BioWare

Is that Princess Amidala in the Shadows?

HIGH Kasumi's backstab attack is incredibly deadly.

LOW Seven dollars feels a little steep for the amount of content.

WTF The firefight near the party doesn't cause any concern.

We Barely Knew Ye

HIGH: Oghren's joining ceremony.

LOW: The fact that it was all over at 16 hours.

WTF: Nobody seems to recognize me as an elf now. Even other elves.

The Spiritual Successor to a Long-lost Friend

HIGH The return of a sorely-missed planetary vehicle option.

LOW No new Achievements.

WTF Why (oh why!) was this not integrated into the main game?

Although I've had more than my fill of talking about Mass Effect 2 since my extremely popular and well-regarded review hit Metacritic, I have to admit that I'm not quite ready to let the topic go. Getting right to the point, I've been thinking about the way homosexual relationships were removed for the most part, and what a disappointing choice that was.

Brad's review was just the beginning; we debate the exhilarating highs and inexplicable lows of Mass Effect 2. Plus: Tim quits games, classic sequels we love, and statistics, statistics, statistics. With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike "The Outlier" Bracken, Richard Naik, and Tim Spaeth.

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Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

I am the Very Model of a Scientist Salarian...

HIGH: Agonizing over choices during the endgame.

LOW: Planet scanning.

WTF: ...I've studied species turian, asari, and batarian.

The Normandy's Back, but She's Taken Some Damage

HIGH Plenty of the same great writing and character work BioWare is known for.

LOW The collective lack of surprise at Shepard's resurrection.

WTF Do people really want to have sex with grotesque alien crewmates?

Apologies for the lack of timely updates lately.

Since Mass Effect 2 came out, I've been burning the midnight oil to get it done in a decent amount of time... had to put a few things on hold and reshuffle priorities for the last week or so, but I completed the game tonight and will be getting my schedule back on track starting tomorrow.

Working on the review as we speak, but I will say that the second "half" of the adventure plays a hell of a lot stronger than the first. The end sequence is especially gripping, and finally brought back a lot of the emotional tension that I felt was missing from much of the game. It doesn't change the fact that I still feel as though the developers made a lot of WTF alterations to the game design, but it was very heartening to see that the team got their act together and delivered a real showstopper to close things out.

The Mass Effect magic isn't gone, the devs just take more than their sweet time getting around to it, and make the player work a little harder to find it.

To anyone who would say that Mass Effect 2 is indisputably better than the first game, I would ask what it was that they felt was lacking the first time around. I don't mean to broadly assume, but from those I've spoken to, it seems as though players who wanted a more combat-focused experience are loving what Mass Effect 2 brings to the table. Players (like myself) who enjoyed the combat but were more interested in the story and characters seem to have some issues embracing it wholeheartedly.