Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) review "If I’m struggling to record my thoughts on Mass Effect 2 it’s because it excels on so many fronts and does so many things right that it’s hard to settle on just one thing. So I’ll ramble in a word document instead, talk about a few things that caught in my mind and then reveal that I’ve hardly scratched the surface."

I’m struggling to record my thoughts on Mass Effect 2 in a serviceable way.

I could very easily talk about how the previous title’s engine has been overhauled almost completely. How firefights are vastly improved by a universal magazine system rather than waiting for your sci-fi weapon of choice to cool after an overheat, or how the scaling back of customisable powers and equipment means less fiddling and more immediate results. I could laud the deletion of the roving MAKO vehicle no one liked, and praise how away missions are now directly accessed via a shuttle. Everyone else has, and it’s an easy way to fill the page and justify the large score I’m about to accredit the game with. But I can’t help but feel this would be missing the point a little.

So, instead, I’ll talk about Omega. You don’t have to make it your first stop after the game’s opening stages, but it’s openly suggested that you swing by there early. There’s two potential crewmates waiting to be recruited (three, if you’re a fan of DLC) as well as a sizable smattering of struggling traders and back alley murderers. Here, you’ll find forgotten walkways lined by dying inhabitants broken up by the odd rotting corpse and a collection of vorcha warriors loitering with dangerous intent. This new reptilian race makes up for its lack of intelligence with unbridled aggression, and they’re everywhere. Delve into the virus-ridden domestic estates, and you’ll find them thriving, slaughtering civilians and mercenary groups alike amidst the sick and the dying people cowering in their homes or making a desperate last-gasp pilgrimage to a nearby clinic. Omega is the home of the desperate and the walking dead; if you’re not living your life through a haze of narcotics, you’re living in fear of slavers, of the gang warfare between warring merc bands or raging xenophobia running rife through the hotchpotch of races not even trying to co-exist.

Right in the middle of the space station, surrounded by delirious clubbers tripping off pulsing electronic beats, weird green drinks and hallucinogenics, sits Aria T’Loak. Once a stripper for the intoxicated masses, she clawed, murdered and slept her way to the top of the food chain, and has no desire to move aside. She views you with early suspicion that quickly laps into indifference, answering your questions in a bored tone, helping you just as much as she can be bothered to. She’ll tell you the whereabouts of a vigilante outlaw armed with a sniper rifle and the higher ground that the station’s three main factions have joined forces to root out. She’ll help you disguise yourself as a freelance mercenary employed by the uneasy alliance as an undisguised meat shield as you bluff your way forward in an effort to recruit him for your crew. Along the way, you can exchange words with the krogen battle master for the Blood Pack, and hear how he wants to rip his foe apart with sheer strength. You can drop in on the pooling ground for the Eclipse, and perhaps vandalise their collection of battle mechs so they no longer recognise friend or foe, or you could spend some time with the dominant group, the Blue Suns, and wedge an electro-tool into the spine of their quartermaster as he tries to repair a dropship.

Sabotaging as you go makes life easier when you manage to gain access to the sniper’s den and help him fight off wave after wave of solider, mech and armourment. Overlooking the only bridge that offers access to his safe haven, target after target pour into your crosshairs as you battle to keep your would-be recruit alive. Survive that, and you need split your forces to battle both the survivors of the foiled charge and fresh troops tunnelling their way in through abandoned hallways and barricaded underpasses. After that, there’s only the small matter of surviving a gunship as it encircles your hideout, dropping troops right into your lap and firing ceaseless rounds of armour-piercing ammo into your ranks.

Maybe you’ll survive that. Maybe you’ll battle through the vorcha-infected, plague-ridden domestic quarters enough to reach the clinic and obtain a vaccine to pump through the environment systems in a last-ditch attempt to save everyone there. Maybe you’ll manage the slog through the psychotic, single-minded aliens who stand guard to the station’s salvation, ones armed with assault rifles, flame-throwers and more jagged, needle-like teeth than IQ points. Even if you do, you’ve only seen a fraction of what the dilapidated station has to offer. There’s desperate pilgrims desperate to buy themselves freedom, but held to ransom by a senior trader’s harsh price restriction and old faces eager to catch up on old times. There’s a batarian barmen with a stronger irrational hatred of humans than usual and seedy smugglers looking for the right man to help them bring in their illicit goods. There are forgotten warlords that need protecting from unforgotten grudges, conspiracies to be uncovered and a string of seedy murders you might very well fall victim to. Omega crawls with life, mostly of the low variety, and it takes a long time before you’ve seen every crime, checked into every store and survived every encounter it dredges up from its depths and hurls your way.

Omega is one small corner in Mass Effect 2‘s assorted galaxies. Galaxies that need to be explored to prepare for a new war, one thought long concluded.

And so you’ll visit corrupt trade planets, forgotten science stations and the remains of the krogan homeworld. Razed human settlements, tapped-out archaeology sites and fringe worlds littered with lost tech and old foes. You’ll explore worlds set under ultra-heated suns, fallen foul to alien indoctrination or home to crashed spacecraft sheltering what remains of its crew. You’ll intercept distress beacons, strip-mine planets of mineral worth from orbit and slowly upgrade your craft and your crew through in-house R&D projects that can do anything from pimp your ship’s shields to giving everyone’s pistol a little more kick. You’ll help plug shops for a discount on their wares, scour the markets for new fish to put in your cabin’s tank and play peek-a-boo with a giant space hamster who, apparently, hates you.

There’s a serious war to be waged, but Mass Effect 2 never lets itself get lost in it. It would be missing the point to talk only about the battles waged and the lives lost.

So, instead, I’m going to talk about the Citadel. It’s the centre of the universe as far as the alliance is concerned, but the conclusion of the last game made it a floating scrap heap. Two years later, it’s still in a state of disrepair, and the trailing elevators that once made the spine of the station are no longer functional. Back in the old days these endless elevators trips were employed to mask loading screens quite cleverly, which gave your squad the chance to chat amongst themselves and even receive mission updates or news bulletins on pending or completed quests. It was universally hated. Now, the majority of accessible station is a shopping district traversable by seamless stairs. Take two of your old team exploring, and one will turn to the other and ask her if she misses the time they spent chatting aimlessly while waiting to arrive on the right floor. When her response is a definite and cold “No”, he tries to strike up forgotten conversation threads about her race and condition for the sake of nostalgia.

He may as well turn towards the camera and offer the player a wink. Bioware made Mass Effect 2 fully aware that there's problems inherent in the first game and, not content to just offer fixes, they go out of their way to make fun of themselves and the industry, setting up clueless bar patrons as clichéd protagonists tropes content to wander around aimlessly, chatting to anyone who stands still long enough in a bid to receive quests or checking random crates for a few extra credits.

If I’m struggling to record my thoughts on Mass Effect 2 it’s because it excels on so many fronts and does so many things right that it’s hard to settle on just one thing. So I’ll ramble in a word document instead, talk about a few things that caught in my mind and then reveal that I’ve hardly scratched the surface.

Staff review by Gary Hartley (February 24, 2011) Gary Hartley arbitrarily arrives, leaves a review for a game no one has heard of, then retreats to his 17th century castle in rural England to feed whatever lives in the moat and complain about you.