198 réponses à ce sujet

[zeypher]

the main reason i was a disappointed was that the new characters were more like toys and almost all the loyalty issues were family/childhood issues. i mean seriously shepard aint a shrink. hell more variety to loyalty missions would have been much better than what we got. 

i also feel it would have been better had garrus been used as your friend who asks how your doing and stuff

Modifié par zeypher, 25 septembre 2010 - 09:29 .

[Icinix]

inconsistencies -

too much 'humanising' of other species -

forced integration of not needed humour -

plot holes -



I liked the story, and loved it as a whole, but the combined little things were enough to rub me the wrong way and just give me a pause a few times during the game.

[Arijharn]

I thought the humanisation of the alien species was an excellent touch, it made me understand them and their beliefs and even made me commiserate with their positions somewhat. I couldn't do that if they didn't have elbows and ate babies.

[Icinix]

Arijharn wrote...

I thought the humanisation of the alien species was an excellent touch, it made me understand them and their beliefs and even made me commiserate with their positions somewhat. I couldn't do that if they didn't have elbows and ate babies.

LOL.  Didn't necessarily mean the eating of babies and lack of elbows,  But more the places like illium, which was extreme capitalism, the general nature of all the races behaviour and lifestyle etc.  Felt like it slipped slightly into the two big sci-fi traps of every alien being a human with a rubber mask, and every alien world being a focused aspect of human nature.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying out this game sucks or anything, it was just a minor annoyance that I thought could have been handled a little more, uniquely?

[kaimanaMM]

wiggles89 wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

I know it's probably not a shared opinion, but I consider revealing the end of the story to be a taboo. You know, where it's going to be, what's going to happen, what it's going to be about. You spend the whole game knowing the suicide mission is coming, so it's kind of a flash in the pan moment when it finally comes. In ME1 you have no idea where the final battle is going to take you.

I was really excited for the concept but the way it played out was terrible. I thought I was going to gather intel on the Collectors -- which would've revealed lots of interesting stuff about the history of the universe -- to prepare for the mission; instead I spent most of the game shooting mercs & hardly encountering Collectors.

I was really stoked about the idea also, but it's execution just never adds up all the way.  We rarely see the Collectors or even interact with them.  We don't even know who Harbinger is save for having subtitles on or getting that one line he sometimes says in his 'Assuming direct control' spiel.  The enemy has no face, which can certainly be scary if done right, but ultimately the connection between the Collector plot and the building a team plot fell woefully short.

And I love the characters and their stories but one of my biggest gripes about ME2 is that each character is an island.  For a game that was advertised as having all sorts of different personalities (think the Loyalist, Savage, Assassin, Genius campaign) it never delivered.  Yes, Miranda and Jack get into a two line fight.  Yes, Tali and Legion get into a two line fight.  But  That.  Is.  It.  Where is Grunt trying to recruit people for UKFC - Ultimate Krogan Fight Club?  Where is Mordin looking superior over morning coffee verbally dissecting the human body with Doc Chak?  Why is Garrus not checking up on Jacob's work in the armory or can he only calibrate the big guns?

[inversevideo]

Shandepared wrote...

There certainly are quite a lot of really oddly placed chest-high walls in ME2. It's a little weird. Like outside one of the Blue Suns bases where there are all these really convenient rock-walls placed for some reason...

ME1 provided cover in outside locations by placing crates and ACTUAL COMBAT WALLS, you know, fortifications that you could hide behind. Stuff that looked like it was "natural" part of the landscape. By natural I mean it had a REASON for being there beyond gameplay.

This.

Also it felt natural to be able to crouch and duck walk.  Who jumps up and sprints to new cover, taking fire while doing so?  Or hugs the first box that you come to, with the result that your 'ass' is on the wrong side of cover and taking fire?

Modifié par inversevideo, 25 septembre 2010 - 01:35 .

[inversevideo]

fongiel24 wrote...

abstractwhiz wrote...

