7 reasons to get crazy about Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect is the epic, space-faring RPG from game developer Bioware.

Mass Effect has been universally declared game of the year, every year, since the 15th Century. It has been scientifically proven to cure dandruff and all forms of sadness, and in rare cases it has allowed blind people to see.

Mass Effect - a game set in the future, where humanity is a part of a galactic community - was itself sent back from the future to improve the present. It was created when a ninja, a dinosaur, a boat full of Vikings, a pirate and a robot all headbutted a nuclear bomb. Other games often burst into flames if placed too close to Mass Effect.

You can't marry it - not because it's a game, but because Mass Effect is already married to its job. Legend says that the internet was created so that people would have places to talk about Mass Effect.

The sequel is coming, as sequels do, and there are literally billions of reasons to really, really want this game. Here are the first seven:

1.       Mass Effect

The first game, for those who played it, is obviously the most compelling reason to get jiggy with Mass Effect 2. Cast as Commander Shepard, the biggest bad ass in the galaxy and first human Spectre, you need to criss-cross the known universe trying to stop a group of oddly-sexy, human-hating robots and their megalomaniacal alien jerk of a leader from destroying everything lovely and happy.

Real-time combat with railguns and lasers. Giant space stations. Driving six-wheeled moon buggies. Eliminating rogue mercenaries and homicidal artificial intelligences. A thousand other mad-fun activities. A dialogue system that allows you to be anything from an angelic model soldier to a colossal bastard. Visuals and music that redefine deliciousness.

And if you can't afford Mass Effect 2, or you can't wait, you can always pick up the original game pretty cheap right now.

2. A persistent universe

At the end of the first game, your character has been honed to perfection. You've designed them to look just like what you think you look like, taken them to the dark side to get the badass ending, and forced him or her to hook up with the hot crew member of your choice. Pity you have to start all over again.

Bioware have pulled a crazy trick: your Mass Effect character can be loaded into Mass Effect 2. There's not too much information on what this will mean yet, except that choices you made at key moments in the first game's story will be important to the new adventure. Hopefully no ex-girlfriends turn up.

3. It's basically Star Trek

Captaining your own starship through the galaxy, visiting strange new worlds and making the universe safe for everything with exactly two legs may sound familiar, since it's basically the premise of every Star Trek ever made. They even have the meticulously nutted-out technology, so if you really want to find out exactly how rifles in the future use the hidden power of magnets to fire slices of metal whose size is mathematically calculated based on range and velocity... then go right ahead.

4. It's basically Star Wars

Unlike Star Trek, however, Mass Effect has fun. Bioware were the developers behind the very amazing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Thankfully there are no brown robes, green puppets, endless stretches of sand, or people doing bad things because invisible particles of evil darkness made them get the sads.

5. Writers

Video games are generally written by babies who have had all their limbs removed and replaced with chainsaws. Despite this, Bioware actually seems to like their games to be written by competent adults with proven writing skill. Idiots. They'll never make money that way.

Mass Effect was a meticulously crafted space opera, seems likely the sequel will offer at least that much.

6. People who are better (and worse) than you

Quite a few trailers have been revealed which tease at the other team members and foes to be found in Mass Effect 2, and they all look like a bundle of fun. So far there's a tattoo-covered assassin, a turtle alien with anger issues, a returning face from game one who lives inside her own glass bubble, a race of evil insects, and a robot stalker.

The first game made me empathise with a loudmouth bigot of a soldier and enter a romantic relationship with an asexual blue scientist. Bring it on, I say.

7. Crowning Moments of Awesome

TV Tropes defines a Crowning Moment of Awesome as "The moment when a fictional character does something for which they will be remembered forever".

Mass Effect's Commander Shepard doesn't just have one of these, he IS one of these. From start to finish, you are given the chance to be That Guy who does things like cutting off the most important people in the galaxy during a phonecall just because you feel like it, or pulling a gun on a barman for not talking, or punching a news reporter on live television. You can save a species from extinction, or commit genocide. You are given the option to end a conversation by shooting the other person way more often than any man should be. Everybody loves male fantasies.

Mass Effect 2 is ready for a January 29th release. See you in space.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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