Mass Effect 2: Oh Wow.

I kept being told while playing ME1 that Mass Effect 2 was the best in the series and it would blow me away. and it did. Everything was improved. The game-play, shooting, graphics, dialogue, music, mechanics, everything.

The intro cinematic was fantastic. While doing a 'routine' patrol (the 'routine' part comes up a lot) the Normandy gets attacked by an unknown ship. I thought it was a new Reaper, but we find out pretty soon that it's a Collector ship. During the evacuation Shepard sacrifices herself for her love, Liara and is blasted into space. We see the life fade out of Shepard as she falls to a nearby planet. This was immediately touching and brought me the feels. Unfortunately due to the game being out for so long, I had a pretty good idea Shepard survived.

Shepard awakens on an operating table in an unknown lab. She has been recovered by the secret organization Cerberus. Remember them? Because I didn't really put the connection together after playing the 1st game. I knew Cerberus was "bad" but they didn't do anything straightforward to make me hate them. However, it seemed like most people had a STRONG bias against them, so I rolled on the cautionary side.

Shepard meets Jacob Taylor and the medical officer, Wilson. We learn that she is the sole object of the Lazarus Project. The goal was to rebuild Shepard as original as they could, cybernetically-enhanced, to be the symbol of humanity. As Shepard gets her bearings, the security bells go off. The station is getting attacked by it's own security mechs. (which I thought were graphically updated geth at first.) While fighting to an escape pod with Jacob and Wilson, I had a feeling Wilson was the one that...oh yeah, he was. He set off the robots. What an ass. Good thing Miranda Lawson was waiting at the shuttle bay, and shot him in the face. I already started to like her, despite her bitchy nature. Jacob, on the other hand was already starting to bore me, despite his gung-ho attitude.

We finally find the ship and head out to another, safer Cerberus facility in order to speak to the Illusive Man. I fiddle with my outfit a bit before heading into to hear him out. He reveals in more detail project Lazarus, and how human colonies are disappearing all over the galaxy.

Now working for Cerberus, Shepard is sent to investigate a recently-attacked Freedom's Progress colony where she finds clues about the validity that the Reapers are working with/through the insect-like species Collectors.

We almost immediately run into Tali'Zorah vas Neema and a group of quarians she commands. I’m so proud of my girl, finishing her pilgrimage, and being so grown up. Tali shows her distrust for Cerberus, but confidence and loyalty in Shepard (DAAW). She explains that their mission is to find Veetor, an unstable quarian who came to the colony on Pilgrimage. We fight some bots and finish the mission by finding Veetor, who is babbling in a paranoid manner about monsters out to get him, watching garbled footage on a wall of display screens. Shepard Paragon interrupts, him by turing off his screens with here Omni-tool. This gets Veetor to stop muttering to himself, and to finally address Shepard. Veetor,manages to piece together footage from the colony's security cameras to reveal that the Collectors are behind the abductions. Veetor was spared because the Collectors seemed to only scanning for human vital signs.

Back in the Cerberus facility, the Illusive Man explains that Shepard must recruit a crack-team in order to stop the Collectors, who reside beyond the Omega-4 Relay, a place where no ship has ever returned. Joker is sent to meet with Shepard (finally a friendly face). He explains that he is now working for Cerberus, and piloting the new Cerberus-built Normandy SR-2, a bigger ship equipped with an onboard AI named EDI. Joker is a much needed light in this confusing time. His ‘relation’ with EDI is great, and he is much less annoying than on the SR1. I actually laughed at most of his jokes this go-around. The Illusive Man explains that most of Shepard's former team has scattered throughout the galaxy and is either unavailable, unaccounted for, or difficult to convince to work with Cerberus, hence the new team.

Let us begin gathering the goonies.