Mass Effect 2: Initial Impression.

I've started the second game of the Mass Effect trilogy. Mass Effect 2 was developed by BioWare's Edmonton division and published by Electronic Arts. Mass Effect 2 begins by showing you the events directly after Mass Effect and then picks up a few years later. The player once again plays as Commander Shepard and sets out on a grand space adventure that should play out with generous mystery elements like the original game. There have been numerous changes from the original game that have initially made themselves readily apparent. BioWare's and EA's download system rears its ugly head once again. A variant of the one used by Dragon Age. This one has been titled the Cerberus Network and has been integrated into the game more than the Dragon Age version. The Cerberus Network actually went off without a hitch compared to the nightmare it was in Dragon Age. After entering the numerous codes and downloading roughly six pieces of download content I was ready to begin the game. I immediately turned off the film grain filter and began to notice how good the game looked. Mass Effect 2 isn't making a giant leap forward in graphics compared to the original. It's more about refinement. The little touches that come with the game being a sequel. The result is a really good looking game. The character's faces are still hit and miss. And their eyes are still dead. The story is initially fascinating. The world is still as deep as you want it to be. Going through the codex will provide you with massive detail on just about everything in the Mass Effect universe. They've changed how your shields work. Opting for the Halo style regenerating shield and health. You still use Medi-gel to heal your team though. They've changed how the weaponry works as far as reloading and how they're applied to classes. They've added in resource management for research and development of weapons and upgrades. Which brings about the added mining of planets for materials. Which also adds needing to be concerned with fuel for the Normandy. They've merged a lot of core concepts of the old Electronic Arts published and Binary Systems developed game Starflight into Mass Effect 2. And that's actually rather cool. It initially seems that Mass Effect 2 is going to be as good as or better than the original. That's saying a lot as Mass Effect is one of the best games this generation.