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[Nightwriter]

I felt like the story meandered so much in ME2. I found myself drifting through the galaxy... somewhat lost... not really knowing the relevance of what I was doing... feeling like the whole thing was one big mission right before the actual game started...

[smudboy]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

smudboy wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

ME2 wasn't about stopping the Collectors. Not really.

It was about Shepard evolving as a leader. At the end of beginning of ME2, we learn that despite Shepard's efforts, the Reapers are still unacknowledged at large and without a strong figurehead to lead the defense of the Galaxy, the Reapers will continue the cycle that has been perpetuated for millions of years. It's about gathering a crew of vastly differing talents and ideologies whom would never work together under any circumstances and whom don't owe Shepard a damn thing and gain their trust enough to get them to follow Shepard in to what is assumed to be certain death on a "Suicide Mission". Consider it a prologue to what Shepard is going to have to do in order to fight off the true Reaper threat. It's also about who Shepard is able to trust, what with Cerberus being the only group that is really set to help out Shepard at the beginning of the game. It's about the cost of trust. Unfortunately, we will not be able to see many of the consequences of that until ME3.

Show me one example where Shepard evolved as a leader.

When he convinced 9 strangers to go on a Suicide Mission with him.

If there was a portal in which anyone who went through never came back, would you follow some random yahoo through it?

That is an example of Shepard recruiting people.  That is not an example of Shepard evolving as a leader.

No.

[jklinders]

ZennExile wrote...

NuclearBuddha wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

NuclearBuddha wrote...

Seems to me like the defeat of the Collectors is kinda important to isolated human colonies in the Terminus Systems. Just saying.

Maybe but if you think about it, the collectors could never just attack earth on their own and earth is apparently the only source of human genetic goo large enough to finish making the baby reaper.  So ya win some ya lose some.  At least the collectors leave all the colonies in tact so we can re-settle.

Oh and yeah the baby human reaper would be scary but it would also not matter until the rest of the reapers showed up to escort it to earth.

That means a whole heck of a lot to all the helpless humans getting slaughtered out in the Terminus Systems.  Yeah, you're probably right.  They only died in agony, leaving behind grieving relatives (and sometimes not even that, if the whole family got taken, so that's cool, right?).  At least the colonies are intact.  Good game Collectors, maybe if you mattered more we'd do something about it.

Pffft.

Well it is just the terminus systems.  Humans who settled out there knew it wasn't gonna be all safe and homey like Virmire.

Really though would losing a bunch of small outer rim colonies mattered.  I mean beyond the whole bleeding heart all life is precious cultural backwash we're forced to swallow like it's the yummiest thing ever.  Were the  colonies everyone thought would be doomed from the start really change the shape of the galaxy in a meaninful way if they vanished?

Probably not.

Wow you're a cold one. Good thing you're not in charge . though after seeing that mechanic Delan on Horizon I see what you mean. Really no point in argueing futher if that is actually how you feel. Just don't ever expect anyone to listen to you when the chips are down with that attitude.

[DRACO1130]

Someone wasn't paying close attention - Defeating the Collectors as an independent step un realted to anything else - yes, if you view ME2 through that narrow, restricted lens, then yes, your post is timely and relevant.
HOWEVER, if, like the rest of us, you are looking at ME2 as the 2nd installment of a 3 part game saga then your post is a sign of of someone who " doesn't get it".
Here's what you missed :

Harbinger stating that "this is your genetic Destiny" - Meaning that Humanity is to EVOLVE into reapers.

The planet you rescue Tali from has a sun dying

BECAUSE ITS CORE IS BEING REPLACED BY DARK SPACE MATTER

couple this with the finale when the Reapers tell the Harbinger " You have failed, we will find another way" and a scene of the reapers En masse outside the galactic boundary -

Far too many dismissed ther planet tali was recruited from as a former colony of the quarians and did not "get" the significance of tali's research discoveries there - this was overshadowed by the whole treason scenario - but the fact remains that the reapers have a 'doorway' into the galaxy via the collapsing centers of stars - which begs the question of Black Holes and their relationship to "dark matter'.

Just as independent evaluation of " The Empire strikes Back" makes it to be a weak, lousy movie, so too your evaluation of ME2 as an independent entity renders it meaningless HOWEVER when properly viewed as an integral part of the tapestry being woven - both ME2 and Empier are essential transitional parts without which the work as a whole fails.

