Mass Effect 2 in Detail
I've already gone on about the game in general. Aside from combat being predictable and the resource gathering aspect getting old fast, it's technically solid. I don't think I mentioned before, but I liked the hacking and bypassing minigames even though the former threw me off the first time (I expected to be using the mouse). The story's good, the characters are generally well done in voice and background. There's more to say in specific, but some friends might yet play it who haven't. So...
The intro was well done, though I'm not altogether certain of the narrative point. It almost seems like Shepard was killed off in order to make a stir at game shows a year or two ago. Okay, it does throw him (or her) in with Cerberus, but that could have happened in other ways too. I am a little disappointed that they don't really play with the extreme measures of Project Lazarus after the very beginning of the game. My Shepard was wondering for some time "all the procedures and cybernetics - am I really still me?" in spite of the Illusive Man's assurances he wanted Shepard as he was. It seems like other people, especially former crewmates who knew Shepard, would wonder the same thing. I guess there's enough dialogue without going down those routes, but I would have liked to see it said here and there, possibly even with implications there were side effects. Similarly, any lingering influence from the Prothean beacon of the first game don't seem to be explored.
At first, I was amazed that things could have returned to normal within two years of the incident with Sovereign and Saren. But when I arrived at the Citadel and spoke with the Council, it actually didn't seem such a leap. The only people to really have direct reason to believe in the Reaper threat would be Shepard and his squad. While the Council should probably trust their Spectres, the lack of proof would make it really easy to ignore doomsday prophecies. It would make sense the Council would want to restore order and bring things back to normalcy as quickly as possible - it's just a shame doing so is a rather horrible mistake.
I was a little sorry to see my Shepard, who saved the Council and was reinstated as a Spectre, never really had the opportunity to throw his wieght around as such. Oh, plenty of chances to intimidate or coerce people based on being a big hero of the Alliance and savior of the Citadel, but no real options to say "I'm a Spectre, deal with it."
The new Normandy is nice. It feels bigger, and appropriately so. It's a nice touch how you can invest in upgrades suggested by various squad characters, and it actually helps later. Joker is good to see again, and even Doctor Chakwas. Joker's interplay with EDI is done rather well. I confess I was wary of EDI from the get-go, and was doubly-worried after the Collector counter-hacking attempt on the ship. EDI proved "herself" though, no doubt. My Shepard was disappointed to see Liara had turned herself into a shady information broker rather than sticking with some profession that might make her available to aid, but what can you do?
Jacob: Okay, if somewhat stock ex-Alliance combat type. To my Shepard, he was a kindred spirit right away - someone working with/for Cerberus, but not fully trusting the organization. His loyalty mission made for a rather sad reunion, but he weathers it himself.
Miranda: Made to be "perfect" huh? I wonder if that's why the camera angles seem to like her ass. She's the "official" one of the crew, with a definite loyalty to Cerberus. Clearly the ice queen persona's a bit of a front, though, especially when things come to her kin. Being connected to a mercenary gang boss was somewhat unexpected.
Mordan: Right off, he had an interesting flavor to him in mannerisms. He could posit and reject several theories verbally in the time it takes most characters to say "Hello, Commander Shepard." He's a doctor, but has a ruthless streak you see early on. "Many ways to help people," he explains at one point, including bloodthirsty mercenaries.
When you get into his loyalty mission, though, it adds so much more to him. It turns out he's not so sure of his actions all the time, he shows regret and remorse. He helped renew/extend the Genophage because he genuinely believed it was necessary, but you see that he isn't entirely certain anymore, and that actually seems to haunt him.
Garrus: I really liked Garrus in the first game - a Citadel cop who left the force primarily because it was too limiting. In ME1, I had to rein him in some so he didn't go totally psycho vigilante. He definitely has a sense of right and wrong, but he can go to extremes, if not checked.
