Mass Effect 2 Retrospective - Masterpiece or Overrated?

------
In this video, we do a deep dive retrospective review of Mass Effect 2, Bioware’s most critically acclaimed game of all-time. The game sits at a 96 on Metacritic with 30 perfect scores, as well as considerable praise from fans. But is Mass Effect 2 truly as good as these scores suggest or is it overrated? Well, let’s dig in together.

0:00 Introduction
2:06 Gameplay
5:31 Guess Who’s Back
9:03 The Illusive Man
10:02 Stopping the Collectors
11:27 Squad Goals - Building the Team
14:54 Horizon
17:26 Rounding Out the Squad
19:53 Collector Ship Ambush
21:04 Loyalty Missions
21:44 Miranda
23:48 Jacob “Vent God” Taylor
26:50 Mordin
30:10 Grunt
31:37 Garrus
37:01 Jack
40:39 Thane
43:36 Samara
47:25 Zaeed
50:23 Kasumi
52:29 Reaper IFF
53:29 Tali’s Trial
58:28 Legion
1:02:05 Romance
1:04:34 Revenge of the Collectors
1:06:15 Final Mission is the GOAT
1:16:32 Overlord
1:18:37 Lair of the Shadow Broker
1:21:35 Arrival
1:24:15 Mass Effect is = Masterpiece

Mass Effect 2 - What Happens If You Warn Sidonis? (All Outcomes to Garrus’ Loyalty Mission)

Mass Effect 2 - What Happens If You Bring Legion to the Quarian Fleet?

Mass Effect 3 - 10 Years Later (Longform Retrospective)

Mass Effect 2 - What Happens If Shepard Dies?
---
Music
One Cosmos | Royalty Free Sci-Fi Background Music (No Copyright)
---
BECOME A CHANNEL MEMBER

DONATE TO BIG DAN

SUBSCRIBE TO BIG DAN CLIPS

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM

FOLLOW ME ON TIKTOK

[carycharlebois]

After a quick, and clearly not thorough, scan through the comments, I haven't found anyone (even Big Dan in the video itself) who has mentioned this aspect of ME2 yet, but the music in this game was FANTASTIC. Especially during the Suicide Mission, the music just completes the game. I can listen to the soundtrack of this game and get goosebumps every time. Jack Wall, Big Giant Circles, Sam Hulick, and David Kates all contributed to make an unforgettable score for this game.

[NinjaGuyDan_]

Something about the tone of ME2 sold it for me. I'll never forget the opening of the game and walking through a destroyed Normandy in silence... or the first time I walked into Afterlife and heard that music (followed by the first f-bomb of the series lol) ...or literally anything involving Legion

[BigBenLB]

I love bringing Legion along for Tali’s loyalty mission. It goes something like

Tali: I would never bring an active Geth aboard the fleet, like for real!

Shepherd: I assure you Tali could never do that!

Legion standing right there

Admiralty Board: ಠ_ಠ

[dirac]

I just watched a 1.5 hour detailed lore recap of a game I finished like 5 times. And I don't regret a thing.

[reiddutchess]

If Mass Effect 2 would have maintained the broader character skill customization of Mass Effect, I would have been so happy! Mass Effect 2 is still my favorite, but it was so close to being nearly flawless.

[Razor]

38:44 As a fun fact, probably by accident, but in Polish dubbing of ME2, Aresh and Niket happen to have the same VA, making some accidental parralels between Miranda and Jack, and the people tied to their respective pasts(And in both cases we decide whether to let them kill the guy or spare him too) XD

39:54 Also Aresh somehow DOES survive when not killed!(Guess he has Rana Thanoptis-like talent of outrunning nukes...), he pops up briefly in ME3 news report saying that he died defending kids on some colony from Reapers.

[dereka]

I'm not exaggerating to say Mass Effect 2 saved my love of gaming. I hadn't played a game in over a year, and thought my video game playing days were done. On a whim, I looked up some "Best of 2010" gaming lists. Pretty much all of them either had Mass Effect 2 or Bioshock 2 as #1. I resolved to visit GameStop and pick out whichever one was cheapest. For whatever reason, ME2 was on sale for only $20 so I picked that up. Best $20 I ever spent in my life! And yes, my introduction to Mass Effect was in the sequel. I thought that might bother me, but it turned out just fine.

By the end of Mordin's mission on Omega, I was intrigued. After recruiting Mordin, Garrus, Jack and Grunt, I was hooked! There was something incredibly compelling about building up a crew for your ship, and tackling the galaxy together. The writing in Mass Effect 2 is just incredible, as is the cinematography and music. Everything just comes together to make a masterful package. The only slight knock is that I feel the gameplay isn't as compelling as it could be.

I played through ME2 four times in a row, before picking up ME1 to flesh out the story. Now I've played through all three games so often I've lost track of just how many.

Mass Effect 2 will ALWAYS have a fond place in my heart. Only a masterpiece could have brought me back into gaming.

[KirstenBayes]

Excellent. But note, wearing Cerberus assault armour on the Citadel for the Ashley/Kaidan Udina speech check is required.

[jonq]

I played the Legendary Edition recently... didn't want it to end... it's in my top 5 all time games.