[smudboy]

DRACO1130 wrote...

Someone wasn't paying close attention - Defeating the Collectors as an independent step un realted to anything else - yes, if you view ME2 through that narrow, restricted lens, then yes, your post is timely and relevant.
HOWEVER, if, like the rest of us, you are looking at ME2 as the 2nd installment of a 3 part game saga then your post is a sign of of someone who " doesn't get it".
Here's what you missed :

Harbinger stating that "this is your genetic Destiny" - Meaning that Humanity is to EVOLVE into reapers.

The planet you rescue Tali from has a sun dying

BECAUSE ITS CORE IS BEING REPLACED BY DARK SPACE MATTER

couple this with the finale when the Reapers tell the Harbinger " You have failed, we will find another way" and a scene of the reapers En masse outside the galactic boundary -

Far too many dismissed ther planet tali was recruited from as a former colony of the quarians and did not "get" the significance of tali's research discoveries there - this was overshadowed by the whole treason scenario - but the fact remains that the reapers have a 'doorway' into the galaxy via the collapsing centers of stars - which begs the question of Black Holes and their relationship to "dark matter'.

Just as independent evaluation of " The Empire strikes Back" makes it to be a weak, lousy movie, so too your evaluation of ME2 as an independent entity renders it meaningless HOWEVER when properly viewed as an integral part of the tapestry being woven - both ME2 and Empier are essential transitional parts without which the work as a whole fails.

So you're saying ME2 is an essential, transitional part of the trilogy because:

1) Harbinger says "This is your genetic destiny."
2) Harbinger says "You have failed, we will find another way."
3) Supposition about dark matter being a back doorway a la Citadel for Reaper's to teleport in.
4) The Reaper fleet at the end of the game.

Harbinger saying anything really doesn't amount to much.  We have no understanding of his motives, why he was building a baby Reaper, etc.  We're left with more questions.  He wants to "tear you apart" yet collect your body.  We don't know why.  For an enemy we obliterated (completely?), we have no idea what was going on.

Dark matter is not explained, but it does raise many questions.

The Reaper video at the end doesn't really tell us anything new.

You see, by the end of ME2, we're at the same place we were at the end of ME1.

This whole "step to greater things" or "transitional" or setting up ME3 as an apology to ME2, is rubbish.  ME2 could've had a wonderfully logical, woven tale with 0 plot holes that as a story, could stand alone, and still be a sequal.  Instead, we get a proxy enemy from our main enemy that is supposedly destroyed, and we learned nothing new about our main enemy. Aside from them being really stupid.  (A baby reaper?  Riiiight.)

And if we were complete idiots, we'd blow up the Collector base just out of spite over TIM.  Which means we'd literally be in no beter standing than at the end of ME1.

[T0paze]

To DRACO1130,

That's highly unlikely.

First all of, the whole reasoning linking the return of the Reapers to what happens on Haestrom looks like an unfounded speculation. There's simply too little evidence.

Second, tying the development of the ME3 plot to one particular recruiting mission in ME2 is very improbable. If you notice, for better or for worse, Bioware likes symmetry and order, which means that most characters get roughly the same treatment. Every character except Jacob and Miranda get one recruitment mission (long and involving a lot of combat). Then every character gets one loyalty mission (usually shorter and/or with much less combat). So, one recruitment mission, one personal problem, a few dialogue lines on the Normandy. This makes it unrealistic, but balanced. Anyway, what I mean is, it is unlikely that they would make one particular character and recruitment mission much more important than everyone else's.

Third, even if they did want to do that, they'd probably place that recruitment mission among the first four missions, not among the last few ones. As it its, if you remember, it's possible to complete the game without recruiting Tali at all. So, a player could appear in ME3 without any knowledge of those dying stars and dark matters, with Tali buried somewhere on Haestrom. That not how you'd treat an important piece of information.

Modifié par T0paze, 20 février 2010 - 03:14 .

[DRACO1130]

seek and read what I have psoted in toher spots - im out of time for the moment - but am, LOVING these ongoing discussions - messages also VERY welcome -

Ciao for now

[Saint Op]

Ok wait so this main argument is about if what happened in the plot was worth it or not.



Wow. I'm just saying, but some whole movies have half the plot of one loyalty quest. Some whole games you do nothing but save yourself or a girlfriend. You save thousands of people in this game and take out threats of the collectors & geth your enemies two main henchmen.



