Mass Effect 2 Discussion

[Morgoth]

Well I never liked Jack anyway...

 

Did anyone else die during the mission besides Jack and Tali?

Yes, albeit I did all the loyality missions. Only Miranda, Garrus, Grunt and that geth survived.

[jaguars4ever]

Ah, the eternal dilemma: How to rid yourself of Miranda, Jacob, & Jack (esp. Jack) without detrimentally effecting the health of yourself and the rest of your crew?

 

The Good:

Mordin: Best Bio NPC ever. 'Nuff said. Gilbert and Sullivan FTW!1

Garrus: Fav character from ME1. Didn't disappoint this time around. Love how he retained the psychological hardening I taught him in ME1.

Tali: Joint Fav character from ME1, as she was one of the few characters that actually seemed to care for Shepherd. Now in ME2, she's finally romanceable too. In fact, my favorite Bio romance after Leliana.

Legion: Awesome addition from a faction I didn't expect. Implemented really well (must take on Flotilla/Citadel). One of the more interesting characters from the ME universe. Rendition of The Robot was awesome!

Grunt: I must admit, I expected Grunt to suck donkey balls. He proved me wrong. Actually had compelling and believable character development...for a Krogan.

 

--

 

The Bad:

 

Jacob: To be fair, I don't really hate Jacob. It's just that he has less personality than a Halo mook. And has no sense of humor (neither does Bitch Queen Miranda mind you). Granted, he is respectful to the rest of your crew. And he does seem to be an honorable sort. Ah, forget it. He can stay...for now.

Miranda: Bitch Queen must go, however. Questions every decision I make. Give my back my yes-man Pressley, dammit! No sense of humor. No integrity either mind you: She lies and manipulates. And she snoops on your email. That's just bad form.

Zaeed: Great loyalty question and all, but he's not really fully implemented. Those "bubble convos" on the Normandy didn't cut it for me. Seemed like a last-minute inclusion...or serious neglect.

Samara: Space Paladin. Ugh. It's nothing personal Samara, and you're a swell gal and all...but the whole paladin/boobie thing brought back recessed memories of Aribeth.

Thane: Love him or hate him. I'm sure the ladies swooned over Fish-Lips. And to fair, he's one of the more chatty NPCs. But there's only so much drug-induced-emo-spasms a guy can take.

 

--

The Ugly:

Jack: And then there's Subject-OMFG-Ultimate-Freak. No words can express the loathing and utter contempt I have for this NPC. Hell, I'd rather have Yeslick in my party than this reject. I should have left her on that prison ship where she belongs.

[Chrisimo]

Well I never liked Jack anyway...

 

Did anyone else die during the mission besides Jack and Tali?

Yes, albeit I did all the loyality missions. Only Miranda, Garrus, Grunt and that geth survived.

 

Then my theory regarding the door defenders still stands. There are three occasions where a seemingly random team member dies and I haven't figured out yet all the reasons that determine which member it will be.

[Morgoth]

I only kept Miranda all the time with me because I thought that would let me make boinking her.

 

I was wrong.

 

Ah, good that there's still youtube...I didn't really miss much btw.

[Oner]

Garrus: Fav character from ME1. Didn't disappoint this time around. Love how he retained the psychological hardening I taught him in ME1.

Legion: Awesome addition from a faction I didn't expect. Implemented really well (must take on Flotilla/Citadel). One of the more interesting characters from the ME universe. Rendition of The Robot was awesome!

Garrus: I wanted him neutral good in ME1, but he came off as chaotic good instead. Which I'm not sure I appreciate. Oh well, still have a playthrough to fine-tune him somehow.

 

Legion: Spoil me. If I dart for him from the beginning and lug him around everywhere, does that get my crew killed or not? You guys confused me.

[Chrisimo]

Garrus: Fav character from ME1. Didn't disappoint this time around. Love how he retained the psychological hardening I taught him in ME1.

