Mass Effect 2: What's the big deal?

[cahtush]

The most infuriating thing about ME2 is if you chose sole survivor and did the Cerberus missions.
When Jacob reveals that he's with Cerberus, the guys who fed your squad to a thresher maw on Akuze and experimented to the one that survived (aside from you), did it again later, killed admiral Kahoku, turned a human colony into husks, did a bunch of horrible experiments to create super soldiers and spread rachni once their experiments on them backfired.
What do you do?
Do you pull your gun on him? Question him about any of it? Even Remotely start to show distrust?
Nope.
The worst you can say is "I remember blowing up a few Cerberus facilities back when I was a spectre".
But ok, maybe you don't want to burn any bridges yet before you get out of there.
And what happens next?
They literally ask you a question about Akuze during the shuttle ride.
And there's no option to even mention Cerberus' involvement.
Even when you talk the Illusive Man and he wants you to work with him you can, again, not mention any of the things they did in ME1.
You'd think that might be something you would want to clear up before that.
But no, it continues like this throughout the entire game. Sure Tali and Garrus mentions it briefly but you can never even bring it up.
This was what killed ME2 for me.

Also half your crew don't wear armor.
And Miranda and Samara wear high heals.
A minor complaint but enough to break my suspension of disbelief

EDIT:
Some more things a though about after posting.

The ship just feels lifeless, sterile, in ME2. No nice music, no atmospheric blue lighting.
A bit sad that they removed the Mako too, as one of the few people that liked it. Driving it was like juggling buttered eels but personally i enjoyed it. Beats scanning any day.
I also feel the combat went in the wrong direction, into a Gears of War cover based shooter with health that depletes fast, regens fast when in cover and slow bullets (which makes no sense lorewise). While ME1 had a cover system the gameplay was most enjoyable when you didn't have to use it.
Also the hubs feel tiny and the citadel is just underwhelming.

 

[Kingjackl]

The Cerberus thing is a huge problem with Mass Effect 2, and the whole plot is flawed when you deconstruct it. What people like it for is the characters, the atmosphere, the improved gameplay and the whole 'suicide mission' scheme. That mission comes together beautifully, so nobody minds if you're doing it for a silly reason.

The whole series is a 'greater than the sum of it's parts' type deal, but Mass Effect 2 is often regarded as the best of the three. I would kind of prefer if Mass Effect 3 had that reputation, since I reckon it had the best gameplay, all the good stuff from the previous games brought back and brought in a few cool new characters as well. While it may be all controversial for it's ending, at least that was just one bad thing, as opposed to Mass Effect 2 where the entire plot was basically flawed.

 

[RJ 17]

After playing for a bit, I can't help but notice that the game is a bit... Darker. People are swearing more, there's more blood, that kind of thing. Bit of a major tone shift from the first game. And of course, there's Cerberus. What. The. Hell.

The game was actually advertised as being a "darker" story, what with the climactic event being a literal suicide mission which can end up with major characters - Shepard included - ending up dead.

Cerberus Sucks!

Human colonies are going missing, the Reapers are likely involved, and this organization that brought you back and gave you a new ship is saying that they want to back your mission to stop the bad guys. Granted, there's no option to not side with Cerberus, but if you paragon your way through the game you make it abundantly clear that you are not working for Cerberus, you're just using their resources. As for the Council's denial, it falls back to that political "We have trillions of lives under our government blah blah blah we shouldn't panic the herd so it's easier to just not believe you." That, and you are currently flying a ship that's wearing Cerberus colors.

And of course, the crew members. Can I just toss them all out into the vacuum of space? Except for Jacob I suppose. Jacob's alright. Everyone else seems to be a psychopath of some variety. (So far I have Miranda, Jacob, the Salarian doctor guy, the thief woman and that guy who's name begins with a Z. Zaedd, I think? You pick him up on Omega.Which reminds me, why the hell am I having a nice, civil conversation with him while he's beating up that unarmed Batarian guy? Can I not at least ask him stop or something? Doesn't exactly help me feel very heroic.)

