It’s been a full year since the release of what most believe was the game of the year for 2010. The game that came out of the gate strong and captivated practically everyone that played it, even my fellow colleagues. So being the backwards Canadian I am, I finally decided to pick up Mass Effect 2 on the PS3. That’s right they ported the game over to the PS3 in my guess a way to expand their market and give the rest of us this great experience.

Now before I proceed further I’ll let you know that I have played Mass Effect Uno on my Xbox 360 before it red ringed on me. So I’m well versed in the series lore, so I lost little in my transfer over to part two. Now the only difference between the two console versions of this game is that the PS3 version contains a 15 minute visual comic that runs through all the major choices that faced you in part one. This way your decisions transfer over to ME2 further changing the way your story plays out. The comic is weak in its presentation leaving large gaps of fiction missing along with giving my Shepard more of a narrative influence then I cared for. Its only saving grace that it did allow me to keep my decisions from ME even though I doubt they would even have a fraction of the weight unto a person being introduced to the series. This misstep aside the game itself is splendid.

No game in a long time had me wishing that all my loved ones would just drop dead just so I could play for a little longer. ME2 had me enthralled from beginning to end and even though the end boss battle was kind of weak I still enjoyed it at a ridiculous level. After finishing the game with all the DLC added I have already started with a new game save to try a variation of my story and hopefully have my entire squad survive the last mission. Also pro-tip the only DLC really worth a damn is Lair of the Shadow Broker, if you’ve beaten ME2 and not the DLC do it now and read the dossiers on your crew after. Some really neat stuff

My only real complaint about the base game is that you are given unlimited time to make a decision in the conversation wheel while a ship is exploding around you. I understand why this was done but I feel if anything good could be taken from last year’s disappointing game Alpha protocol was the timer assign to the conversation wheel making your decisions in my opinion more “real”.

Apparently between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 there are over a 100 decisions being transferred over to ME3 and this alone makes me quiver with anticipation and worry constantly about how easily the ball could be dropped with all this hype that Bioware must live up to. I can only hope they approach ME3 with the same level of expertise’s and professionalism that they have from all their previous products.

Also give me same sex romances, My Shepard and Garrus fan fiction must reach legitimacy.