August of Games: Day 2 - Mass Effect 2

I've always loved the club music in the Mass Effect games, and the clubs in Mass Effect 2 are the best. Upper Afterlife and Dark Star are the sweet as hell.

Mass Effect 2
Developer: Bioware (EA)
Genre (Setting): Science Fiction (Futuristic)
Genre (Gameplay): Third-Person Shooter, RPG 
What is this game: In this game you play as a famous soldier who joins a radical group (who might be terrorists) to prevent galactic destruction. You collect a whole lot of crew members and develop your relationships with them while investigating mass abductions of human colonies. There are a lot of aliens and a very large sense of scale. You have lots of conversations with a lot of branching options with lots and lots and LOTS of lore, you shoot things as a fairly traditional 3rd-person cover shooter, your decisions in the previous game affect the circumstances of this one and your choices in this one have large impacts on the following, with lots of different paths for the story to take.
 
What's great about it: Extraordinary sci-fi character design, both in the design of the species and in the design of individuals. Gun design, environment design, whatever, this is a very carefully thought out game, and there is an amazing artbook called The Art of the Mass Effect Universe released by Dark Horse Comics (same folks who do Naughty Dogs' artbooks). As a shooter, it's basically average, though enjoyable, and not quite intense in the same way as Gears of War. The real power of the game comes from building connections with your crew. Each has a distinct and memorable personality (minus Jacob :/), and if you take the time to keep going and talking to them, it becomes a very fulfilling experience. Some feel it's just one long party-building quest without a decent number of things to do with those crew members, and that's a valid complaint, but especially when taken in combination with the others in the trilogy it isn't really an issue.
It is the other side of the tie with Metroid Prime for my favorite game.
 
How do I get it: You can buy Mass Effect 1 and 2 on Steam, and all of them of Origin, Xbox 360, and PS3. Mass Effect 3 is also on the Wii U. They also sell a "Mass Effect Trilogy" collection of all the games on 360, PC, and PS3, with different amounts of DLC pre-installed depending on the platform (PS3 has the most). Independently, Mass Effect 1 costs $15 on Origin and $20 on Steam, Mass Effect 2 costs $20 on both Origin and Steam, and Mass Effect 3 costs $20 on Origin. The Trilogy costs $40, regardless of platform, which, frankly, is a pretty good deal on PS3 for 3 great games and all of the important DLC from Mass Effect 2.

End Recording,
Ego.