Tinywolf wrote...
nice idea on paper, would be hard to do in theory, how many times has movies done this where the heroes are in a bad way, only to in the next movie have some contrived method of rescue. Better to just have all that excitment in the next one (hopefully 
). Anyway the ending to ME2 did leave me very concerned, watch the last minute again and tell me you arnt concerned 
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Unfortunately no. At the end of the second game, the Reapers are out in dark space coming in towards the galaxy. If they'd actually flown over a colony and begun abducting people for their internal slushy machines then yes it might have been a nice cliffhanger that left me in trepidation. But they didn't. It wasn't new information, we already knew that the Reapers were out in dark space (being that they were too stupid to provide themselves with another garage door opener: read Citadel). Sure, now we've actually seen them but we knew they were coming eventually. It is a trilogy after all, the final act has to involve them trying to eat the galaxy somehow and Shepherd stopping them.
Despite Bioware touting it as such, the ending of ME2 does not count as dark in any sense, in more ways than one it's a cop out on their promise. Especially after they compared it to Empire Strikes Back. (Note: this is a Bioware comparison, not one that I am making, people seem to keep missing that.) Well, the entire game is a cop out but that's already been debated to death.
There were plenty of ways to make the ending dark. 1) Have the Collectors abduct either Kaiden or Ashley (depending on which one survived) and either convert or indoctrinate them in such a way that you are forced to kill them on the Collector base (or they will kill you). Double points if you use that as an example of what was going to happen to Shephard when they captured her/him. Triple if you do it in such a way that truly messes with Shephard's head.
2) Have any party member who is not loyal to you when on the Dead Reaper become indoctrinated while on board and you are forced to kill them (or you die).
3) No matter how fast you get there you cannot save the Normandy crew.
4) Shephard destroying the base was actually a catalyst that the Reaper's needed all along to open a second jump gate (or send a signal that reactivates the Citadel) and have the entire Reaper fleet enter our galaxy. The Reapers have been playing Shephard all along.
5) No matter what choices you make or upgrades you did there is no way for all your team members to survive the final assault on the Collector Base, the more you do the fewer die but you cannot save them all (or even most of them). And you should get an achievement if you managed to kill all of them off (on the same hand it should be difficult to do this). Just like you should if you fail ME 2's suicide mission.
6) Get rid of the human slushy machine and instead have the Collectors converting the humans they've taken into Reaper servants (read not husks) to send out as sleeper agents to begin deactivating the galaxy's defenses. But they are covering this by transforming the other colonists into husks as mindless foot soldiers and weapons of mass destruction. Then this becomes a plot thread in the third game.
7) Have one of the team members you collected already be an indoctrinated servant who turns on you at the last moment, killing Shepherd just as she has completed her mission. Have it on a rotating basis so the player cannot intentionally kill that person when they replay the game. (Don't reveal this in the player's guide) In the same vein, a writer could also make them turn on you at the Collector Base.
8) Do the Lazarus Project at the beginning of the third game instead of the second, leaving the player with the realization that Shepherd has died right as the Reapers are invading the galaxy. Bonus points if you have the Reapers clone Shepherd and fake out the player at the beginning of the third game with a Shepherd clone acting as the Reaper's messiah. Even more if Shepherd's remains were recovered by the Geth and that they are the first beings Shepherd sees when she/he wakes up (though not the only ones who brought Shepherd back). Stage One will be getting rid of Bionic Shepherd, Stage Two will be wiping out the Reapers.
9) Have the Reapers shut down all technology based on the Mass Effect drives (not just the drives themselves.) They should be completely capable of doing it. This will explain why the guns now need ammunition as they must revert to an older and simpler kind of technology.
10) Etc. Etc. Etc.
There are many more possibilities, it just requires that the writers be cruel capricious gods of their universe. These are options that are actually dark and not that difficult to implement into the already existing structure of the story. There also might be ways to do it so that the player doesn't feel cheated but if you do it well enough, you can always say that they'll get their revenge in the third game because after all: that's what trilogies are about. But if you want to be dark and have consequences one must do it in a way that there are no take backs, which is why every single decision made about the story should be evaluated and plotted out so that it works within the whole of the narrative. When the story is cohesive, people will still complain but they will have less to complain about.
Retour en haut
Provide a personal antagonist for the third game and C) Show just how physically wounded/seriously cold Shep can be if forced to kill said person. WOuld add an extra level of drama also if the player's LI went "dark side" at the end of ME 2.
