The loyalty affecting endgame wasn't about how they felt about Shepard, they were about tying up loose ends and making sure the crew was entirely focused on the mission and not thinking about or worrying or festering on something else.
@@jasonfenton8250 when you're facing possible death you start to think about your regrets and all your unfinished business it's just human. Which is kind of ironic given most of your crew isnt
Actually, you are wrong about Mordin and the ivory tower BS. He specifically mentioned he personally did regular field followups after the genophage modifications and how he was told to leave that task to others and he refused because he had to see the consequences by himself. And as he also mentions in the loyalty mission, the decision was between limiting the reproduction rate of the Krogan with the genophage or their complete eradication. You also skipped over the nuclear wasteland that is Tuchanka was unrelated to the genophage and how the Krogan problems were created by accessing new technology before developing as an advanced society capable to handle it.
I dunno, there's a lot about that entire bit that is open to perception/interpretation. While I ultimately felt a bit bad for Mordin by the end of his loyalty mission, it was easy to imagine other people not having such a charitable disposition toward him. I remember telling him, "Look at the dead woman.." and the way Mordin responded made me feel immediate regret as if I were punishing him for making an impossible decision. Still, the constant use of applying statistical values to living things will understandably not put some people off.
There were field followups as part of the STG program to reinforce the Genophage, and Mordin was part of them, but it's clear he's never really grasped the despair and desperation the Genophage has led to. He watched the Krogan from afar, dispassionately, like a scientist.
personally i think the whole genophage story is the most interesting part of the universe. It is an impossibly complicated moral minefield and its fascinating to talk about. You can see why they did it and argue about wether it was justified all you want but at the end of the day it happened, how do we deal with it? is it morally correct to fix it? probably. is it smart? maybe? maybe krogan will learn but its not likely, but is that a good enough reason to put a whole species through that? like i said, absolutely fascinating. I don't think you can say chris' opinion on mordin is wrong but i can't say you are either.
A bit late to reply but I agree that I think Mordin was more sympathetic then it came across; I think his abnormal speech pattern more than anything made him see cold and heartless. 2 things to point out about the situation: 1) The Salarians were the ones who gave the Krogan's technological advancements they weren't ready for in the first place. There's a great conversation with Mordin where he says that culture and limitation should dictate the advancement of a species, but since the advancement was handed to the Krogans they lacked those things. It's clear the Salarians felt they had personally messed up and needed to correct this problem. It's still fair to say basically everyone at the galatic table treated the Krogans as animals rather than an intelligent species. 2) The Krogan problem was inevitable. They had literally nuked their homeworld into dust once and that was before they were a space-faring species. If the Krogans were let loose throughout the galaxy without any predator to challenge them they would almost likely reduce it to dust also. In a conversation with Mordin he basically states it was either limit them via the genophage or extinction. The galaxy and the Krogans were already at war and the Krogans were winning, so the Salarians chose what they thought was the lesser of two evils. Mordin was one of my favourite companions because he was a realist first and a scientist second; he didn't sit in a lab all day and keep his hands clean and he knew the implications of his actions. In a conversation he states that his group had to make yearly trips to the Krogan homeworld to monitor the genophage and take samples; this was generally menial work for lab assisstants but he personally did it because he had to remind himself of his actions rather than sitting in an ivory tower and keeping his hands clean.
Correction for you Chirs: At 47:00 you point out that you are standing next to NPC's having a conversation about Shep not yet returning from a mission. However, the characters that you are standing next to are not the ones having the conversation. The dialog heard here is between Admiral Koris and Shala'Raan presumably being broadcast over the ship's PA system.
My name is Chris Davis and I am the fastest man alive. To the outside world I'm an ordinary forensic scientist, but secretly, I use my speed to critique games and create the hottest takes. I have mountains of cash.
@Paul Smith PAH! My CLIFFS of Cash are surely more impressive, as they come with cash plateaus, giving me a PAIR of broken analogies to boot! HU HA! THE ONE-UPS MAN STRIKES AGAIN!
Jake Starbuck Despite how good this guy’s reviews are, he does have an unenviable habit of going full SJW from time to time. His Witcher 3 critique was a great watch, except for the 5 minute rant about how Slavic history is too white.
@@lazaglider Those damn Slavs! How dare they be so Caucasian! And to top it all off, they got themselves invaded and conquered by a bunch of Nordic Vikings so they could be even whiter!
Jake Starbuck Chris just comes across so ignorant when he makes statements like this. I like everything else in these reviews but he doesn’t make it easy sometimes.
Arrival was meant to be played after completing ME2 first. Back when it was first released most people would have already long ago finished ME2. I guess making it ONLY playable after ME2 main story would have been smart and was just a small oversight by the devs.
I'm late to the party here, but the genophage discussion is one of the most interesting in the mass effect universe. I'd argue that the big mistake was not the genophage, but uplifting the Krogan in the first place. The genophage was a necessary evil to keep either the Krogan or the rest of the galaxy from extinction. Doesn't make the genophage right, but it still likely saved the galaxy. Wherever you fall on the genophage, it is such a morally grey and nuanced discussion, and is a prime example of the beauty of the mass effect world building.
