Why Mass Effect 2 was, and is, the superior out of the Mass Effect trilogy. [No Spoilers]

[Agayek]

Saren has to find the conduit because his citadel access was revoked and he was made an outlaw because he killed a bunch of people while searching for the conduit which he needs because he lost access to the citadel because he was looking for the conduit which caused him to lose access so he had to find the conduit to get back on the citadel because his access was revoked because he was looking for the conduit.

This is a good plot? Because it seems like a logic circle to me with the worlds dumbest villain at the center

Actually, it all makes fantastic amounts of sense once you realize that Saren didn't know what the Conduit actually was.

Remember, the Conduit was a super-secret prototype of a Mass Relay the Protheans were building on a planet that was only spared annihilation because the Protheans kept no records of its existence. From there, it's logical to conclude that there were no records, outside Ilos at least, of what the Conduit actually was.

My personal theory is that Sovereign ordered Saren to use his status as a Spectre to investigate why his signal to the Keepers went ignored (because obviously Sovereign couldn't stroll up and do it himself without getting exploded). Saren looks into it and finds a handful of records or datalogs or something from the Prothean researchers that locked out Sovereign, and all it told him was that something called the Conduit was somehow involved in shutting down the Keepers. He doesn't know what it is or how it's involved, but the records say it's important. Ergo, he thinks he needs to find it in order to remove the Keeper block. Then, when he hears about the beacon on Eden Prime, he seizes on the opportunity to discover what and where the Conduit is.

Then, once he does figure it out (presumably from the beacon on Virmire, but possibly not til he found some records or something on Ilos) and realizes he has absolutely no idea why the Keepers aren't responding, Sovereign just says "fuck it, we'll use the Conduit for a surprise attack in order to let me activate the Citadel Relay manually".

Thus, Saren's actions are explained and kept logical and consistent throughout.

 

[-Dragmire-]

1 had good story

Saren has to find the conduit because his citadel access was revoked and he was made an outlaw because he killed a bunch of people while searching for the conduit which he needs because he lost access to the citadel because he was looking for the conduit which caused him to lose access so he had to find the conduit to get back on the citadel because his access was revoked because he was looking for the conduit.

This is a good plot? Because it seems like a logic circle to me with the worlds dumbest villain at the center.

Like I said, try playing Infiltrator on Insanity.

Snipers rifles only have either have only 9/12 total ammo, or do shit for damage.

It's very easy. Infiltrator is one of the easiest classes to play insanity mode on by far. Headshot everything, use a heavy pistol or SMG to soften targets. You just have to figure out how to balance ammo expenditure. I mean you can one hit kill harbinger possessions and you're still having trouble?...

Umm.... you know why else Saren needed the Conduit? So he could, you know, SURPRISE ATTACK THE CITADEL?!?!? You seem to forget that he also needed all of his geth buddies who couldn't stroll up to the Citadel quite as easily.

That's one of ME1's biggest plot holes. At the beginning of the game, Saren has Specter status and no one believes any accusations against him. At this point, he could have authorized a landing of a brand new ship called Sovereign. Once Sovereign was inside, he could close the arms so no ships could shoot him. At that point the military isn't completely centered around the Citadel either since there isn't a known threat yet. There, he won since I don't think small arms from in the citadel could damage him.

Alternatively, Sovereign could have given some advanced reboot software to Saren to install on the Citadel that would revert the station's OS to Reaper Control v1.0. No one's going to stop a Specter from doing an inspection.


ME1 is my favorite game in the series, but I'm not going to pretend there wasn't anything odd with an enemy who needs to get into a door and his main pawn has an all access pass to everything and not using it.

 

[hatok]

I don't get why everybody is so hung up on ME2's story MEANING something. In my opinion the ride was well worth it. It focused on easily the strongest aspect of Mass Effect: the characters.

 

[Joccaren]

The 3 main reasons why Mass Effect 2 is the best out of the series are:
1- A perfect balance of Role-playing and Action.
2- Interesting Hub worlds.
3- The ever present tension of the impending suicide mission.