The funny thing is that most people find Jacob to be the most forgettable character from that game. As for the rest of your characters being psychos, I'd actually say there's only a few crew members that are out-right "renegade. Tali, Thane, Samara, Kasumi, Miranda, Jacob, Legion, and Mordin are more good-guy oriented while Zaaed, Jack, Garrus, and Grunt are more bad-guy oriented.

In short: just keep playing. You'll find that Shepard repeatedly denies working for Cerberus and you'll also find more paragon-oriented characters.

I could talk some more about it, like how the new level up system is too restrictive, how the new equipment selection manages to be even more clumsy than in the first game, how the combat seems to have turned into generic cover shooting, etc but I think you get the general idea.

Yeah, the leveling system and weapon system were a bit bad, but the combat was a vast improvement (at least balancing-wise) from the first game.

TLDR: Why does everyone say this is the best Mass Effect game? I honestly want to know.

I wouldn't say "everyone" thinks ME2 is the best. Some people think it is, but from what I've seen they're not in the majority. Most tend to prefer the first game for it's superior story or the 3rd game for its superior mechanics. In other words: it's kinda like the "Empire Strikes Back" of the series: most people either love it or hate it. At first I didn't really like it either, though after successive playthroughs it started to grow on me.

 

[Auron225]

It's late and I'm tired so I won't address all your points. Only two - the citadel council/Cerberus & new crew members;

1) Citadel Council & Cerberus: I agree to an extent. It does seem downright moronic that even after all the shit that went down in the first game; the council STILL brush off anything you have to say about the Reapers as lunacy. That does seem stupid. However given this stupid scenario, I can see Shepard working with Cerberus as a logical action. While the council want to cover their ears and say "lalala I can't hear you", Cerberus take the Reapers seriously and are willing to give Shepard everything he needs to give them everything he's got. He'll do that with or without the council, even if it does mean working with terrorists. What he is doing is a good thing; even if he is working with bad people to do it.

2) Crew members: I initially felt the same way; I wanted my old crew back. I didn't want a replacement crew. But you know what? Honestly speaking; Ashley & Kaidan were boring as hell. Miranda and Jacob are more interesting characters (if you do their loyalty missions that is... you'll see later). You get 1/2 your alien comrades back and at least meet the other two (one of which joins you for arguably the best DLC in the game). And the other alien comrades you meet are also interesting characters. Not everyone you recruit is a psychopath (although I get the feeling you won't like Jack...) but if you liked the old crew I don't see why you wouldn't like the new one. Give them time.

 

[teebeeohh]

Not really. Even with Reaper technology is still makes no sense that one human organization somehow becomes second of the biggest threats in the galaxy behind only the Reapers themselves, especially when it's implicitly stated in the Codex that there are numerous other similar shady organizations working for the various species throughout the galaxy. The DLC for ME3 even blows things further into ridiculousness with the Omega DLC which has Cerberus somehow overpowering the Citadel, Omega, running massive shadowy organizations across the whole of the galaxy, possessing technology beyond any other race in the galaxy, and throwing armies of seemingly limitless grunts into the grinder.

this is literally what the reaper tech does, it allows them to put a normal refugee into a tube and BOOM elite soldier who wipes the floor normal soldiers of other races who take years to train. the reason why nobody else does it is because implanting people with reaper tech usually turns the subjects into husks, the reason this doesn't happen to cerberus is because the reaper allow them to use the tech that way.
they are basically a very convenient way for them to get things done behind enemy lines, a cerberus squad taking out a research base does not raise the same kind of attention as a reaper landing and doing the same. they are not a different enemy from the reapers, they are basically reaper covert ops.

If it was that easy to do all of the above that one human organization could do it, even with Reaper tech, it makes no sense the other races of the galaxy couldn't have done it as well considering even without the advantage of reaper tech they're more established, better trained, probably better funded, and have better connections. Again humans haven't even been around for long.

the Batarians had reaper tech. they died.
the only reason the reapers supply TIM with tech and allow him to operate his little space-kkk instead of just turning all of cerberus into straight up husks is because they have some fascination with humans(which makes no sense with how ME3 ended but whatever)
and i think one reason why human technology is equal to galactic standard even during the first contact war is because the prothean outpost on mars contained more technology and blueprints and stuff then most other races had access to.
and because everybody besides humans has the tactical ability of 40k space marines. i mean seriously, NOBODY in 2000 years of warfare in space had the idea of building carriers? nobody? not even the Krogan who relied on horde tactics on the ground, something you would assume they would try to apply to space warfare.