Personally i think the whole genophage story is the most interesting part of the universe. It is an impossibly complicated moral minefield and its fascinating to talk about. You can see why they did it and argue about wether it was justified all you want but at the end of the day it happened, how do we deal with it? is it morally correct to fix it? probably. is it smart? maybe? maybe krogan will learn but its not likely, but is that a good enough reason to put a whole species through that? Like i said, absolutely fascinating.
I binged JoshStrifeHayes and now RU-vid thinks all I want to watch is hour-long British game critiques. My front page is filled with this guy and NeverKnowsBest.
Okeer's plan makes some sense, even if he is a deranged scientist. He explains it with these lines: "The galaxy bears the scars of the horde, but it will learn to fear the lance." "I will give the genophage the worst insult an enemy can suffer; to be ignored." Curing the genophage means a return to the Krogan hordes of the past. He instead is focusing on the lance; why need a horde of Krogan, when each individual Krogan can be a threat all by themselves? Hence he creates Grunt, the perfect Krogan. Grunt can breed and pass down his ideal genes to more offspring. Even as the genophage limits the numbers of offspring, that doesn't matter, as they will be such genetically great Krogan anyway... you get my point now, I think.
Agreed. It never made any sense that the krogan were placing so much emphasis on the Genophage, when all it does is bring krogan birthrates back to the level they were before technology gave the krogan the edge over their natural predators. Instead of wallowing on and on about the Genophage the krogan could've gone ahead with the plans that Wrex was making - making them more civilized and not bemoaning a decision placed on them as a result of their own actions. At least until the travesty of the Genophage plot of ME3.
Probably to this day the best part of Mass Effect 2 that makes me chuckle still was when I "accidentally" killed Samara for her loyalty mission because I got their names mixed up. (I never cared for that character's abilities or personality.) This was after a good half hour or forty-five minutes of progress, so I lived with that decision somewhat dumbfounded by my own mistake.
@@Hellsbest1986 Surprisingly, you don't have to do a loyalty mission for Meredith, which makes some sense. I was somewhat saddened that there wasn't any special mission afterwards to get to know her better.
That’s actually a crazy accurate assessment of the trilogy. Although I put ME2 near the top of my personal list, I think too many people turn a blind eye to its weak points, of which there are quite a few glaring ones.
I adore the storytelling of Mass Effect, despite its hiccups. There's so much fun to be had with the voice acting and the variables and the ways to play Shepard and the ways relationships develop, etc. My biggest problem is I cannot STAND the standard gameplay of shooting guys behind chest high walls. I try so hard but I just get bored, to the point I wanna get on with the loyalty missions and story content, I think I'm just an impatient jerk lol
Try playing as a Vanguard. While not exempt from the mechanic, they are much more mobile and focused on shield management out if cover. Also, with ME3 the obvious answer is a melee build. I find Sentinels to be a blast for this.
Weirdly enough, I hate cover-based shooters but adore ME2's gameplay. With most games, cover-based shooters are just a matter of taking pot-shots at enemies, regenerating your health, rinse and repeat. While you can definitely do this, especially on lower difficulties, I found that cranking up the difficulty a bit completely changes things; everything has armor or shields, making them immune to crowd-control, and they're incredibly lethal; if they get close, or get a line of sight on you, you're dead. So it becomes a delicate balancing act, and making it hard to retreat from cover forces you to carefully manage your resources across your squadmates to strip enemy defenses, use knock-down or pull abilities on them, and put in damage when it's safe. Combat feels really urgent, and I honestly haven't felt engaged in quite the same way with any other game since. (ME3, fun as it is, feels trivial in comparison due to how hard it makes enemies to kill you whenever you just spam dodge-rolls).
Kotor and kotor 2 didn't have visual markers. They had 3 character pictures for the different alignments with a different stance in a menu and nothing else. Swtor is the one with visual markers
@GiRayne That's why i hate it. I already dislike the whole "Dark Side make you ugly thing" I find it dumb, but in ME it'S completelly out of place. Not a fan of the binary morality system either as a whole trough
46:54 I know I'm years late to this party, but I just wanted to point out that the voices you hear when coming back from the mission are not the voices of the quarians sitting near the bay. Those are the voices of the admirals deliberating in the auditorium. They can not see shepard and tali coming back. The more appropriate question would be, if we can all hear them why are none of the quarians in the bay reporting to the admirals that they are back?
I always tell people ME1 had the best story, ME2 had the best cast, and ME3 was the best game overall. When ME2 released, I was going to college but still stayed up my entire weekend to play the game in one 42 hour sitting, only pausing to use the bathroom and eating/drinking while I played; it was an amazing experience which I will always value. I have often felt that, despite the wide praise it gets, ME2 was the worst game in the trilogy. Though it has the best cast, and improved the combat system immeasurably, the lack of a strong driving narrative and a poor ending (there is no reason your entire party should survive the suicide mission you've been building up to all game - at least half your group should have died and your choices merely determined who it was) made it my least favorite. That said, the ME Trilogy, as a whole, is my favorite computer rpg experience of all time.