If it's about if the plan would have worked, who knows we stopped it. We already know the reapers think of time way differnt then us. Maybe the ship couldn't take Earth maybe they had a plan like using the Geth to help or the already or eventual indoctrination of a leader or species. Like the rebuild with reaper tech Citadel.

In many games we are told dont let A get B or the world ends with little to no proof, we at least get more then that here.

Yes the first story felt more epic, to me it was because I knew nothing going in. This time I already spent years in thier universe and thought or everything that could happen way before hand as with the 3rd game that makes it hard to be shocked or surprised.

[tmp7704]

Mox Ruuga wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

The recent Valentine's Day blurb had this part: "industry insiders estimate over 2 billions Valentine messages will be sent this year on Earth and an additional 5 billion throughout human colonies" which would imply large size of population off-earth, even if they're for some reason much more active in this particular field than the earth-based humans. I agree it is odd but then lot of numbers in ME universe don't make much sense under scrutiny.

That's a pretty bad retcon if true.

Terra Nova and its population of four million was the largest human colony as of ME1. And most of the other colonies don't even reach 100k people. Earth has 11 - 12 billion people.

Yup, it did make me do a  face when i read it because it was totally opposite from the impression i had on the colonization size up to that point.

Perhaps it's just a really unfortunate typo (the way sentence is formed sort of supports that) and what they meant to say was actually 5 million. That'd be more in line with expected amount of colonists... and if you used the 12:2 ratio of Earth messages, it'd give an estimate of ~30 million humans off-earth total.

[jklinders]

tmp7704 wrote...

Mox Ruuga wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

The recent Valentine's Day blurb had this part: "industry insiders estimate over 2 billions Valentine messages will be sent this year on Earth and an additional 5 billion throughout human colonies" which would imply large size of population off-earth, even if they're for some reason much more active in this particular field than the earth-based humans. I agree it is odd but then lot of numbers in ME universe don't make much sense under scrutiny.

That's a pretty bad retcon if true.

Terra Nova and its population of four million was the largest human colony as of ME1. And most of the other colonies don't even reach 100k people. Earth has 11 - 12 billion people.

Yup, it did make me do a  face when i read it because it was totally opposite from the impression i had on the colonization size up to that point.

Perhaps it's just a really unfortunate typo (the way sentence is formed sort of supports that) and what they meant to say was actually 5 million. That'd be more in line with expected amount of colonists... and if you used the 12:2 ratio of Earth messages, it'd give an estimate of ~30 million humans off-earth total.

That has all the earmarks of a really unfortunate oversight. I happen to agree that there cannot be billions of humans in colonies. Humanity has only been making colonies for what, 40-50 years? Is there anything in the human birthrate to make that work? Most of the human population should still be on Earth, and human population growth will be stagnant until the colony programs REALLY get humming, assuming the Galaxy survives another 100 years.

[huntrrz]

ZennExile wrote...

Actually we do know.  The game specifically tells you "They'd need more than all the humans in the terminus systems combined to fill these pods"  "Their target is earth"

That assumes that they would need all the humans on Earth to complete ONE Reaper.  If humanity was the race chosen to be 'harvested', they'd be going after everyone on Earth eventually, so they had that many pods ready.  We don't know if they would have made one Reaper or scores of them from the biomass.

[Pocketgb]

I still feel that the "gateopener" (i.e. Sovereign's role) is much more important than allowing the sneak attack from the Citadel. Could be that Reapers lose a lot of power/energy from having to travel so far. Maybe a "secret weapon" exists in the galaxy, and could've only been destroyed by a Reaper? /shrug.

[2342]

Hmmmm......... Was defeating the Collectors important? Let's see from the beginning of the game you figure out that the Collectors are working with the Reapers (as no one can get though the Omega-4 relay except them). Since the Collectors work with the Reapers and the Reapers want to wipe out all advanced life in the galaxy then...........

The Collectors want to wipe out all advanced life in the galaxy. So yes defeating them was important.

Thank you transitive law

Modifié par 2342, 21 février 2010 - 05:47 .

[SurfaceBeneath]

smudboy wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

smudboy wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

ME2 wasn't about stopping the Collectors. Not really.