Damn I'm lucky I kept reading after this. This honestly caused me to laugh out loud a couple of times. Namely at the "Perfect" balance it achieves, and the "Interesting" hub worlds it has.

1- In ME1 the combat was unrefined but had very good role-playing elements. In ME3 the combat was very polished but there was way too many fights and the role-playing elements became simplified to the point where there didn't seem to be any at all. ME2 on the other hand, had the balance just right; the fights never felt forced and having dialogue conversation during missions was always interesting.

Umm... Ok. It has the best balance is very different to having the perfect balance, as seriously most of ME2 was shooting things [Which makes sense with its pretty crap combat system that dragged things out with because of cover]. There were a few things to do in between, but lets be honest, most of it was shooting stuff, and it wasn't often you could talk your way out of things instead.
Personally, ME1 had the best balance. Combat happened, but there were other ways to do things too, and you could avoid a lot of enemies by taking a different route through a level [Which is why on any max-out playthrough I always took all the paths to an objective before getting to the objective, doubling or tripling the time spent but maximising the XP I received]. And whilst its combat was unrefined, 2's was just boring. I prefered ME1's. Get 3's and add the range of ME1 [500m sniper headshots], and rebalance abilities with no shared cooldown, and that would, to me, be perfect. ME2's was just bleh, and ME3's was mechanically good but lacking in options. It was all run in, and do what your class is designed to do; sit behind a wall and shoot things, sit behind a wall and cast 2 spells at something then shoot it until they're recharged, or teleport out from behind a wall use a spell and shoot the enemy whilst running to the nearest wall. All walls. All within a 100m area of battle, most within 50.

2- ME1 let's you explore each planet you find, though most were barren, the main hub world is the Citadel, this is the same for ME3 but on a smaller scale which causes it to get boring after a while. ME2 however didn't have one hub world but four: The Citadel, Omega, Illium and Tuchanka, all of which had plenty of stuff to do.

How being more numerous makes them more interesting is beyond me, but honestly I'm pretty sure you should count at least Feros and Noveria as hub worlds as well. The third basic one no 'cause its just a mission, and Virmire no because its not so much a hub as a series of missions, but Feros and Noveria were their own trading port, with side quests and main quests and non-core mission areas to explore [Noveria maybe not exploring. There was a tiny bit, but not much].
Then there was the Citadel, which was the most interesting of any Mass Effect hub world IMO. It was large, interconnected, and layered with all different levels of society. It had politics happening whilst you were there, it had its own emergencies that happened, it had civil disputes and it had even just small, everyday problems of people that you ended up helping with. And it had Conrad Verner, your #1 fan.

3- Throughout the course of ME2, there is constant build up to the final mission and making sure everything and everyone was ready for it. ME1 was more about finding and stopping Saren which did have so tension to it but not a lot. In ME3, the first half did have some build up to the final push but after craving through tons of enemies the game starts losing tension.

I actually found it the opposite. ME1 there was always the tension in the fact that you had something big that was immediate. Right from the start, you're picking up a top secret alien artifact. Then its stolen. You get it back, but the guy who attacked the colony was a secret service agent. You've got to prove him guilty to stop him. You do so, but he's run away. Now you've got to find him, and whatever this 'Conduit' is before he uses it. You find evidence at every [major] turn, and eventually you find Saren himself. Then you find out that his ship is really a galaxy destroying sentient lifeform, and you've really got to stop him. Then you figure out what and where the Conduit is, and go to it. Then Saren attacks the Citadel and you've got to defend it. There's always something big going on, with the minimum stakes being entire human colonies being attacked by Saren.
ME2 on the other hand... You have to fight your way out of a rogue robot facility after being revived from the dead by phoenix downs. Then you go to some colony that has security drones activated as a lead to stopping the aliens that have been devouring entire human colonies. Then you... Dick around for a bit finding people to work for you really. You can't go anywhere with the collectors, as there are 0 leads, and you just have to wait. Then you go after the Collectors as they attack a colony. Aaand then you dick around a bit more, collect more crew because, once again, you've got nothing on the collectors. Then you find the Collector's ship disabled, and you go after them and have to pull out. And, once again, you dick around. This time doing loyalty missions for your crew, solving their personal problems. Then you find a dead Reaper to grab an EFF to chase the collectors with. Then you dick around for a bit whilst its installed, doing sidequests and Legion's loyalty mission. Then your ship is attacked, and you are finally back to having an immediate threat to chase. No more "We can't do anything, so wait for Intel", you actually go out and get them and it becomes exciting again. Well, as exciting as it can be anyway, considering it is an utterly pointless side story that exists as filler before ME3.