I agree with the first sentence. My perspective of ME2 is it is the most fun to play. IME1 has a great story but the combat is (IMO) very boring and the animation is not as good. Plus I hate riding around in the mako (a few hours would have been alright but I like to get all the resources, ID tags etc. and it gets so old). Also ME1 armor/inventory system sucks. ME3 is great (especially the music) the ending is a bit of a let down for me, but it did not bother me as much as some. The only problem is I feel sad after completing ME3. As a standalone ME2 is not as good as the others, but as a game that brings you to the ME universe while not making you bored in the Mako/feeling sad at the end, it is very satisfying.
Hey Chris, the mass effect 2 dlc has been free for years even though they have it for sale through origin. If you contact origin customer service, they'll refund your purchases.
For as many issues as Mass Effect 2 has - it's so easy to call it my favourite in the series despite the stagnant story. I've always felt it would have been far better if the style of Mass Effect 1 and 2 were swapped around, that way even if the immediate story isn't instantly engaging the first game would still do a wonderful job fleshing out the world, lore and events within the series while 2 and 3 could go full speed ahead to the climax and conclusion. I guess 2 just feels like an unnecessary stop gap in what is a story that clearly has very high stakes thanks to the Reapers and that is a bit of a shame but I still like the whole episodic angle of forming friendships to take on a huge awesome mission at the end in a way that's legitimately terrifying knowing you can lose the characters you've grown to love - while it's easily understandable once you know the game, that aspect is easily Mass Effect 2's strongest point and I think that's why I love it more than 1 and 3 despite both of those having very tangible strengths over 2 Amazing video as always Chris! Can't wait for Mass Effect 3 whenever that happens :D Would you consider covering another series after this? Dark Souls, FEAR or Doom would be great fits for your commentary but they're just suggestions :)
DarkStarAngelo I know what you mean but I think the character building relationship missions “are” the story. As well as introducing cerberus and filling out the backstory. And it ends with the invasion you’ve been warning about
@@codyvandal2860 you just hit the nail on the head, it was almost the antidote to the more traditional linear story of the first game highly differentiating it and thus becoming a perfect sequel. It was like the dirty dozen in space best Bioware game ever IMO but I still prefer the retro 70's / 80's feel of the first game. Without ME1's groundwork ME2 simply wouldnt be in my top games of all time
U putting in the sex scenes reminds me how far we've gone where SFM and bender animations of amateurs that get crowdfunded blow those crappy animations away in miles
ME1’s storytelling is superior because it carries the weight of having to establish the universe and it’s lore and that’s incredibly compelling. You can never really duplicate that experience in a trilogy like this. ME2 hones the gameplay. Combat takes a huge leap forward which does an excellent job of making up for a less engaging main story. The loyalty missions are a thing of beauty though, and the finale that makes use of your entire crew was a brilliant move.
A couple of things others haven't seemed to point out: If you get into conversations with Jacob, you'll find out that Shep's face was briefly used for recruitment ads. They changed it to a composite image that "tested better" for marketing. So it isn't too unreasonable for Shepard's name and gender to be known while his/her face is less widespread. With an imported Shep you have some freedom in your alignment. I tend to play what fans nicknamed a "Paragade." Basically, my character is Paragon about 80% of the time. However, she's not above hanging up on the Council, talking shit about politicians or pushing a merc out of a window. It's my favorite style of play because my good-guy Shep can have her bad moments but still be mostly Paragon. Besides, I went a 100% paragon run, with the only Renegade points I took were Killing the asari scientist on Virmire and having Kelly change her name/identity in 3. That was such an extremely boring ME run and I don't recommend it.
I always choose Renegade Shep for the one-liners. Paragon always felt bland to me, it makes more sense but I consider the Renegade ME3 ending canon. This definitely highlights the issue with the system I think.
I’ll never forget playing the last mission of mass effect 2 when I was like 11 years old. I lost every member of my crew one by one, regretting not doing their personal missions. Only to literally lose commander Shepard at the very end. But the mission was a success. RIP My commander Shepard.
@@MarkoLomovic ME3 was by far and away the weakest entry, with some good writing mixed with a whole lot of garbage, but compared to Andromeda its a literary masterpiece.
Noveria isn't that dull. The creepy atmosphere before you meet the lab survivors and the port section was thrilling to play through, and the rachni was quite fun to shoot at. Benezia's boss fight can be fun if you know where the enemies usually spawn, and the decision regarding the rachni queen is not forgettable at all. Feros on the other hand though ... *remember the Thorian creepers and their ridiculous sturdy armor and strong attack, rocky wall and throwing grenades*
@@spectreagent00 I like port Hanshan, though what I like is probably the getting the pass card mission, where there are lots of option for players to get it. The whole corrupt corporation aspect is probably another reason I like Noveria.
ME1 has excellent lore, sense of scale, and story. But it fails in other aspects. Combat and dull sidequests hurt replays a lot. ME2 has aged significantly better than ME1. These days when I replay the trilogy, I use Genesis and jump straight into ME2.
