Mass Effect is one of the premiere—but fatally flawed—action role playing games not just of this generation, but of all time. For many people it was the pinnacle of action RPGs. It had incredible art, a fantastic story, and a conversation system that has never been beaten. Some could even argue that it could stand up there with the best of the genre. It wasn’t without its imperfections though, as some gamers lost all hope for the game with it’s terrible frame rate, technical issues like texture pop-in, and the item management which was some of the most cluttered systems I had ever seen.

With the almost undeniable sequel coming, BioWare needed to up the ante, and up it good. The franchise was just getting started, but people knew it was going to be something special—if, they can sew everything together correctly. Guess what? Mass Effect 2 is exactly what a Mass Effect fan would yearn for. BioWare literally went down the laundry list of significant flaws of the first game, and corrected them one by one. Mass Effect 2 is not only a great sequel measured by its own merits—no, it’s quite simply one of the very best gaming experiences money can buy.

In Mass Effect 2 you play as, once again, Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy SR1. Male or female, you can pick a Shepard from scratch with pre-set decisions from the first game, or you can import your character from the original game. Mass Effect’s plot is entire based on what decisions you make throughout the entire adventure. So say you killed someone in the first Mass Effect, they will stay dead throughout the entire trilogy (yes, trilogy—be careful).

This import mechanic is one of coolest features I’ve ever seen in a sequel to any game, ever. You can literally play the exact same character—beard and all—in Mass Effect 2, with all of your decision making an impact in the Mass Effect universe. Say you sent Ashley on the suicide mission instead of Kaiden in the original Mass Effect. Ashley will stay dead in the second game because, well, you killed her. Not all of the level progression or how good/evil you were in the first game will really impact what happens throughout the second game, but the major choices you made will, resulting in some of the coolest story elements I’ve ever seen.

But not only is the story you choose simply amazing, but the way it’s told is just so well done. When you look back at the original game, it had a damn good story with a fantastic conversation system. Mass Effect 2 takes all of this, and makes it that much better. The new threat in the galaxy are the Collectors, and they’re abducting human colonies away, and no one knows why. As the man/women responsible for taking down the rogue Spectre—Saren, it’s your duty to take them down. But it’s not Mass Effect 2’s main plot that will win you over—no, it’s the cast of interesting teammates you build your team around.

One of the main objectives of Mass Effect 2 is to recruit the biggest and baddest beings in the Terminus System, as the Collector’s base is conveniently located beyond the Omega-3 Relay. Oh, and by the way, no one has every returned from it. As the mission is suicidal in nature, you need to earn their loyalty, and convince them that the mission is for the better. This is were the new mission structure of Mass Effect gets its time to shine.

Gone are the tedious driving sections of the original Mass Effect. Remember how boring it was driving the Mako around in these cookie-cutter planetary environments and never finding anything interesting? That’s all gone. Instead, you arrive at your location on a shuttle. No more driving, you can just run and gun right at the start of the mission. This gives the game a much better pace, pitting you right into the action without any unnecessary exploration.

But none of Mass Effect 2 would work without a major overhaul to its combat. Don’t get me wrong—Mass Effect’s combat wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t very good, either. BioWare took the main third-person shooter, over-the-shoulder view, and made it more accessible. As a whole, Mass Effect 2 feels more like a shooter than an RPG, and you can definitely see this in its combat. It just all depends on what kind of class you pick. My imported Shepard for example, was a Soldier, so I shot more than anything else. But an Adept or an Engineer would use more of their powers than shooting their weapons.

Where the game’s RPG elements get a little fuzzy is in the item management and upgrade trees. The first Mass Effect was really clunky with its items, and its upgrade trees were a little too ambitious and ended up getting too cluttered. Mass Effect 2 changes this by stripping down the item collection almost entirely. You’ll likely find your first shotgun half-way through the game; there’s really not many different types of items you can collect. Money and experience is not earned by killing dudes, you instead get a set amount after every mission. The skill trees are far easier to understand; they literally give you the number of skill points you need to upgrade the power. An RPG veteran may be a bit disappointed at the lack of depth, but it’s far tidier.

While the combat definitely saw the biggest upgrade over the original, the presentation upgrade was almost just as significant. Everything from the texture pop-in to the frame rate has been vastly improved; you will never again see a terrible looking cutscene. Not only that, but just the graphical power of the engine was greatly improved with a sharper look, while keeping its dirty appearance as being the dark chapter of the trilogy.

The original Mass Effect had an amazing soundtrack with terrific voice acting to go with it. Mass Effect 2 is no different—if not, better. The “beeps and boops” soundtrack from the first games is back, but the tunes are far more intense and heart pounding than before. You might even want to just download the soundtrack to listen to—yes, it’s that good. The voice actors and actresses have again done a phenomenal job building up each and every character brilliantly, while keeping their believable nature. You could argue that Mass Effect 2 features some of the best voice acting ever.

If you were to tell me after the release of Uncharted 2 that a game could get any better, I’d be in disbelief. Mass Effect 2 not only improves on every single nagging issue that the first game had, but it absolutely tightens every single aspect of the action RPG genre into the one of the nicest packages I’ve ever played. It’s not perfect—you may wander into some issues here and there—but to call Mass Effect 2 anything other than epic, jaw-dropping, phenomenal, or genre defining would be unacceptable. Mass Effect 2 is the pinnacle of the action RPG genre, and is probably the best true sequel I have ever played.

Rating: 10/10