Shepard.

Hang with me here for a bit, cause this one might take awhile. This writing probably won't be very good because it's very reactionary, though I've thought of some of this stuff while I've been playing through Mass Effect 2. It's also one in the morning as I write this. The original Mass Effect is one of my favorite 360 games. I got completely lost in the galaxy spanning/saving story, the unique characters (imagine that, a group of beings getting together in a video game and some of them actually don't like one another!) and as a fan of RPG's, I even enjoyed the somewhat janky combat system. It had a lot of depth to it. Essentially, the first Mass Effect was an RPG masquerading as an action game. So naturally, I was pretty hyped for the sequel.

Until I played it. Oh, snap. The game starts out, undoing pretty much all of your progress from the first game. It seems aware of the choices that you made in the first game, though a lot of the major consequences of the first game are MIA in this game (Rachni). There are things here and there, minor things really, to tie the two games together, but as a whole in this game you're pretty much starting over. You assemble an almost entirely new team and you know that galaxy saving story in the first game? Nuh uh, this game is a lot more focused, I guess would be the buzzword that they want you to buy into. This is a smaller, more personal story, I'm sure is what they tried to sell everybody on. And that combat? Fixed!

Except not really. So here is my major issue with Mass Effect 2 and before I start heavily into my criticism, I want to be clear that I think this is a very good game. If I had done my Top 10 Games of 2010 now, it would have made that list, though likely in the bottom half of it. It's probably a better "game" than the original, because of how improved the combat system is. That said, I think your enjoyment with the game will depend on what you value in video gaming. If you value the actual playing part of gaming, then you'll love this game and most likely side with the people that said it was Game of the Year worthy. If not, you're like me probably and think it's a very good game that has some pretty heavy flaws.

I feel like in the transition to this game from the original, a bit of the soul of the original was lost. If Mass Effect was an RPG masquerading as an action game, then Mass Effect 2 is the opposite, an action game masquerading as an RPG. I suppose on the surface of things, that's not really a bad thing. My personal problem with this, is when I say, okay, I'll accept that this isn't the same game as the original and that it wants to open itself up to a wider audience and it wants to be a shooter. That's fine. Until I start comparing it with other shooters. That to me, is where Mass Effect 2 falls short. I can't believe, that anyone would honestly say that the shooting in Mass Effect 2 is anywhere near as good as Gears of War 2, a game that Mass Effect borrows from pretty heavily as far as mechanics go. That covers the whole spectrum, everything from the weight of the guns you're shooting feels off to the sound the guns make.

I'll say that I like the combat better in Mass Effect 2 than in Rockstars' games, which Red Dead is still my favorite game from last year, so there is that. So my second problem with Mass Effect 2 is the story, which is where games like Enslaved, , Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Heavy Rain and Red Dead Redemption beat out Mass Effect 2 for me. I will grant the game this much, I do think the characters are better here. They're more fleshed out. They all got their own problems, but where in the original game, your missions all eventually led to saving the galaxy, your missions in Mass Effect 2 are only there for the camaraderie of your shipmates. The scale just seems a bit off in this one. And for a game that does characters so well, it's weird to see them offed so nonchalantly when it comes to that period of the game.

So that's my major gripes, really. You know, after a huge break I finally did finish the game and I feel fairly satisfied. The cliffhanger kind of had no setup, which again shows the problem the game has with scale, but overall I really did enjoy the game. I'm not sure I'm going to go back and replay the game again on 360, kind of want my Mass Effect trilogy to be what David Cage wanted for Heavy Rain, a one time play through. But, I might pick the game up on PS3 sometime, play as the generic male Shepard and aim for a couple of goals that I missed on my original playthrough, we'll see though.