In ME2, he's much the same, though perhaps not quite as gung-ho about it most of the time. His introduction is interesting, and his loyalty mission is appropriately one of revenge or redemption. A familiar face, a trusted comrade, Garrus was all these things in my mind and was frequently picked as an active squadmate in both games.
Grunt: Grunt was sort of a disappointment. Frankly, I'm not sure how you can make a krogan that doesn't come across as one-dimensional. The most interesting thing about them is their racial history. As individuals, they like to fight. And that's about it.
But as a species, I really like their presence in the story. When the galaxy was threatened by an alien horde, the krogan were picked to be technologically uplifted to fight them off. Because of their warlike natural and high birth rates, however, they became the next conquering force that had to be banded together against and put down. And now they bear the legacy of that in the Genophage that radically limits their fertility rates. In some ways, the Genophage represents the salarians cleaning up the mess they made, but there's always the lingering question of whether they had the right, and whether that approach made it worse. No one really knows if the krogan might have outgrown their aggresion if they weren't backed into a corner where each one had to prove his worth against all others for a chance at offspring.
Jack: Jack has anger-management issues. ;) She's a ruthless bitch who believes she got a raw deal more than anyone else, and thus is righteous in her fury against everyone. Some of that may even be justified, but her loyalty mission proves she's hardly the only one shafted.
The fun thing to me about her is that she reminds me of Jhazza. It's not a perfect parallel, but the tattoos and constant looking for a fight stand out.
Zaeed: He's downloadable content, so not strictly necessary. A revenge-driven bastard, I find he's a little hard core even on my renegade play through. With my main, paragon Shepard, I tried to get him to let go of the past with very limited success. I suppose if you're really going for "evil" then he's a perfect person to have along, but I just found him distasteful and out of place on a ship trying to save the galaxy. But he's not a bad fighter, and his loyalty mission is interestingly done - though the paragon route seems a touch disappointing in that the escaping ship is shot down but not pursued. Really, would it be that hard to catch up with it so Zaeed can get what he wants, too?
Thane: When I saw Thane in the trailers/images, I though he was some mixed-breed asari-turian. Really, he looks it. But no, he's a drell. Intriguingly peaceful for an assassin, Thane is calm, spiritual, and even relatively at ease with the thought of his own demise. His loyalty mission involves saving his son from the same life he's led - a worthy goal. Talking to him was a change of pace compared to anyone else.
Samara: The asari seem a little bit like the minbari or elves - a race of "we're more advanced than you, nyah nyah" beings. The Justicar thing is a little interesting, though. A quasi-religious order sworn to uphold a code of racial ideals above all else, laws and police be damned. But the code has room within it to swear loyalty to others in a way to serve them when doing so might otherwise conflict. It's good to have those allowances. ;)
Being "forced" by her code to hunt down her own children is sad. Morinth isn't malicious, per se, but she doesn't hold in high regard the lives she takes either, so she's definitely not a good guy. That you can side with either in the moment of their confrontation, though, is an interesting twist, giving you a potent biotic teammate either way you go.
Tali'Zorah: I think my favorite companion character from the first game, and again in the second. It's hard for me not to pick her for my squad. Her tech talents are useful. Her personality hits the right notes in my mind with some degree of innocent idealism and pragmatism. I'm glad she was romanceable this time, unlike the first game, and that the difficulties therein were not completely glossed over either.
The quarians themselves are a bit better explored, too. And I find the quarian-geth conflict to be another aspect of the setting I really enjoy. That comes out in Tali's loyalty mission, as well as dealing with...
Legion: A latecomer to the crew (at least in the way I played it), Legion is a specialized geth that joins during a late main plot mission. Unlike most geth we've seen, who are almost animalistic or hive-minded, Legion speaks and is fully capable of operating alone. "He" gives a great deal of insight into the geth, and it's even explained that the ones working with Saren and the Reapers are "heretics" - a faction of geth split off from the main group. I actually wanted to learn more about Legion, as it seemed apparent to me "he" represents something new to the geth - individuality. The fact that the geth could suffer a schism shows they're not as unified as they think they are, and now there's one wearing bits and pieces of Shepard's old N7 armor - that "he" simply refuses to comment on when asked why.