Legion: Awesome addition from a faction I didn't expect. Implemented really well (must take on Flotilla/Citadel). One of the more interesting characters from the ME universe. Rendition of The Robot was awesome!

Garrus: I wanted him neutral good in ME1, but he came off as chaotic good instead. Which I'm not sure I appreciate. Oh well, still have a playthrough to fine-tune him somehow.

 

Legion: Spoil me. If I dart for him from the beginning and lug him around everywhere, does that get my crew killed or not? You guys confused me.

 

You can get everyone including your crew through alive if you have at least 4 teammembers loyal (Garrus/Miranda, Jack/Samara, Tali/Legion, and someone else for the crew escort) and did all the upgrades (shields, armor and weapons).

 

As soon as you acquire Legion you can do two more missions until the crew gets captured. Then you have to go after them immediately if you want them to survive.

Edited February 10, 2010 by Chrisimo

[Oner]

You can get everyone including your crew through alive if you have at least 4 teammembers loyal (Garrus/Miranda, Jack/Samara, Tali/Legion, and someone else for the crew escort) and did all the upgrades (shields, armor and weapons).

Thanks.

[Morgoth]

Ah that's it, now I remember: The Samara and that fish dude's mission failed. For some reason, I didn't find a way to follow the target anymore. Then his son commited a criminal act...Yes, that's it.

[213374U]

Grunt: I must admit, I expected Grunt to suck donkey balls. He proved me wrong. Actually had compelling and believable character development...for a Krogan.

He was fine... except he's a krogan. I mean, the whole "KILL! MAIM! MURDER!" thing applied to an entire culture is quite silly. I remember than in ME1, Ash and Wrex have an Elevator Convo, and Wrex specifically mocks this krogan stereotyping. Sounded promising, but Bio chose to take the easy path and reduce krogan to multi-gonad Klingons. And since Grunt is the UBER krogan, he ends up being uber silly.

 

 

Miranda: Bitch Queen must go, however. Questions every decision I make. Give my back my yes-man Pressley, dammit! No sense of humor. No integrity either mind you: She lies and manipulates. And she snoops on your email. That's just bad form.

So... what you're saying is that she's exactly the kind of person you'd expect TIM to choose to watch his multi-billion cred investment?

 

I liked her precisely for that. And her cameltoe.

 

 

Ah that's it, now I remember: The Samara and that fish dude's mission failed. For some reason, I didn't find a way to follow the target anymore. Then his son commited a criminal act...Yes, that's it.

Whoa, you can actually fail that mission? I must have got lucky then. Didn't have to backtrack once.

[jaguars4ever]

You can get everyone including your crew through alive if you have at least 4 teammembers loyal (Garrus/Miranda, Jack/Samara, Tali/Legion, and someone else for the crew escort) and did all the upgrades (shields, armor and weapons).

Thanks.

Don't thank him yet.

That's only only if your crewmembers (not your squadmembers) are alive enough to be escorted. If you recruit Legion (which happens right before the crew's kidnapping), and go stargazing for 2 or more missions, then your crewmembers (Kelly, etc) will be liquefied.

 

[Nepenthe]

Grunt: I must admit, I expected Grunt to suck donkey balls. He proved me wrong. Actually had compelling and believable character development...for a Krogan.

He was fine... except he's a krogan. I mean, the whole "KILL! MAIM! MURDER!" thing applied to an entire culture is quite silly. I remember than in ME1, Ash and Wrex have an Elevator Convo, and Wrex specifically mocks this krogan stereotyping. Sounded promising, but Bio chose to take the easy path and reduce krogan to multi-gonad Klingons. And since Grunt is the UBER krogan, he ends up being uber silly.

 

 

Miranda: Bitch Queen must go, however. Questions every decision I make. Give my back my yes-man Pressley, dammit! No sense of humor. No integrity either mind you: She lies and manipulates. And she snoops on your email. That's just bad form.