What do you think? Is Mass Effect 2 the best of the three or not?

Nah, ME1 was best, 2 second, 3... Well, common. Who didn't see this coming?

 

[Kingjackl]

Mass Effect 2 was the odd one out of the trilogy. As far as the overarching plot goes, the opening hour of Mass Effect 3 is Mass Effect 2, while Mass Effect 2 is a heist movie spin-off. It's a great standalone game, but as the middle act of a trilogy, it's useless.

That's why I'm so quick to defend Mass Effect 3, because I see it getting a lot of complaints for Mass Effect 2's flaws. Mass Effect 3 ended on a deus ex machina? Maybe if Mass Effect 2 had actually set anything up for it, things might have been different. Mass Effect 3 shafted Mass Effect 2 squadmates? Only because half of them were completely irrelevant to the larger plot. Mass Effect 3 had too much Cerberus? After Mass Effect 2, they couldn't just abandon them, people would ask questions.

 

[Lybs]

I believe all 3 games did at least 1 thing better than the other 2.

ME2 had the best boss fights.

ME3 had the best blend of action and RPG, a fun MP, and the most balanced classes

ME1 had the best RPG elements, customization, and a tank.

A tank that could do this.

Spoiler

[http://s974.photobucket.com/user/kommando367/media/mako_zpsb391c208.gif.html]

Ah yes, the fucking Mako, the real hero of the Mass Effect universe. God, i would love a spin-off game just based on the adventures of the fucking Mako
I think that ME 1 in still the best in the series, but mostly because I think that the role-playing aspect in it was the best. ME2 had roleplay, but you couldn't really roleplay like you could in ME1. If you didn't like a characters in ME1, you could REALLY let that character know it. You could be an total asshole if you wanted to to anybody, if some flirted with you could even elaborate the response itself with dialog branching and either give them the cold shoulder, tell them to take a cold shower, just be neutral or ever flirt very awkwardly back. I sometimes hated when Shepard made a default flirty response to anyone that I didn't what her/him to be involved with in ME3. Plus, I personally think that the biotics you used in ME1 felt like they had more impact than what they had in ME2 or 3. If you lifted something up with your biotics in ME1, everything in the room started to levitate. ME2 did a fine job in dividing up the classes so you could tell them apart, but many time when I used biotics and tech in multiplayer it felt just like I had swapped the color pallets.
All in all, ME1 had the best role-play, ME3 had the best combat but ME2 was when they tried to make the game into it's own thing and get an identity. I have heard, and understood after I picked it up, why many have called ME1 a KOTOR clone. Even with a different setting and characters, the story is basically the same, evil guy wants to destroy the galaxy, you need to find a mysterious muckguffin that will save us all, plot twist in the middle of the game, awkward lovestories with sometimes cute characters, and that the decisions you make affects the way characters look at you.

 

[Joccaren]

See that meant something to me cause while I was bollock deep in this massive world I was imagining the squad of elite support biotics being backed up by Jack holding the lines in London that little bit longer, buying me the time to get there, that little minor side story with these things called Quarian and Geth and creating peace between these two peoples without ensuring the annihilation of the other? Good luck resolving that well if you intend on ignoring ME2s story.

You see, that's the thing. Jack is a CHARACTER in ME2, she isn't the plot.
She has her own character arc, yes, but that could have been compressed into ME3, or not existed at all without influencing the plot.
Legion's existence does a tiny bit towards the plot of ME3 in that the Quarians and Geth have a couple of weighting variables for war assigned to him, but otherwise nothing.
Chasing around the Collectors meant absolutely nothing to the ME plot. It was just there as filler. The grand Reaper threat was no combated, it was barely even addressed. Remove ME2, ME3 still makes sense. A few lines would need to be rewritten, but that's about it.

