Commander Captain Hobo Sheppard. That is the full title of my Mass Effect character. As you can probably tell, when I got the original Mass Effect on Xbox 360 I wasn’t too fussed about taking the series seriously. I set out with the mindset of being the rambling madman of the galaxy, making random, unjustifiable decisions and just generally being an unquantifiable mess of a man. By the end, however, I was determined to save the universe from total annihilation and I WOULD NEVER LET WREX OR GARRUS DIE! See, Mass Effect has that effect on me. It made me care. So now we are confronted with the sequel, a game that promises to make the first games actions have consequences and to carry over my Commander Captain Hobo Sheppard, a good guy to the max, and make him see how he shaped the universe. Mass Effect 2 has a lot to live up to.

And it delivers, in almost every conceivable way. I honestly have no major complaints. Sure I have some niggles and one or two questions, but complaints? Not on this customers feedback card. As a sequel Mass Effect 2 is a prime example of evolution and continuation working together for the greater good and it pulls off both with almost absolute perfection. I say almost, as the game seems to think the best way to deal with the two most major problems in Mass Effect, driving and inventory management, was to just remove them. I can’t argue that the game suffers without them, but it would have been nice to fix the driving sections rather than just remove them. Also, inventory management has been removed, a blessing and a curse as the new system is rather confusing at first; getting upgrades is considerably more difficult and, thanks to a rather dull planet scanning minigame, rather tedious to hunt down. Mass Effect 3 would do well to reconsider the approach taken here to both, but overall these two absent aspects don’t affect the enjoyment in Mass Effect 2 at all.

And if its action packed, story heavy, consequence based fun you’ve come for, prepare to be blown away. Mass Effect 2 touts itself as an RPG, and while some bare-bones elements remain with regards to a levelling up system, the actual gameplay is more reminiscent of Gears of War or Uncharted. A 3^rd person shoot rests at its core, but the RPG trimmings are hiding behind every corner, the most obvious of which is the conversation trees. They’re EVERYWHERE! You can’t escape them! Not that you’d want to, Bioware has got some solid writers and conversations can end up being emotionally involving in a way that no Hollywood movie could even dream of.  The amazing characters and writing are complimented by a loyalty system that lets you explore each squad members back-story in a mission based around their past catching up with them. If you don’t have a favourite by the end of the game you have no soul.

Speaking of which, I should have mentioned by now that Mass Effect 2 is a squad based shooter. Kinda. It’s more a shooter where two NPC’s are constantly helping you. You can issue commands to your team, but really there’s very little point. OK, every now and then you might use them to activate a convenient biotic (just think “space magic” or “the force”) against an enemy but otherwise they’re just two guys who follow you around when you want to have a conversation or battle. Sometimes their presence is an absolute joy, but that’s more in the conversation segments of the game than the actual fighting. The characters are likeable and deep, but as comrades in a battle they’re of very little use.

Mass Effect has six classes for you to choose from, but personally I played as a vanguard, the shotgun based biotic user, balancing close range gunplay with a few magic tricks. Such tricks include the wonderfully awesome Charge attack, allowing you to zoom from once side of a room to another, passing through solid objects to smack into your opponent and knock them down, giving you a chance to land a bullet in their head before they have the chance to get up. Satisfying as it is to play the Vanguard, his abilities are nerfed somewhat by Mass Effect 2’s latest introduction, ammo. Players of the first game will remember that Mass Effect had no ammo, instead your gun would over heat while you fought. That idea must have been unpopular with someone at Bioware because instead we get regular ol’ ammo. I don’t know why it was swapped, again it isn’t a huge problem, but it was something I didn’t see as needing to be fixed. If it wasn’t for the new ammo count I would have never put away my shotgun. Perhaps it was put in for that very reason, but I certainly felt much more limited in my shotgun use than in the first.

I really want to tell you the best bits in Mass Effect 2, but to do so would be unfair. This is a game you must play, and if at all possible, play the first game and then this one. Bioware have done something very few developers can manage and that’s make a sequel where playing the first game is almost a requirement. The plot, but more importantly, your decisions make Mass Effect 2 the monolithic god of the Xbox 360. It’s a game so vast, so huge, and yet so personal that my voyage through the galaxy will no doubt be different to yours in so many ways, so many fantastic and beautiful ways, that reviewing this game on your behalf is like reviewing a colouring book, I used a different crayon to yours and as a result my pictures look different to yours.

I think, ladies and gentlemen, we have the best game on the 360.