Mass Effect 2: Quest for Closure

[Cikomyr]

I just finished watching SFDebris's review of the game for the 5th time, and it's only during his argument regarding the character focus of the game did it genuinely hit me:

We are going on a suicide mission. I ask all of my crew to come and likely die for me. It says it from the beginning: it's a SUICIDE mission.

So why do I need to run and solve everybody's life problem? Because my crew need closure. Each of the missions shows a side of a crewman that is completely opposed to their natural demeanor, because of how deeply it affects them. And they want to face with this issue before going to what's likely certain death.

Miranda, the cold and detached uberwoman, becomes emotive and irrational over the little girl that could have been her. She need to make sure she will always be safe.

[Bland Black Dude], the professional non-nonsense man, is letting himself go beyond the edge. He needs to see his father as the man he really was.

Mordin, the professor who always knows, always make fast and snap assessments, is for the first time devoured by doubts over what he's done. He needed to come back to make sure he did what was right.

Jack, the fearless tomboy. She shakes violently, afraid of what she will find when she get back to the only home she ever had.

Zaheed, the cold professional, lose his **** to get revenge.

Garrus turns renegade to get back at the man who betrayed him.

All of this is about balancing the books in these characters's lives. Because they know they might not do it after.

I kick myself in the head for not seeing before...

[Xondoure]

Not sure why this needs its own thread. We should try and keep stuff like this in the main Mass Effect discussion thread.

[Cikomyr]

Not sure why this needs its own thread. We should try and keep stuff like this in the main Mass Effect discussion thread.

It appeared to me to be more of a ME3 thread than anything else.

[Xondoure]

It appeared to me to be more of a ME3 thread than anything else.

Discussion of the first two games belongs there as well.

[Sheep Overlord]

To be fair, that thread can be a bit spoileriffic for people who haven't played the third game yet. . . If it's an explicitly ME2-focused discussion, I don't see why it shouldn't have its own thread.

[Xondoure]

To be fair, that thread can be a bit spoileriffic for people who haven't played the third game yet. . . If it's an explicitly ME2-focused discussion, I don't see why it shouldn't have its own thread.

There's a no spoiler's thread and a spoilers thread for this very reason.

[Seerow]

There's a no spoiler's thread and a spoilers thread for this very reason.

But then you can't discuss ME2 spoilers either. :smallconfused:


Just having a separate thread for ME2 is better IMO than forcing everyone to put spoiler tags around every post they make while prefacing the tags with where those spoilers come from.

[Xondoure]

Mass Effect 3, thread 6
or
Indoctrination in the playground

***

This is the sixth thread for discussion of Mass Effect proper, currently on its third and final installment. Here we discuss gameplay, mechanics, multiplayer, and anything at all from Mass Effect 1 &2. Spoilers are still spoilers, for the most part, so please take discussion of the story and the ending to the mass effect Endings discussion thread..

Fact of the matter is there isn't enough discussion on the previous games to keep a thread active. So while these crop up occasionally, it's best to just try and keep such discussion to the main thread.

[Cikomyr]

Fact of the matter is there isn't enough discussion on the previous games to keep a thread active. So while these crop up occasionally, it's best to just try and keep such discussion to the main thread.

Look, just report it if you ain't happy about it. Don't just come in and be a buzzkill.

There is 2 threads about Star Trek on the media board. The point of some threads is, sometimes, discuss a very specific thing.

[Xondoure]

Look, just report it if you ain't happy about it. Don't just come in and be a buzzkill.

There is 2 threads about Star Trek on the media board. The point of some threads is, sometimes, discuss a very specific thing.

Sorry if it came across that way. Really, I'd be happy to talk about loyalty missions, just thought I should point out we already have 2 mass effect threads. And then probably got a bit too defensive about it. :smalltongue:

[KillianHawkeye]

I haven't quite finished this game yet (taking a break to play the heck out of Batman: Arkham Asylum), but this actually seemed like something that they were being quite obvious about. Somebody (probably The Elusive Man) says more than once that to do best on the mission you need to make sure everybody is fully on board without any lingering distractions. I'm not quite sure how this came as a surprise to you, tbh.

[Cikomyr]

I haven't quite finished this game yet (taking a break to play the heck out of Batman: Arkham Asylum), but this actually seemed like something that they were being quite obvious about. Somebody (probably The Elusive Man) says more than once that to do best on the mission you need to make sure everybody is fully on board without any lingering distractions. I'm not quite sure how this came as a surprise to you, tbh.

I just never fully realized how much it tied up to the whole "suicide mission" thingy. It's not unusual to have NpC-related specific sidequests (hell there was one in ME for each character except the Bland Humans and Liara - the tree love interests, now that I think about it).

But helping people find closure in their lives before going on a suicide mission as one of main focus of the game? Color me surprised.

[Seerow]

I just never fully realized how much it tied up to the whole "suicide mission" thingy. It's not unusual to have NpC-related specific sidequests (hell there was one in ME for each character except the Bland Humans and Liara - the tree love interests, now that I think about it).

But helping people find closure in their lives before going on a suicide mission as one of main focus of the game? Color me surprised.

Yeah the thing that stands out for ME2 isn't so much that there is side missions for the characters to gain closure, it's that those side missions are the central focus of the game. I mean the entire second disc is just those loyalty missions, more or less. I mean the entire game is opening mission, recruit a team, gain loyalty of team, suicide mission. This is a huge departure from most games, where the main focus is on the story, and recruitment/loyalty is something that either comes naturally, or is a short side mission at best.

I say this as someone who just beat ME2 for the first time a week or two ago. On one end I found the lack of main story line confounding, because I really got the feeling I could complete the main story in just a few hours of play if I pushed it (and may try this just to try to get the bad ending), but the meat of the game was in the character development and 'side' missions, which is kind of neat.