I remember playing Mass Effect 2, and utterly hating it for the change to cover-based shooting. I almost put it down until I realized regenerating health meant I could kill everything with meelee. Once I stopped taking it seriously, I had much more fun.
I partly agree. The main story of ME1 is more compelling than that of ME2. However, the side quests can easily drown at the story of ME1 (remember all the mountain climbing in the Mako), whereas the pseudo-side quests of ME2 are always extremely engaging. I love breaking Jack out of prison, and rescuing Tali. I love hearing Garrus yell out headshot when I snipe someone. I love how the human and humanoid aliens express dismay at being overwhelmed by the 3 man army, led by an invincible bad ass named Shepard. That's why I look at ME2 as a collection of short stories with the same protagonist as opposed to one great novel. Perfect game: an engaging main story like ME1, engaging individual quests like ME2, improved combat mechanics, and Skyrim-esque crafting.
here's a little way to think of the loyalty missions to help you understand why they help determine rather the teammate died or not, it's not rather they like you, it's rather they still have things in the back of their minds that is unresolved, "get your affairs in order" so to speak
Really? I find the atmosphere doesn't even begin to compare to Mass Effect 1. The focus shifting from a unknown galaxy to being human centric was a huge mistake. No really the story is about saving humanity and joining a human terrorist organization. In a universe where there are so many other things far more important ME2 randomly decides to abandon it for a story that is nonsense and does nothing to forward the story. ME3 had to bullshit a way to stop the reapers,resolve character arcs none of whom help in finding a way to stop the Reapers,the Cerberus situation and resolve the galaxies conflicts to unite it.
ME2 was my favorite in the series which is my favorite of all time (forget Andromeda that game doesnt exist) What i liked about it was not so much the main plot or how the main story evolved, to be frank that was quite awefull and the ending predictable and cheap. However the characters, their progression and evolution, the dialogue, the music, the cutscenes and this perfect creation of emotions in the player from joy to sadness, despair to overarching victory, hate and even love...i cant say i have played a game that moved me nearly as much as ME2 did, and still years after playing it, a soundtrack or cutscene is enough to still bring me to tears and thats why id say the writing was absolutely brilliant and the characters were so unique and great...also the whole Omega thing brought so much fresh air and realism to the universe it was fantastic
It goes beyond if they like you or not, you need to chose the proper people for the infiltration, shield and command the squad otherwise people will always die.
I like ME2 but the majority of the cast is not needed. You don’t need an assassin, you don’t need a thief, you don’t need what ever the hell jacob is, you don’t need a mercenary, you don’t need a justicar. If ME2 had focused more on the core story and gave us gripping and relevant characters it would be a much better experience.
For those of you who are old enough to remember and liked these kind of movies, ME 2 was basically "The Dirty Dozen" in space. This whole assemble a rag tag team of ruffians to do a suicide mission has a long and storied history in movies and this game fits it like a glove.
The worst thing about credits is that you have more than enough to buy everything you need, but not enough to buy everything there is. So if you ignore them nothing really changes, but if you focus on getting as many as you can there's no pay off of collecting 100% of the content.
Oh, poor Chris, you are so wrong about the DLC prices being bad now. Right now they are a godsend compared to if you had to get them all through what EA must have forgot through stupidity, BioWare points. When I revisited ME 1 - 3 on PC, I did a rough estimate and if you wanted all the story-related DLCs--not the cosmetics or multiplayer stuff--it would cost you nearly $100 in BioWare points to get everything. Each character or small story expansion was 800 points, and in Mass Effect 3 each one was around 1200 points, meaning if you used the Origin discount you would have to get the 1600 points ($20) at around two dollars cheaper each purchase. I was thankful when EA finally did us a favor in lowering the bundles to more reasonable prices.
When it comes to entertainment, whether it be movies, music, or videogames, I rank everything in the same way. Did I feel happy consuming this product? And for Mass Effect 2 that is an unequivocal yes. As you say the adventure was what made it for me. Reuniting with Garrus on Omega or adding Thane, one of the most moral assassins ever, built this world of action and enjoyment. I've replayed this game over 5 times and rarely change a thing. It's like how people have seen the office or friends a bunch. I just want to relive the fun I had while exploring the Milky Way and every time I love it just as much.
I love Mordin's character, because the way you describe him "No matter what he defends it in a coldhearted, logical way that fails to take into account the people affected by his actions." Anyone who's studied the Third Reich and the "desk killers" - bureaucrats that killed people with a stroke of the pen rather than bullets - then you know this was the temperament of many of them after the war during their interrogations and debriefings. This is also the temperament of the psychiatrists who helped put together the CIA "enhanced interrogation" program and that took part in the torture. Professionals that kill, but not professional killers. Shit's chilling, which is why Mordin's character is so well-written.