So... what you're saying is that she's exactly the kind of person you'd expect TIM to choose to watch his multi-billion cred investment?

 

I liked her precisely for that.

 

 

These were my impressions as well (including pretty much agreeing with mah Man Jags on the rest). 'cept Jack doesn't provoke any strong feelings in me, thae fact that she's in a hard-to-reach (well, relatively) area of the ship just makes it easier to ignore her.

 

Miranda, though, I like a lot. Not just for the stripperific outfit, but the fact that the whole epic boobage, bootage and bodypaint uniform also apparently give her some serious self-esteem issues - best of the "daddy issue" quests, too imho. The fact that there's quite a bit of the amazingly gorgeous and superbly sexy-voiced and accented Yvonne Strahovski there is just the icing on the cake. Garrus and Tali were kind of thin in ME1, but come to their full potential here, and Mordin and Legion are just made of awesome.

 

Jacob is just meh, I guess if I'd played ME: Galaxy, I might care a bit more, but now he's basically just a reference to a stupid handheld game I haven't played with little to bring to the table this time around. Thane and Grunt I actively dislike (pouty estrogen brigade bait with flashbacks and family issues, caricature krogan), Samara brings little to the table apart from being mechanically a really good character and having epic cleavage (though, taking the other path through her loyalty quest on this second playthrough might make it a bit more interesting). Zaeed - just feels a total let-down, especially after the way Shale showed us how a proper DLC NPC can be done...

 

Happily I can just stick to the NPCs I like, use the ones I am indifferent to and pretty much ignore the two-three I really don't like.

Edited February 10, 2010 by Nepenthe

[Oner]

You can get everyone including your crew through alive if you have at least 4 teammembers loyal (Garrus/Miranda, Jack/Samara, Tali/Legion, and someone else for the crew escort) and did all the upgrades (shields, armor and weapons).

Thanks.

Don't thank him yet.

That's only only if your crewmembers (not your squadmembers) are alive enough to be escorted. If you recruit Legion (which happens right before the crew's kidnapping), and go stargazing for 2 or more missions, then your crewmembers (Kelly, etc) will be liquefied.

 

Yeah, I've read some related posts some time ago. Well, so long Jack nice knowing you

're dead

.

[213374U]

(though, taking the other path through her loyalty quest on this second playthrough might make it a bit more interesting).

Doesn't. Apart from being the most WTF?-moment in the game that I can remember,

haxoring people

isn't really worth it.

 

And no, she don't put out either. :/

 

edit: actually, I just remembered that she does.

Edited February 10, 2010 by 213374U

[Chrisimo]

(though, taking the other path through her loyalty quest on this second playthrough might make it a bit more interesting).

Doesn't. Apart from being the most WTF?-moment in the game that I can remember,

haxoring people

isn't really worth it.

 

And no, she don't put out either. :/

 

She does

but you die.

 

[Malcador]

Well, that much was predictable.

[HoonDing]

Is it even possible to fail Bucktooth's & Jacob's loyalty quest?

 

I'm going to try having them die horribly in my Paragon replay.

[Chrisimo]

He was fine... except he's a krogan. I mean, the whole "KILL! MAIM! MURDER!" thing applied to an entire culture is quite silly.

 

I'm not sure it's silly. It's one of the few ways in which an alien species can actually be alien besides appearance. If you take any specific Alien out of Mass Effect (or other Universes for that matter) it will just be a human with different looks. We cannot truly imagine a real alien mind. So if the Krogan are actually all alike in that case it would at least be different than humans (as a species).

It only becomes silly for sure when you look at it from a human perspective and apply human standards to other species.

[Malcador]

They're just like Orks in 40k. Staple to have a warrior race in sci-fi settings, no ?

[Volourn]

"Maybe it's because none of use have run into this again?

 

You're right!

I'll stop him!

Not if I can help it!"

