The appeal of Mass Effect 2

I have played, and completed, every Bioware RPG (excluding Baldurs Gate 2).  I have always enjoyed the Bioware style, the character interaction and the story.  And while I have had my problems, most notably with the combat, the games always provide a fascinating experience.  Mass Effect 2 is so much better than all of its predecessors it seems like all of the previous Bioware games were made by a different company.

I usually don't have time to finish games.  I have work, I have school, and my wife starts sending mutinous glares in my direction if I begin to ignore her.  Thus, I don't finish nearly as many games as I used to.  I finished Fallout 3, but that's because my wife truly enjoyed watching the game.  I finished Assassins Creed 2, because it was both engaging and relatively short.  And I might finish the odd game here and there, like a campaign in Empire or Civ 4, but its become something of the norm for me to buy a game and to play it to random levels of completeness.  I still haven't finished Uncharted 2, despite its superior craftmanship and quality.  But Mass Effect 2 consumed my interest like no other game since Oblivion.

 I loved the original Mass Effect.  I played it to completion in Afghanistan while on my deployment, and while the beginning was clunky (due to the leveling system), once your character reached a certain level of combat proficiency the major detractor to the game faded away.  However, Benezia?  Awful.  One of the worst designed boss fights I have ever seen.  Saren was far easier to defeat than Benezia.  Bah.  All of that changed with Mass Effect 2.  The leveling system essentially freed you to play a true role-playing experience.  You can play the noble hero, or the ruthless rogue, or some shade of gray inbetween.  While I liked the fiddly knobs of the first Mass Effect, not having to spend points on conversation options while ignoring survivability suits me quite well.  The dialog choices that you select give you paragon or renegade points, which unlock further paragon or renegade dialog options.  So you don't have to make an arbitrary decision to focus on dialog, while you can't hit the broad side of a barn with your sniper rifle.  

The combat for Mass Effect 2 is a revelation.  I don't always like 3rd person shooters.  Gears of War was interesting, but did not necessarily grab me.  But the smoothness of execution in Mass Effect 2 convinced me of its merits.  The flow of the combat, the feel of the weapons, and the challenge of the opponents make Mass Effect seem worthwhile.  Its conceivable to want to go back and play the game for the combat alone.  And while I did somehwat enjoy the combat for Mass Effect 1, it isn't something that you necessarily want to experience multiple times.  But perhaps the greatest draw in Mass Effect 2 is the characters.  

In the original Mass Effect, I was disappointed with the romance options.  Ashley was stiff, and racist.  I'm a dude, so I didn't go for Kaidan (and let him die on the cloning facility mission).  Liara was the only romance option, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I picked her.  She was...alien?  I don't know, none of the romance options in the first Mass Effect really appealed to my tastes.  The only character that I had a legitimate interest in was Tali, if only to see what was under her damn mask.  When I learned that she was a potential love interest in Mass Effect 2, I did everything in my power to make sure that it happened.  I really enjoy her character.  She seemed like the most complete person of them all, and perhaps the most normal (which is an insane thing to say about an alien who lives on a ship fleet because the artificial intelligences they created rebelled against their masters).  Tali was the most relateable.  Miranda was...interesting, and attractive, but far too cold and ruthless.  Jack was a character that I could understand, but not necessarily found all that attractive (What? Women should have hair.  Sorry).  Samara was disinterested.  Kelly was....blah.   Tali was one of the characters that I rolled with on almost every occasion, along with Grunt (also an amazing character).  The affection between my Shepard and Tali felt genuine, their story believable.  I felt satisfied with how the romance played out, even though they never showed you Tali's face.  Which, let me tell you, was terrible.  I laughed when they artfully declined to show you her face, of course.  But, come on.  Whatever.  

I will probably talk about Mass Effect 2 some more.  But for now...it is probably my favorite game of all time.  Oblivion or Heros Quest used hold that position, but Mass Effect 2 is firmly ensconced in its position as my favorite of all time.