Closing Thoughts

Most of Mass Effect 2 varies from mediocre to embarrassing. A few scenes and a few characters stand out from the rest, but as it is, it reads like a first draft in desperate (but not hopeless) need of extensive editing.

I noticed that certain tropes seem to come up again and again in this game – but not in the way threads of overarching theme come together. Rather, these things lay on top of each other in a pile of redundancy that makes me wonder if anyone stepped back from the pieces to look at the bigger picture. For example, groups of characters tend to fall into the same basic concept.

Engineered to be the perfect _____:

• Miranda
• Grunt
• Thane
• Jack

The noble killer:

• Samara
• Thane
• Garrus

Daddy issues (does anyone in the game even have a mother?):

• Miranda
• Jacob
• Thane – although I think he gets something of a pass for actually being the daddy
• Tali

Either way, you assemble your team of redundant soldiers and head out to fight the Reapers. It's up to Shepard, because the governing bodies have rejected all knowledge of the Reapers, despite what happened at the Citadel two years ago.

I'm going to rail on this point for a second, because I think it deserves it. Let's bear in mind that the single goal of the Reapers is to destroy all life. I can buy that all politicians are wormy, self-serving narcissists, and I can buy that they would gag any knowledge of this to keep the little people from panicking. But, let me say it again: The single goal of the Reapers is to destroy all life.

I think that even politicians would have a vested interest in preventing this.

Not here for pinochle night.

But no, they ignore it, and Shepard flies off on a suicide mission. As it turns out, the Reapers are liquifying humans to assemble a giant, human-shaped Reaper that looks uncannily like the Terminator. Now, I can buy them wanting to copy something about human genetic code, etc, etc. But why would they build it to look like a human? All of the other Reapers are shaped like space ships. Can you imagine how silly this thing would look flying through space?

I could rail on this silly reveal for a while yet. For example, why is it a big reveal? Not all stories have to be reveal stories, despite what the game industry seem to think. A writer should have a solid reason why this particular story ends in a reveal, other than “I want them to be surprised.”

Like I said, I could rail on this for a while, but I'm not going to (anymore, I promise). Because, as dumb as the Terminator-Reaper was and as much as Harbinger never stopped making me roll my eyes, the end sequence of Mass Effect 2 is good. It is really good.

It's one of the most intense end game sequences I've ever played. You really feel like you're making do-or-die choices, and if you make the wrong ones, you'll feel it. The gameplay is solid and fast-paced, the scenes are well presented, and the dialog keeps the sense of urgency. There's a stumbling point when Miranda tries to give an inspirational speech, but beyond that, it is incredibly good.

The scene where Harbinger (as much as I hate him) abandons the Collector General deserves its own paragraph for being so good.

A good writer assumed direct control for the intro and ending.

Another detail about ME2 that I find very interesting is how it brings the branching choice system into a trilogy. I don't have a lot of affection for branching choice systems, but there is an interesting feeling of permanence to the decisions in ME2. Since no one really knows what will be brought over into ME3 and how, it really does feel like you're making final decisions when it comes to who you recruit, who you romance, and who lives and who dies.

Does any of that save the silly story, shaky characterization, or ridiculous reliance on the morality system? No. Frankly, the fact that ME2 is held up as the pinnacle of game writing should embarrass all of us. But the game begins and ends very strong, leading me to believe that some people on staff had a vision. It just got lost under a lot of crap.

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