While I'd like to see more interaction with some of the other characters, Legion is the one I have the most questions for and about that go unanswered.
Legion's presence implies that there could be a peaceful resolution to the quarian-geth conflict. The possibility doesn't mean it's likely or easy, though. When they machine race and their creators both essentially share the same homeworld, who should get it?
The paragon/renegade choices usually feel pretty natural, and sometimes you can go from one to the other. The was only one point I felt really "forced." When interrogating someone with Thane, I told him to play "bad cop." And yet, I kept getting renegade options. Was this a glitch? Does Thane not get the bad cop thing? I finally broke down and threatened the guy to get the information we needed, but I didn't do so happily.
And at the end, you're faced with one final paragon/renegade choice that feels absolutely huge. Do you destroy the repository of data gained at the loss of thousands of lives that might have some useful tidbits when it comes to fighting the Reapers, or do you preserve it and trust Cerberus to use that knowledge well. My Shepard couldn't bring himself to deactivate the bomb. "We'll fight the Reapers my way, and I'm not going to let humanity lose its soul in doing so," he says after the fact, and I take some solace in the thought that Reapers have been directing advancement for ages with seeded technology - beating them is more likely to come from new thinking than studying their tech. And yet, that choice felt like it could very well be damning in the next game, with the Reapers already waking.
There are a couple plot threads that don't seem fully explained. Humanity's unusual genetic variance is repeatedly mentioned, and might be why the hybrid at the end was working when theoretical past attempts didn't, but it comes up so often there seems like it could mean more. Also, there's the quarian study of a prematurely-dying star (and the shift in the star behind the Illusive Man's office) that appear to have importance well beyond the story thusfar. It's not natural, but destroy starts seems like overkill even for Reapers, so... could there be someone else at work?
The logs of a science team slowly being indoctrinated by a "dead" Reaper are also very creepy. "Even a dead god can dream," on researcher says, going on to explain that such a being doesn't have to try to shape the world around it to its whim, it simply happens. Freaky thought. Also, the husks are still creepy.
The intro was well done, though I'm not altogether certain of the narrative point. It almost seems like Shepard was killed off in order to make a stir at game shows a year or two ago. Okay, it does throw him (or her) in with Cerberus, but that could have happened in other ways too. I am a little disappointed that they don't really play with the extreme measures of Project Lazarus after the very beginning of the game. My Shepard was wondering for some time "all the procedures and cybernetics - am I really still me?" in spite of the Illusive Man's assurances he wanted Shepard as he was. It seems like other people, especially former crewmates who knew Shepard, would wonder the same thing. I guess there's enough dialogue without going down those routes, but I would have liked to see it said here and there, possibly even with implications there were side effects. Similarly, any lingering influence from the Prothean beacon of the first game don't seem to be explored.
At first, I was amazed that things could have returned to normal within two years of the incident with Sovereign and Saren. But when I arrived at the Citadel and spoke with the Council, it actually didn't seem such a leap. The only people to really have direct reason to believe in the Reaper threat would be Shepard and his squad. While the Council should probably trust their Spectres, the lack of proof would make it really easy to ignore doomsday prophecies. It would make sense the Council would want to restore order and bring things back to normalcy as quickly as possible - it's just a shame doing so is a rather horrible mistake.
I was a little sorry to see my Shepard, who saved the Council and was reinstated as a Spectre, never really had the opportunity to throw his wieght around as such. Oh, plenty of chances to intimidate or coerce people based on being a big hero of the Alliance and savior of the Citadel, but no real options to say "I'm a Spectre, deal with it."