Sometimes the consensus among the nerdy types here is for more emergent story-telling and not having everything spoon fed, and the next minute it's calling the story of the most ambitious experiment ever undertaken in gaming history appaling because it required a bit of player input to get the most out of it.

Different types of games, and not quite the same thing.
Emergent story telling is where the players make the story through their actions. You build the town, and other players build another town. Actual disputes between players cause the towns to go to war. One town wins, the other loses.
ME is a series with a pre-set story. There are side quests, like the character arcs, but that's it. The extent that the story telling is "emergent" is that you get to choose which of the... 4000 or so paths with minor differences to take through the story, and SOMETIMES which order to do them in. They are all practically the same, however, and all pre-written and decided such that no story really emerges, it was there all along.
ME is a highly linear, cinematic, experience that tries to tell you a story rather than let you make your own. At times it also says "Screw telling the story, you guys just make it up for me please". Its a discord that does not work. If you are trying to tell a story, tell the story. If you want the players to create the story, let them create the story. Don't do both, 'cause it really doesn't work and comes across as lazy.

Saren has to find the conduit because his citadel access was revoked and he was made an outlaw because he killed a bunch of people while searching for the conduit which he needs because he lost access to the citadel because he was looking for the conduit which caused him to lose access so he had to find the conduit to get back on the citadel because his access was revoked because he was looking for the conduit.

You forget that Saren actually had no idea what the Conduit was at the start of the game. No-one did. He attacked Eden Prime to try and get a lead on it. When he got that lead on it, you locked him out of the Citadel, and he had to find it, figure out what it was, then use it to surprise attack the Citadel.

That's one of ME1's biggest plot holes. At the beginning of the game, Saren has Specter status and no one believes any accusations against him. At this point, he could have authorized a landing of a brand new ship called Sovereign. Once Sovereign was inside, he could close the arms so no ships could shoot him. At that point the military isn't completely centered around the Citadel either since there isn't a known threat yet. There, he won since I don't think small arms from in the citadel could damage him.

There is so much wrong with this. For one, sure Saren was trusted, but even the council would be hesitant to let a giant, unusual ship that no-one has seen before, or will admit to building, that is also the single LARGEST SHIP IN THE GALAXY land without a full inspection - which would cause problems for Saren.
Secondly, it assumes Sovereign knows what's up with the Citadel and how to fix it. Hint; He doesn't. He just knows that the signal isn't working, and he wants to find out why.
Thirdly, whilst Saren is a trusted Spectre, when there is no immediate threat such that most of the Citadel fleet is away, and no-one is ready to fight Sovereign, there is no real reason that could convince the Citadel to give him unfettered control over the Station. Close the arms? Why? Are we under attack? Call in all the fleets!
In addition, Saren would then get taken down by C-Sec, as he has no Geth Army to keep them busy. For one Saren wouldn't let that happen - he wants to live and be free and that - and for 2 Citadel control could then open the station's arms from Citadel Central Control.

Alternatively, Sovereign could have given some advanced reboot software to Saren to install on the Citadel that would revert the station's OS to Reaper Control v1.0. No one's going to stop a Specter from doing an inspection.

Again, Sovereign had no idea that it had been changed from Reaper Control 1.0 in the first place. He just knew it wasn't working because the Protheans did something.

 

[bug_of_war]

Snipers rifles only have either have only 9/12 total ammo, or do shit for damage.

Headshots. That is all.

Mass Effect One is the only Mass Effect worth playing, the second is a rather poor excuse for a game and the third is just appalling.

Mmm, ME1 was totally the superior game with it's poor item managing system, sub par skill point allocation system, terrible gun play, less than stellar graphics, many a barren world to drive around on for 5 minutes, less then stimulating side missions, along with the random fluctuation of difficulty that has a portion of the fans saying it was a grind to finish the first game. At least the sequels were polished.

snip

See, here's the problem, games are almost entirely subjective, so your opinion is valid solely for you. I personally think ME3 was the best because it ticked all the boxes for me and I could deal with the ending. However, people have different expectations/limits to what they can accept.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

ME1 I had absolutely the most fun in retrospect.