It was about Shepard evolving as a leader. At the end of beginning of ME2, we learn that despite Shepard's efforts, the Reapers are still unacknowledged at large and without a strong figurehead to lead the defense of the Galaxy, the Reapers will continue the cycle that has been perpetuated for millions of years. It's about gathering a crew of vastly differing talents and ideologies whom would never work together under any circumstances and whom don't owe Shepard a damn thing and gain their trust enough to get them to follow Shepard in to what is assumed to be certain death on a "Suicide Mission". Consider it a prologue to what Shepard is going to have to do in order to fight off the true Reaper threat. It's also about who Shepard is able to trust, what with Cerberus being the only group that is really set to help out Shepard at the beginning of the game. It's about the cost of trust. Unfortunately, we will not be able to see many of the consequences of that until ME3.

Show me one example where Shepard evolved as a leader.

When he convinced 9 strangers to go on a Suicide Mission with him.

If there was a portal in which anyone who went through never came back, would you follow some random yahoo through it?

That is an example of Shepard recruiting people.  That is not an example of Shepard evolving as a leader.

No.

Gonna ask again, how many of those people had a vested interest in stopping the Collectors or throwing their lives away to help Shepard? The whole recruitment/loyalty mechanic was the center of the story. It was about Shepard earning their trust and becoming their leader so that they will be able to survive the "Suicide Mission". Notice how it was never even billed as "Invading the Collector homeworld", or "Stopping the Collector threat". The entire premise behind the mission was that it was supposed to be Certain Death and that Shepard had to lead a group of incredibly skilled individuals into this event. The Collector arc was just the catalyst.

ME2's plot was centered around the personal advancement of Shepard and the foreshadowing of events to take place in ME3. Being as the second act of any trilogy is always much more linked to the third while the first usually works as a stand alone, it raises more questions than it answers.

[smudboy]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

smudboy wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

smudboy wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

ME2 wasn't about stopping the Collectors. Not really.

It was about Shepard evolving as a leader. At the end of beginning of ME2, we learn that despite Shepard's efforts, the Reapers are still unacknowledged at large and without a strong figurehead to lead the defense of the Galaxy, the Reapers will continue the cycle that has been perpetuated for millions of years. It's about gathering a crew of vastly differing talents and ideologies whom would never work together under any circumstances and whom don't owe Shepard a damn thing and gain their trust enough to get them to follow Shepard in to what is assumed to be certain death on a "Suicide Mission". Consider it a prologue to what Shepard is going to have to do in order to fight off the true Reaper threat. It's also about who Shepard is able to trust, what with Cerberus being the only group that is really set to help out Shepard at the beginning of the game. It's about the cost of trust. Unfortunately, we will not be able to see many of the consequences of that until ME3.

Show me one example where Shepard evolved as a leader.

When he convinced 9 strangers to go on a Suicide Mission with him.

If there was a portal in which anyone who went through never came back, would you follow some random yahoo through it?

That is an example of Shepard recruiting people.  That is not an example of Shepard evolving as a leader.

No.

Gonna ask again, how many of those people had a vested interest in stopping the Collectors or throwing their lives away to help Shepard? The whole recruitment/loyalty mechanic was the center of the story. It was about Shepard earning their trust and becoming their leader so that they will be able to survive the "Suicide Mission". Notice how it was never even billed as "Invading the Collector homeworld", or "Stopping the Collector threat". The entire premise behind the mission was that it was supposed to be Certain Death and that Shepard had to lead a group of incredibly skilled individuals into this event. The Collector arc was just the catalyst.

ME2's plot was centered around the personal advancement of Shepard and the foreshadowing of events to take place in ME3. Being as the second act of any trilogy is always much more linked to the third while the first usually works as a stand alone, it raises more questions than it answers.

In some recruitment scenes, Shepard explains who they're attacking and why.  No characters, save maybe Mordin, have a vested interest in stopping the Collectors.

The Collector arc was not a catalyst for Shepard to recruit characters.  The Collector arc was the main story.  TIM telling Shepard what's going on may be considered the Rising Action, or Answering the Call.  Maybe you're using the wrong term, but the main story arc isn't a Rising Action unto itself.

Again, I need examples of "Shepard evolving as a leader" and now, his/her "personal advancement."  Shepard is a static/flat character and showed 0 character development.  In most cases of recruitment, the characters joined because Shepard advanced the plot: it demanded it, via main character plot-device.  Shepard doesn't have the persuasive skills (corollary: Grunt, a la P/R) you think he/she has, has grown, or has gotten.  Which we should see (but we don't), since no one, save Mordin, is central to the story.  Almost every scene is solved at the end of Shepard's gun.