Hah, I actually remember playing the Horizon mission and having the following thoughts: "WTF - how is that flimsy crate stopping assault rifles and a particle beam? Why can't I get armor made out of this crate? Oh that's right - because they probably can't CUT it! But then how'd they make a crate out of it? Is there a planet out there where invincible crates just naturally occur? Is the Normandy's new upgraded armor just a bunch of super-crates stuck to the hull?"

My inner voice is a bit snarky at times. 

LMAO! I like how your inner voice thinks. Makes you wonder if Cerberus should have just saved the expense of building the SR-2 and just put engines, weapons, and a mass effect core on one of those indestructible crates. Mass Effect 3 badly needs destructible environments. Seeing the Cain hitting a flimsy catwalk without even leaving scorchmarks is a bit much.

Actually, I had a similar thought when fighting the Occulus. I kept thinking 'damn, this thing cut through the Normandy's hull, even with the Silaris diamond armor coating, but this work bench and these struts, in the cargo bay are invulnerable to fire!. Why can't I have armor made of this stuff? How come we did not make the rest of the Normandy out of this stuff? What is this stuff? Liara and I really must invest money in the stock of whoever manufactures this stuff it's great!'

[Alamar2078]

I don't want to say that ME2 failed or whatever. I will say that was disappointed in:



-- I "FELT" like I lost my power of choice in the RPG and that's fatal. Basically when Shep is blown up during a cut scene and you don't have any real choice about getting killed and brought back by Cerberus it undermines the cardinal rules in an RPG .... I.E. your choices should matter and what happens should be a logical outcome of your choices.



-- As said before having 20 or so recruitment & loyalty missions and only 4 or so "story" missions made the game feel disconnected from the ME Universe & the battle with the Reapers in a story sense. Afterall how many missions did we kill untold number of Mercs. vs. the "real" bad guys [Collectors].



-- I felt like most of the major decisions in ME1 didn't matter in ME2. Friend of the council & paragon or Renegade & enemy of the council got you pretty much the same reaction when you faced them. As far as I can tell the plot of ME2 never diverged a single time depending on a choice made in ME1. For example I think that Wreave [The Wrex replacement] shouldn't even be in the game. If you get Wrex killed in ME1 [or don't recruit him] then you shouldn't have any friends on Tuchanka that would let you land, you can't make Grunt loyal, you don't get the goodies from that planet, etc. If you're a friend of the council why not give you access to some "Spectre" equipment .... If you've proven you're a human-first Renegade maybe Cerberus trusts you more and you get more resources from them??? There are plenty of ways to give you the illusion that your choices matter while [basically] you wind up in the same place. The big thing is that the ILLUSION matters but I think someone forgot about that in ME2.



-- ME2 didn't seem to have the number of major decisions that ME1 did ... I.E. there is no "Vermire" decision ; no save the council or not ; no release the Rachni or not. As far as I can tell the only "big" decision or event was to keep the Collector base or blow it up -- The Cereberus data may be important ; Morinth vs. Samara may be important but both of those are less obviously important that the galaxy-shakng decisions you had to make before.

[Getorex]

Nightwriter wrote...

I find it makes combat kind of annoying. Sometimes I don't know what I'd do if not for fortification.

Hmpf.  I prefer needing cover.  Ya'll know what happens in a real fight involving trained soldiers?  Voices gain in volume appreciably and (trained) participants take cover because to stand up in the middle of a bullet barrage is REALLY f*ckng stupid.

I don't WANT to be able to stand there, out in the open, and just spray away like Ahh-nold in "Commando" (blech!).  I prefer more realism in combat over super-hero-ness.  Combat should be like in the Ghost Recon series rather than in some childish silly mortal combat thing.

I would just like the enemy to be "smarter", sneakier, and overall more combat-competent. 

[MassEffect762]

thq95 wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

You know what shocked me the first from going straight from one to its sequel?

The over-emphasis of cover. In the first one shephard could survive for a bit outside it, but in this game you get obliterated so quickly it's depressing.