 

[deathbydeath]

People say ME2 is the best because it's art 'n shit. Seriously, there are flecks of brilliance buried under piles and piles of shit, irrelevant choices, bad writing, and idiocy.

Because of a couple of funny lines and interesting philosophizing, however, it's the second coming of Charles Bronsen for some raisin.

 

[jklinders]

Well there was a tone shift. The first game was designed bottom up to be a pure space opera. I think that the second game was more of a homage to an old movie I saw as a kid. The Dirty Dozen. The squad in the second game was a rag tag band of misfits welded together into a cohesive and deadly squad. The stakes were more personal and yet continued the story at the same time.

The Cerberus angle was a bit forced. But if you accept it, then the Council's reticence to trust Shepard makes perfect sense.

While Jacob was clearly the sane man on the team, that also made him the most boring to have around. Plus his abilities worked so poorly together he was nearly useless in a fight.


But at least the guns all had a different feel to them. It mattered which pistol or SMG you took. Because there were tradeoffs and advantages to each. The character moments were still really good. Martin Sheen as the Illusive Man was one of the better voice acting casting choices I have seen.

my biggest beef was that the squad was too big. The mid portion of the game really bogged down as a result. Over all a great game though.

 

[Dalisclock]

So... Why exactly is the game forcing me to side with the human-supremacist terrorist organisation? I mean, I kinda spent a fair portion of the last game fighting these guys. Sure, you brought me back to life and built a new Normandy. That's nice. I still don't like you, and I'd very much like to turn you over to the Council.

Speaking of the Council, what the hell happened to them? I mean, sure, they were never exactly as helpful as the could have been, but they were still reasonable. They didn't do anything about Saren until they had reasonable proof. They didn't send a fleet after him for good reasons Here, they just come off as idiots. For Christ's sake, I freaking saved your lives, the least you could do is believe me when I tell you who it was that almost killed you. I suppose this is supposed to make me sympathise with Cerberus, but honestly, it just feels cheap.

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't think it was. I liked ME a lot more, though the recruitment and loyalty missions were by far the best part of ME2 for me. THe whole rest of the plot was pretty....eh.

And I agree with you 100% about the council. "Reapers? What reapers?" Uh, the one that nearly killed you and destroyed big chunks of the citadel 2 years ago. Not 20 years ago. 2 years ago. It pretty much comes across as the Coucil acting like if they ignore it the problem, it will go away. So it feels like nobody has your back, except your recruited team.

 

[Dalisclock]

The Council are still following the same behavior. They don't believe you or what you say about the Reapers, because you have no definitive proof of Reapers.

The remains and bits and pieces of Sovereign were cleared away quickly by the Keepers. And just as well too, given how dangerous Reaper remains are.

Except they were there during the whole battle with Sovereign at the end. You know, where you kind of saved their asses.

That was 2 years prior. Not really long enough to forget something like that. And it's not like there aren't big pieces of the citadel still needing to be cleaned up 2 years later.

It's like if the President of the US went to NYC in 2003, is asked about Al Queda and responded with "Terrorists? What are you talking about?" It doesn't make you look calm and collected, it makes you look retarded and naive.

 

[Weaver]

I've complained about the Cerberus thing at length.

Not only does the illusive man really not have much of a reason to spend a shit load of money saving Shepard; I really never knew what his "plan" was throughout the whole game. Shepard chose to blow up the reaper at the end. He made basically no effort to keep a leash on Shepard and seems genuinely surprised when things don't go the way he wanted.

Long story short, Cerberus seemed very incidental and kind of not really that fleshed out in the first game. They were there to be evil. As such, I really don't know why they chose Cerberus in the second game at all. They could have just picked some other "shadow group" or whatever the hell we've never heard of than literally force us to work with a terrorist organization.