ME2 bridge rubbish yadda yadda.

[Miqti]

If you played as a complete renegade, then I might understand your reasoning (though not agree with it). There are plenty of leadership evolution at least as a paragon... it is Shephard that determines the fate of the krogans, Quarians, geth, humanity, and the rest of known galaxy. How one can conclude there is no leadership evolution in ME2 doesn't, to me, make a whole lot of sense.

[DRACO1130]

T0paze wrote...


To DRACO1130,

That's highly unlikely.

First all of, the whole reasoning linking the return of the Reapers to what happens on Haestrom looks like an unfounded speculation. There's simply too little evidence.

Second, tying the development of the ME3 plot to one particular recruiting mission in ME2 is very improbable. If you notice, for better or for worse, Bioware likes symmetry and order, which means that most characters get roughly the same treatment. Every character except Jacob and Miranda get one recruitment mission (long and involving a lot of combat). Then every character gets one loyalty mission (usually shorter and/or with much less combat). So, one recruitment mission, one personal problem, a few dialogue lines on the Normandy. This makes it unrealistic, but balanced. Anyway, what I mean is, it is unlikely that they would make one particular character and recruitment mission much more important than everyone else's.

Third, even if they did want to do that, they'd probably place that recruitment mission among the first four missions, not among the last few ones. As it its, if you remember, it's possible to complete the game without recruiting Tali at all. So, a player could appear in ME3 without any knowledge of those dying stars and dark matters, with Tali buried somewhere on Haestrom. That not how you'd treat an important piece of information.

Hoo boy  - its not very often I feel bad for shooting fish in a barrel but I do hear because you are, LITERALLY, missing so much from ME2 I am almost wondering if you are deliberately posyting as ypou do to spark conversation -

ME2 did the following things - which are ESSENTIAL to Me3 coming into existence :
1. It established an actual link between the machine reapers and organic life - to wit the collectors being the remenants of the Protheans AFTER 50 thousand yeasr of genetic modification/manipulation by the reapers.
 Among the more Notable(important) consequ3ences of this ; Collectors have incredibly advanced tech and ARE mobile platforms reflecting that tech
 They can(and do) serve as ACTUAL manifestations of the reapers themselves as we might access a remote computer linked to our home pc.
 ME2 established that is the reapers intent to Integrate Humanity into themselves - whether for the sole gain of the reapers, a mutually beneficail partnership(those prothean fragments HAD been around for 50 thousand years) or as a vital component of trhe reapers own survival reamins uncdetermined as yet.

now we covered all that in the first set of posts we exchanged but what has been missed is the OTHER things ME2 has established :

2. a SOLID Geth army at Shepards call to battle the reapers(the "old Machines" legion called them. This is even more if you chose the re write option.

3. The Quarian fleet(the Largest fleet in the galaxy) also solidly in Shepard's camp.

4. The Rachni re born ready, willing and able to aid Shepard against the ancient enemy that almost led to rachni extinction - Keep in midn also that ME1 made no bones about it - the Rachni were incredibly formidable opponents that ALMOST defeated the council forces.

5. The Krogan under Wrex(even if you killed Wrex in ME1 you have the Krogan at your command via grunt), AND more importantly Via Mordin you have the Genpophage as a tool - you can(and probably will) BREED Krogan in HUGE numbers to fight for you.

6. Omega Station - No matter how you played it - the **** Queen remains your ally - you have also annihlated the command structures for ALL the organized mercanaries - trhe rmeants will fight for Shepard as an Omega Station arm of the forces set against the rachni.

7. Ilium - with the shadow borker either being defeated or dragged intpo the light(in either case rendering him(it) impotent - your ally on ilium will be the NEW shadow Broker and thus you have a SOLID intelligence arm keeping you abtreast of key evbents and permitting manipulation to help you.

8. The Justicars - few in number but incredibly potent at biotics - Does anyone doubt that however many they are in number they will ALL be by Shepard's side in the final conflict ?

9. C sec - even if you played it hard core rogue - you got enough dirt  on the C sec captain that you can coerce him into assisting you - no matter what the council takes as a postion - if you played it Paragon so much the better - willing allies are more potent.

