Now Playing: Mass Effect 2 Remastered

Replaying Mass Effect 2 was kind of a weird experience in the sense that although I’ve played through the game multiple times in the past and for nearly as many hours as Mass Effect 1, I didn’t recall that much about the actual missions in the game going into this remaster. And once I did get stuck into ME2 again, I realised why – there’s nothing very memorable about much of the content in ME2 in terms of the actual missions.

The characters are what makes ME2 such a great experience. I’m sure I’ve said before that ME2 is less about the mission on which you embark and more about the people you take with you. The overall plot isn’t as interesting or compelling as that in ME1 and the Collectors – the main villains of ME2 – aren’t as fun or engaging to fight as the Geth were in ME1.

In fact, the core missions revolving around the Collectors isn’t particularly substantial. There’s only really a handful of core missions that advance the main plot and the only one that really stands out is the famous ‘suicide’ mission at the very end. The bulk of the ‘main’ content in ME2 revolves around recruiting your team and gaining their loyalty.

It’s still ‘main’ content but it’s not directly related to the core plot and you don’t actually need to do much of it at all if all you really want to do is reach the end. Of course, if you do that, the suicide mission probably won’t go very well. But I think that’s what makes ME2 special – the range of possibilities and potential character deaths that can occur based upon your choices and the content you choose to tackle.

The suicide mission itself is fun, if a little lacklustre in terms of actual combat because, as I’ve said, the Collectors don’t make the most exciting villains. The best missions in ME2 in terms of combat are still those in which you’re fighting the Geth. And the main plot just isn’t as good as that in ME1 in the way it plays out. I mean, it ends with you fighting a ridiculous giant terminator head . . . it’s not quite the fight against Saren on the Citadel.

Saren gave the Reapers a face in ME1 but in ME2 we just have the booming voice of Harbinger who seems to have a serious hate boner for Shepard. It’s kind of sad considering how the Reapers were portrayed in ME1 and how they are developed in ME2, particularly when you finish The Arrival DLC and they start to feel more like stereotypical villains than the technological Lovecraftian nightmares that was portrayed in ME1.

That’s not to say I hate the direction they took or that the main plot is bad, it’s just not terribly exciting compared to that of ME1. The main missions of ME1 and the way the plot was paced and developed was just far more memorable and exciting. In ME2, the core plot stuff almost takes a back seat to the focus on your team. Luckily, it’s a really great f**king team.

The characters of ME2 are what make it such a great game to play. You have some characters returning from ME1, but a lot of new characters too. It’s the kind of game where you’re really spoilt for choice. ME2 simply has one of, if arguably not the best cast in a video game. I love all the characters, even the DLC characters who fit in perfectly.

That said, their actual missions – both recruitment and loyalty – are a bit of a mixed bag. Some are great, but others are pretty short and lacklustre, like the developers didn’t really know what to do for the character. The good ones, I remembered. The meh ones, not so much or at all. Overall, the balance leans more to good than mediocre, but it’s another reason why I recall the characters far more than the actual mission content related to those characters.

The combat, it has to be said, is a big improvement over ME1. Whilst it may seem more limited – each character only has access to a small handful of abilities compared to ME1 – those abilities are more impactful on the battlefield and can be combined in strategic (and fun) ways. Enemies now have different shielding types – armour, shields or biotic barriers (or a combination of all three) and you’ll need to switch between different abilities or ammo types to punch through.

Combat is more engaging, the AI is much better and although ME2 strips away a lot of the more RPG heavy stats and inventory systems that were present in ME1, I’d say it’s for the best purely in terms of the moment to moment combat. You’ll also need to manage your ammo (sorry, thermal clips) another change that feels a little weird, but admittedly works better in terms of the actual combat.

Planet scanning for resources is kind of tedious, but thankfully you don’t really need to do too much of it. The DLC content is pretty great, especially Shadow Broker, but Arrival, whilst not bad, was a worrying sign of things to come in ME3 at release and remains a sign of where things started to go wrong. Visually, ME2 still holds up today. Calling this a ‘remaster’ is a bit of a stretch, but it’s nice to have all the content bundled together.

Overall, ME2 remains an excellent game that in some areas is better than ME1 – combat and characters – but worse in others – missions and plot. I guess all that’s left for me to do now is face my demons and play ME3 again.

8/10