Early this year, Playstation owners were given a real treat for their console in the form of Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect is a Sci-Fi Action/RPG franchise, set to be a trilogy, developed by Bioware. The games take place about one hundred and fifty years into the future. Mankind discovers some ruins on Mars. That leads them to discover the Citadel, and the vast array of alien species populating the galaxy. Players take the role of Commander Shepherd. Shepherd is highly customizable, allowing players to choose gender, background, and class. Mass Effect 1 will not be available for the PS3, owing to the fact that it was released by Microsoft, but Bioware and EA found a way around that. Upon starting up a new game, players a treated to a 15 minute interactive comic, which sums up most of the major plot points from the first game, allowing the player to choose their Shepherd's actions at critical points in the story. This leads to characters reacting to you differently throughout the course of Mass Effect 2. With this element of the ME games, Bioware has a very ambitious goal, and that is to show the consequences of Shepherd's actions throughout the course of the three Mass Effect games. To avoid awkward sentences, from here on out, I'll be referring to Shepherd as "he," since that's how I've played through the game. Mass Effect 2 starts out in a rather shocking and heavy manner. Shepherd is killed, and his ship blown up, by a vessel of unknown origins. Thankfully, this is the future, and Shepherd's body is recovered by Cerberus, a very shady organization, and consequently revived. Shepherd discovers who brought him back to life and who has given him a mission to accomplish. Cerberus is headed up by the Illusive Man (voiced by Martin Sheen). Human colonies in the more remote areas of space are being abducted, and the Illusive Man wants Shepherd to gather a team and investigate. Throughout his adventure, Shepherd meets up with some new people and aliens, as well as more than a few old faces, as well. His mission takes him all over the Galaxy and, ultimately, to the center of it. Mass Effect 2 is a game best experiences by playing through it yourself, so I won't delve too deeply into the storyline. The controls have been ported over pretty faithfully from the 360 version. Shepherd controls well, and there aren't too many frustrating moments that stem from poor camera or clunky/unresponsive controls. The graphics are crisp and clean, as the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 is running off of the engine for Mass Effect 3. The one area that had a noticeable difference was the sound. While all of the sounds, from the guns, actors, and ambience were the same, I noticed, on more than a few occasions, that the sound would cut out early at the end of a person's sentence. This generally resulted in the loss of one or two words only, but I noticed it, and it dampened the immersiveness somewhat. Where Mass Effect 2 really shines though, is the content. The PS3 version comes with not only the interactive comic, but a lot of the downloadable content that 360 owners had to pay for after the game was already purchased. The PS3 Mass Effect 2 comes in at 60 bucks, but you get a whole lot more bang for your buck for the same amount of money. Overall, the Mass Effect games are a lot of fun. The story and characters are well written, and most of the voice acting is top notch, as well. PS3 owners at first might not feel as attached to some of the characters as those players who have the Mass Effect games for the PC or 360, but connections will be made, none-the-less. If you're a PS3 owner who enjoys RPG's and third-person shooters, give Mass Effect 2 a try. It's a very well done game. One playthrough alone will keep you busy for about 20 - 30 hours, and there are fun reasons to go back and play again and again. This game comes highly recommended.