Tomorrow marks the two-week anniversary of Mass Effect 2 and you may be thinking, “who the hell cares?’ Well, I only bring this up because by now, assuming you’re a gamer and a fan of Mass Effect or BioWare’s high quality RPGs, you must have at least given this game a shot.
Several of us here at Game Rant have already beaten the game, some more than once, so we want to start a discussion about the characters of Mass Effect 2. In a spoiler-filled manner, tell us what characters you liked to use, which characters you didn’t and perhaps, who didn’t make it till the end.
|
|
[Warning: this discussion is filled with spoilers and is meant for players who've beaten Mass Effect 2]
Characters I didn’t Use
For me, I switched it up quite a bit but there were definitely some characters I practically never used. Those included the tank-bred Krogan, Tali (who I didn’t use in the first game either) and Jacob.
Grunt the Krogran didn’t have any cool powers and therefore relied on his shotgun. In my mind, why use him when you can grab another character who can use more effective weapons and who may also have powers. As for Jacob, I played a soldier and never had need for another gunner, especially since his Biotic abilities didn’t match up to other characters you can recruit throughout the game.
Although Miranda is cool, the other lady Biotics were more powerful so I used them.
Characters I Dug
I’m a Garrus fan myself and used him for most of the first Mass Effect. In the sequel however, I used him a lot of time up until I met the Drell assassin, Thane Krios. From that point on I never used Garrus again. Thane was a sniper like Garrus, except he had the cool biotic abilities of ‘Throw’ and ‘Pull.’ I felt that Garrus was inferior from that point on. Oh, did I mention that Thane also has his own special ammo type? Garrus’ overload ability was good for mechs but that wasn’t enough. Now that I think about it, Thane may be my favorite character except for his crazy memory lapses where the screen goes light. His story was incomplete however because once you learn of his sickness, you not only can’t do anything about it, but you can’t even talk about it with the doctor of the ship or the genius scientist, Mordin. That’s a bit of a fail and this may be addressed in ME3.
So, who else did I use in addition to Thane? Doctor Mordin, the Sherlock Holmes of the group. Funny fast-talking aside, Mordin’s Incinerate ability was liquid death. I bring up the power wheel, click a regular bad guy, select his Incinerate ability and it’s game over for his target. That’s basically the only thing I used him for. Moving on…
But what about the biotics? Well, I also used Samara and Jack on occasion. I don’t know if it was programmed into the character’s AI to match her personality, but Jack would always run ahead for me and die which was annoying. Samara was cool but you can’t romance her which may disappoint fans who were all over Liara T’Soni in the first Mass Effect.
The End Game
Depending on how much of the game you’ve completed and what choices you make, you may lose one or more characters when you pass through the Omega-4 relay to face the collectors in their home base. By completing all of their loyalty missions and purchasing upgrades for the Normandy SR-2 from each character, you can avoid some of that and have a chance of coming home with your full team intact.
When on the Collector base in the final showdown, you are asked to make a few decisions which may jeopardize the lives of some of your companions. If you know anything about BioWare and their RPGs, you realize this right when it happens and that may effect your choices.
For me, it definitely did so I intentionally chose characters who I believed were expendable and who wouldn’t have much an impact, if any at all, in Mass Effect 3. Yes, your actions and consequences will play a factor in Mass Effect 3, so if you’re not planning on playing ME2 two times through, be careful!
Getting back the the game’s final act, I chose Legion (or “Gobot” as I call him) for the first character selection decision to be the one to go through the ventilation shafts. I honestly didn’t care if this Geth prick died so I threw him into the heat (literally). This part’s pretty easy and so long as you hit the 8 panels in time, whoever you send in for this is okay.
Your next decisions involving picking who will lead the other team while you do your thing so I chose Miranda for the obvious reasons that she’s the Cerberus rep and basically your second-in-command of the whole operation. No issues there, but for the next part you have to make two decisions and this is where I got screwed over by the DLC.
Once you get deep into the Collector base, the most horribly designed and counter-intuitive space station ever conceived, you save the crew of the Normandy (or some depending on how you’ve played) and have to send someone to escort them back. Wait a sec, how were the characters breathing while walking out of the ship crash-landed on the exterior of an alien space base? Anyway, the first time playing the end of the game I sent Tali and there was no issue. However, you must choose another character to hold the position to buy time while you and your 3-man squad goes out to do more heroics. For some reason, I chose the downloadable character Zaeed the bounty hunter for this “hold the line” task. I guess I figured he’s a war vet and crazy resourceful at this sort of thing. I was wrong.
Even though I did Zaeed’s loyalty mission, he died in a cutscene when I returned and it’s because there’s no option to buy a Normandy upgrade for him in the game. Had I chosen any other character, everyone would have survived for me and I would’ve got the ‘No One Left Behind’ Achievement on the Xbox 360.
Needless to say, I had to re-do the ending and the second time around, I had Jacob escort the Normandy crew back to the ship and I chose my man Garrus to defend. He took the bullet as well but it didn’t phase him, which just goes to show how weak Zaeed and his mercenary friends are!
Now that I’ve shared my experiences with you, who did you have fight beside Commander Shepard and what choices did you make?
For more on the topic, check out my Mass Effect 2 review and our discussion on who should play Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect movie.
Mass Effect 2 character wallpaper from deviantART
Loading ...