WeView Verdict: Mass Effect 2

I think picking Mass Effect 2 may have been sort of a foregone conclusion. Of course what I’ve got coming tomorrow is going to be far worse. Anyway, Mass Effect 2 was always going to get a lot of love; it’s pretty obvious when you look back at the people climbing the walls to get their hands on it before it made its way over to the PS3. However, it’s been available for most people to enjoy (unless you only own a Wii) for a while now, so let’s see what you had to say about the game.

Essentially it’s a lot of love. Whilst some of you broke down what you liked and disliked about this space opera, there were some who managed to distil their experience with the game down into a few sentences. For example, Roynaldo seems to have a bit of an issue with the in-game press.

Fantastic story, endless game defining options with endless possibilities. The decisions you make, be it sweet talking a team mate towards the bedroom or punching a paparazzi in the face have huge consequences on everything else and draws you right into a fight with yourself over taking the moral high ground or just thinking ‘balls to it’.

Poor paparazzi, they just wanted a snap of Shephard’s heroics! However, aside from Roynaldo taking things a bit further than the Press Complaints Commission, he touched on the big thing that everyone seemed to love with Mass Effect 2; the story. Even people who aren’t hardcore sci-fi fans, like Beelzie14, seem to be attracted to what BioWare achieved here.

Well 27 hours in and I am still loving it. Granted it has taken a few months to get there, but I am amazed at how I still want to know more, do more and see more. I have a shallow and fleeting interest in sci-fi as a genre at the best of times, but for some reason ME2 resonates with my inner geek. I love the convoluted and deep information which can be read through in the Journal, pulling together pieces of an ever-evolving socio-political landscape which feels like it must have taken the writers eons to write. You can sense the love for their work dripping from every paragraph.

There were some who picked out the game’s negative points though, and of course it’s only fair to give those a fair airing. Even though tonycawley seemed pretty positive about the game as a whole, there were a few points he picked out where the game seemed to stall.

There are certainly aspects of the game that aren’t perfect, for example the excrutiatingly boring planet cracking for resources, or the way you can’t select an active mission and then have your mini-map direct you towards it. But these things are easily ignored because the core of the game is so outstanding. Rarely in modern gaming are you given the freedom that Mass Effect 2 offers you in terms of how you go about completing the game, the route you take, the order in which you do the missions etc.

Of course, a few went a bit further and really didn’t have much positive to say at all, such as kill_zide.

Well it was great AT FIRST as the story went on so did my patience it simply is in my honest opinion overrated. I personally think GTA SA had more RPG elements compared to mass effect 2 it is so simplified that it feels like a generic shooter at times and not a very good one at that.

So finally, let’s get to a verdict. Well, whilst Avoid It and Bargain Bin It got one vote a piece, Buy It takes it again with an overwhelming majority of twelve. Hardly a shock verdict though. Thanks to everyone who took part, and make sure to keep an eye out for our new WeView game tomorrow.