Agreed, in ME2 going into cover while your health regens gets pretty lame after a while.  I really did like the way it was in ME1 better, you could actually engage the enemy and you didn't have to spend 90% of the game hiding.

Sounds like a balancing issue to me, you paying attention Bioware?

Realism on one side and Fun on the other.

[Anacronian Stryx]

Why even have regenerating health when we already have regenerating shields?

[Iakus]

kaimanaMM wrote...

I was really stoked about the idea also, but it's execution just never adds up all the way.  We rarely see the Collectors or even interact with them.  We don't even know who Harbinger is save for having subtitles on or getting that one line he sometimes says in his 'Assuming direct control' spiel.  The enemy has no face, which can certainly be scary if done right, but ultimately the connection between the Collector plot and the building a team plot fell woefully short.

This.  A lot

"Human colonies are disappearing, spirited away by the Collectors!" 

"So what should we do?  Look for defenses from their technology?  Try to learn what they're up to?  Find this connection to teh Reapers they have? Lure them into a trap and capture/destroy their ship?"
"No time!  we're going to go slaughter a few dozen Blue Suns to recruit a single mercenary!"

"Umm, isn't that wasteful?  Both in time and lives?"

"I hope not, we gotta do it nine more times after this"
 

And I love the characters and their stories but one of my biggest gripes about ME2 is that each character is an island.  For a game that was advertised as having all sorts of different personalities (think the Loyalist, Savage, Assassin, Genius campaign) it never delivered.  Yes, Miranda and Jack get into a two line fight.  Yes, Tali and Legion get into a two line fight.  But  That.  Is.  It.  Where is Grunt trying to recruit people for UKFC - Ultimate Krogan Fight Club?  Where is Mordin looking superior over morning coffee verbally dissecting the human body with Doc Chak?  Why is Garrus not checking up on Jacob's work in the armory or can he only calibrate the big guns?

Again, this. The game is very insular

WIth DLC Shepard recruits twelve unique beings with their own personalities , backgrounds, and goals.  Most of them are highly individual, all of them have strong personalities.  Yet they pretty much just stand around and do nothing.  They never form a cohesive team.  Shep never becomes a squad leader, but a warlord with twelve followers loyal specifically to Shep.  In fact, it's almost like as far as they're concerned , they are the only person recruited for the mission.

Miranda and Jack should be sniping at each other for the duration of the game. Jack should be uncomfortable around Samara, the relenless enforcer of justice woth biotics as strong as hers.  Samara should be sizing Jack, Thane, and maybe Garrus up.   Grunt should be begging Zaed for war stories.  Garrus and Tali should be reminicing about the "good old days" (more than a single line about elevators).  Mordin should be eagerly (but cautiously) trying to study the "perfect krogan".

But the only real difference it made was power and weapon distribultion among the characters.

Modifié par iakus, 25 septembre 2010 - 05:11 .

[Getorex]

Cover should be made to look natural and/or organic to the given environment as much as possible (rock formations, fallen trees outside, bunkers and fortifications around military operations, scattered crates, tractors, construction material in civie areas) and be destructable. Cover should have a half-life so you cannot simply hold up behind some indefinitely. You need to get the fight over with before all the useful cover is rubbled and rubbled again to the point of it providing nothing more than a tripping hazard and scattered fires.



Armor for everyone when in combat situations.



Bigger worlds so that you can be more free-roaming (FarCry, FarCry 2, Crysis). More npcs acting naturally, going on about their lives to give more realism to the background.



MUCH more dialog possible between squaddies, during and between missions.



On another note entirely...this has bugged me a bit...what point does Dr Chakwas serve once Mordin is on the team? He seems to have all the health concerns for the team covered. I kept thinking that Chakwas must really resent this Mordin interloper relegating her to dealing with ship crew hangovers, sprains, or sniffles.

[JedTed]

Neofelis Nebulosa wrote...

