Once again stepping into the role of the heroic Commander Shepard, gamers command their crew on a suicide mission in space. Players must assemble their squad from amongst the galaxy's most powerful mystics, geniuses, and convicts and lead them on a suicide mission to discover why humans are vanishing from the galaxy. The success of the mission hinges on the squad recruited and their loyalty to the mission. Shepard's future depends on it.

The chat 'em-up – it's a genre pioneered and nearly solely practiced by BioWare, the Canadian outfit that's been creating vast new universes for players to talk their way through since Baldur's Gate, its worlds dense in lore and where there's always someone at hand to bend your ear. Mass Effect 2 is its latest, delivering a follow-up to the Xbox 360-led original that was strongly divisive; depending who you ask it was either a certified masterpiece or a role player drowning in its own dialogue.