Trailers: Mass Effect 2: Arrival

[sumanoskae]

I just hope ME3 isn't centered around Earth. I don't care about Earth. I'm here to save the galaxy, not to play favorite with certain races.

My guess us Mass Effect 3 will be structured similarly to Dragon Age: Origins, having to navigate various races political issues, pick sides, do some less then savory stuff to get them off their asses to combat the Reapers... fly th damn Normandy properly for once

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I just hope ME3 isn't centered around Earth. I don't care about Earth. I'm here to save the galaxy, not to play favorite with certain races.

I feel the same way but it will be. For some reason Bioware have decided to focus Shepard's story on humanity rather than the galaxy as a whole. Shepard even specifically mentions that "humans" will fight the Reapers, he doesn't mention the other races at all (which he did in Mass Effect 1), I don't get why they think we need another cliché "humans save the day" plot, I really don't.

It would render Paragon Shepards pretty non-canonical. Seeing as Paragon=pro-galaxy and Renegade=pro-human. But with the missteps Bioware has been making recently, I wouldn't doubt it.

Remember that we were forced to work with Cerberus in Mass Effect 2 (which my Paragade Shepard would never have done given the choice) so it isn't that far fetched really, and they are an anti-alien group.

I don't see Bioware forcing us to not care about other races, but I believe that the game will be spent recruiting the others to save Earth. This has been hinted at quite strongly so far, and when they accidentally leaked the release of ME3 on the EA site, it mentioned this.

I'd set up a trap for the Reapers and sacrifice Earth. I just feel like we should be given a choice. Save your own planet, but all other races take a huge hit or sacrifice Earth and focus on protecting the galaxy.

With any luck, Bioware will remember that they are a company that supposedly make RPG's, and will give us some choices, I cannot fathom the lack of choices (with consequences) that they have been including in their recent games.

I'd be happy with a DA:O setup. You have the approaching army (Reapers) and they throw you into the game to recruit people. You'd essentially be picking one faction over another (this may test your companions' loyalty). Such as Quarians or Geth, Council or Cerberus/Alliance, etc. Would it be original? No. Would it work really well? Yes.

 

[sumanoskae]

It makes sense.

I never argued that it doesn't make sense, though i would if i was in the mood to get into a lengthy discussion. Judging by the state we're in right now and the nigh-invincibility of the reapers as seen in ME1, all we've done with the first 2 games was delay the inevitable. Of course, Shepard's gonna find the special maguffin grenade that one-shots all the reapers when it's used and everything will be fine, but that doesn't make the first 2 games any more redundant.

But my main argument was that the plot twist is utterly uninteresting. "The Reapers just walked the distance" is utterly anticlimactic and not worthy of a game that wants to be deep and rich in story.

Yeah I see your point. It's a little too "easy" a twist.
I think the idea behind it (if there is one, it's probably just lazy design) is intriguing though. It kind of emphasizes the danger that we have to use every slightest advantage we get to stop the invasion. It doesn't just focus on the one and only solution, but shows the efforts to stall the invasion in order to make time to find one. I got that feeling at the end of the first game already, when in the end it was still all yeah we killed Saren but the Reapers are coming anyway.
That is not to say, however, that ME2 as a whole was not pretty pointless plot-wise. If the Reapers could've just started going the distance quietly instead of telling us with fanfares and Collectors that they're still there, the whole thing would've been much more surprising.
I can totally see why you'd find that premise uninteresting or even boring, but in my twisted mind the anticlimactic nature of it kind of works, because I was already thinking the Reapers could just take some time and get their asses over here. So now they do, and we're trying to hinder their progress until we find the inevitable Deus Ex Machina/McGuffin device you mentioned.

I dunno I guess I just think it's nice that they actually make the Reapers out as this unstoppable force that will inevitably destroy us no matter what. Only they won't of course. But they still tell it that way. You get the idea.

My hope is that there is an ending when the Reapers just come and fuck our shit up, everybody dies, we tired, but we screwed up, show Sheppard having one last heartwarming conversation with his friends/love interest, fade to black, sad string music over credits.

They might also go with a sort of Jesus ending(With all the Biblical subtext, it would make sense(I think I'll name any of my future Sheppard's Jesús, for good measure)), when Sheppard fails to defeat the Reapers, but in his death he exemplifies all the good things about humanity, and the Reapers decide to leave us alone. Hell, knowing Sheppard, he could probably juts talk them out of it anyway

 

[Haagrum]

It would render Paragon Shepards pretty non-canonical. Seeing as Paragon = pro-galaxy and Renegade = pro-human. But with the missteps Bioware has been making recently, I wouldn't doubt it.

I'm not sure that's accurate. Shepard, first and foremost, gets shit done. The Paragon/Renegade dichotomy is not about whether Shepard is sweetness and light or eats babies. It's about how he/she gets the job done, and whether he/she cares about whether others approve of his/her methods.

Frankly, a moral compass that isn't at least a little flexible (in such circumstances as Arrival) would result in everyone getting killed. Thankfully, Shepard's not Rorschach, and appreciates a bit of black-and-grey morality. Bring on ME3 - I want to know how it ends.

 

[psivamp]

did anyone else think it was some sort of saw knock DLC off a the begining of the film

Yes. I heard Harbinger/Jigsaw tell Shepard that it/he wants to play a game.

 

[dpixie]

For all the people going "Paragon Shepard would never do such a thing!!!" I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one.

Spoiler

The thing is Shepard literally has less than an hour to destroy the relay and if s/he doesn't do it in that time frame? Then the Reapers are here and we're all dead. Simple as that. Yes, sacrificing 300,000 lives is horrible, but by doing so you could be saving 3,000,000,000,000 lives at least. Look at those numbers. And as a Paragon you can try to warn them, though Kenson does f*ck that plan over.

My Shepard would make that choice and she's the paragon of paragons. Granted it mentally and emotionally f*cked her over and I'm pretty sure she'd turn herself in for war crimes after the Reapers are dealt with but she'd do it.

 

[Discord]

Saw it downloaded and played.

Kinda short but it felt like it was there to move the story along a bit and set up some SERIOUS stuff in Mass Effect 3 which is all good.

I kinda got the feel it was suppose to be a Stealth Mission (in my opinion) if the guns were silenced because I got to the doctor without fireing a shot (I thought there was a Achivement for doing that )

In the end...

Spoiler: WAIT, WAIT, WAIT Think back to Mass Effect 1

I saw the doctor betrayal comeing a mile away, didn't see the whole slaming a astroid thing though; Kinda reminded me of the "Bring Down the Sky" DLC from Mass Effect 1. Which Ironicly Introduced the Baterians, Now we destroyed a Baterian System kinda doing the same thing with a big ROCK.

My Theory - Since I let that Terrorist from Bring down the Sky Go WAAAAYY Back in ME1; will he come back HARD in ME3 trying to do the same... Alittle Payback?

Just a thought

One more thing

Spoiler: I thought that was Cool sorta

It was nice to see what Admiral Hackkett Looked like; I kinda saw him looking as he did but...

Something tells me there is going to be a Hackkett/Alliance, Illusive Man/Cerberus "Who will you ally with Help" Choice in ME3

 

[Nimcha]

ME2 was an unplanned sequel with different writers; the original intent was that Reapers could not enter our galaxy so easily without the Citadel relay.

Wow, that kinda makes all of your other posts invalid. Mass Effect was meant to be a trilogy from the beginning. They even said so when announcing the first game.