Mass Effect 2 (2010 Edition)
Moderate overall intensityWhat's in it
Dialogue includes strong profanity during tense and combat moments.
Third-person gunfights and sci-fi biotic powers against humanoid enemies, mechs, and alien creatures, with blood spray on hits but no lingering gore focus.
Romance love scenes show partial nudity (bare backs and sides) framed artistically rather than explicitly.
Characters drink alcohol at bars and nightclubs, and dialogue references narcotics like 'red sand.'
The plot centers on entire human colonies being abducted and liquefied to build a Reaper, with themes of mortality, sacrifice, and a one-way 'suicide mission.'
Some frightening imagery of reanimated corpse-like husks and a hive-like enemy base creates dread in places.
Optional romances build to a brief pre-mission love scene that is intimate but not explicit; a nightclub features suggestive alien dancers.
Shepard operates with mercenaries and the ethically shady group Cerberus, and Renegade choices allow ruthless or lethal actions.
Combat includes fighting hostile creatures such as dog-like varren as a normal gameplay mechanic.
Dialogue and the Omega setting reference sex work and consorts, and dancers are shown at the Afterlife club.
Who can reach your kid
What it is
Mass Effect 2 is a single-player science-fiction action role-playing game in which you play Commander Shepard, a soldier assembling a team to stop an alien threat that is abducting human colonies. Play is a mix of story-driven dialogue, character relationships, exploration, and third-person cover-based shooting using guns and special 'biotic' powers. Content includes realistic sci-fi gun combat with blood against people and creatures, strong language, alcohol and drug references, an optional non-explicit romance with partial nudity, and heavy story themes of mass killing, sacrifice, and characters who can die permanently. It has no online play, microtransactions, or chat.
How it's framed
The game frames Shepard as leading a desperate mission to protect the galaxy, and its choice system lets the player act heroically or ruthlessly (a 'Paragon/Renegade' morality track); violence is presented as duty in a war, and the darkest content — colonists harvested to build a machine — is framed as an atrocity the player fights to stop.
Details
- Developer
- BioWare
- Publisher
- Electronic Arts
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