Note: This blog contains Mass Effect 2 spoilers, along with spoilers from the first two Mass Effect novels, Revelation and Ascension.

So last time I blogged was almost 4 weeks ago. I’d finally played Mass Effect to completion a mere 4 years after first playing it. The next day I went into my local city centre in an attempt to buy a copy of Mass Effect 2 and a copy of the first Mass Effect book, Revelation. The latter was easy, I just walked into a book store, two minutes later I walked out with a copy of the book. The former wasn’t so simple - not one shop in my town had a copy of Mass Effect 2 for PC. Game stores should be more like book stores. I went online and ordered a copy from Zavvi for the low price of £8.50. It was the cheapest on the net. I now know why they’re so cheap - they take forever to send you the product. Their page boasted a dispatch within three days - it was over a week in reality, and then it took nearly another week to arrive.

But I digress, the purpose of this blog isn’t to rant about the poor service from an online retailer, it’s to talk about Mass Effect. During the excruciatingly long wait for the second game to arrive, I set about reading Mass Effect Revelation. Mass Effect Revelation was really enjoyable. It lays down some really cool backstory to the universe. It gets a little predictable towards the end. Being a prequel to the game made that kind of inevitable. It just became so obvious that the artefact that mysteriously changed the behaviour of the two characters who had seen it was obviously Sovereign, and at the end Saren was going to encounter it and begin his indoctrination and the slow journey to Mass Effect 1. Still, it was a fun, enjoyable read.

So moving onto Mass Effect Ascension - I loved this book. It’s obviously not a masterpiece of literature or anything like that, but then I wasn’t expecting it to be. But for the sheer enjoyment I got from reading that book, it really was fantastic. It creates characters that I genuinely cared about. I was pissed when I discovered one of the characters was actually an undercover cerberus agent. I loved seeing the character development of Gillian, the autistic biotic girl. And the events were thrilling and entertaining. I went into these novels expecting middling novels that expanded on the universe's fiction. And while there is almost certainly no appeal to people not already invested in the Mass Effect universe, to me personally they, Ascension in particular, are great books.

Anyways, that’s the books out of the way. Now onto the important part - Mass Effect 2. I’ll be honest, my initial reactions to the game were relatively negative. Some of the changes from the original Mass Effect didn’t gel with me. The first thing was ammo. I loved that Mass Effect didn’t have ammo. Sure, the overheating mechanic wasn’t the best either, but I’m sure there are more unique ways of fixing that than just bunging ammo into the game. For all of the shortcomings of the combat in the first game, I was never forced into using a shitty submachine gun because I was conserving the ammo of my awesome heavy pistol in case there was a tough enemy round the next corner. And the reason for the change in the fiction doesn’t really fit either. I mean, if they’re heat clips for getting rid of heat, why can’t I just wait for it to cool down like I used to when I’m out of heat clips? It all sort of feels like a half assed reason to explain a gameplay mechanic that doesn’t fit within the fiction, and I don’t like it.

Anyways, the first thing I did upon gaining access to my shiny new Normandy was to rush off to the Citadel, which brings me onto my second negative initial impression. I loved exploring the Citadel in Mass Effect. It was a wonderful hub area filled with the weird and wonderful alien life. From the pristine presidium to the the seedy depths of the wards, it was wonderful. And what do I find there in Mass Effect 2? One new area in the wards with a couple of short and simple side quests, and Ambassador Anderson up in the presidium. It was totally disappointing. I could spend hours and hours in the Citadel in Mass Effect 1, I was lucky if there was more half an hour of entertainment there in Mass Effect 2. It was extremely disappointing. I felt like the game had been scaled down. Like it was no longer as much of an epic open world RPG.

Of course, this initial impression was largely wrong. I’d have still loved a bigger area of the Citadel to explore with more interesting things to do, but upon further exploration of the galaxy, there were plenty more hub worlds with plenty of things to do. Omega, Illium and even Tuchanka were like mini hub worlds themselves, each were a unique environment that was interesting to explore. None individually rivaled the size of the Citadel in ME1, but together they provided a similar experience with more environmental diversity.

And despite my gripes with the ammo system, the combat is greatly improved too. It’s a really intuitive cover-based shooter. The shooting is solid, and the powers and squad commands add a layer of strategy and depth, yet remains extremely simple. At one point early on I ordered Miranda to take a high vantage point where she essentially laid down covering fire, which allowed me and Jacob to easily take out the enemies from below. I felt like a tactical genius, yet it was super easy to do. Of course it would have been almost as easy to just have everyone charge in, take cover and shoot some dudes, but that’s not as fun. There were always opportunities for a well placed power or squad command to make the combat a little more interesting. It was a million times better than Mass Effect. It never felt frustratingly hard or stupidly easy. It was just right.