Nope, ... the reason I think ME2 story's is inferiour to ME1's is that they fail to create any feelings of threat. Because besides the moments you do actually fight the Collectors, they are completely uninvolved. All you do for 95% of the game is fighting mercs. The specific characters and their development is just fine, I really like that, but the last scene before the credits is the only real motivating sequence of the whole game. Don't get me wrong. The game is addictive and I played through it about 14 times now and am still going, but there simply is no menace. Collectors are just as good an enemy like the Vorcha. Threat/Tension creation simply failed bigtime. There is no reason to actually care for those missing colonies other than it is the second part of a trilogy and in the long run the Reapers have to do with it. But the Collectors are a hand-wave enemy. The moment you completed the mission you encoutered them, they are forgotten until you fight them again.

ME1 didn't really give you a great sense of the imediate threat outside of the story missions either.  There's not time limit at all in ME1, after you steal the Normandy you have the option to go and finish up any side missions you missed without any consequence what so ever.  If you decide to to that in ME2 then your crew ends up dead.

The main plot of the story is investigating why Collectors are abducting humans and building up a team to stop them.  If you don't wanna recruit every squadmember then you don't have to.

[Dionkey]

Speaking of ME3. I was just on /v and some guy claimed to be a fired BW dev and listed all the events that happened in ME3. I almost believed him until he said the rachni queen was a reaper.

[Turin_4]

First of all, I wasn't aware 'most people' were disappointed at all in ME2's story.  The widespread critical acclaim and reviews I've read certainly don't seem to support that claim, nor does a cursory glance around here.  Perhaps you meant 'most of the people who were disappointed in the story were disappointed for these reasons...'?

There were big revelations in ME2.  Protheans as Collectors, Reapers seeking out dominant species to yield up the next dominant slave race, a series of smaller-scale revelations around the team, etc. etc.  The storytelling was different, more Seven Samurai than Star Wars.

There's not really going to be much point to discussing this in this thread, though, since it'll be a ton of self-fullfilling prophecy here, and subjective opinion.  I mean, I felt a healthy sense of menace, at least.  There was some pacing, but that's endemic to all sorts of RPGs, really, and I've long since learned to suspend my disbelief.  (Please wait here, random person with a job to do, while I travel halfway across the galaxy to do this other more interesting job, survey four systems down to depleted status, perform three loyalty missions, and get a little ways down a few mission trees) and be waiting with exactly the same thing to say and the same job waiting for me when I get back.

True menace and actual consequences, such as come later in the game?  Like, your crew gets kidnapped, but if you putter around too much, the difference is between everyone being liquified (and later killed again, by you), some of them, or none of them?  That sort of thing is rare.

[smudboy]

Turin_4 wrote...

First of all, I wasn't aware 'most people' were disappointed at all in ME2's story.  The widespread critical acclaim and reviews I've read certainly don't seem to support that claim, nor does a cursory glance around here.  Perhaps you meant 'most of the people who were disappointed in the story were disappointed for these reasons...'?

This is because the majority of people don't bother to think critically, bother to pay attention, or know what tolerable writing is.

There were big revelations in ME2.  Protheans as Collectors, Reapers seeking out dominant species to yield up the next dominant slave race, a series of smaller-scale revelations around the team, etc. etc.  The storytelling was different, more Seven Samurai than Star Wars.

1. Protheans as Collectors = oh my!
2. Reapers seeking species to yield up the next dominant slave race = where was this?
3. Team = nothing to do with anything

Ah, no it wasn't like Seven Samurai.  It might've tried, but Seven Samurai wasn't a frame story.

True menace and actual consequences, such as come later in the game?  Like, your crew gets kidnapped, but if you putter around too much, the difference is between everyone being liquified (and later killed again, by you), some of them, or none of them?  That sort of thing is rare.

Probably because it's on a brand new level of ridiculously stupid.

Modifié par smudboy, 25 septembre 2010 - 09:22 .

[Turin_4]

Smudboy,

This is because the majority of people don't bother to think critically, bother to pay attention, or know what tolerable writing is.

We'll get into how strange your saying this is when I look at your the rest of your post. But as for the actual content of this remark, well, hey, look, unnecessarily insulting, arrogant, and hostile. What a surprise. Feel superior now? Good for you.