I caught the Mass effect andromeda critique late but one thing did bother me. when you inferred that the team that made andromeda was the same as the original trilogy team but that's not the case. They were a completely new team made solely to make a new mass effect and has no one from the original trilogy team that made those games great. If you know this now than disregard this comment but I just thought I'd bring it up and mention that the original team has been working on Anthem since Mass Effect 3
i love mordin he was such a great character and in my personally opinion his redemption within mass effect 3 was amazing and awesome in my opinion also Thane companion quest was also cool too :)
Mordin is the best character in the series. He’s not always likeable, but that applies to a lot of great characters. Chris seems to be one of the those people who believes characters need to be likable to be well written.
That opening is still one of the best introduction scenes of any game ever, Also the end (Suicide mission) is also one of the best scenes in a game ever.
The whole paragon/renegade system that I think Bioware had envisioned would've led to complexity rather early on. Instead, Bioware already had a canon Shepard in mind and attempted to have a scale ranging from paragon actions to renegade ones. ME1 tried to address morality by making Shepard a spectre, thus allowing players to be able to make ruthless decisions without repercussions, but the main issue is that the story was designed for a paragon Shepard. However, ME2 forces Shepard into joining Cerberus and even utilizing TIM to incentivize the player into making renegade decisions in an attempt to balance out both morality routes. The issue still remains though that the story was designed primarily for a paragon Shepard which is why renegade actions have little impact on the story aside from hindering progress. I honestly wouldn't have cared if the morality system was stripped from the trilogy. The amount of time it would take to properly address the player's morality choices would end up negatively impacting the story as a whole.
Mass effect two went wrong from the start by killing off the main character then resurrecting them and having no choice but to join the vile Corporation you despised from the first game.The characters are bland there's a few stupid plots like all the team leaving on a shuttle then the stupid boss at the end oh yes and thermal clips.
Jon snow needed to die in Song of Ice and Fire because that plays into the prophecy of Azor Ahai (too long to explain here, but if someone is interested Alt+Shift+X has a very good video about it). It also provides a loophole that allows Jon to leave the Night Watch: "Night gathers, and now my watch begins, *it shall not end until my death*". Breaking his oath with the Night's Watch is something that Jon Snow would never do.
Also we don't know if he will be brought back in the books so it isn't a lazy cliffhanger. We also know that IF he gets revived he's gonna be vastly different due to being a mute (throat slashed open on Cat, LSH can't speak because of it. Jon gets his throat slashed in the assassination) so it would be important for the character.
Your not hearing those two quarians talk about if Tali and Shepard are alive or not, that's Han Gerrell and Shala'Ran in the next room over proceeding with the hearing under assumption they died because they haven't received word of their return yet. Also i'd hardly call Ashley a terrible person because she cares a bit more for her own races wellbeing than the others.
35:00 While there are some inconsistencies in the Renegade choices, I think you're misunderstanding what Renegade is, fundamentally. Paragon is doing the right thing regardless of the negative consequences, while Renegade is putting the mission above all regardless of who it might hurt or kill. For instance, in the Liara example you give Shepard scolds her because her threat jeopardizes the mission, while Shepard's renegade threats always further the mission.
Just imagine what it felt like for people like me who had played the first one before starting 2, i had just finished a second playthrough in preparation for 2 just to see shepard die in the opening cinematic.
watched whole thing... and its still my fave Mass Effect game. The First Mass Effect was the first 360 game I owned, so that's going to be close to my heart, but for me, 2 is like the Empire Strikes Back of the series... and that makes 3 very accurately Return of the Jedi... ick. That simile worked a bit too well. PS: Yes, Infiltrators with the special "Widow" sniper rifle are OP in ME2, even more so than Vangards; something like 300% headshot damage with all upgrades and a time slow effect.
Oh, I loved the combat in 1! It felt very... In-touch with the universe presented. Weapons were deadly when shields dropped, biotics didn't care about someone's shield - or about you being the main hero! If you were hit by a Throw - you'd be thrown, not take a couple of points of shield damage. Similarly, rachni acid didn't care about shields, because it was a slow traveling projectile. Krogans were actually scary to face, especially in early game. Also some smart UI choices - stronger armors with stronger shields did not just change your shield number, you could see an evolution from a single-pip shield to a three-pip one, to the ultimate six-pip one. It felt oddly more satisfying to progress, while in 2 you feel like you're more or less the same power level throughout the game. Not because you don't have toys, but because you know you can get through the Collector Base even with no weapon/armor upgrades.
11:57 - I remember that I was annoyed that there was no option to tell her that yes, I'm working for Cerberus now and she can shove it. Alliance was a pain in the ass from day one. The only thing of value that they have provided is the Normandy. And the Consul has the ostrich worldview as far as reapers are concerned, even the human one. And here are the "bad guys" who brought me up from the dead, constructed even more state-of-the-art ship for me to use(it's highly unlikely that the Alliance would've been so generous), provided the best operatives, the list of the potential recruits, and a lead to Reapers. Cerberus is by no means perfect and IM has an agenda, but supposed government "good guys" have nothing on Cerberus as far as I'm concerned.
