Mass Effect 2

I'm adding a new category to my blog.  That would be a video game review from either a Playstation 2, Playstation 3, or Wii platform.

I'm starting by reviewing the best video game I have ever played in my entire life!

Mass Effect 2 is an interactive first person shooter where your decisions have little and big consequences throughout an entire series of games.  Mass Effect started on XBox, which I don't have, so I don't have the experience of playing that first section, but the 2nd one is awesome.  It's mainly a science-fiction storyline, but I know everyone who's played it has loved it.  It's highly entertaining, even if you don't care for outer space games.
At the beginning of this game, it does a small synopsis of the first Mass Effect, if you haven't played it.  If you play it on an XBox then the first game info transfers to the 2nd game and it registers each and every decision you made from that game.  Kinda' cool, but I have a Playstation so I couldn't do that.

Anyway, you can choose to make your character, Commander Shepard, a male or female and pick out all the little details like facial structure, hair color, and an outfit.  I have played through the game 3 times now, and twice I was a female, once I was a male.  It affects the story a little so I wanted to see what the changes were.  The female lead actress is much better than the male lead.  Not sure why they missed the mark on that, but the actress has a lot more emotion and inflection in her voice than the guy.
Commander Shepard starts out on the old ship from the first game that gets blown up.  Your character dies saving someone else's life and a secret organization called, Cerberus, brings you back to life with a few improvements.  You're their pet project for 2 years (while you are unconscious) and you awake sooner than expected.  Cerebus contacts you through someone/thing called the Illusive Man (voice acted by Martin Sheen.)  He shows up through a hologram on the new and improved Normany ship they built for you.  Problem is you can't tell if he's a robot or a person through this hologram, his eyes are mechanical.  Or maybe he's a group of individuals for all I know.  He tells you that there's this alien race (The Collectors)  that looks like it wants universal control and will kill just about everyone to get it, but starts with abducting human colonies.  No one believes in a race called The Reapers that are even worse.  The Reapers are supposed to be a long extinct dangerous alien race and isn't really in anyone's mind, everyone thinks of them as a possible legend at this point, since no one has seen one for ages.  Turns out the Collectors and Reapers are working together.  The Illusive man confides in you, that if you cannot figure out what's happening in time, no one else will be able to survive these attacks.  You are humanity's, and ultimately the universe's last hope.  You end up having to start collecting different team members to add to your new and improved ship for the big mission.
 
The characters that you pick up are different in all regards.  Different sexes, races, species, everything.  Each one is very well thought out, intriguing, and has their own special abilities.  Special abilities fall into a few categories - weapons, technology, telekinesis/mind powers, and a kind of improved body/biotech power - with several mini-abilities within those categories.  To upgrade yourself and your crew you have to travel around the universe to harvest minerals from planets.  This can monotonous at times, but fun when you find anomalies (surprise missions).
It's a cinematic game with lots of story lines, dialogue, romantic opportunities, action, and lots of big decisions to make.  What you decide may eventually lead to an entire alien race being destroyed in the next game. 
I struggled with these decisions and there is more than one time where I just didn't want to decide at all.  Neither race was anyone who I had had a problem with, neither one did I want to lose, knowing I could need both of them to help me with the next big battle in the final game, Mass Effect 3.
You also get to decide if you want to start romantic relationships with people on the team.  It's just amazing how much fun this game is to play.  I hesitated by a week to finish it because I just didn't want it to end.
I really became emotionally invested in these characters that had been developed so well.  It's hard to see any of them die in the final battle if you don't play your cards right.  The more you fail at things during the game, the more teammates you could lose fighting the super bad guys at the end.
This game has humor, romance, great action, suspense, drama, tension, scary parts, and everything you would need to make a fantastic game.  Even the soundtrack is terrific!  There are tons and tons of trailers on Youtube.com but I included one that shows off a lot of different aspects of the game.  Take a look!

http://youtu.be/4ehW_JBAESM

I think I could play this game through 10 more times and not get tired of it.  So far, I've always lost at least one member of my team, which is so frustrating, but I did the best I could at the time.

I cannot wait until the 3rd and final one comes out!  It's going to be so good (I hope).  At least, it looks incredible from the teaser trailers I've seen for it.   I'll show you one of those too!

http://youtu.be/vTo_9xyl1LA

If you already have a platform that supports this game, play it!  If you have no video game system at home, this would be a game where I actually recommend you buy one of the platforms just to play it.  Everyone who has played it loved it, and critics across the board have given it a very very high score.  Game Informer magazine reviews every video game made.  They have a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the very best.  Mass Effect 2 received a 9.5 score.  It is not to be missed!

5 out of 5 joysticks for me.  This game could only be better if it never ended!