Mass Effect 2... OMG FUN !!!

[Baileyneverfailey]

The Shadow Broker DLC is very good.

 

[Kevinicus]

The plot of ME2 was literally "Gather a team of people willing to help you go on a suicide mission through the omega 4 relay to stop the collector threat, and make them loyal to you so they'll put their lives on the line for you when the time comes."

So yeah, the recruitment and loyalty missions precisely advance the plot. Just because you want to simplify the plot down to "Collectors are stealing human colonies, go through and stop them," ignoring the fact that Shepherd needed a team of experts and soldiers to do so doesn't change the fact that it was part of the plot.

That would be like saying the plot in ME1 is "Stop a reaper," and all the stuff you did leading up to it did nothing to advance that plot.

The bolded is much more of a plot (though it certainly is a lot more simplified than I would have said) than recruitment missions. If you're assertion truly is, that recruitment is the central plot of ME2, then I would assert that IMO it is possibly the worst plot in the history of gaming. I don't believe that to be the case, and there are interesting story elements in the game...just not very much of it is in the recruitment or loyalty missions.

There is a plot that stretches from ME 1 all the way to ME 3. It's a mainly involves the Reapers and the threat they pose, as well as the history of the Reapers and the things they've done in the past. ME2's central plot IMO revolves around the Collectors, and discovering what they're about and where they fit in with the Reapers, and what it means about what is headed their way.

It is my opinion while that recruitment may be necessary to a point, it should not be the focal point of a good RPG (or story driven game), but a rather minor aspect. They easily could have thrown in story elements that tied into the main plot during the recruitment/loyalty missions which would have made them more interesting. A "plot" that consists of "Go get this person" repeated 8 or so times, is no plot at all.

 

[Baileyneverfailey]

The recruitment is definitely central to the plot of ME2. The point is that after Shepherd died and his team from ME1 went on to do their own thing, he had to get a team to go with him through the Omega 4 relay. Not only recruiting them, but also making them loyal to him was an integral part of the story.

I'm not saying there's something wrong with you not liking the fact that the plot was centered around recruiting the team. In fact, when I first heard that only 2 party members were returning from ME1 and that the game centered around gathering your team I was skeptical, and I thought "I don't want to play a game where the majority of the game is just going and recruiting people." I just felt like they proved me wrong and made the game exceptionally interesting from start to finish.

If you don't feel that way, that's perfectly cool. I definitely don't disagree that the recruitment and loyalty missions didn't actually relate to the overarching story, I just never felt ripped off that they were such a big part of the game because I felt it made sense given the context of the mission at hand. I felt like a big part of ME2 also was just solidifying the knowledge that the Protheans were not this great civilization, but were just another in a long line of organic species that the Reapers let evolve just to harvest. I thought it was awesome when we got to find out how the new Reapers were actually created, and why they let organics go through their cycle of evolution over and over the way they have.

I think ME3 is really going to bring it all together in an incredible way.

 

[WarC]

I played the first Mass Effect on the PC two summers ago and while I did finish it, I didn't come away that impressed. The first person action sequences just seemed kind of "off" compared to most FPSs in a way I can't really explain. I didn't find it to be a very open-ended game, I was really hoping Mass Effect would be like "Oblivion in Space", or "Morrowind in Space", if any of you guys have played those RPGs. But the Mass Effect games are certainly more theatrically and linearly driven than the Elder Scrolls games.

The way they marketed and to some extent the way the mainstream reviewed the Mass Effect games make it seem like this free-for-all thing where you can fly your ship anywhere, do anything, and kill some time on the star ship...Like a do-it-yourself Star Trek adventure. It may still seem that way to most of the people who play it (theres no denying its one the biggest franchises in gaming today) but the first one just struck me as being a lot more limited in scope than I imagined it would be.

That said, I recently built a new computer and I've been tempted to get ME2 just to see how the graphics look all spiked up. It does certainly look beautiful!

 

[Baileyneverfailey]

Bioware doesn't make open ended games like Elder Scrolls. They didn't market Mass Effect that way either. The hallmarks of Bioware games are the narrative, and usually a pretty big focus on developing the personalities of your party members and your relationships with them. Both of those things are featured in Mass Effect.

There's a place for games like Oblivion and Fallout, but I don't want that kind of experience in a Bioware game. Those games are about the fun of exploration, but the stories are usually forgettable at best.

 

[Kevinicus]

The recruitment is definitely central to the plot of ME2. The point is that after Shepherd died and his team from ME1 went on to do their own thing, he had to get a team to go with him through the Omega 4 relay. Not only recruiting them, but also making them loyal to him was an integral part of the story.

I'm not saying there's something wrong with you not liking the fact that the plot was centered around recruiting the team. In fact, when I first heard that only 2 party members were returning from ME1 and that the game centered around gathering your team I was skeptical, and I thought "I don't want to play a game where the majority of the game is just going and recruiting people." I just felt like they proved me wrong and made the game exceptionally interesting from start to finish.

If you don't feel that way, that's perfectly cool. I definitely don't disagree that the recruitment and loyalty missions didn't actually relate to the overarching story, I just never felt ripped off that they were such a big part of the game because I felt it made sense given the context of the mission at hand. I felt like a big part of ME2 also was just solidifying the knowledge that the Protheans were not this great civilization, but were just another in a long line of organic species that the Reapers let evolve just to harvest. I thought it was awesome when we got to find out how the new Reapers were actually created, and why they let organics go through their cycle of evolution over and over the way they have.

I think ME3 is really going to bring it all together in an incredible way.

I hope so, because despite my criticisms, I still liked it enough to play through the end (even if I didn't do all the loyalty and other side missions) and will definitely be finishing the trilogy.

 

[Baileyneverfailey]

Just out of curiosity, how many, if any, of the party members and crew did you lose at the end during the final mission? I've played through the game several times but I've always done them all and never lost anybody, so I'm just curious how it plays out if you don't do them. I read that you can get Shepherd and everybody killed and still complete the game if you don't do any of the stuff you're supposed to, but I have no idea how they would translate that to ME3.

 

[Ren]

Just out of curiosity, how many, if any, of the party members and crew did you lose at the end during the final mission? I've played through the game several times but I've always done them all and never lost anybody, so I'm just curious how it plays out if you don't do them. I read that you can get Shepherd and everybody killed and still complete the game if you don't do any of the stuff you're supposed to, but I have no idea how they would translate that to ME3.

I lost 1 (Zaeed) on my first play trough, never lost anyone on any of my play troughs after that

 

[Kevinicus]

Just out of curiosity, how many, if any, of the party members and crew did you lose at the end during the final mission? I've played through the game several times but I've always done them all and never lost anybody, so I'm just curious how it plays out if you don't do them. I read that you can get Shepherd and everybody killed and still complete the game if you don't do any of the stuff you're supposed to, but I have no idea how they would translate that to ME3.

If I remember correctly, I lost 2, Talia (or whatever her name was, from the first game), and the science geek alien. Pretty sure that's it, but I'm not certain. I did get all the upgrades for the ship (stupid mining crap), but did only the minimum on the loyalty missions. I think I read that the one woman played by Yvonne from Chuck is scripted to live either way.