The world of Mass effect is huge and for a person who hasn’t played Mass effect 1 and is playing Mass effect 2 for the first time on the Playstation 3, it might seem overwhelming and a little bit confusing. To try quell some of the confusion and give first time players the chance to make some key decisions, Mass effect 2 comes with an interactive digital comic. I, as a first time Mass effect 2 player applaud the effort but at the same time I feel that I have missed the full “effect” that my decisions have on the world.
How do you make decisions on people and events that you don’t have first hand knowledge of? During the digital comic section, I personally found myself without any understanding of what I was doing. It was like trying to cram before a big exam. The names of people and places were a blur. What the Hell is a Rachni again? I blindly killed friends, condemned a race of aliens to slowly die from something called the” genophage” and I made a crooked politician the human representative of the galactic council because I couldn’t remember which of my two choices was the crooked politician. One choice is as good as another right? Of course not. Did I feel anything for the lives that I was destroying even though I should? Not at all. While I appreciate the effort, I can’t help but feel that a better approach could have been chosen. To be perfectly honest, seeing a slide show after the epic introduction where your space ship gets destroyed, you get thrown into space and you’re slowly falling into a planet is anticlimactic.
I found the comic decision process tedious and boring. The experience was like a slide show presentation in an art history class. The images and events might be interesting but the experience still puts you to sleep. At some point I tried skipping it but couldn’t since you can’t skip the comic once it’s installed. I actually regretted even installing the Cerberus pack because I just wanted to get to the game. I almost would have preferred to have had decisions from the first game made for me for my first play through. The great thing about Mass effect 2 is that for the most part it is a self contained story and explains any information that is important from the first game.
I actually strongly suggest to first time Mass effect 2 players to not install the Cerberus pack. I think it’s a lot to take in before really getting a feel for the game. I feel that you have to play through Mass effect 2 to fully appreciate the decisions being asked to be made in the comic.
To check out the digital comic, click here.
Also don’t forget to check out the CoolStuff review of Mass effect 2.
Cool Stuff Universe 1.0 
As a very well-versed Mass Effect fan (having played both games at least five times each!) I found the comic too condensed and written and paced poorly. It’s a giant infodump that doesn’t give you the *emotional* impacts for the choices given you.
Secondly, I balked at the low quality of the comic art. It’s perhaps Francia’s worst (Francia being the artist for the Mass Effect Redemption and Evolution comics published by Dark Horse). Garrus is green (when he should be more of a gray color) and forgets to wear his visor after his first panel, Liara appears as an airhead, especially as she fights some killer space lobsters without any armor on, and Wrex looks like a hideous Gorilla that does not draw any appeal to first-timers on PS3 to keep him alive.
It almost feels like Genesis was an afterthought. I appreciate the effort to give the PS3 players a chance to decide on some factors, but it’s almost better for them to be given the default no-import choices!
I highly suggest you e-mail your thoughts to Bioware, they really need some first-timer feedback like this. I hope they don’t port the Genesis comic to XBox Live or EA Marketplace for the XBox and PC players to buy.
i think the best thing to do is to simply go for the pc version. i mean is so easy and cheap that it should be the first option. and i say that because the first game MUST BE PLAYED! but you won’t buy an xbox for that, would you? so your option remains the pc, even if you’d have to buy ME2 again for it (cross-platform save import doesn’t work).