The galaxy map has changed along with the refitted Normandy; you get a bigger ship and a new method for traversing the stars. Now you can see the systems you need to go to on the map with import quests, jump via the Mass Relay and fly around in real time via the tiny representation of the Normandy on the map. You can scan planets with the planet mining tool, picking up valuable minerals and metals for researches and sometimes tracking down an N7 mission via an anomaly on the planet’s surface. You also burn fuel when travelling from system to system inside a cluster. Fuel can be bought, along with probes at the fuel stations dotted around the map.

Some researches via your squad, upgrade your fuel supply and the amount of probes that are needed for mining/tracking anomalies on the planet’s surface. Scanning is simple; you hold down the left trigger and rotate the planet around until you get a reading on the panel to the right. The stronger the resource the better the spike on the oscilloscope display. Launch a probe to collect the resource and rinse-repeat. Some people have said that this is tedious but I prefer it to endlessly driving over the same boring terrain in the Mako for hours on end.

So with a retooled exploration system, retooled combat mechanics and removed inventory system it might feel like ME2 is a step back from ME. It’s not though, since you have far more control now over your Shepard’s armour in terms of look and functionality. Sure, you can’t change your squad’s look now but to be honest if Bioware have spent months crafting Grunt to look totally badass, why hide it behind a suit of generic-co armour?

If you’ve completed Mass Effect you can import your Shepard into the game. The game tracks a fair number of the decisions you made from ME and some of them have far-reaching consequences in the game, some are just tiny ripples that echo the further you get into the story. A few of them will open up short side missions of their own that give you a glimpse into the character that you only glossed over in the original game. Unless you play this game to completion though, you’re not going to see a lot of the repercussions from ME play out.

Bioware have also given you some in-game bonuses based on your level when you import. They also let you tweak the character’s class and physical appearance. You might also notice a long alpha-numerical string that’s listed under your Shepard’s ID Code; this will let you recreate the exact physical character if you decide you’d like to make a new class but keep your Shepard’s look intact. It’s also useful for those gamers who like to make awesome looking celebrity Shepard look-alikes and share them with the online community.

Add to this in the game’s in-built Cerberus Network, a news-net and DLC delivery platform you can expect to throw down around 40 or so hours on your first play of Mass Effect 2 and still miss many of the upgrades if you’re not careful. Those who buy ME2 retail get the CN card and don’t have to pay the 1200 msp to pick it up later, it entitles you to a new DLC character and a mission that goes with the character as well as another mission that is quite interesting.

The dialogue system remains mostly intact, similar to Mass Effect and has more extreme Paragon/Renegade choices built in. There’s also the interrupt system, every so often a prompt will flash up on screen either with the left (Paragon) or right (Renegade) trigger allowing you to do something in game. Be it blowing up a fuel tank to shut a cocky crime boss up or saving someone from a bullet.

There are two mini-games that have replaced the old omni-gel Simon-says game. The first is hacking, which has you matching up scrolling code segments before the timer runs out. If you press the button on the wrong segment you’ll lose 1 of 3 attempts and if you hit a firewall segment you’ll lose the last code segment that you locked in. Get all of it correct and you get the reward (usually cash), take too long and the timer runs out, it begins to bleed cash from the account. Fail and you’re locked out of the system losing whatever blueprint or cash you could have garnered.

The second is the bypass game. This is a simple game of matching symbols on a circuit board and is pretty hard to fail. Again there’s a timer and the same rules apply, fail it and you get locked out.

Finally there’s levelling up. You no longer level up in mission, there’s a post-mission screen where all of your rewards (experience and money) are tallied up at the end. If you get enough xp you level up and can distribute 2 points to your skill tree. Skill trees have been drastically cut down since ME and now there is only a smattering of skills to bother with. Putting enough points into a skill to get it to level 4 allows you to evolve the skill and transform it into a new version, either pushing up the area of effect in the case of say: Overload or putting the hurt onto someone with a biotic charge.

You even have a captain’s cabin now, with terminals, sound system and a few other surprises that I’ll let you discover for yourself.