10. Cerberus - Whether you kept or destroyed the Reaper Creation station at the end - Miranda's loyalty is firmly established - in the event the Elusive Man opts to oppose you because you are choosing ALL the Galaxy's sentient life instead of just humanity - Miranda can and will assume control of Cerebrus and topple the elusive man for you.

11. The lesser races - Whether you played rogue or para - you gathered enough Favors/dirt to coerce/manipulate them as you need.

12. and finally - the Omega 4 relayt - whether you kept or detroyed the station you DO have the IFF from the reapwer station and thus are the ONLY ship that can transit the omega 4 relayu - which leads to a stable platform(section of space) on the accretion disk of a black hole - Anyone besides me figured out where the FINAL battle of ME3 is going to take place ?

     So, you and anyone else who completes ME2 and goes So what ? Hopefully will re exmaine it in the light of the aformeentiomned - it is an ESSENTIAL transitional step because the ME! game established that there are a LOT of reaper ships, ME2 established that they are on the move AND provided all the forces needed to combat them - all at the beck and call of ONE signle commander; Shepard - Hold onto your socks people - ME3 is gonna be one HELLUVA a ride !

[Moorpheusl9]

The whole point of the Human Reaper (in my opinion) was to replace the vanguard, Sovereign.



The Human Reaper would then reattempt unlocking the Citadel and hopefully achieve what Sovereign couldn't.



THAT was the purpose of it. The length of time to construct the Reaper is insignificant to the length of time the 'dark space' reapers have been waiting - what's a few more years?



The Collectors were already indoctrinated - why not use them instead of expending large amounts of energy to travel to the galaxy conventionally? I happen to think the Reapers, upon arrival into the Milky Way, will be (machine equivalent of) tired and so we can use this to our advantage.



So yes, stopping the Collectors was important - it's given us time to prepare for the incoming fleet although unfortunately, Harbinger is mega angry now

[smudboy]

Miqti wrote...

If you played as a complete renegade, then I might understand your reasoning (though not agree with it). There are plenty of leadership evolution at least as a paragon... it is Shephard that determines the fate of the krogans, Quarians, geth, humanity, and the rest of known galaxy. How one can conclude there is no leadership evolution in ME2 doesn't, to me, make a whole lot of sense.

1) No one bothered to define what "leadership evolution" is.
2) If your definition of leadership evolution is the P/R system, we'll just stop there.  A game play mechanic, the P/R system, that is, the attitude Shepard uses with situations, is not character development.  Even that choice of attitudes is completely static, even if based on accumulative and repetitive choices.  I'm a nice guy/jerk x10 != leadership evolution, especially since that game play mechanic has nothing to do with recruitment.
3) In order to see Shepard evolve as a leader, he has to show the qualities and behavior of a leader.  He has to struggle being a leader, meeting conflicts and surpassing/failing those conflicts.  Essentially group psychology (which is really just normal psychology) toward a given goal.  Getting people to join him has to be a struggle, not:
Shepard: "Join me."
Person: "Blah blah blah okay."
4) Miranda saying he's/she's a leader, a bloody icon, etc., doesn't impart leadership skills or growth.  You can argue that playing as Shepard, and out of notoriety alone, causes people to follow you.  And if that's all your saying, then fine, we can buy that.  But you're saying Shepard changes or grows as a leader over the course of ME2. Which never happens.

[Grand Rider]

I think the Human race would be somewhat relieved by the demise of the Collectors considering their plans... And while the Collector threat didn't "initially" threaten the greater galactic community, had they been successful in creating a new Reaper platform I'm sure the galactic community would soon realise the folly of their ignorance.

[Klijpoplayxbox]

DRACO, a lot of "wot you said".



But also consider this. We are comparing ME2 to TESB, a film. Why? A film is 2 hours long. ME1 was actually more like a novel, one of those 2 inch thick space opera classics. There is talk of turning ME into a film series, buthow would you compress 10-20 hours of plot into a 2 hour movie?



ME1 did what the classic sf novels do: a good mystery, a sense of awe, strange new worlds, revelation.



ME2, on the other hand, is like a TV series. It is episodic, it is dependent on the characters to provide the story. Each recruitment mission, and each loyalty mission, plays out like an episode of a show. With 11 recruitment missions (Lazarus Station and Freedom's Progress serve as Jacob and Miranda's recruitment), plus 11 loyalty missons, with Horizon and the Collector Ship taking the role of the midseason cliffhanger type eps, with the suicide run being the end of season two parter, that comes in at 26 episodes, just like Trek (the side missions act as the B-story or intro tease)



TV shows do have story-arcs, but that is secondary to character development.