Maybe it's because it felt so incredibly satisfying building a character designed around running+gunning while casting magic spells to nullify all damage and having it all pay off by storming up the Citadel's walls in the final mission of the game. Maybe it's because of the story being not completely retarded and having the morale choices being a bit less binary then the rest.

It's most definitely the least polished of the series though. Fuck the Mako.

 

[-Dragmire-]

ME1 is my favorite game in the series, but I'm not going to pretend there wasn't anything odd with an enemy who needs to get into a door and his main pawn has an all access pass to everything and not using it.

He doesn't just boot the door in and go hard with Sovereign because he doesn't want what Sovereign wants, deliberately because he wants to do it his way. What he wants is to save as many lives as possible, and he can't do this if he starts open war, so if his plan went as it should he would've found the conduit sneaky style, opened it up without bloodshed(since nobody knew about it before Shepard got involved), and then got Sovereign and his reaper buddies in place with a minimum of combat with the reapers, since as far as he sees it fighting them is completely futile, and if he takes care of things his way and shows Sovereign the value of Organics then he thinks the reapers are going to be inclined to make some exceptions in their case and not simply wipe out all of them.

Things obviously wind up going to tits because he hadn't anticipated Shepard being able to withstand the Beacon, much less acquiring the assistance of the daughter of his very own Matriarch advisor, but nonetheless, that's why he didn't just use his specter status to just go in. He hoped to be the hero of the galaxy by secretly masterminding a plan to install the reapers in a way that convinces them to spare the puny organics, with a bare necessary minimum of life-lost.

I can buy that, we definitely see him change over the course of the game and I can believe he was more reluctant at first. The reason I brought it up is because we hear about him using his specter status to get into other facilities and it seemed odd to not use Saren to get remote access to the citadel. However, why does he need the Conduit for remote access to the Citadel controls before he's outed as a traitor?

Ah, answered below...

Saren has to find the conduit because his citadel access was revoked and he was made an outlaw because he killed a bunch of people while searching for the conduit which he needs because he lost access to the citadel because he was looking for the conduit which caused him to lose access so he had to find the conduit to get back on the citadel because his access was revoked because he was looking for the conduit.

You forget that Saren actually had no idea what the Conduit was at the start of the game. No-one did. He attacked Eden Prime to try and get a lead on it. When he got that lead on it, you locked him out of the Citadel, and he had to find it, figure out what it was, then use it to surprise attack the Citadel.

True(and yes, I forgot that detail. My bad.), but it still seems odd that if the ultimate goal is Citadel control, chasing a semi ancient contraption that may assist in some way was the go-to option rather than trying some way to see why the Keepers didn't respond to the reaper signal in a more direct way.

That's one of ME1's biggest plot holes. At the beginning of the game, Saren has Specter status and no one believes any accusations against him. At this point, he could have authorized a landing of a brand new ship called Sovereign. Once Sovereign was inside, he could close the arms so no ships could shoot him. At that point the military isn't completely centered around the Citadel either since there isn't a known threat yet. There, he won since I don't think small arms from in the citadel could damage him.

There is so much wrong with this. For one, sure Saren was trusted, but even the council would be hesitant to let a giant, unusual ship that no-one has seen before, or will admit to building, that is also the single LARGEST SHIP IN THE GALAXY land without a full inspection - which would cause problems for Saren.

I'll give you that, it just seemed like a better idea that teleport a person inside to hijack the controls while you ram straight through ships as the Citadel arms close around you.

Secondly, it assumes Sovereign knows what's up with the Citadel and how to fix it. Hint; He doesn't. He just knows that the signal isn't working, and he wants to find out why.

No, but he seems to gain control once he interfaces with it. If that's the case then I assume some kind of bug for remote access would have given him at least some info on the problem

Thirdly, whilst Saren is a trusted Spectre, when there is no immediate threat such that most of the Citadel fleet is away, and no-one is ready to fight Sovereign, there is no real reason that could convince the Citadel to give him unfettered control over the Station. Close the arms? Why? Are we under attack? Call in all the fleets!