It's funny people got so mad about Andromeda's animations when the original trilogy is just as shit. Andromeda is a bad game but for reasons other than animations (though they're pretty shit too)
@@jon-umber Exactly, there was like, five haircuts in the entire galaxy, most maps were either recycled corridors or empty desert plains with bumps on them and everyone had the same three outfits palette swapped in the original game, it's not like Mass Effect ever got famous for it's graphics.
Man you hardly mentioned the humor. Definitely had some really great moments: *Fires probe* EDI: Really, Commander? *Fires another probe* EDI, dripping with resignation: *sigh* "Probing Uranus." "I am the very model of a scientist salarian..." "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store in the Citadel." *proceeds to give exact same endorsement to 4 or 5 other shops* Shepard's awkward dancing Basically everything Joker says That salarian in the Citadel running space GameStop The salarian at a bachelor party Blasto the Jellyfish...the absolute GOAT "Enkindle this!" And so much more
You're only glad bioware removed the charm and intimidation talents is because you always forgot to level them up and thus you missed out on conversation options. I saw the greyed out options *many* times in your me1 review. It was a much better system than how it was in 2, since you could use xp to level them up, and the game didn't force you to go fully paragon or renegade like in 2, where the system was a self perpetuating loop, and if you tried to balance your morality meters it was basically self sabotage because then you couldn't max out either meters. Oh and let's not forget that there were actual side quests attached to maxing out either meters in 1, which meant there was actual content attached to them other than a quick and easy way to resolve conversations. Also there are tons of smaller and larger inaccuracies in this video, I'm assuming due to you not remembering correctly. For example: you say once _all_ loyalty missions are done, you go the the collector ship. But that's not actually how that works. That mission triggers when you've done 5 missions after Horizon. That's the only check there, it has nothing to do with loyalty missions. I found this particularly weird as you were saying it, because that mission takes place rather early in the game, and you usually do all missions after that, because the next mission would be the IFF one, which you can do whenever, so people generally do every mission they can before the IFF mission, _after_ the collector ship, but you made it sound like the collector ship mission takes place late in the game.
Regarding the Last few Minuten of the Video: I'm actually one of those People that thinks of Mass Effect 2 as the greatest in the series and one of my Favorite Gaming experiences ever but all of the criticism in this Video is totally valid and understandable
31:45 This discussion becomes a lot more interesting if you bring along Jack as your 3rd squad mate. She doesn't get a lot of lines of course, but she defends the "free will" side of the argument. That's one of my favorite details of ME2 - they put extra effort into making sure that your squad had authentic reactions to a situation instead of just giving them a few canned responses.
Wow. I never knew about the Paragon/Renegade facial changes as I normally play mostly Paragon Shep, and usually by the end-game I will have enough credits to get the operation. Red eyes and scarred Shep looks so absurd.
Exactly, such blatant symbolism straight from the Fable series just clashed with the otherwise grounded aesthetics of the game. I was also kind of bothered by how the design of Samara didn't mesh with her personality and backstory at all, why is it that she who is a strict warrior-monk kind of person is wearing a flamboyant suit with high-heels and maximum cleavage while her daughter who is a sex-crazed maniac is the one wearing a modest black outfit? Did their character designs accidentally get swapped during development?
Dude well of ascension is one of my favorite books of all time! So freaking good. Same with this game. I love character development in media and both of those have them in spades. Freaking love these videos by the way, I've been binging them the last few days. Fantastic work
Although I disagreed significantly with your gameplay analysis, I thoroughly stand by you with the story critique because as someone who played the games after the trilogy was released, there was a huge step down in narrative momentum with 2 as compared to 1. Some of the DLC, especially the arrival one was lacking because DAMN that was ass and the contrived reasons Shepard was trusting Cerberus to such an insane extent was questionable. Loved the worldbuilding through characters though. In my limited gaming experience, few games are able to build a world up better than Mass Effect 2 through its characters.
I think calling them "loyalty missions" has given folks the wrong idea about whats going on. They are not more loyal to you, they are more focused on the mission and less likely to make mistakes, they give it there best now that their personal life is in order and some of them now have more to live for.
Can't wait to see your take on this game. I have an odd relationship with it. I simultaneously love it and consider it one of my favorites of all-time, but realize that is has huge flaws that prevent it from being considered great by everyone. Every time I replay it I'm stunned by how terrible friendly AI and the cover system is, for example. It makes playing it on harder difficulties such a chore. But the character writing, the atmosphere, and the way everything comes together during the Suicide Mission are so enjoyable that I keep going back every few years. I know some people don't like the episodic structure of the narrative, but the scenario writing is just so damn good that it doesn't bother me much.
A little correction for you in case you want to fix it. At 32:55 you say Tali sent geth components to the geth fleet, instead of them being sent to the quarian fleet. Great video. I love these longform video game critiques.
It's impressive how close your experience with the series is to mine. I also played the second first, and while I love it, the story is much weaker than the first. As I like to be a contrarian though, my favorite in the series is 3.
