I hate sequels.  I really, really do.

This isn’t going to be a rant against sequels in general, and how I believe that instead of endlessly iterating titles, studios should be working on new intellectual properties.

I do believe that, but this isn’t about that.

When a high-profile title comes out and is successful, a sequel is inevitably announced and my trepidation begins.  I’ve been burned in the past by sequels, “updates,” and remakes, and even though I knew that the game was going to be a trilogy when the first one came out, the announcement of Mass Effect 2 gave me pause.  ME1 was a solid game, with a dynamic story and a well implemented morality system – one that actually gave weight to your choices in the long term.  I picked up the game hoping that ME2 wouldn’t suffer from the same case of “sequelitis” I had seen in previous games, but knowing that it probably wouldn’t be nearly as good as the original.

As much as I hate sequels, I love being proved wrong about them even more.

The Universe Doesn’t Save Itself

Stepping into the boots of Commander Shepard (be it a brand new Shepard that only bears a slight resemblance to your old one, or an old Shepard that you’ve dragged kicking and screaming from ME1), you once again set out on a course to save the galaxy from the Reaper threat.  As you learned in ME1, Sovereign was only a vanguard of the much larger Reaper collective, and they’re still out there somewhere.

ME2 takes place two years after the first game, and the universe has significantly changed.  The government has all but disavowed the climactic battle on Citadel Station, and your team has split up and gone its separate ways.  The only ones that still actively acknowledge the Reaper threat are the members of Cerberus, the “pro-human” organization that you fought against the first time around.  This time, though, they’re giving you a team, a ship, a blank check, and a list of names before sending you off on your own.

The “list of names” becomes the main focus of the second adventure, as Shepard will spend most of his time assembling his team to go fight the “Collectors,” the big bad of this episode.  One of my complaints about ME2 is the fact that the game doesn’t follow the traditional story arc, and that, as a consequence, its pacing feels just a tiny bit off.  The game plays like a collection of disjointed missions which, while on their own, are all incredibly well written, don’t necessarily figure into the main story arc as well.  If you look at a “regular” story arc as  setup, conflict, then conclusion, ME2 seems to be consistantly stuck in the “setup” phase.  The majority of the game is taken up assembling your team, at which point you go fight the final battle, and the game ends.  Some will argue that this can be excused by the fact that this is supposedly the “Empire Strikes Back” of the Mass Effect trilogy, but looking at it as a standalone game, it comes across  somewhat lacking.

Man on a Mission(s)

This is not to say that the individual missions aren’t well plotted;  the writing of some of these individual missions is some of the best I’ve ever seen in a game.  ME2 tells a story of redemption in the most unlikely of circumstances, as each of the characters on your ship come with a lot of excess baggage, both physical (in terms of debts, ties, and other obligations) and emotional (in terms of their own inner psychoses) that they will need to overcome through the course of the adventure.

In addition to the missions in which you acquire the characters themselves, you can also undergo an optional “loyalty mission,” in which Shepard and one of the side characters (and an obligatory “third wheel”) will go solve whatever problem they have weighing on them so that they can focus on what they should really be doing – answering your every beck and call.  It’s in these missions that the writing of ME2 really shines:  With only a couple of exceptions (Jacob, I’m looking in your direction), these missions are all incredibly well plotted, and carry a real, almost palpable emotional weight to them.  Your heartstrings will be tugged when you reunite Miranda with her sister, you’ll feel a real sense of frustration and futility when helping Thane deal with the son that is following in his footsteps, and you’ll understand Jack’s anger when she confronts the demons of her past.

A lot can be said about the game’s sense of continuity as well;  events of the first game have a lasting impact in the second, and make the game feel like it exists in an organic universe, where the choices you make have lasting consequences.  Characters you left to die in the first game are still dead in the second, and characters who you’ve helped rise to power will still be in power in this outing (whether that’s a good thing for you or not).  A lot of familiar faces will make appearances, and the game mostly avoids the old sequel trope of “getting the band back together.”  For example, you will run into Ashely Williams, your steadfast yeoman from the first game.  Instead of immediately saying “Shepard!  OMG, how have you been?  Let’s go save the galaxy again!”, she looks upon you with scorn, as you’re draped in the colors of Cerberus,  the enemy.  Despite your protestations, she wants nothing to do with you.

An Empty Pack

Several complaints were leveled about the original game’s inventory and mining sections, and BioWare seems to have heard these complaints and attempted to improve them in ME2.  For the most part, they were successful;  unlike the first game, you no longer have a cumbersome inventory management screen in which you have to choose from ten or more weapon and armor types that differ only slightly in stats.  Instead, ME2 takes a more action-game oriented tack, with you simply receiving increasingly powerful weapons through research or finding them in the field.  Once you’ve received a more powerful sidearm, it replaces that weapon automatically  in your inventory.  You can still choose the older weapons, but there’s not really a point, given that the new weapon will be better in every way.  It takes away from the “RPG” side of the game a little bit, but it is more than welcome in terms of streamlining the process of getting your characters fitted out and ready for action.

My only real complaint about the game is their replacement for the “planet exploration” sections, which consist of scanning planets and mining for minerals (instead of dropping down to the planet and mining).  Instead of going through boring driving sections and acquiring minerals for research, you now engage in even more boring planet-scanning sessions , which consist of you moving a scanning cursor around a picture of the planet, and hitting the right trigger when your little scanning meter says there’s minerals under the spot you’re looking at.

Why, oh why does BioWare think that these “mineral acquisition” phases need to be in the game?  All they serve to do is to completely destroy the pacing of the adventure.  On more than one occasion I found myself stopping play at a section, just because I knew that I needed to research some new equipment before proceeding on to the next mission, and if I wanted to do that, I had to go through a “boring mining section.”  Alternatively, if they had implemented some kind of “element trading post” where I could buy/sell/trade elements, it would’ve lessened the headache a great deal.

Overall

Pacing issues aside, however, ME2 is an exemplary game.  In my many years as a gaming curmudgeon, I’ve found that if a game is a sequel, it’s almost always either going to be out-and-out bad, or at the very least not as good as the first.  Mass Effect 2 is not only a good game, but improves on the first in every way.  The only downside is now I’ll have to wait a couple of years before the final installment in the trilogy comes out, so I can see how this opera ends.