And of course, the story is still brilliant. I love the darker and more morally ambiguous storyline revolving around Cerberus and the Illusive Man. I’ve tried to play both games so far with a Chaotic Good alignment. My Shepard ultimately has the good of the universe at heart, but she doesn’t always play by the rules to achieve that goal. Good with a renegade streak. In the first game there were few opportunities for renegade dialogue when playing with these intentions, but ME2 gave many more chances to be renegade. I still had a maxed out Paragon bar by the end, but my Renegade bar was roughly 2/5 full, which seems like a nice balance to me. And lots of the renegade options are awesome. Telling the Illusive Man to go fuck himself at the end was awesome.

Particular highlights from the storyline are parts where the game goes more in-depth with its exploration of the alien cultures. For example, I loved the Quarian missions. The Haestrom mission and Tali’s loyalty mission aboard the Migrant Fleet were both extremely interesting. Mass Effect told us a lot about Quarians, but encounters with them were largely non-existent apart from Tali. Meeting them and exploring their culture was really cool.

The one storyline thing that did somewhat disappoint me was my outcome to the Suicide mission. This may seem weird to some of you - but I’m genuinely a little miffed that my entire crew survived the final siege on the collector base. I knew going into it that people were probably going to die. I knew I was going to have to make decisions and some people might not make it. I was ready to live with the consequences of my actions. Making choices and sticking by them is an integral part of the Mass Effect experience to me. Even if one of my favourite characters died, I wasn’t going to load a save. And I was expecting to lose someone. Going into it I was hoping I wouldn’t lose anyone. I was hoping I’d make perfect choices and everyone would live. But with hindsight, I feel like I’ve missed out on a key part of the game - Losing one or more of the characters you’ve got to know and grown to care about. It doesn't feel like the true Mass Effect 2 experience. Either way, I'm going to stick by my outcome.

I also went on to buy and play the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. It cost me nearly as much as the entire game did and it was too short to be worth that money, but it was an action packed and fun mission. Plus it gave Shepard an opportunity to get back together with Liara who was my romance option in ME1. I didn’t pursue a Romance in the main game since I my Shepard wouldn't cheat on Liara, so it was nice having that at some point in the story.

So yeah, despite some initial gripes I grew to love Mass Effect 2 even more than I did the first. I’ve ordered the third Mass Effect novel, Retribution, from Amazon so I’ll read that next. I’ll probably have to wait for Mass Effect 3 to drop in price a bit before I get that, but I might be able to squeeze it into my budget somehow. I’ll try, anyway. I really want to continue the adventures of Commander Shepard as soon as possible.

Note: This blog contains Mass Effect 2 spoilers, along with spoilers from the first two Mass Effect novels, Revelation and Ascension.

So last time I blogged was almost 4 weeks ago. I’d finally played Mass Effect to completion a mere 4 years after first playing it. The next day I went into my local city centre in an attempt to buy a copy of Mass Effect 2 and a copy of the first Mass Effect book, Revelation. The latter was easy, I just walked into a book store, two minutes later I walked out with a copy of the book. The former wasn’t so simple - not one shop in my town had a copy of Mass Effect 2 for PC. Game stores should be more like book stores. I went online and ordered a copy from Zavvi for the low price of £8.50. It was the cheapest on the net. I now know why they’re so cheap - they take forever to send you the product. Their page boasted a dispatch within three days - it was over a week in reality, and then it took nearly another week to arrive.

But I digress, the purpose of this blog isn’t to rant about the poor service from an online retailer, it’s to talk about Mass Effect. During the excruciatingly long wait for the second game to arrive, I set about reading Mass Effect Revelation. Mass Effect Revelation was really enjoyable. It lays down some really cool backstory to the universe. It gets a little predictable towards the end. Being a prequel to the game made that kind of inevitable. It just became so obvious that the artefact that mysteriously changed the behaviour of the two characters who had seen it was obviously Sovereign, and at the end Saren was going to encounter it and begin his indoctrination and the slow journey to Mass Effect 1. Still, it was a fun, enjoyable read.