I also agree the council is pointlessly stupid in this one. People saw the reaper attack the citadel. Surely one of the thousands of ships fighting it had some kind of recording feed stored somewhere, or there was some camera that captured a fucking giant reaper that someone has the footage of.

 

[Cooperblack]

In my opinion ME 2 is an almost complete devolution of ME 1, The plot is told backwards like why do Shep have to find a team of ground fighting specialist? - Because in the last stage of the game Shep and Co does a lot of ground fighting duh! - Even though nobody could actually know that at the beginning of the game where a spaceship was the menace.

So you go and you find your team only to discover that none of them except Mordin have any influence over the plot, They are just there to be used in the final battle and for that you have to spend 10+ hours solving their daddy issues .. Gone are the sense of scale/scope, Gone is the tale of the universe..replaced with daddy issues.

First time I played ME 2 I got a strong sense that this game will not matter when ME 3 comes out and I was right, ME 2 doesn't matter one bit, It's just padding and it does a very poor job at that.

 

[omega 616]

I liked the crew to an extent, Miranda and Jacob are basically Ashley and Kaiden but with a story, I think Garrus is the most boring character and have no idea why people love him so much, Grunt is Urdnot Wrex, I liked Jack 'cos bitchy female characters don't happen very often in games and it's nice to see her transform with the love interest, Kasumi isn't really all there (she gets one mission and then basically nothing else), I liked Legion 'cos of the whole Geth story line, Mordin is a rather typical science character, Samara is ok, Tali plays well (in terms of story) with Legion, Thane is pretty run of the mill and Zaeed is the guy you love to hate.

They pretty much check off the bog standard character types, it is rather by the numbers but if you forget about that and let there personalities win you over, I think you will like some of them.

Personally, the ones people like I hate and the one everybody hates, I like ... (I hate Garrus, Liara and Tali but I love Jack)

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Holy shit...someone liked Jacob?

Wow.

I know right? My monocle pops off every time I read that someone likes him.

I didn't like being forced to work for terrorists, I didn't like the tank that replaced the Mako, I didn't like scanning planets from orbit for hours, I didn't like how short the missions were, I didn't like how my team mates always insisted on running in front of me every time I lined up a shot with my sniper rifle, I didn't like how characters were shoe-horned in to blatant stereotypes, I didn't like losing the 10 million credits I had saved up by the end of ME1, and I didn't like the shared cooldown on powers.

I did like

Spoiler

Mordin Solus singing

Spoiler

Nuking the various bosses with the Cain heavy weapon

Spoiler

Stealing Illusive Man's multi-billion dollar space ship and giving it to the Alliance

and

Spoiler

Legion

 

[regalphantom]

On the whole Reapers thing, there are a lot of reasons why it makes a lot of sense for the council to not acknowledge the threat. The first thing is that the council doesn't like Shepard, although they dislike him less if he saved them. Like it or not, the council only made Shepard a Specter because they had their backs against a wall and it was the best (politically speaking) solution for them at the time. Additionally, there was a lot of information that you (the viewer) has that the Council didn't. While you saw all of the information about the Reapers as the player, all that the council saw was a Geth attack led by a traitor in a massive capital ship. Given that they had next to no knowledge of the Geth, this assumption is extremely logical to them. Furthermore, the council has a reason to believe that Shepard is at least a bit unstable. Pretty much every background except for spacer/warhero garentees that Shep has suffered at least one major trauma, and that is before he was exposed to the broken alien machine which messed around inside his head. Also considering many of the other choices that Shepard can make. To them, when the options are that an ancient race of giant spaceships manipulates galatic evolution and expansion for unknown cullings, or that the potentially mentally unstable soldier bought Saren's propaganda, they are likely going to go with option B.

