Current Events > Finished Mass Effect 2 for the first time *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

...that was it? >_>

The plot sorta felt like they didnt know what to do and were just killing time before 3. Ended up feeling like random adventures in the Mass Effect universe more than a middle chapter of a trilogy.

which, to be fair, Im totally here for. I adore the Mass Effect universe and loved pretty much everything about the game. But it didnt really leave me hyped for the third game. Nothing about the state of the story really changed.

thanks for the advice some of you guys gave me in the other topic. Ended up having everyone survive the suicide mission. Ive got a handful of loose ends to tie up, (will probably bang Garrus. I feel less bad about breaking up with Liara now that the relationship is long distance >_>)

besides that, will probably hold off on doing 3. Dont want to burn out. Will probably look into those novels though.

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I love the way 2 is structured. The whole Recruit mission->Loyalty mission thing, and how self-contained that all are, makes it feel like a tv series.

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I've said before that ME2 feels like a sidequests.
That said, I still love it.
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it is the middle part of a trilogy
kind of part of how trilogies work
the first one to set up the conflict
the last one to finish it

but the middle one is often just worldbuilding

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AlisLandale posted...

Ended up having everyone survive the suicide mission.

I never got the complaints of that, I was all pretty in your face with who to pick, I thought. People just made stupid decisions like "Oh, when you first meet Grunt he was in a tube, therefore I thought he could be the one going through the vents and disabling all the tech, that makes sense to me!"
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Mass Effect 1 is a grand spacefaring adventure, in the tradition of Star Trek and other sci-fi militaristic serials and movies and stuff.

Mass Effect 2 is literally just Character Focus: The Game. I think it's so beloved because so many people love the characters and the way they were fleshed out and treated.

My thing is that I'm not a big fan of idealistic or earnest stories being replaced by dark, edgy stories. Wasn't a fan of Jak 2 compared to Jak and Daxter for example. Mass Effect 2 is probably the best gritty sequel I've ever played - the change in tone and the darkness of the characters and the plot were done incredibly well.

But it is the characterisation which is the cornerstone of the game. And the way that the characters are presented, the way their stories guide your mission, is unprecedented and unparalleled in my book.

My favorite part of this game is how they flesh out the Geth with Legion. In my playthrough topics, I would write about how I wanted the Geth to be more than just a mook race and to have their own culture and customs - and I remember that there were people who were eager to see me do the dead Reaper mission where he shows up. There was definitely an air of something being up in the thread, but nobody spoiled it for me, which was a huge relief.

How did you feel about the Joker section, TC? And what your opinion on Legion and EDI after all is said and done?

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Heineken14 posted...

I never got the complaints of that, I was all pretty in your face with who to pick, I thought. People just made stupid decisions like "Oh, when you first meet Grunt he was in a tube, therefore I thought he could be the one going through the vents and disabling all the tech, that makes sense to me!"

Lmao

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Sending Grunt through the vent is approximately 1000% more amazing than sending Thane.

ME2 is my favorite. I was so hype at the end credits, and ME3 came so agonizingly close to delivering on that hype only to end like, well, ME3.

"Suicide Mission" is a top tier music track.

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What did you think of Harbinger's final monologue?

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ME2 would have probably felt better narratively speaking if the team you gathered in ME2 was mostly your team in ME3. It's understandable why they didn't do it that was, as there's several possibilities for how you can end your ME2 run which would make it a nightmare trying to account for all of those possibilities (not to mention the resources required might not have been feasible), but it certainly would improve the impact of ME2 since it have really been the game where you put together the team that you ultimately go to war against the Reapers with.

Let's chill out with the ME3 stuff, TC's going in blind when they're ready so we should let them experience that on their own terms.

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ROBANN_88 posted...

it is the middle part of a trilogy
kind of part of how trilogies work
the first one to set up the conflict
the last one to finish it

but the middle one is often just worldbuilding

my main thing is, compared to something like Empire Strikes Back, is that theres nothing that really feels like it advances the conflict. The plot twist with the humanoid reaper, as interesting as it was, felt pretty much resolved, since it takes place on the collectors home base and it all gets blown to hell. Though I guess Ill just have to see how that gets followed up on.

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Sending Grunt through the vent is approximately 1000% more amazing than sending Thane.

ME2 is my favorite. I was so hype at the end credits, and ME3 came so agonizingly close to delivering on that hype only to end like, well, ME3.

Lmao at Grunt. And also lmao at Thane. Whats there reasoning for Thane? They said tech specialist so I was torn between Tali and Kasumi.

MrMallard posted...

How did you feel about the Joker section, TC? And what your opinion on Legion and EDI after all is said and done?

Joker section was brutal. I mean in terms of difficulty it was really simple, but seeing the crew get slaughtered like that kinda fucked with me. But Seth Green really kills it with the character. Its kinda rare that stories manage to inject humor into those situations and have it feel natural and not take away from the tension, but he was making me laugh while simultaneously feeling horrified, so i was impressed. >_>

Legion was super cool. Wasnt really expecting to suddenly care about the Geth but like you said, the game was great how the fleshed all that out. Ended up going with rewrite on his loyalty mission mainly because of how much I liked his character. (I mean, removing self-determination is bad, but the reapers are objectively evil and had no interest in the Geth other than as an exploitable resource. Felt less like brainwashing and more like saving cult-members *from* brainwashing lol.)

EDI was cute. Liked the rapport she developed with Joker.

And yeah, the tone was really good. I think what made it work is that yeah, its character focused. It evolved the world by exploring the darker corners instead of taking away from the parts that were already light.

Strider102 posted...

What did you think of Harbinger's final monologue?

The one from Arrival? It was pretty decent as a villain monologue goes. But its kinda hard to top the Sovereign speech from ME1.

And one final lmao at the Illusive Man. The ships mine now, later bitch.

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AlisLandale posted...

Lmao at Grunt. And also lmao at Thane. Whats there reasoning for Thane? They said tech specialist so I was torn between Tali and Kasumi.

Probably from Thane being assassin, in which their thought process might have been that since he would have likely had to do some infiltration missions to reach his assassination targets that it could have meant he could get through that section.

Legion can also get through the vents without any causalities alongside those 2, provided you picked a good leader for the 2nd team of course.

Since you're done with the game, do you want to hear an interesting fact about the suicide mission? You might already know, but I thought I'd bring it up if you wanted to hear about it.

I'm sure you've been able to intuit this, but everyone on your team can die. As long as one of your team mates survive, though, you get back to the Normandy and whoosh out of there - heavy casualties, but job done. If every team member dIes, though, Shepard jumps for the Normandy and gets caught by Joker - but it's too much weight for him to handle alone, and Shepard decides to let go and fall to their death. Mission accomplished still, but Shepard's dead and you can't start a ME3 save game with that ending. Bad End

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Arrival was the nice cap to that game.

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