Mass Effect 2 (2010)
BioWare’s Mass Effect series is one of the most exciting sci-fi diversions the game industry has ever seen, and it peaked with the second game. Mass Effect introduced us to the sprawling world of Spectres, Asari, humans, and other alien species, and Mass Effect 3 tied things up quite nicely. But the story’s middle part fine-tuned everything we came to love about the franchise, its characters, and environments. It introduced some of the most heart-wrenching narrative decisions anyone would ever have to make within the story of Commander Shepard and his (or her) crew on the Normandy. With satisfying gunplay, world exploration, and plenty of romance to top things off, Mass Effect 2 was the series at its absolute best, and exemplary of what BioWare was able to accomplish by sending players to space alongside some of the most memorable shipmates to date: namely Tali, Garrus, and Thane.