And to those that say there was no character development in ME2: were you playing the same game as me? That's the whole point of the game; if you can't see how Shepard has developed as a leader, then you have no imagination.



3 last points.



Human Reaper: Sovereign was defeated by a human - this makes humanity special to the reapers; they felt they needed a human derived reaper to defeat them.



Attack on Earth: yes, Earth was probably the final target, but how to take it when you have only one (v big) ship - simple, engineer a deadly virus that humanity is immune to, spread it around the other races so that humanity's allies are unable to act, or even decide to blame humans and attack them, sowing chaos and letting the Collector ship just stroll up to Earth while the Alliance is fighting/helping the others.



Dark Energy: this is obviously a key piece of foreshadowing; yes you can complete the game without Tali, but I doubt you can survive. If you've not bothered with Tali, you've probably not bothered with others, and not done several loyalty missions, and will not have the shielding upgrade. In fact, given that Tali was in the first game, and is popular, and Bioware know it, it is unlikely anyone would not recruit her. In fact, you'd have to be a pretty perverse player not to. The number of players that didn't is probably equal to the number of players who couldn't be bothered to finish the game.

[Jimbe2693]

Dark Energy: this is obviously a key piece of foreshadowing; yes you can complete the game without Tali, but I doubt you can survive. If you've not bothered with Tali, you've probably not bothered with others, and not done several loyalty missions, and will not have the shielding upgrade. In fact, given that Tali was in the first game, and is popular, and Bioware know it, it is unlikely anyone would not recruit her. In fact, you'd have to be a pretty perverse player not to. The number of players that didn't is probably equal to the number of players who couldn't be bothered to finish the game.

Not everyone is a fan of Tali

[smudboy]

Klijpoplayxbox wrote...

And to those that say there was no character development in ME2: were you playing the same game as me? That's the whole point of the game; if you can't see how Shepard has developed as a leader, then you have no imagination.

You wrote a lot of stuff.   This stood out the most.

The whole point of the game is to defeat the Collectors.

Character development should be as clear as day.  "Person A struggles to do X out of Y."  ME2 is definitely not some avant-garde, abstract artwork where I need to use my imagination on some obscure scene to determine the change in Shepard's personality.  To grow, Shepard needs to change, through a struggle, and to fail or to succeed and it.  In this context, as a leader.  It has to be personal.  It has to mean something to him/her.

Sheaprd displays no leadership skills during the recruitment and loyalty missions.

Unfortunately, Shepard is a flat/static character with 0 character development.  If Shepard actually had to argue, coerce, be challenged, fail, and succeed, to get these guys on his/her side, and then actually be changed by those events, then you could make an argument for him developing his/her qualities as a leader in that particular scene.

Again: where do we see Shepard develop as a leader?

[DRACO1130]

I disagree ENTIRELY with the entire attack on earth theory - I discard it for the red herring it is - The reapers goal is the citadel - it is their 'door' in - I also recall mordin speaking as to How Crucial Human DNA is in various Genetic manipulations testing - I do NOT think that the HUMAN REAPER would have required total HUMAN genetic material to bond with the reaper tech - I think it was the initial basis - once Human genetics had formed that basis the collectors would have moved onto other specie is to 'flesh it out' Bear in mind too that the HUMAN REAPER did, in point of fact, activate for the final battle - supporting my theory that it did not need complete human material - NOTHING was offered ANYWHERE in the game to suggest that the reapers EVER had knowledge of earth at all - the lost colonies data bases were not minded - the tech was beneath the reapers notice - they took the Human colonies because they were there to be taken - recall the initial descriptions of the collectors - trading tech for what they needed from slavers - NOT singularly seeking humans- rather seeking mutations and charting Genetic progress of the organic lifeforms of the galaxy(which I suspect was their purpose as designated by the Reapers when they were 'modified' from their original prothean forms. When Sovereign fell, humanity came to the attention of the Reapers and their agents the collectors - it is CRUCIAL to recall that the Reapers NEVER found Ilos - While Sovereign knew of the Conduit - he did not react to it because he was so certain of his own victory - The Protheans figured out MASS EFFECT travel and that knowledge remains within virgil awaiting Shepard to come and ask for it.