Spacemen Can’t Jump: Mass Effect 2

We gamers live in mildly interesting times, if you know where to look. Whole swathes of long-established genres are going extinct, and exotic new species are evolving in their place: Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain and even Assassin’s Creed 2 are, perhaps, the harbingers of the new type of game, that brazenly mix together different kinds of gameplay from wildly diverse genres, all in the manner of some kind of GTA. Others are evolving more slowly: even that old dinosaur Square made an attempt (albeit failed) to reinvent the JRPG with Final Fantasy XIII, and if they’re at it, you can be sure that the old rules are going out of style.

Unless, that is, you’re BioWare, who have let every innovation of the last five years completely pass them by.