched for my XBox to read, depriving me of playing this fantastic game.

Its still one of the best games to play