I'm not inside my own mind today... This is part two of a, PROBABLY, three part blog on Mass Effect. Yeah it's going to take me a few blogs just to talk about ONE series of video games. I just completed Mass Effect 3, there's lots of buzz about that game so I'll just say to get the gist of part one, read it. I am kind of just taking off where I left off as this is part two.
WARNING: I will be discussing VAGUE plot elements. I will NOT be ruining any key moments of the game itself but I will be ruining points of the game per-se that you would otherwise have to play to find out about. General plot stuff, nothing too "WHY DID YOU RUIN THAT" okay? I promise!
SO... I just stopped Saren right? I'm Commander Shepard, on top of the world. Following the first game, you could say I was on a bit of a high. The game did a great job of making you feel like your efforts in the end of the game were really balls to the walls and that everything depended on what you did in those final moments. The drama, tension, it was perfect and really at that time was probably one of the best endings to a video game I had played, and since then, it stands as one of the best endings to a video game period in my opinion.
There was also a eagerness because now that I had finally experienced Mass Effect, played it through, I had something big to look forward to. Mass Effect 2 was coming!
Mass Effect 2 was big because you got to import your character from the first game and those big important choices you had to make would shape and affect the game as you played through Mass Effect 2. They eventually made a DLC interactive comic so that, if you wanted, you didn't HAVE to play through the first game to make those important choices, you could make them in the comic and then the game would reflect those choices. You, to my knowledge, didn't get the in-game perks that you would typically get with importing a Mass Effect 1 character.
There was no demo, which at the time made me kind of sad. I was playing BioWare's current release at the time, a fantasy game called Dragon Age: Origins which was a decent game in it's own right, it wasn't quite filling my Mass Effect cravings...
Mass Effect 2 starts out with a bang, we'll say. You're shot out of the sky, presumably dead, and brought back to life by Cerberus, an organization that you learn in the first game is somewhere in the realm between "Outside The Box" and "Extremist". You're introduced to a man named The Illusive Man, voiced by Martin Sheen, who is the "leader" of Cerberus. He wants you to help him learn about these beings called The Collectors who are abducting Human Colonies. Sure, sounds reasonable. He brought you back to life, you like humanity, so you the enemy of your enemy is your friend right?
Long story short, you learn the Collectors are in cahoots with The Reapers (They're baaaack!) so you're thrust once again into the forefront of a battle to keep the Galaxy safe from the Reaper Threat. The Illusive Man isn't going to leave you hanging though, he's given you a number of dossiers of potential allies to recruit for your Suicide Mission against the Collectors. You run into some old friends too from Mass Effect 1 along the way.
Now, Mass Effect 2, as a game, I think it's the best of the 3. It gets some flak for its step back from RPG elements in favor for making the game a more forward shooter but that doesn't mean that Mass Effect 2 isn't, on it's own, one of the best RPG's that have been made in this century, if not among the all time great RPG Video Games.
The way the game keeps its RPG-ness alive is probably more in the background. The squad-mate combat is refined. You can tell your AI teammates to actually position themselves in different locations. You couldn't do this in ME1 which made things frustrating at times but in 2, you could be strategic, and use flanks and combat tactics to your advantage. Leveling up yourself and your squadmates was also simplified but the game had more than double the squadmates of ME1 so this made sense to me. To me, combat seemed easier because the squad mates seemed more effective than in Mass Effect 1.
Of course, Mass Effect just wouldn't be Mass Effect without making huge choices and they up the ante big time in Mass Effect 2. You're forced to make choices that effect entire alien races, choices that will gain you new friends or new enemies and of course, the weight of your choices could mean life itself.
The end of the game? Well they didn't slouch there either. The Suicide Mission was probably better than the end of Mass Effect 1 simply because it was as do-or-die as it gets. This was also one of the more RPG-centric parts of the game as well. Using your squad-mates strengths and weaknesses, you assign your allies to different important tasks of the suicide mission. Their performance in their assignment, as well as yours, affects who lives or dies in the mission itself (so potentially, who will or will not be there for Mass Effect 3.) It was a great way to end the game and Mass Effect 2 ended on a strong note.
Now the game ended with a bang, maybe... depending on what choice you made... and what followed the end of Mass Effect 2 was just a perfect storm of speculation.
With Mass Effect 3 forthcoming, everything was analyzed. Where could the choices you made lead you in the third game? Fan speculation was awesome, I loved reading the ideas people had and the theories that fans came up with. Their in-game evidence and their own speculations in regards to what that could lead to in the third game.
My personal favorite has to be the "Worst Possible Playthrough" (Can be read here (contains numerous spoilers)) In which one such fan took it upon themselves to make all the worst choices they could through the first two games to ensure they had the greatest potential to fail in the third game. All I can say in this regard, thanks to the power of retrospect, is that it's a complete shame this didn't play out as well as it could have (and I will get to that in Part Three.) but the fact that the theme of choice in the game of course can inspire the worst in people is something I love to see in video games.
The thing that sets the Mass Effect games apart from the rest is that things like this CAN happen. You can try to do the WORST job you can to ensure a specific result. How many games can you really do that with outside of the Bethesda games (Morrowind/Fallout 3) and I'm not sure about those because I haven't played them.
Due to the nature of duality in the game (Renegade/Paragon choices) I've always tried to play through each game twice. Because of this, I've beat the Mass Effect games (The first two) more times than any other game I can think of. I've beat Mass Effect 1, 4 times and I've beaten Mass Effect 2, 3 times. The reason I've beaten Mass Effect 1 one extra time is that part-way through my initial Playthrough of Mass Effect 2, I realized that my lackadaisical nature toward this duality (I had casually picked both renegade and paragon choices in ME1) had impacted my character and limited my potential off the start.. Because of this I re-beat the first game to import my "pure paragon" Shepard into the game for all the perks. I know... I know...
Mass Effect 2 did everything Mass Effect did well, BETTER. Especially character work! All your favorite characters make a return appearance in one way or another in Mass Effect 2, some are even squad mates. These rich characters like Garrus, Tali and Wrex continue to grow in Mass Effect 2 while you meet some new interesting faces like Thane, Mordin and Grunt. Just as with the first game, you find yourself attached to these characters and it helps shape your own Mass Effect journey as you learn about these new characters and learn things about characters like Garrus and Tali you never knew. It helps continue to flesh out the world without making it feel like a forced sequel, it's like a natural extension of the first game.
Mass Effect 2 was an absolute triumph... and it made what followed difficult for a lot of people. How did it make me feel? Well... you'll have to read Part Three for my thoughts on Mass Effect 3!
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