So moving onto Mass Effect Ascension - I loved this book. It’s obviously not a masterpiece of literature or anything like that, but then I wasn’t expecting it to be. But for the sheer enjoyment I got from reading that book, it really was fantastic. It creates characters that I genuinely cared about. I was pissed when I discovered one of the characters was actually an undercover cerberus agent. I loved seeing the character development of Gillian, the autistic biotic girl. And the events were thrilling and entertaining. I went into these novels expecting middling novels that expanded on the universe's fiction. And while there is almost certainly no appeal to people not already invested in the Mass Effect universe, to me personally they, Ascension in particular, are great books.

Anyways, that’s the books out of the way. Now onto the important part - Mass Effect 2. I’ll be honest, my initial reactions to the game were relatively negative. Some of the changes from the original Mass Effect didn’t gel with me. The first thing was ammo. I loved that Mass Effect didn’t have ammo. Sure, the overheating mechanic wasn’t the best either, but I’m sure there are more unique ways of fixing that than just bunging ammo into the game. For all of the shortcomings of the combat in the first game, I was never forced into using a shitty submachine gun because I was conserving the ammo of my awesome heavy pistol in case there was a tough enemy round the next corner. And the reason for the change in the fiction doesn’t really fit either. I mean, if they’re heat clips for getting rid of heat, why can’t I just wait for it to cool down like I used to when I’m out of heat clips? It all sort of feels like a half assed reason to explain a gameplay mechanic that doesn’t fit within the fiction, and I don’t like it.

Anyways, the first thing I did upon gaining access to my shiny new Normandy was to rush off to the Citadel, which brings me onto my second negative initial impression. I loved exploring the Citadel in Mass Effect. It was a wonderful hub area filled with the weird and wonderful alien life. From the pristine presidium to the the seedy depths of the wards, it was wonderful. And what do I find there in Mass Effect 2? One new area in the wards with a couple of short and simple side quests, and Ambassador Anderson up in the presidium. It was totally disappointing. I could spend hours and hours in the Citadel in Mass Effect 1, I was lucky if there was more half an hour of entertainment there in Mass Effect 2. It was extremely disappointing. I felt like the game had been scaled down. Like it was no longer as much of an epic open world RPG.

Of course, this initial impression was largely wrong. I’d have still loved a bigger area of the Citadel to explore with more interesting things to do, but upon further exploration of the galaxy, there were plenty more hub worlds with plenty of things to do. Omega, Illium and even Tuchanka were like mini hub worlds themselves, each were a unique environment that was interesting to explore. None individually rivaled the size of the Citadel in ME1, but together they provided a similar experience with more environmental diversity.

And despite my gripes with the ammo system, the combat is greatly improved too. It’s a really intuitive cover-based shooter. The shooting is solid, and the powers and squad commands add a layer of strategy and depth, yet remains extremely simple. At one point early on I ordered Miranda to take a high vantage point where she essentially laid down covering fire, which allowed me and Jacob to easily take out the enemies from below. I felt like a tactical genius, yet it was super easy to do. Of course it would have been almost as easy to just have everyone charge in, take cover and shoot some dudes, but that’s not as fun. There were always opportunities for a well placed power or squad command to make the combat a little more interesting. It was a million times better than Mass Effect. It never felt frustratingly hard or stupidly easy. It was just right.

And of course, the story is still brilliant. I love the darker and more morally ambiguous storyline revolving around Cerberus and the Illusive Man. I’ve tried to play both games so far with a Chaotic Good alignment. My Shepard ultimately has the good of the universe at heart, but she doesn’t always play by the rules to achieve that goal. Good with a renegade streak. In the first game there were few opportunities for renegade dialogue when playing with these intentions, but ME2 gave many more chances to be renegade. I still had a maxed out Paragon bar by the end, but my Renegade bar was roughly 2/5 full, which seems like a nice balance to me. And lots of the renegade options are awesome. Telling the Illusive Man to go fuck himself at the end was awesome.

Particular highlights from the storyline are parts where the game goes more in-depth with its exploration of the alien cultures. For example, I loved the Quarian missions. The Haestrom mission and Tali’s loyalty mission aboard the Migrant Fleet were both extremely interesting. Mass Effect told us a lot about Quarians, but encounters with them were largely non-existent apart from Tali. Meeting them and exploring their culture was really cool.