The Cerberus thing also makes some sense, although some of the reactions could have been written better. From the start of the game, Shepard has no choice but to go along with Cerberus. He wakes up in a crippled space-station filled with rampaging mechs and is given a chance to take a seat on the last boat off. From there, his options are basically "Go along with it, look for an opportunity out while fighting the collectors" or "spend an excessive amount of time waiting around hoping to get a ship, a crew, and some weapons to effectively do the same thing". I agree that there should have been more "show you aren't happy about it" options, but realistically speaking they did well enough, and as soon as you get the chance to escape Cerberus, you have the option to (Shep couldn't leave even though he had the crew's loyalty because EDI still had Cerberus loyalty locks. When those are lifted you pretty much B-Line for the collector homeworld, and leave after that mission). It could have been written better, but the premise itself is not unbelievable.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I liked it overall. As far as your main three gripes, I found most of the characters alright, a bit standard in their treatment of issues, but miles ahead of what passes for characterisation in other games, and the bits of dialogue during missions are great. As far as Cerberus, they are at least actually trying to do something about the Reapers, and have plenty of funds, which is more than the Council is doing for you at that point, although I found the game constantly trying to guilt me about being involved in "a TERRORIST organisation" (such horror) tiresome (which is the opposite of your experience, where you have a problem with Shepard going along with it). Lastly, yep, the Council don't do much. I agree.

 

[00slash00]

I liked Mass Effect 2 because playing the first game was like having my teeth pulled out. The game play was beyond bad, in my opinion. I also found myself more interested in this story than the story of the first game. I also liked the companions in this game more. As far as why you're working with Cerberus, you're using them. You're legally dead. You have no authority and certainly no spectre status. You're taking their technology and doing what you need to do, you aren't their employee. I mean it's not like they were main villains in the last game. If you don't do many side missions, you barely even hear about them

 

[oRevanchisto]

First of all OP, STFU and finish the game first and then immediately come back here and post your thoughts. ME2 is a brilliant game and has one of the best DLC's ever (Lair of the Shadow Broker).

1. Yes, it is a dark game very intentionally so. At the time of release the creators stated that it was to be the Empire Strikes Back of the series and it really shows.

2. ME2 is all about your squad mates so talk to them often and get to know them. If you don't love Mordin by the end of the game then something is wrong with you, I mean how do you like Jacob above everyone else? He's such a boring dude.

3. Yes the Council is dumb and it kinda retcons the end of ME1 where they seemed to accept the Reaper threat. But, I understood it at the time, even if I didn't agree with it. They essentially don't want to see the galaxy prepare for teh big Reaper threat, they wanted Shepard to be on his own in ME2 exploring shit by himself and getting to know the universe better before the shit hits the fan in ME3.

4. Cerberus and The Illusive Man are really cool in ME2. Your encounters with Cerberus in ME1 made them seem fucking nuts thus actually getting to speak and work with them in ME2 was cool as you could at least understand their viewpoints and what they were trying to do even if you didn't agree with it. TIM is a very complex character in this game and you can't just write him off as a bad guy.

5. ME3 will disappoint you. In fact, you might be better off just finishing ME2 and then never playing 3 because nothing will prepare you for the shit you will encounter and the massive let down that is the ending.

 

[Something Amyss]

People want more of the same. They turned ME2 into more of the same: a boilerplate shooter in space. What's not to love?

 

[Splitzi]

I'm not sure why the OP doesn't like the crew. The crew is one of my favorite parts of the game. It's Jack vs Miranda, hanging out with space batman and my lovely lady Tali. And who can forget my favorite singing Salarian?

Shepard makes sure to stress in the game that he isn't working for Cerberus, they just provide him with equipment and happen to have a similar goal in protecting humanity from an intergalactic threat.

It's my favorite game in the series because there is just so much there to do. I've played through it a minimum of 7 times, never doing it the same way twice. One of the only disappointments in ME2 is the scanning, seriously though... fuck scanning.

 

[wulf3n]

Who knows. I've always felt ME2 to be the weakest of the series.

The plot was just awful, amounting to little more than a collection of retcons and sensationalist cliches to make an unimportant story in the grand scheme feel more relevant.

They brought in too many new characters, detracting from what could have been used to progress existing characters.

The gameplay was refined, but in doing so stripped away a lot of what made ME1 special and unique.

In summary ME2 was a big missed opportunity. It still had a lot of enjoyable moments, but didn't capture the original spark.