The new Normandy is nice. It feels bigger, and appropriately so. It's a nice touch how you can invest in upgrades suggested by various squad characters, and it actually helps later. Joker is good to see again, and even Doctor Chakwas. Joker's interplay with EDI is done rather well. I confess I was wary of EDI from the get-go, and was doubly-worried after the Collector counter-hacking attempt on the ship. EDI proved "herself" though, no doubt. My Shepard was disappointed to see Liara had turned herself into a shady information broker rather than sticking with some profession that might make her available to aid, but what can you do?
Jacob: Okay, if somewhat stock ex-Alliance combat type. To my Shepard, he was a kindred spirit right away - someone working with/for Cerberus, but not fully trusting the organization. His loyalty mission made for a rather sad reunion, but he weathers it himself.
Miranda: Made to be "perfect" huh? I wonder if that's why the camera angles seem to like her ass. She's the "official" one of the crew, with a definite loyalty to Cerberus. Clearly the ice queen persona's a bit of a front, though, especially when things come to her kin. Being connected to a mercenary gang boss was somewhat unexpected.
Mordan: Right off, he had an interesting flavor to him in mannerisms. He could posit and reject several theories verbally in the time it takes most characters to say "Hello, Commander Shepard." He's a doctor, but has a ruthless streak you see early on. "Many ways to help people," he explains at one point, including bloodthirsty mercenaries.
When you get into his loyalty mission, though, it adds so much more to him. It turns out he's not so sure of his actions all the time, he shows regret and remorse. He helped renew/extend the Genophage because he genuinely believed it was necessary, but you see that he isn't entirely certain anymore, and that actually seems to haunt him.
Garrus: I really liked Garrus in the first game - a Citadel cop who left the force primarily because it was too limiting. In ME1, I had to rein him in some so he didn't go totally psycho vigilante. He definitely has a sense of right and wrong, but he can go to extremes, if not checked.
In ME2, he's much the same, though perhaps not quite as gung-ho about it most of the time. His introduction is interesting, and his loyalty mission is appropriately one of revenge or redemption. A familiar face, a trusted comrade, Garrus was all these things in my mind and was frequently picked as an active squadmate in both games.
Grunt: Grunt was sort of a disappointment. Frankly, I'm not sure how you can make a krogan that doesn't come across as one-dimensional. The most interesting thing about them is their racial history. As individuals, they like to fight. And that's about it.
But as a species, I really like their presence in the story. When the galaxy was threatened by an alien horde, the krogan were picked to be technologically uplifted to fight them off. Because of their warlike natural and high birth rates, however, they became the next conquering force that had to be banded together against and put down. And now they bear the legacy of that in the Genophage that radically limits their fertility rates. In some ways, the Genophage represents the salarians cleaning up the mess they made, but there's always the lingering question of whether they had the right, and whether that approach made it worse. No one really knows if the krogan might have outgrown their aggresion if they weren't backed into a corner where each one had to prove his worth against all others for a chance at offspring.
Jack: Jack has anger-management issues. ;) She's a ruthless bitch who believes she got a raw deal more than anyone else, and thus is righteous in her fury against everyone. Some of that may even be justified, but her loyalty mission proves she's hardly the only one shafted.
The fun thing to me about her is that she reminds me of Jhazza. It's not a perfect parallel, but the tattoos and constant looking for a fight stand out.
Zaeed: He's downloadable content, so not strictly necessary. A revenge-driven bastard, I find he's a little hard core even on my renegade play through. With my main, paragon Shepard, I tried to get him to let go of the past with very limited success. I suppose if you're really going for "evil" then he's a perfect person to have along, but I just found him distasteful and out of place on a ship trying to save the galaxy. But he's not a bad fighter, and his loyalty mission is interestingly done - though the paragon route seems a touch disappointing in that the escaping ship is shot down but not pursued. Really, would it be that hard to catch up with it so Zaeed can get what he wants, too?
Thane: When I saw Thane in the trailers/images, I though he was some mixed-breed asari-turian. Really, he looks it. But no, he's a drell. Intriguingly peaceful for an assassin, Thane is calm, spiritual, and even relatively at ease with the thought of his own demise. His loyalty mission involves saving his son from the same life he's led - a worthy goal. Talking to him was a change of pace compared to anyone else.