 

Kiddin' right? That's littered all over ME2. heck, it's in every BIO game. Quite frankly, it'sa staple of the rpg genre as a whole. *shrug*

 

 

 

"Or maybe people have just resigned themselves to the fact that it's not going to change. Bioware did a better job with it this time around. Much fewer instances of the summary not matching the spoken dialog in meaning/tone. Fewer instances of dialog being shared over multiple responses as well. If they only have two lines, they only give you two choices."

 

Nah. Bottom line is people didn't like the dialogue wheel because it was different than BIo's previous games. People are sued to it now so it's natural to them now. *shrug*

 

 

As for the npcs, I like Jacob simply because he is 'normal'. Beats the freaks. Mirana is a well rounded characetr who actually shows some growth. That's fantastic. The 'space paladin' is much more than that as well. She's no normal paladin that is for sure. Grunt was alright but rather boring. Jack.. well.. lewast said abou that uselessm piece of garbage the better.

[Oner]

They're just like Orks in 40k. Staple to have a warrior race in sci-fi settings, no ?

Orks are much better.

[Chrisimo]

They're just like Orks in 40k. Staple to have a warrior race in sci-fi settings, no ?

 

Or the gorillas in the old 'Planet of the Apes' movies.

[Volourn]

Except those two races (IIRC about the orks butc ertainly it applies to the POTA gorillas) are extremely shallow and 100%one dimensional with no redeeming value whatsoever. The krogans as prone to violence and war like they are do have some. You meet a lot of krogans who are more than just about violence for just the sake of violence. Krogan have the potential to be redeemable, and it's not likem other races are totally innocent in that entire mess.

Edited February 10, 2010 by Volourn

[Chrisimo]

Except those two races (IIRC about the orks butc ertainly it applies to the POTA gorillas) are extremely shallow and 100%one dimensional with no redeeming value whatsoever. The krogans as prone to violence and war like they are do have some. You meet a lot of krogans who are more than just about violence for just the sake of violence. Krogan have the potential to be redeemable, and it's not likem other races are totally innocent in that entire mess.

 

I wasn't judging the species or their implementation. I was just offering the thought that this 'stereotyping' is a common way to differentiate between humans and other species (aliens or whatever). The individuals of any species conceived by mankind will likely always be replaceable by a human in terms of mindset/motivation. But a species as a whole can be different to humankind as a whole at least in that regard. If the Krogans are 'redeemable' as you say that will be even more like humans. Which doesn't have to be a bad thing. Just food for thought.

[Majek]

Ah that's it, now I remember: The Samara and that fish dude's mission failed. For some reason, I didn't find a way to follow the target anymore. Then his son commited a criminal act...Yes, that's it.

that one was really easy. It's not like you can miss anything if it's there for you to find so you don't even have to look.

 

How can you fail Samara's mission though?

 

Oh and damn that Cerberus Armor DLC. I don't need extra 10% Heavy weapon ammo, i want extra 15% of all ammo. I don't want to go and edit Coalesced.ini grrr-

Edited February 10, 2010 by Majek

[213374U]

It only becomes silly for sure when you look at it from a human perspective and apply human standards to other species.

Good points. But they could do it when they imagined the Thorian, the rachni, the Reapers, the geth...

 

As for the more anthropomorphic species, the krogan are the only race lacking individual distinctiveness past the cultural stereotyping. Quarians, turians, asari, you meet a lot of different characters. Krogan... not so much. Even the "scientists" have a warlike mindset. Didn't work for Klingons, doesn't work for krogan.

 

And no, a culture like that couldn't have discovered fission. It would have been destroyed while trying to attack cultures with a more utilitarian approach to war. War isn't about who has the toughest warriors - it's about who has the biggest production and the most manpower. It's debatable whether the krogan culture in Mass Effect is a product of the defeatism and irredentism brought about by the genophage... but that doesn't do anything about the lack of depth of krogan NPCs.

 

 

You meet a lot of krogans who are more than just about violence for just the sake of violence.

You must have been playing the Director's Cut.