1. Protheans as Collectors = oh my!

2. Reapers seeking species to yield up the next dominant slave race = where was this?

3. Team = nothing to do with anything



Ah, no it wasn't like Seven Samurai. It might've tried, but Seven Samurai wasn't a frame story.

1. It was a pretty big collection, about as big as, "Oh, the rachni that the krogan wiped out aren't quite dead," for example. (The rachni confirmation that the Reapers spurred them to war being another revelation). In ME1 they were presented as this revered, awe-inspiring, and ultimately tragic race that ought to be considered as having made a huge, heroic sacrifice. In ME2 we learn that that knowledge is sadly, horrifically incompletely.



2. It's partial supposition on my part, but the Reapers took the Protheans, the race that came the closest to successfully defying them the last time they came around, and made of them the new dominant slave race, the Collectors. They might have a plan for human DNA aside from 'make a giant Reaper out of it', and hey, big revelation right there.



3. The team has a lot to do with things, because the team in ME1 played a much smaller role. The scope was much more space opera, whereas in ME2 it was more personal. You had a Krogan, who had a bit of history, and oh by the way, could you get this piece of armor my family once had, it'd be nice. And there's this Dirty Harry Turian, and he's got a bad guy who got away, and he'd like to bag this bad guy, if you don't mind, etc. Not an involved backstory with compelling details and actual consequences for each character depending on the choices you make. If memory serves, the only consequence in ME1 was for Wrex if you didn't get his armor...and if you were sufficiently intimidating or persuasive, couldn't you even circumvent that requirement?



As for Seven Samurai, I didn't say it was *like* Seven Samurai, I said it was *more* like Seven Samurai, a small scale people drama, than a Star Wars esque space opera. Note the careful, delibate use of qualifier there, smudboy. Would you like to lecture on paying attention and tolerable writing some more, or can we just consider the lesson about self-satisfied chest-thumping learned and move on?

Probably because it's on a brand new level of ridiculously stupid.

Well, apparently not.



Smudboy, I'm slightly interested in talking about this, but if this is a sample of what talking about it with you is like, by all means, please reply in the same fashion, and spare me any doubts, so we can get right back to not knowing the other existed.

[smudboy]

We'll get into how strange your saying this is when I look at your the rest of your post. But as for the actual content of this remark, well, hey, look, unnecessarily insulting, arrogant, and hostile. What a surprise. Feel superior now? Good for you.

There was nothing unnecessarily insulting, arrogant or hostile about it.  I should know.  I'm very good at them.  I can assure you: I'm whiping your ass for you here.

1. It was a pretty big collection, about as big as, "Oh, the rachni that the krogan wiped out aren't quite dead," for example. (The rachni confirmation that the Reapers spurred them to war being another revelation). In ME1 they were presented as this revered, awe-inspiring, and ultimately tragic race that ought to be considered as having made a huge, heroic sacrifice. In ME2 we learn that that knowledge is sadly, horrifically incompletely.

Horrifically incompletely?  Can you try again?

2. It's partial supposition on my part, but the Reapers took the Protheans, the race that came the closest to successfully defying them the last time they came around, and made of them the new dominant slave race, the Collectors. They might have a plan for human DNA aside from 'make a giant Reaper out of it', and hey, big revelation right there.

Supposition.

3. The team has a lot to do with things, because the team in ME1 played a much smaller role. The scope was much more space opera, whereas in ME2 it was more personal. You had a Krogan, who had a bit of history, and oh by the way, could you get this piece of armor my family once had, it'd be nice. And there's this Dirty Harry Turian, and he's got a bad guy who got away, and he'd like to bag this bad guy, if you don't mind, etc. Not an involved backstory with compelling details and actual consequences for each character depending on the choices you make. If memory serves, the only consequence in ME1 was for Wrex if you didn't get his armor...and if you were sufficiently intimidating or persuasive, couldn't you even circumvent that requirement?