Samara: The asari seem a little bit like the minbari or elves - a race of "we're more advanced than you, nyah nyah" beings. The Justicar thing is a little interesting, though. A quasi-religious order sworn to uphold a code of racial ideals above all else, laws and police be damned. But the code has room within it to swear loyalty to others in a way to serve them when doing so might otherwise conflict. It's good to have those allowances. ;)
Being "forced" by her code to hunt down her own children is sad. Morinth isn't malicious, per se, but she doesn't hold in high regard the lives she takes either, so she's definitely not a good guy. That you can side with either in the moment of their confrontation, though, is an interesting twist, giving you a potent biotic teammate either way you go.
Tali'Zorah: I think my favorite companion character from the first game, and again in the second. It's hard for me not to pick her for my squad. Her tech talents are useful. Her personality hits the right notes in my mind with some degree of innocent idealism and pragmatism. I'm glad she was romanceable this time, unlike the first game, and that the difficulties therein were not completely glossed over either.
The quarians themselves are a bit better explored, too. And I find the quarian-geth conflict to be another aspect of the setting I really enjoy. That comes out in Tali's loyalty mission, as well as dealing with...
Legion: A latecomer to the crew (at least in the way I played it), Legion is a specialized geth that joins during a late main plot mission. Unlike most geth we've seen, who are almost animalistic or hive-minded, Legion speaks and is fully capable of operating alone. "He" gives a great deal of insight into the geth, and it's even explained that the ones working with Saren and the Reapers are "heretics" - a faction of geth split off from the main group. I actually wanted to learn more about Legion, as it seemed apparent to me "he" represents something new to the geth - individuality. The fact that the geth could suffer a schism shows they're not as unified as they think they are, and now there's one wearing bits and pieces of Shepard's old N7 armor - that "he" simply refuses to comment on when asked why.
While I'd like to see more interaction with some of the other characters, Legion is the one I have the most questions for and about that go unanswered.
Legion's presence implies that there could be a peaceful resolution to the quarian-geth conflict. The possibility doesn't mean it's likely or easy, though. When they machine race and their creators both essentially share the same homeworld, who should get it?
The paragon/renegade choices usually feel pretty natural, and sometimes you can go from one to the other. The was only one point I felt really "forced." When interrogating someone with Thane, I told him to play "bad cop." And yet, I kept getting renegade options. Was this a glitch? Does Thane not get the bad cop thing? I finally broke down and threatened the guy to get the information we needed, but I didn't do so happily.
And at the end, you're faced with one final paragon/renegade choice that feels absolutely huge. Do you destroy the repository of data gained at the loss of thousands of lives that might have some useful tidbits when it comes to fighting the Reapers, or do you preserve it and trust Cerberus to use that knowledge well. My Shepard couldn't bring himself to deactivate the bomb. "We'll fight the Reapers my way, and I'm not going to let humanity lose its soul in doing so," he says after the fact, and I take some solace in the thought that Reapers have been directing advancement for ages with seeded technology - beating them is more likely to come from new thinking than studying their tech. And yet, that choice felt like it could very well be damning in the next game, with the Reapers already waking.
There are a couple plot threads that don't seem fully explained. Humanity's unusual genetic variance is repeatedly mentioned, and might be why the hybrid at the end was working when theoretical past attempts didn't, but it comes up so often there seems like it could mean more. Also, there's the quarian study of a prematurely-dying star (and the shift in the star behind the Illusive Man's office) that appear to have importance well beyond the story thusfar. It's not natural, but destroy starts seems like overkill even for Reapers, so... could there be someone else at work?
The logs of a science team slowly being indoctrinated by a "dead" Reaper are also very creepy. "Even a dead god can dream," on researcher says, going on to explain that such a being doesn't have to try to shape the world around it to its whim, it simply happens. Freaky thought. Also, the husks are still creepy.
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