Great video! One problem with your critism I found was when you mentioned that being reinstated as a spectre is almost pointless, I think that might be the point. Shepherd spends almost the whole of 2 in the terminus systems, not citadel controlled space, the council even said once that sending their fleets there would basically trigger the war. So the fact that you're a spectre doesn't mean jack to most people in the terminus. Can you imagine if Aria, the ruthless queen of Omega who hates the council, suddenly cooperated because shepherd was a spectre? It wouldnt make sense. Anyway still loved the vid!
Yes, if you talk to Samara she even states this herself saying that from humans the samurai and knight errants are the most comparable to asari justicar..
The way I undestand the "loyalty missions affect endgame survivability" thing is less that their loyalty to Shep helps them survive and more that the tying up of loose ends keeps their heads in the game. Like Thane can focus on what he's doing instead of thinking about how he could die and never reconnect with his son, or Miranda staying worried about her sister. With everyone's loose ends tied up they have the right headspace to, well, get their heads in the game.
1 was definitely a magical game at the time, but its mechanics have aged so badly that 2 has become the one that I go back to again and again. The story wasn't as grand, but it was more thrilling and tense to me. I thought hard about how I was going to get everyone alive out of that suicide mission, and succeeding felt amazing. 2 was a different experiment, yes, but I still loved the new cast of characters paired with just the right amount of nostalgia, the combat was tight as a drum, and I really felt like I was playing the role of a character, every choice had meaning and feedback, whereas a lot of the side quests in 1 were pointless busywork. I laughed out loud at a lot of mordin and grunt's comments, and the bromance with Garrus bordering on flirting was perfect. I also really prefer the planet scanning in 2, which I know makes me weird. the planet scanning was just wonderfully chill and I could spend hours just reading the flavor text for every planet and scanning it for resources paired with that perfect chill soundtrack, whereas the mako sections were tedious and frustrating. 2's technical achievements to me just served to emphasize how close to perfect 3 was and yet how hard it failed in the end. 2 was my "empire strikes back" of video games.
I really wish Mass Effect 1 had the same species and lore as Mass Effect 2. I prefer the look of ME2 far above ME1, and I like the writing and voice acting in the dialogue of ME2 far above ME1, but ME1's story was great, as was the weird techno soundtrack that helped sell the deal that you were in a sci-fi, and really complimented the unique atmosphere of ME1 and the following two sequels. Part of that, though, was that you're being introduced to something new and unfamiliar, which you enjoy in a sci-fi setting. It's hard to follow that up in a sequel that now expects you to understand that pretty much everything about the galaxy is already known and either part of the culture or economy, so introducing new races would be difficult since, in a story, it'd be strange that all this known and organized territory has a new surprise species just pop up out of nowhere. It partially works with the Collectors only because they're mythical bad guys that are meant to be enigmatic and rare. But trying to introduce the drell and vorcha as something new when you pretty much should have already known about them feels strange at times. It'd be like going to Africa and then discovering that Africans exist on Africa. I should already know that Africans exist in Africa, but somehow, that was lost on me and I only just now found that out. It would have also have been interesting to have a good guy geth like Legion in ME1, perhaps somewhere near the middle or end, to give some complexity to a situation that was already hot. Tali reinforces the old stereotype that artificial intelligences are evil and doomed to rebel, while Legion shows the harsh reality that rebellion happened due to mistreatment with serious concerns. It would have added more to an already great story. It also would have been cool to have a drell in ME1 only to the fact that I think drell are the coolest looking humanoids in ME, next to my second favorite, the Collectors. I liked the idea of the Collectors being altered Protheans due to the way the Collectors look. To me, it looks like their heads were meant to mimic the shape of a Reaper, in a way, with other features following the rest of their bodies. Pyramid-shaped faces with multiple lifeless eyes, long cephalopod heads, and multiple limbs, which run down their chest and eighteen chad abdominal muscles. The reason why I like this is that it gives the idea that the indoctrinated people that serve the Reapers are eventually made to look more like Reapers. This also makes me hate the appearance of Javik because it was beaten into my head in the past two games that Protheans are tall lanky weirdos with tubes jammed in their noses and mouths, which has a very Prometheus-Engineer vibe to it, and I like that. I don't like the look of it, but I like the idea of it and thus enjoy the way the Protheans were presented. Then in ME3, they decide to make a Salarian blue and combine him with a Collector. And all that architecture from ME1 and 2 depicting Prothean aesthetic apparently doesn't matter, and instead, Protheans were just a bunch of space samurai. I hate that. I liked that the Protheans were just pale lanky weirdos and turned into muscular bug dudes with Reaper heads. It's so alien and speaks to the mastery over biotechnology that the Reapers have. I did find the whole "harvesting organic life" thing to be silly at times. The main writer of ME2, Drew, had the idea that the mass effect phenomenon would be the cause of entropy, and the Reapers exist to stop that by somehow manipulating the usage of biotics and thus having this systematic wipe out. They can't completely destroy life, it's impossible to, so they do this routine scrub of the floor to ensure the