Mass Effect 2

I'm starting off my Friday night by sitting here while caressing, loving and drinking in the wonderful Stella Artois.

Stella Artois is a bottle of Belgian beer, of course. How else would a geek like me bring in a Friday night? With a babe named Stella? Well, a geek can dream, can't he?

Not only am I enjoying this sweet lager from the land of dark cheeses and owl's (actually I don't think owls or cheese has anything to do with Belgium. But, I have no clue to what really does) I'm also reminiscing about the incredible experience I had playing through Mass Effect 2.

Mass Effect 2 is the 2nd installment in what promises to be a trilogy of games that revolve around your star ship commander character, Shepard. The first Mass Effect had you taking control of Shepard and tearing across the galaxy in the star ship Normandy with a team of aliens and humans to help you take on an evil weapon of mass destruction commanded by a traitor of the galaxy.

This installment starts out with you and your crew of the Normandy being attacked by a whole new nasty alien race, The Collectors. Their star ship attacks the Normandy and destroys it leaving your Shepard floating off into space, apparently dead.

The next thing you know, your Shepard is awoken two years later in a secret lab and seems to have risen from the grave. What has actually happened is that a covert human elitist organization known as Cerberus has "rebuilt" you and wants to hire you to help them destroy this new threat. Having immense financial backing, the mysterious Cerberus leader, The Illusive Man (voiced by Martin Sheen) , has had the Normandy redesigned and rebuilt from scratch. He wants you to travel throughout the galaxy and put together a new team to take on The Collectors.

Whether you like it or not, you need to work with this questionable organization and assemble a team of aliens and humans that are some of the coolest characters to grace any video game!

You join forces with old friends and new characters to travel and investigate the vast galaxy that designers, BioWare, have created for you.

In a nutshell, if you liked the first Mass Effect game, you'll love Mass Effect 2!!!

It's hard to beat an action RPG based game like the first title, but BioWare did just that. Everything in this game is better and streamlined. The congested weapon management...gone! The way too long elevator load scenes...gone! The weapon system is far more manageable where you don't have to worry about replacing and selling anything. If you look around enough, you'll find some cool as hell upgrades for what you already have. And the only elevator load time you have to worry about is the one in your Normandy ship. There are some lengthy load times. But they are no way near the obnoxious load times in the first one.

I knew that this was going to be a big as frack and epic as hell game when I opened it up and found two discs. If you truly go out of your way to search the entire game and galaxy that is provided for you, you'll spend at least 40 plus hours on this thing. It's no Oblivion, but for a good self contained story, it rocks!

The combat is pretty cool as well. If you're used to the over the shoulder, duck for cover and shoot game play that games like Gears of War made so popular, you'll be right at home. Getting to have two team members help you out in combat is pretty cool as well. You can comand them while in battle or just let them do their thing. Either way, combat is both challenging and entertaining.

The voice acting of the characters is pretty top notch as is the story telling. You end up having a vested interest in these characters. All of them are intriguing in one way or another.

As in the last game, you can choose to play Shepard as a boy scout or a complete bastard. It's all up to you and how you react to the dialog as well as certain trigger cues throughout the game. And, yes, the decisions you make throughout the game determine how the story unfolds, including if Shepard, as well as crew members, survive the game or die.

If you've played the first Mass Effect, you can port your customized Shepard over from that game. Or you can start from scratch and create a whole new looking Shepard. Another cool customizable feature is Shepard's space suit. You can create any color or design combo you wish. In memory of Peter Steele I created a black and florescent green suit. But, you can do whatever you want. You can even create a hot pink and orange ensemble for Shepard. Whatever works for your personal tastes.

The amount of quests and missions is pretty hefty also. Keeping in mind that this isn't exactally and open world action RPG, but more of a self contained story, you'll still find that all the stuff that BioWare has given you to do in the game is pretty epic. You have the many missions that the main story line provides. Then you have the quests to find each of the team members. And then each team member has their own quest that you need to help them on (there are 10 team members not including the two that are down loadable content that game designers keep forgetting that some gamers don't have access to Xbox live, dumb asses!). On top of all of that, there are a few hidden missions that you have to find as you scour the galaxy.

This brings me to my one and only gripe about the game. There is a "mini-game" when you're scouring the galaxy, you can decide to scan every single planet that there is for minerals. This is a long and lame, tedious process that has no real payoffs to the main storyline. Nor does it really help you in the game. If it has any real meaning, it is never explained to you. At first I was spending a few hours scanning every planet I came across and collecting materials thinking it would help the game. It does nothing! The only benefit you get is the voice of the lovely Trica Helfer voicing your AI on-board computer telling you that the "Probe Launched" as you scan the planet.

But, back to the good. This game will not take you 6 months to play, but when it comes to game play and storyline, it is at the top of the heap! I was delighted to find something that was better than the first game that was a great experience as well. Thumbs up all of the way on Mass Effect 2. I couldn't have had a better gaming experience. And I can't wait for the final Mass Effect 3!

If you do play this game, keep in mind, depending on the way you play and the decisions you make, your Shepard can die at the end of this one. I was lucky enough to come across an article in a Gaming magazine that told me what course to take to keep my Shepard alive. PSYCHE!

The latest issue of Game Informer may help out. Hint Hint.

Having finished Mass Effect 2, I'm now on Red Dead Redemption. Although I've come across some frustrations and glitches, I'm getting into the groove and really enjoying myself.


In other news....

Still coping with the loss of both Peter Steele and Ronnie James Dio as well as well as great fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. The world is getting more bleak with every day.


I'm going to an '80's themed B-Day party for my Bro-In-Law tomorrow. I may just have to dig into my '80's hair band concert t-shirts that are buried in a container somewhere down in my storage space. We'll see what I can unearth.

Summer is here and the weather has been pretty frackin' good to us for the last month or so. I can't wait for some of the festivals this town puts on. Hopefully this summer will have some cool geeky highlights to enjoy!

In one last, pathetic notation.... I actually went out and bought the movie Bitch Slap that I blogged about a while ago. I'll die alone, won't I?

Zangz.