opinion: The beginning of Bioware’s role-playing game is the worst thing our author has ever played. But even after that, she can hardly catch her breath.
The Mass Effect fever has infected me again. The first part of the trilogy still made me angry before it completely captivated me. At the latest when, despite my shooter antipathy, I was able to damage enemies instead of shooting myself in the leg, I discovered this wonderful universe for myself.
The fact that I immediately volunteered to be a test subject for the second part, to my own amazement, is the best proof of the great effect Mass Effect still has on new players in 2022. Yet my first contact with Mass Effect 2 left me shocked.
Normandy, my home, is destroyed in Mass Effect 2 right at the beginning of the game. Sob!
Table of Contents
An enthusiastic run-up to the doom
This time I wanted to do things differently. Mass Effect 1 I had played through as a renegade commander. I could have taken my earned storyline. But the temptation to fast forward through the story again with a comic is too great. From now on, I’ll be exemplary and dive into Mass Effect 2 with my new, custom-made Shepard.
Everyone knows it, that indescribably rapturous feeling when the new season of your favourite series finally kicks off. Goosebumps come over me as I log into EA’s Origin client and the now-familiar sound makes me rock back and forth on my chair in anticipation and develop expandable beatboxing talents.
But after a short while my humming gets stuck in my throat. I witness a dramatic attack in which my beloved home, the Normandy, is attacked and completely destroyed. Some of my crew, friends I had actually come to love, have to give their lives.
It is with great horror that I watch Commander Shepard, with whom I already identify, as she is the last to remain in the destroyed spaceship and die. A moment of shock that I first have to process. How can a new story begin with such a dramatic ending? It becomes quiet around me, I only hear my own breathing. Even my chair stops squeaking because in my rigidity I have to digest what has just happened.
Changes like I love them!
I come back to myself at the same time as Shepard wakes up from her coma after two years. Rescued and patched up by Cerberus, an organisation I don’t trust five feet over.
My first contact is Miranda. Genetically perfect, equipped with a body that makes men’s hearts beat faster. But because she lets her perfection hang out too much in my opinion, I don’t like her.
Our boss is the stranger who makes it extremely difficult for me to trust him. He lives up to his name, secrets always surround him. He sends me on my first missions, but he gives no insight into his motives. I am in his debt, after all, he saved my life. Whether I like being his tool will become clear later.
I have to get used to the new controls as well as the enlarged arsenal of weapons. After initial difficulties, however, I see a great improvement in it. My weapons no longer overheat and I can simply reload them with ammunition. Shepard, meanwhile, now flanks smoothly over boxes and takes cover much more easily than before.
My new spaceship, an improved replica of the Normandy, has an AI called EDI as well as a new galaxy map. Sensibly, the Normandy now even consumes fuel, which I have to replenish if I want to obtain important resources from all the individual planets. When I select my first destination, I discover only after a few attempts that you first have to steer a mini-space ship over it with the mouse in order to actually be able to dock. No idea who finds fun in such gimmicks.
Old friends and new comrades
Familiar companions who join my mission make me feel safe again. With some, it is even that I feel exuberant joy. That’s what it’s like when you find friends you thought were dead.
The fact that Joker is back at the helm of the Normandy is very reassuring. The little arguments between him and EDI cheer me up even in the most problematic situations. Tali and Garrus, I didn’t expect them at all! More by chance our paths cross in places I didn’t know before. The reunion with Garrus is particularly action-packed and a great surprise for me. It is here that I realise that one can simultaneously look stupid and beaming with joy.
It’s crazy how much my gut feeling is put to the test in this part of the trilogy, because my female intuition isn’t always right. Kasumi, for example, who I had initially thought to be particularly devious and renegade, develops over time into my absolute favourite. Each new member not only enriches the team, but also this breathtaking story in its incomparable variety of suspense, wit and tear-jerking emotion.
A constant weighing
The infamous Mako from part 1 has been replaced in the sequel by a Hammer M 44, a vehicle with which you can partly fly. The paths through the large vehicle levels are simplified this time, you hardly have the chance to choose the wrong one. Of course, this does not prevent me from coming to a dead end. But I can rely on my crew, they guide me out of every predicament. Even if I am plagued by doubts from time to time.
Was it wise to pursue Tela Vasir along with Liara T’ Soni in an air taxi armed only with a taximeter? Or was it the right decision to engage in a rendezvous with the murderous daughter of Samara? It’s an ugly thrill when you have to get involved in family affairs that turn deadly. Maybe I should have let Jack languish in that high security wing too, since she’s like a highly dangerous bomb about to explode at any moment? Who knows.
Mass Effect 2 offers countless moments in which I look questioningly first to one shoulder and then to the other, on which I suspect angels and devils. Because nothing is as it seems, as I found out in the DLC mission Overlord at the latest. I cried my eyes out when I freed poor David from his brother’s clutches. A very gripping moment in which my anger at Archer and my compassion for David fought a hard battle.
Little and big loves
Love and procreation are big themes in the galaxy of Mass Effect. Sweet flirtations can be observed everywhere, or you can be confronted with them in person out of nowhere. My terminal spits out many a surprise: Advertisements for a potency preparation, mating requests from Tuchanka or a love letter from Kaidan, who tells me about our unforgettable night on Horizon, which I have forgotten. This knocks me a bit off my feet, how forgetful can I be. Sometime, much later it dawns on me – the comic might have contributed.
For those who prefer to stay solo, a shop on the Citadel also offers pets, which admittedly could become quite stressful in the long run. Feeding the fish regularly is important if you don’t want them to swim belly up. Getting the hamster to squeak is not important, but I just have to keep doing it!
No matter how nerve-wracking my last mission was, my first walk takes me to the aquarium and hamster cage. Nervously, I pant one off as the fish gape at me with their monotone expressions. I’m always afraid of neglecting them, often not sure if I’ve been with them yet. However, overfeeding does not happen. Luckily, you can’t take the hamster out of its cage, otherwise it might accidentally end up in the aquarium one day.
Sunburn and lack of safety precautions
Compared to the first part, I find the exploration of the planets in Mass Effect 2 to be much more varied. Whether lush jungles with beaches and palm trees, corridors on Omega that remind me of Bahnhof Zoo, or Haestrom with its impressively burning sun, which I have to avoid if not only Tali but also the rest of my squad is to survive. I experience crushing tension in Prometheus Station. It seems like a lost place to me, where the Geth lying around could come to life at any moment and finish me off.
Finding the entrance to the Shadowbroker’s base was particularly daring. I felt like I had to balance across the roof of a faster-than-light train that regularly shot lightning bolts at certain points. My team was also quite sceptical about the whole thing. Liara criticised the lack of a railing and Tali longed for the good old days when there was a solution to all problems – universal gel.
But this mission was nothing compared to the risky journey that took us through the Omega 4 portal. It was there at the latest that I realised why every single member of the crew was needed. The specifications of each and every one are required so that Anderson is not proven right and the whole thing degenerates into a suicide mission. Adrenaline and panic flow through me with every decision that hopefully leads to a happy ending.
For those who haven’t “lived through it” themselves yet – I call it that deliberately – trying it might give you an idea of how extreme it feels when you don’t want to be in your own shoes. Mass Effect 2 is incredibly exciting, emotional and incomparable to anything I’ve played before. It’s a great advantage when you rediscover old games: I can start straight away with the sequel.
What are your favourite memories of Mass Effect 2? Write in the comments what you still think about today. Have you even visited the Citadel recently, for example with the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remaster? Let us know!