[DLT]

I remember being traumatized playing Overlord the first time. David's reveal stuck with me for a couple of days. Finding him in ME3 was balm to the heart. On subsequent plays I am always yelling "I'm coming, David!" every time he garbles at me from the screens. It's ridiculous, an old lady yelling at her monitor, but there it is. I never fail to get teary finding him in ME3...especially since Garrus is with me both times and even he's affected. Whereas in Arrival I just want the ability to punch Amanda in the head from the go.

[legoferrari]

My biggest complaint about ME2 is the hitstun off of flame attacks. It's very easy for Pyros to stun-lock you to death once you're in their effective range, and it made Mordin's recruitment mission a frustrating early-game difficulty spike due to the Blood Pack pyros in the corridors leading to the fan controls forcing me to retreat every time.

[DeepestDankest]

I think ME2 is great in a vacuum but its place in the trilogy made ME3 pull double duty in trying to find a way to stop the reapers and then stop the reapers, rushing a lot of the development along.

[grantbrooks]

I was hoping in the Legendary Edition, that BioWare would have added the “No Helmet in Conversations” option for ME2 🧐 Other than that and the monotonous resource gathering (which I admit I’m overly thorough at) the game is awesome 🤩

[milescataldo]

“And many light years away, Javik smiles in his stasis pod”
Absolutely perfection 🤣

[tacticalmanatee]

The music for the suicide mission is amazing. One of the best scores in gaming.

[aiden]

Currently replaying it for like the 6th time, and i can confirm it is easily one of the GOATs, and not only does it hold up, for how “old” of a game it is it was extremely extremely ahead of its time

[AdmiralBison]

As an OG Mass Effect fan, I'm probably in the minority in that Mass Effect 3 was my favorite and consider the best of the series.
+ Better game mechanics
+ Better "scene" direction
+ More epic presentation.
+ More fleshed out Universe
+ Co-op multiplayer (Played that 24/7 on the Xbox360 back in the day)
+ Had the ME App with characters in the game messaged your actual tablet/phone
+ ME Citadel, Omega and Leviathan DLC which bigger in scope.

[Chaotic_Monk]

I love ME2 but 3 will always be my favorite overall. ME2 is like a compilation of lots of great short stories that don't necessarily need one another to make some sense, whereas in 3 you feel like every mission is building towards something big. Whilst they ultimately didn't stick the landing as well as 2 did in regards to the ending, the overall experience of 3 just gets me every time.

[VrtualFlod]

I love all ME games, but ME2 is actually my least favourite of the trilogy. I'm not saying it's a bad game at all, I just liked ME1/3 more. People will probably hate me for disagreeing with the overwhelming consensus, but I'll list the reasons why someone might say that ME2 is overrated.

1. The stakes are underwhelming in comparison to ME1. Had the main plot of ME2 come before ME1, the trilogy would have had a better sense of story progression.
2. There are only a handful of actual main story missions, the rest of the game is recruitment/loyalty missions that are largely disconnected from the main threat.
3. You fight against mercenary gangs for the vast majority of the game.
4. Each level feels more "gamey" rather than a real location, with lots of corridor shooting on a strict linear path, lack of player choice, and a gamified end of level screen.
5. The citadel was cut down into a tiny stacked layer of floors rather than the sprawling station it was in ME1.
6. The gameplay while more polished is extremely safe with little flair and less RPG depth, and becomes very repetitive on subsequent playthroughs.
7. The abilities are very shallow with the most effective abilities being about direct damage and defense stripping (warp, incinerate, overload).
8. The world of the game doesn't feel as diverse as its predecessor, which included a lot of unique elements for each level (different music, new interesting aliens like rachni and thorian, a range of aesthetic themes).
9. The dialogue scenes became more cinematic, which look nicer but make you feel like you're directing a movie rather than roleplaying a character.
10. Planet scanning for upgrade materials is boring. I don't care how much you love ME2, if you say you enjoyed scanning planets you're lying to yourself.

There are more things that I can't think of off the top of my head so this list will have to do. My favourite ME game is ME1. I played ME2 directly after completing ME1 for the first time, and while I enjoyed it a lot, the things I loved about ME1 were stripped away from the experience. ME3 definitely feels like a sequel to ME2, but neither feel like a proper sequel to ME1. They feel like completely different games and I've always felt a massive disconnect between ME1 and ME2/3. ME2 feels like a great game to play, but ME1 feels like a great world to explore. That sense of worldbuilding was lost in transition to ME2, and it was the aspect of the game that I was attached to the most. At the end of the day, they are all amazing games in their own way. It comes down to what you value in a game. If more polished gunplay and deeper characters and relationships is what you like ME for, then I can see why people love ME2. For me it was the feeling of stepping into this completely new world with some much to explore and choices to make. So ME1 will always be my favourite. I don't necessarily think that ME2 is overrated, I feel like ME1/3 is underappreciated. And with how zealously people will defend ME2 from any criticism, it can be pretty disheartening to have a different take on the trilogy.

[staciwhite]

I remember playing the demo of this game over and over until I was able to get it on PS3 (my 360 had been dead a while). The opening blew my mind. Now, with LE, I can play with all my choices transferring to each game and it’s a new experience. I love this series!