I’m Commander “Bess” Shepard and this is the second part of my war with the Reapers
After Mass Effect 1’s success, Bioware had a tough task in making a second part that would follow every actions that the players took, but also a convincing story that still had believable characters, awesome acting, excellent production design values, and an improvement over some of the first game’s gameplay weaknesses.
So after two and a quarter years of work, they released their work and after playing it, I think Bioware did a great job.
In this second part of the Shepard story, my Commander “Bess” Shepard dies at the hand of the Collectors, until Cerberus, a pro-human rights organization, resuscitates her, giving her a stronger and more dangerous body than she before, and offers her a position among their crew. So as she fights the Collectors on a new and stronger space ship, while still trying to prove the Reapers’ existence, Commander Shepard has to recruit her former and new comrades for her mission, rekindle or have a new romance, and reconsider life after being dead for two years.
Visually the game is sharper than ever. The character designs are awesome, and the models look closer to reality than before. As usual, you can either play a male of female Shepard, use your Mass Effect 1 saved game to import your Shepard’s actions into the second game, but you can also customize your character’s face, since Shepard has died, and either give his former powers or new ones (ex: going from Soldier to Engineer). Even though you can decide to keep your former powers, what’s awesome is that you can decide to add an extra power that one of your teammates employs, even if his work has nothing to do with yours. You just have to complete his personal quest and you can get his powers if you succeed in getting his loyalty. And you better consider it an important asset because the more loyalty you receive from your mates, the more chance you will have to find them still alive after the final mission.
About your crew, I was glad to get my former mates back like Garrus, Joker, Tali, along with new people like Thane, Samara, Mordin, Jack, Jacob, Miranda and Wrex. Of the non-playable crew, I was glad to have Joker back, but also of having EDI, an artificial intelligence in control of the ship, but whose relation with Joker gives out hilarious situations. And of the new additions, I can say that each character, whether I used one more than the other, brings out richer scenes and incidents than in the precedent game. Not only on the field, but also on the Normandy’s deck. For my romance, I was happy that they finally consider other alien relationships with humans. That gave me the occasion to have a romance with Garrus, whose reactions to this new way of life makes him say funny quotes. Among some of the characters you get to interact with, you have scenes with Cerberus’s boss, the Illusive Man, voiced by Martin Sheen, who gives a perfect performance. As usual, Jennifer Hale, Mark Meer, Steve Blum, Seth Green, and all the other actors give excellent performances.
For the gameplay, it follows the RPG-adventure part of the first game, although this time it is more action oriented. As such, no more rides for you on the Mako. You get to the location the action happens on the planet right after a loading time, and you dive right into the action and story scenes. As of your character interactions, your level explorations still allow you to find new content about the places you visit, or weapons to help you fight, but your characters now move as they speak, giving them more life to their scenes. Not only that, you can also do Paragon or Renegade actions during your dialogues. For instance, if a crew member is telling you that he wants to use a dangerous weapon on the enemy, you can, if the paragon command appears on the screen, convince him to not rely on that tactic. Of course, if the opposite happens and you want a certain rag journalist to shut up, you can do so if the Renegade symbol appears. Of your spaceship explorations, you can still find resources thanks to a probe that you launch on a specific position on the planet. But be aware that it is also useful if you need to find a proper location to a side-quest if EDI catches weird signals on the planet.
For the music and sound effects, they are still as top notch as in the first game. Indeed, The soundtrack puts the players right into the heart of Shepard’s quest and we can sense the growing danger of the threats that plague her team; but also the joyful moments. As for the sound experience, playing the game with a Dolby 5.1 system is essential if you want to fully experience the game’s effects. For the Dowloadable Content, it is interesting enough to use it since one of them offers you to use a Bounty Hunter, while others offer you extra quests whose consequences will follow up to the start of the final game. Whose story brought a polarizing reaction from the fans in 2012. A game I can’t wait to give my review.
Omnes's Oasis 