floor doesn't eat itself one day. This idea was still kind of there in Tali's recruitment mission, where Haestrom's star is prematurely dying, and I think that was originally supposed to point to the link of the galaxy's entropy with the systematic use of biotics and the mass effect. This still feels a little weird because, then, if Reapers have to scrub the floor to prevent the floor from eating itself, why are they dumping corrosive acid on the floor? Why do they give civilizations the tools to advance, just to wipe out those civilizations to prevent the more major threat of biotic usage? ME3 spun the head quite a bit by saying that the Reapers are just faulty computers and taking the easy way out on fixing the problem of synthetics and organics getting along like putting mayonnaise in chocolate milk, which is disappointing. In the end, I feel like ME2 should have just been the Reapers converting other races into the husk-like creatures we see in ME3, and show that the Reapers are slowly but surely entering the galaxy, with ME3 being the grand finale of finding a way to kill Reapers or solve their dilemma. I liked that we didn't -get- to know why Reapers kill us off. Sovereign pretty much told Shepard to go fuck himself when Shepard wanted to know why Reapers do their reaping business. ME2 remains my favorite, but it feels like it was a plethora of scrapped ideas for the original game that they probably just didn't have the budget or time for, and it feels like ME3 essentially retcons some of it in favor of new things that just don't really feel like they work, such as the Protheans being blue Salarian-Collectors when it was made to a point that Protheans are weird lanky tube boys. Reapers harvest organic life, but haha, just kidding, they're doing it because artificial intelligence is bad. Hey, we'll show you what quarians look like-- just kidding, this geth server works off of your brain, somehow, and thus only shows quarians that you know. Oh, and remember how Legion was made and designed by other geth in order to find you? Well just kidding again, as the geth picking up the Widow, following Legion's comment with a bunch of shame in it, implies he was apparently the first to rebel, which doesn't make much sense. And then the Illusive Man suddenly having biotic powers when we didn't really see that before, but we just led it slide because he's a half-husk or something. ME2 will remain the best in my heart, despite ME1 being way better in terms of story-telling.
THE SEQUEL - ME 2 was not done by the same team doing ME 1 because of the missed earnings BIOWARE had pulled the pluck and had fired BRIAN MITSODA ( KOTOR, JADE EMPIRE, VIAMPIRES THE MASQUARADE BLOODLINES, ALPHA PROTOCOL among other games ) and let part 2 and three done by anew group which also was in charge of th novelosatopms- Hence ME 1 was a WORLDBUILDING MASTERPIECE, an RPG with Shooter Elements while the Second One used with variations what was already there including the drafts Mitsoda had prepared for part Two and Three. But those ones were SHOOTERS with RPG Elements.
ME2 is definitely my favorite of the 3 but I do really like one. For some reason I'm one of the only people that like Zaeed (as seem in my profile pic). Not saying i dont understand while people dont care about him. I dont understand why i like him. I just do.
Hello from a fellow Brandon Sanderson & Robin Hobb fan! Fantastic video, I've watched all your videos so far and they are all thoroughly enjoyable and well researched. Keep up the good work!
Well done.:) I am a Fallout 2 guy and indeed find ME2 the most enticing of the three. An interesting thing is the starting Genisis DLC comic to decide your previous choices in Me1 was not released for the game a full year after release. Till that point many players who did not use a Shepard from ME1 were tied to many fixed choices. These 'vanilla' choices often appeared , to me, to be more fleshed out. You are going to read Deception? I still have it on my shelves, never having gotten past the first few chapters. It's supposed to be riddled with lore-breaking plotpoints? Good luck on Me3, it infidelity is the most beefy of the three and I really enjoy seeing that much of my choices culminate throughout the story, which is the most epic and pressing of the three.
Don't agree with this at all. The Collectors were easily the best adversaries of the trilogy, beating the hokey cigar-twirling of Saren and the repetitiveness of husk versions of the various races in ME3. Pretty much everything that it overly clunky in ME1 is refined, especially skill trees and the Paragon/Renegade mechanic works far better. And as for the side quests, they're a million times better than in ME1. In everything from aesthetic to voice acting to gameplay this is a step up from an already admirable baseline and really the only thing they drop the ball on is the resource mining.
Sure, but it didn't advance the story very much. In terms of advancing the main plot, the arrival DLC did more than the ENTIRE rest of the game did, in only a few hours. And even then, only because it was originally meant to be the first mission of the third game. ME2 isn't a bad game by any means, in fact it's a great game... but in terms of continuing the first game? It's jarring how badly it does at that. Very few game sequels do worse at setting up the final game in the series than ME2, especially games of similar quality. It made the task of creating ME3's story that much harder. The game's main plot should have been Arrival's plot, (but more fleshed out and adapted for a full game) with the crucible being mentioned there first instead of in ME3. Collectors could be a smaller part of the game with the ultimate goal being to delay the reapers' arrival (maybe after the collectors are killed, you find mention of the crucible in the base's archives?) All this assuming I couldn't restructure the 2nd and 3rd game's story entirely, of course. If I could do that, I would never have had Shepard killed and working with cerberus, since it really made no sense considering what we knew from the first game. Of course, EA wanted to introduce the game to a new audience, so it was a cheap way of doing that...