The team were cannon fodder.  They were irrelevant (including Shepard) to the plot, save Mordin.

As for Seven Samurai, I didn't say it was *like* Seven Samurai, I said it was *more* like Seven Samurai, a small scale people drama, than a Star Wars esque space opera. Note the careful, delibate use of qualifier there, smudboy. Would you like to lecture on paying attention and tolerable writing some more, or can we just consider the lesson about self-satisfied chest-thumping learned and move on?

So you're saying it wasn't "like" 7S, but you're saying it was "more like" 7S?

Yeah.   That don't fly.

Well, apparently not.

No really, it's beyond stupid.  It's like looking at white wall and going "it's a white wall."  It's that obvious.

Although if you're having problems, I've provided a long series of videos...

Modifié par smudboy, 25 septembre 2010 - 11:18 .

[Iakus]

Turin_4 wrote...


1. It was a pretty big collection, about as big as, "Oh, the rachni that the krogan wiped out aren't quite dead," for example. (The rachni confirmation that the Reapers spurred them to war being another revelation). In ME1 they were presented as this revered, awe-inspiring, and ultimately tragic race that ought to be considered as having made a huge, heroic sacrifice. In ME2 we learn that that knowledge is sadly, horrifically incompletely.

But in the end, what difference did it make?  Aside from one comment from Mordin, did it ever come up again?  DId it suddenly alter teh course of the story?  You're comaring the Collector revelation to the rachni, a more accurate compasison would be (should be, at least) the revelation of Sovereign.  The realization that Saren is not in fact the Big Bad, but is, in his own twisted way, trying to save the galaxy.  His ship was the actual villain.  That's a revelation.  For the Collectors, Shepard barely pauses to reload after the discovery.  Ho-hum!

2. It's partial supposition on my part, but the Reapers took the Protheans, the race that came the closest to successfully defying them the last time they came around, and made of them the new dominant slave race, the Collectors. They might have a plan for human DNA aside from 'make a giant Reaper out of it', and hey, big revelation right there.

If more focus had been placed on the Collectors, then yes, this could have been a tragic tale of the Protheans last days.  But again, so little attention was paid to them, that really, it might as well have been indoctrinated mercs, heretic geth, or batarians for all the difference it would have made.  As it is, we don't know why the Protheans were remade into COllectors, any more than we know why they were making a Reaper, why human smoothie is a needed component, or even how they thought they could possibly have gotten away with this to begin with.

3. The team has a lot to do with things, because the team in ME1 played a much smaller role. The scope was much more space opera, whereas in ME2 it was more personal. You had a Krogan, who had a bit of history, and oh by the way, could you get this piece of armor my family once had, it'd be nice. And there's this Dirty Harry Turian, and he's got a bad guy who got away, and he'd like to bag this bad guy, if you don't mind, etc. Not an involved backstory with compelling details and actual consequences for each character depending on the choices you make. If memory serves, the only consequence in ME1 was for Wrex if you didn't get his armor...and if you were sufficiently intimidating or persuasive, couldn't you even circumvent that requirement?

And the squadmates totally ignore each other, have nothing of substance to say on most missions, certainly not each others loyalty missions, and generally do not act like a "team" at all.  They become loyal to Shepard, and that's it.  This, in a character centered game?  Baldur's Gate characteres had more personality.

[smudboy]

iakus wrote...
But in the end, what difference did it make?  Aside from one comment from Mordin, did it ever come up again?  DId it suddenly alter teh course of the story?  You're comaring the Collector revelation to the rachni, a more accurate compasison would be (should be, at least) the revelation of Sovereign.  The realization that Saren is not in fact the Big Bad, but is, in his own twisted way, trying to save the galaxy.  His ship was the actual villain.  That's a revelation.  For the Collectors, Shepard barely pauses to reload after the discovery.  Ho-hum!

Exactly.  Some dead culture last cycle wasn't completely wiped out and turned to cyber-slaves...okay...

