I Never Want To Stop Playing Mass Effect 2.

I bought the first Mass Effect game when it was released in 2007. For reasons that I have completely forgotten, I never progressed past the first mission, my poor Commander Shepard wandering the halls of the Citadel without my guidance. Two years passed, and I never entertained the notion of giving the game a second chance.

I didn't pay too much attention when the Hype Machine for Mass Effect 2 first fired up, but the multiple trailers, developer interviews, and Internet chatter slowly started to get to me. Then, I started seeing these ads in my comic books every week:

If you read this blog, then you've probably seen them. There are five different ads, each featuring a different character, and they've been running in the pages of nearly every DC comic for the past several weeks. Finally, I read the Joystiq.com review of the game, which hailed it as "the best game BioWare has ever made and the best action RPG in history." The bastards had me.

I'm psychologically incapable of jumping into a new entertainment franchise without starting at the beginning, so I borrowed the first Mass Effect from my friend Chris and started playing through it. I very quickly made my way past the point where I stalled two years ago, and spent the next two weeks immersing myself in the Mass Effect universe. This past Thursday, I sat in the ridiculous leather lawyer's chair that I use for my desk and played for six hours straight. I finished the game, put on some proper pants, and drove straight to Nebraska Furniture Mart to pick up the sequel. It was as though I had been ensorceled.

Many of the original Mass Effect's gameplay mechanics have either been completely overhauled or removed entirely. Your character's move from a standstill to taking cover to springing into action is seamless. The annoying weapon overheating has been replaced by a much less annoying ammo system. The talent tree has been boiled down to the essential abilities. I don't have to obsess over whether I should use the assault rifle that does 10% more damage but is 20% less accurate or the one that does 10% LESS damage but is 20% MORE accurate. As far as I'm concerned, everything "wrong" with the first game has been tweaked for the better. And the story... Good Lord, the story... There was an unexpected moment in the first FIVE MINUTES of the game that literally took my breath away, and it just got better from there.

I'm not too far into the game, and I'm probably still riding high from my Mass Effect 1 marathon, so I don't know if I'll still be as impressed when I'm 40+ hours in. Right now, though...I'm hooked. I only have a single complaint so far: the on-screen text is too small to read on my standard definition TV. There's really only one logical fix for that, right? Unfortunately, me buying a giant HD-TV is a very long way away.

If you are interested in video games at all, even if you didn't like the first installment in the franchise, you should buy this game. Soon. I made it through the game's prologue and haven't touched it since. I think not being able to play may actually be killing me. I guess what I'm trying to say, in my typical, long-winded way, is that Mass Effect 2 is probably something that you should make happen in your life.

(Dialogue Tree artwork copyright 2010 Penny Arcade)