ME2 is a great game and all, but I’ll echo the criticism that I had at the time: It comes out of left field.
The last we saw, the major threat to the Galaxy are the Reapers. They are coming. ME3 is them arriving.
So why is the middle chapter of the trilogy spent on the Collectors? A threat that was never mentioned in ME1. And I’m still not clear what, if any, relationship they had with the Reapers.
Its sort of like if Empire Strikes Back had detoured to explore the Trade Federation.
In ME1 reapers used Geth as proxy to lay the groundwork for the invasion, in ME2 it’s the Collectors, who are repurposed Protheans. I wouldn’t say it’s out of left field, it ties in nicely to the lore that was established in the first game.
A lot of things were not mentioned in ME1, and why should they have been? No one in the galaxy knew about this stuff.
In ME1, you close down the entrance the Reapers had to the galaxy, so you’ve slowed them down. In ME2, you learn about the Collectors, what they are doing for the Reapers and why (I think). For me, this is definitely both a relevant, and interesting part of the story. Doesn’t seem off at all to me
Actually ME2 becomes a lot like ME1 where you slow down the Reapers arrival, but ME2 its at the cost of 300,000 beterian lives as well. The suicide mission kind of becomes secondary after surviving the Arrival. I mean if i die i dont get charged with war crimes…so, yay?
I personally felt that the story beats transitioned very well from one game to the other. I actually listened to all the cut scene dialogue and they did a decent job of foreshadowing and then providing and feeling out the surprises than needed more info later in the story.
Two things i missed in previous play through Conrad Verner in ME3 he admitted that I never pulled a gun on him, and then he actually improved my war assets thanks to his day job! I always ignored him in the docking area in 3 lol. Also the Beterian from ME1 DLC, actually gives you his war assets if you have a decent paragon. I guess letting him go to save the hostages had double dividends in the long run!
Yeah, it’s better to let the Reapers commit a bigger war crime. At least you’re not guilty of anything other than stupidity.
Personally, I find that all three games do have a logical flow. I don’t disagree that the second game does kind of feel like a side story to the main action, but I don’t feel like it’s totally out of left field.
We learn in the first game that while the protheans faied at countering the reaper threat, they did successfully prevent them from using the keepers to use the citadel as a mass relay in the next cycle. That’s why Sovereign is there alone, to figure out what happened, and how he can get the reapers back to the Milky Way. It’s remarked upon that Sovereign appears to be getting desperate or confident, which is why he and Saren assault the citadel at the end of the game.
But they fail, and this failure attracts the attention of the reapers, somehow (it’s science fiction, I accept a certain amount of hand waving). Because of this, they focus more on humanity than the other species, and utilize the collectors to start raiding human colonies and building their giant terminator. I haven’t reached a point in my replay of ME2 to find out specifically what the purpose of the giant human reaper is, to counter humanity’s influence? I forget. Anyway, you blow that up and also prevent their second attempt to accelerate their plan in Arrival.
But they were always going to get here eventually. It is a little funny to me that foiling the citadel plan only seems to set the reapers back a couple years, when they’ve been out there doing this for who knows how many millions of years and suddenly they’re all in a hurry or something. But, the plot of the games do seem to follow logically at least, in my opinion.
Sorry this comment doesn’t parse for me story wise, can you expand?
I’m currently going through the Omega DLC in ME3 and it’s somewhat shocking to me how little of it I remember. Up until I met Nyreen I was entirely convinced I skipped this DLC in the past completely. Turns out it’s just rather underwhelming and I forgot about it.
If you don’t set the asteroid to destroy the relay (and kill the Batarians) you allow the Reapers to come back earlier than they could otherwise. Allow the Reapers to come back early so you can not feel guilty about killing 300,000 Batarians that the Reapers will kill immediately upon arrival and the Reapers start their genocide a couple of years early. So yeah, that’s stupid reasoning.
Stupid for a consequentialist.
I take the moral exercises seriously, in this game trilogy. How certain am I, that it will be this certain outcome! Killing 300,000 people has consequences and you have the moral obligation to making sure you have absolutely no other choice. Shepard was caught up in the moment, justifications, but when i made the original call, I was pausing because I had to ask, is there more here than i see? Am i doing the action in front of me, because its the obvious choice, or are the reapers messing with my mind to get a outcome they want, or get me off the field.
The game doesnt really give you a choice in the matter, but did i think about it. If Shepard didnt think about it, then THAT would be bad. Shepard should be asking are 300K deaths and a charge of war crimes worth the action Im going to take, how certain am I about the information Im being fed. If he/she doesn’t morally struggle with that question before acting, THATS a crime!
If they’re all going to die regardless, why not let them have whatever time remains before the Reapers show up? The question isn’t “are these people going to die anyway”, it’s “what do we gain that outweighs taking those lives for sure, now?” In the final analysis, given ME3, I’m not sure you get anything. (I’m not really interested in having a big debate over a decision I wasn’t invested in in a DLC I think is roundly terrible, but I don’t think it’s quite that straightforward.)
Ppphhhttt…This is why i play these games to reflect and introspect on these questions. Youre taking all my fun away. :) For what its worth, great point! :)
Yeah, but at the time Shepard made the call, they believed they were gaining more time to prepare for the reaper invasion. If you believe those people were going to die anyway, then gaining more time to save everyone else might seem like a justifiable call. If you’re going to say that’s reprehensible moral calculus well, I’m not going to say you’re wrong. But if you also think you’re the only thing standing between all living things and the encroaching end of everything, you can see how the decision got made.
I’ve always had the thought that Shepard might not have been completely right in the head after coming into contact with the probe at the beginning of Mass Effect. Having those visions of the protheans being ripped apart by machines going through your head is probably pretty jarring just in itself. Then having those visions and fears constantly shot down by just about everyone in authority who could do something to prevent them, even more provoking. I’m not going to go so far as to call it head canon, but it’s as good a word as any I guess.
I’m happy to have debates about decisions in games, I just didn’t care about that one because I think Arrival is pretty awful. :P
My point was more that I think that calculus is potentially interesting in the moment for the reasons I cited,(although as I say, Arrival did not succeed in investing me in the decision), but ME3 then retroactively decides to make it pointless, which I consider an indictment of some of the writing choices made for ME3, rather than reflecting on the moral valence of what anyone may have picked in Arrival itself.
I’m sure the Batarian colonists would have appreciated the extra one hour and a half of their lives before the imminent Reaper arrival. Alas, the fate of the galaxy was at stake and they had to die.
It’s a good point, since the answer to that question is of course always “yes, sooner or later.”
I was actually fine with the initial ending, except it didnt allow for making the point "hey i just ended the war between geth and Quarrians, so maybe your hypothesis doesn’t apply to this cycle as evidence by the peace i created between organics and synthetics.
I would have been fine with any ending even if it was a logical argument why the peace doesn’t really change things. The fact the game never gave me the chance to convey that argument, was one of the big things that bothered me. There are several arguments that could have been used to counter it, but only if there was historical precedence to support it. I felt this and a few other points (like crew i had with me on the rush, ended up on the Normandy), that just showed sloppy writing. The color coded ending was a little lazy as well, in that it lacked displaying the actions you chose during the games being played out, like fallout series or POE series. Which i had expected to some degree
This wasn’t a comment about the ending, but rather the part where the Reapers just turn up straightaway in ME3 without much fanfare despite the Batarian relay thing. One could, and people have, argued that there was some impact from that but ME3 just starts after whatever time was bought, but I don’t feel the game sells that take if that is the intent.