The original Mass Effect managed to be a great game despite everything working against it. It was a new intellectual property based in outer space with no mention of the Force or droids. BioWare dared to create something new in the face of everyone demanding Knights of the Old Republic 3. While they didn’t have that particular issue this time around, three years of hype can be a scary thing. Mass Effect 2 not only lives up to the hype, it shoots it in the face and throws it out the airlock.

You’ll play the part of the legendary Commander Shepard, formerly the only human Spectre. The commander runs into a spot of trouble in the opening cutscene and, as a result, gets sidelined (is dead) for two years. The point of this is to allow you to customize the appearance of your Shepard from the last game — or customize your first one if this is your first time with the franchise. Shepard is entirely the man or woman you want him or her to be and can be one of six playable classes. (In my case, I chose to play as Barack Shepard: The Soldier of Change.)

The opening perfectly sets up what proves to be an intense ride of a game. Shepard is revived by the infamous Cerberus group. Martin Sheen plays their leader, the Illusive Man. Cerberus wants Shepard to investigate the abduction of human colonies by the bugmen known as Collectors. Defeating them involves a suicidally dangerous mission that needs a squad of experts, recruited by Shepard, to complete. The story basically ends right here. The rest of the game includes gathering this squad and then completing the mission. There are large amounts of awesome in between, but the overall story is pretty shallow, and you’ll have Mass Effect 3 buzzing in your head the whole time as the reason behind this.

Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying the writing is mediocre. Far, far, far from it. This is some of the best writing I have ever seen in a game. Every character is filled to the brim with personality thanks to emotionally rich dialogue and superb voice acting. You will get to know these characters quite well and will be physically upset when they are in danger or something goes horribly wrong. One mission in particular had this cynical gamer on the brink of manly tears. Going to the opposite end of the spectrum, BioWare cleverly sneaks in some great humor alongside the drama. Highlights include Shepard’s deliciously snarky Renegade dialogue choices, a fake ad for sports drinks, and a squadmate singing a version of “The Major General Song” by Gilbert and Sullivan.

You’ll have plenty of pretty things to look at as well. The graphics are top-notch and lack any of the texture-popping problems of the last game. The characters are finely modeled with scars and other minute details that will really make you happy to have an HD television. I was particularly amazed by a returning character from the first game that had a noticeably sleeker look since we last met and made me truly grasp how much of an upgrade this game is from its predecessor.

Speaking of the original, Mass Effect 2 has taken the previous game’s issues and addressed all of them. There is no inventory system of any kind this time around. It works surprisingly well, having no horde of obsolete weapons and armor clogging up your inventory. Essentially, you’ll have a few guns that you upgrade and a couple pieces of armor to choose from, and that’s it. It’s streamlining at its best and chops out unneeded clutter. The only gripe I have is how much better the downloadable content armor sets are than any other armor in the game. Both my preorder bonus armor and Blood Dragon Armor from Dragon Age: Origins were yards better than anything else in the game, and so I had the best gear straight off the bat. It didn’t break the game, but I did notice how hard it was for me to die for a while.

The combat has also been retooled since the last game. Rather than investing points into a bunch of different powers and abilities, you’ll have about six useable abilities to develop depending on your class. It is pretty simple but in a good way. Confusingly, all of your abilities share one global cooldown timer. Fortunately, your teammates have their own powers to contribute, and they really help take down the tougher enemies. Your allies are smart enough in battle most of the time, but you’ll need to pay attention to them on harder difficulty playthroughs.

The only hang-up I had in the whole game was ironically the gameplay feature added in place of an annoying portion of the first game. The terrible driving simulator that was the Mako has been replaced with a tedious metal detector game known as Planet Scanning. You complete this activity to get resources to put toward weapon and armor upgrades. I understand the need for this to ensure you don’t get upgrades too quickly, but being the sole drudgery in a fantastic game really magnifies the tedium.

I want to conclude my experience of the wonderful delight that is Mass Effect 2 with a warning: You don’t have to play the original Mass Effect to enjoy this one, but there is so much more to the game if you do that I would almost say it is a requirement. Characters from the first game make dramatic appearances, and the choices that you made show their aftermath here. I was dealing with the effects from choices that I made in 11th grade, and it made quite the impact on me. Whether you play the original or not, you should get this game. You are not a role-playing game fan without playing this game. I promise you will play it multiple times and get more than your money’s worth. Has the best game of 2010 been released in January? I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.