A specter planting a bug in C-Sec HQ isn't exactly unheard of...

In addition, Saren would then get taken down by C-Sec, as he has no Geth Army to keep them busy. For one Saren wouldn't let that happen - he wants to live and be free and that - and for 2 Citadel control could then open the station's arms from Citadel Central Control.

I was thinking less hostile takeover and more plant a device that would give Sovereign control over some systems.

Alternatively, Sovereign could have given some advanced reboot software to Saren to install on the Citadel that would revert the station's OS to Reaper Control v1.0. No one's going to stop a Specter from doing an inspection.

Again, Sovereign had no idea that it had been changed from Reaper Control 1.0 in the first place. He just knew it wasn't working because the Protheans did something.

The last part was more of a joke about using system restore to fix a problem.

[sub][sub]Ugh, interconnected quotes. Quite the pain. Might want to snip it if you reply[/sub][/sub]

 

[CloudAtlas]

Oh boy...

Fortunately, many people before me already pointed out that the OP's statements are subjective opinions at best and factually wrong at worst, too many people for me to quote them.

That said... Dear God, give me the strength to abstain from yet another time-consuming and ultimately fruitless Mass Effect conversation! Not sure how well praying works for an atheist though...

 

[sanquin]

Roleplay: ME1 again, it had the most conversations and choices within those.

Erm...actually ME1 has the fewest lines of dialogue of all three games. I can't say how many times you were told to pick a response in each game, though, not that it mattered most of the time in any of the games. <.<

Since when? Everyone on your ship and the main npc's outside of it all had a lot to say. Quite a few less important npc's too. Only most of the background npc's didn't have a ton of conversation going on. I'm not just talking about the main story here, but about dialogue as a whole.

 

[Madman123456]

Actually i kinda agree with the OP, or at least i can see the Point.
I loved Mass effect 1 and was fascinated with the fleshed out world. You can say what you want about the vehicle sections but at least they gave the Galaxy a certain feel of size. Even if the Planets where laughably similar and the buildings on the "mako-planets" look like they where all made by the same company. Which actually might be the case but whatever.

Inventory management was twelve kinds of Bullshit, no question about that.
And maybe i'm factoring in my own memories about the awesome promises the game made which got me pumped for the later installments which then failed to fulfill those promises.


Mass Effect 2 had good gunplay but that was kinda the only thing it had, gameplaywise at least.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Well...it's a wash, really.

ME1 had the best narrative and story cohesion.

ME2 had the best balance of combat and narrative, but lost most of the cohesion.

ME3 had the best combat, but lost the narrative and the last ten minutes killed any sense of cohesion.

All in all, I'd say it was a tie between ME1 and ME2. I preferred some of the changes made in 2, but not all of them (thermal clips, lack of inventory, etc.) and the combat in 1 was ponderous to the point of irritating at some points.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Mass Effect 2 had good gunplay but that was kinda the only thing it had, gameplaywise at least.

I found it very wanting compared to actual shooters.

 

[JazzJack2]

Mass Effect One is the only Mass Effect worth playing, the second is a rather poor excuse for a game and the third is just appalling.

Me thinks you need to play more games. To call ME3's story "Appalling" is really doing the word a great deal of disrespect.

I mean, look at the Resident Evil Games, the latest CoD games, The original Borderlands, some of the newer Final Fantasy Games. They have just awful stories, and these are big budget, triple A blockbusters.

What, as if ME 3's story is any better than them? ME 3 has one of the worst stories I've ever seen in a video game and easily has the most overrated.

Mmm, ME1 was totally the superior game with it's poor item managing system, sub par skill point allocation system, terrible gun play, less than stellar graphics, many a barren world to drive around on for 5 minutes, less then stimulating side missions, along with the random fluctuation of difficulty that has a portion of the fans saying it was a grind to finish the first game. At least the sequels were polished.

I'd rather have a rough diamond than a polished turd.