Even Vigil says "In the end, what does it matter?" in regards to why the Reapers are doing what they're doing.  We need to know how to stop them.  Finding out more about the Protheans is great, but that had nothing to do with 1) Stopping the Collectors, 2) Stopping the Reapers.

[Turin_4]

Smudboy,

Thank you for answering my most important question so quickly and in such a straightforward fashion.

---------
iakus,

But in the end, what difference did it make?  Aside from one comment
from Mordin, did it ever come up again?  DId it suddenly alter teh
course of the story?  You're comaring the Collector revelation to the
rachni, a more accurate compasison would be (should be, at least) the
revelation of Sovereign.  The realization that Saren is not in fact the Big Bad, but is, in his own twisted way, trying to save
the galaxy.  His ship was the actual villain.  That's a revelation. 
For the Collectors, Shepard barely pauses to reload after the
discovery.  Ho-hum!

We can handwave everything away in the first game in similar fashion.  What difference did it make that there was this ancient, sentient plant that was controlling people and creating zombie-like monsters to fling at you?  Just a bunch of monsters to create obstacles and a new series of checkpoints to cross, really.  With some geth stacked out front.  When I played the game, the revelation went something like this: Collectors as twisted, despicable experimenter/slavers working for the Reapers, possibly as a sort of Vichy-style toady...to, really, their saddest, most humiliated, horrible victims, next to (possibly) the Keepers.  Is that as big a revelation as ME1?  So your idea of good storytelling is shocking, completely unexpected twists in every installment?  Sounds like Shymalan to me!

If more focus had been placed on the Collectors, then yes, this
could have been a tragic tale of the Protheans last days.  But again, so
little attention was paid to them, that really, it might as well have
been indoctrinated mercs, heretic geth, or batarians for all the
difference it would have made.  As it is, we don't know why the
Protheans were remade into COllectors, any more than we know why they
were making a Reaper, why human smoothie is a needed component, or even
how they thought they could possibly have gotten away with this to begin
with.

Well, we don't know why but it wasn't difficult for me to imagine: the Reapers are gone for a long, long time: they need agents they can control (assuming direct control, or otherwise) in the interim.  Protheans-as-collectors serve as an admirable fill-in, and they hate the living, pun intended, hell out of them already.

And the squadmates totally ignore each other, have nothing of
substance to say on most missions, certainly not each others loyalty
missions, and generally do not act like a "team" at all.  They become
loyal to Shepard, and that's it.  This, in a character centered game? 
Baldur's Gate characteres had more personality.

Here, I agree.  This needs much improvement.  Personally, though, I deem it a failure more of video games in general than of ME2 in particular.  Is there really a video game out there that lives up to the standards you're describing, on all levels?  Really?

[kaimanaMM]

iakus wrote...

But in the end, what difference did it make?  Aside from one comment from Mordin, did it ever come up again?  DId it suddenly alter teh course of the story?  You're comaring the Collector revelation to the rachni, a more accurate compasison would be (should be, at least) the revelation of Sovereign.  The realization that Saren is not in fact the Big Bad, but is, in his own twisted way, trying to save the galaxy.  His ship was the actual villain.  That's a revelation.  For the Collectors, Shepard barely pauses to reload after the discovery.  Ho-hum!

This.

When you talk to Sovereign on Virmire - THAT is a revelation.  In contrast, when the Big Reveal that the Collectors are OMGProtheans, there's a shrug and a nod and a let's get this show on the road.  And like I said, if you'd played ME1 and talked it over with anyone else who had you both had to at some point say, 'I wonder what happened to the Protheans.  Sure the Reapers reaped, but what did they do with them, did they just fire a big laser?  What happened, really.'

If we'd had more interaction with the Collectors, the Big Reveal could have been one of those moments where we actually say, 'Damn those Reapers, I'm gonna go get those guys!'  Or, if we'd even known Harbinger was the Wizard we could direct our fist shaking in his general direction.  

[smudboy]

Turin_4 wrote...

Smudboy,

Thank you for answering my most important question so quickly and in such a straightforward fashion.

I do make it a habit to go for clarity and simplicity.