There’s this game. You may have heard of it. It’s called Mass Effect 2. Hit stores a couple weeks ago, and the kids seem to dig it. Since I’m hip with what the cool cats are jiving on, I figured I’d get down and boogie. Cut a rug on the gaming dance floor if you will. But before I made myself out to be some jive turkey, I needed to get in on the lingo. So I played through the first game.

As I made my way through the first Mass Effect, I started hearing everyone and their mothers’ pool boy talk about how amazing the sequel is. I couldn’t throw a paperclip into a room filled with iPods without hitting one that had a podcast on it which the hosts talked about playing the game. But me being “Captain Yesterday”, having just recently discovered the majesty of BioWare’s space creation, trudged on through the game in order to get the back story that I so desired before booting up Efecto Total numero dos. One thing that was gabbed about on multiple podcasts was if you “needed” to play through the first game. As someone who has, I can say no, you don’t “need” to. The second game plays much smoother, and does a pretty fair job at introducing you to what is going on while giving just enough exposition on the previous title to get you by. I would, however, highly recommend playing the first one. There isn’t a need to, but there is such a rich back-story in the premiere that you will undoubtedly traipse through the second missing subtle notes that would otherwise spark emotional reactions. It’s like hearing a song on the radio that you attribute to a moment in your life. Good or bad, maybe that song was the final dance at Prom, or the tune playing on the radio when you were driving your wife to the hospital for the birth of a child. Seeing some things in Mass Effect 2 will bring back memories from the first. One for me so far, has been seeing Garrus for the first time. He was a frequent member of my party in ME1, and the minute he’s revealed in the second, I got a smile on my face. If I hadn’t been through rough situations with him in the first title, I’d probably care less about him in the sequel.

So bottom line; While Mass Effect 2 does a great job of bringing you into the experience as a “new title”, I feel you’d be robbing yourself some added pleasure if you skipped over the first game.