The one storyline thing that did somewhat disappoint me was my outcome to the Suicide mission. This may seem weird to some of you - but I’m genuinely a little miffed that my entire crew survived the final siege on the collector base. I knew going into it that people were probably going to die. I knew I was going to have to make decisions and some people might not make it. I was ready to live with the consequences of my actions. Making choices and sticking by them is an integral part of the Mass Effect experience to me. Even if one of my favourite characters died, I wasn’t going to load a save. And I was expecting to lose someone. Going into it I was hoping I wouldn’t lose anyone. I was hoping I’d make perfect choices and everyone would live. But with hindsight, I feel like I’ve missed out on a key part of the game - Losing one or more of the characters you’ve got to know and grown to care about. It doesn't feel like the true Mass Effect 2 experience. Either way, I'm going to stick by my outcome.

I also went on to buy and play the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. It cost me nearly as much as the entire game did and it was too short to be worth that money, but it was an action packed and fun mission. Plus it gave Shepard an opportunity to get back together with Liara who was my romance option in ME1. I didn’t pursue a Romance in the main game since I my Shepard wouldn't cheat on Liara, so it was nice having that at some point in the story.

So yeah, despite some initial gripes I grew to love Mass Effect 2 even more than I did the first. I’ve ordered the third Mass Effect novel, Retribution, from Amazon so I’ll read that next. I’ll probably have to wait for Mass Effect 3 to drop in price a bit before I get that, but I might be able to squeeze it into my budget somehow. I’ll try, anyway. I really want to continue the adventures of Commander Shepard as soon as possible.

Glad you finally got around to playing it.

Is there a Geth romance option in ME3? Seems like they missed the opportunity in 1 and 2.

Ascension is the only ME book I really enjoyed. I've read all of them, apart from the last one, and it's the only one I was really invested in. It's probably also the reason why I enjoyed the Grissom mission in ME3 so much. It was great that they finally included Kahlee too. The books and the games almost felt like two different universes up until that point. Would have loved to see Gillian Grayson make a cameo too.

@MattyFTM: Did you play Overlord? Because, that mission is such a brilliant one. It's not really part of the larger mythos, but as a 2ish hour experience in microcosm, it's truly fantastic.

@Draugen: Mass Effect Deception explains Gillian Grayson's absence. Or maybe, maybe, she'll be in a DLC.

@MattyFTM I was the opposite with my suicide mission. I toiled over each decision until sure I was picking the best man or woman for the job, and no one died! Or at least that's what I thought, until a part in ME3 when my Shepard said something along the lines of "If only Tali were here to see this", and I realized the game had bugged out and considered Tali to be dead. It was a sudden, unexpected loss, and I didn't take it well.

@Ravenlight said:

Is there a Geth romance option in ME3? Seems like they missed the opportunity in 1 and 2.

How would that even work?

@Tylea002 said:

@MattyFTM: Did you play Overlord? Because, that mission is such a brilliant one. It's not really part of the larger mythos, but as a 2ish hour experience in microcosm, it's truly fantastic.

No, Lair of the Shadow Broker is the only paid DLC I've played so far. Some of the other DLC looks cool, but I'm just not sure I want to pay that much for it. I'll have to think about it.

@killacam said:

@MattyFTM I was the opposite with my suicide mission. I toiled over each decision until sure I was picking the best man or woman for the job, and no one died! Or at least that's what I thought, until a part in ME3 when my Shepard said something along the lines of "If only Tali were here to see this", and I realized the game had bugged out and considered Tali to be dead. It was a sudden, unexpected loss, and I didn't take it well.

At the time while playing through the game, I did the same thing. I thought about every decision carefully and I really wanted everyone to survive. It's only afterwards that I feel like I'm missing part of the experience. Although if I lost someone to a bug like that I'd be pretty pissed off.

@Draugen said:

Ascension is the only ME book I really enjoyed. I've read all of them, apart from the last one, and it's the only one I was really invested in. It's probably also the reason why I enjoyed the Grissom mission in ME3 so much. It was great that they finally included Kahlee too. The books and the games almost felt like two different universes up until that point. Would have loved to see Gillian Grayson make a cameo too.

Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to that mission in ME3. Encountering some of the characters I've read about will be realy cool.

I felt the exact opposite after beating the suicide mission. The first time I did it, it was an amazing feeling of, "Hell yeah!" I felt like I had done the impossible. I made it through the suicide mission with everyone intact.

Man I would've loved to not lose anyone on that mission but I get where you're coming from the hard choices with harder consequences are a really big part of Mass Effect , I did lose someone in ME3 though I almost stopped playing it because it was a character wich I was really attached to I wouldn't imagine that I'll care so much for a fictional character that's the power the series has , also you're gonna love the references they do in 3 to the books and the comics, read Mass Effect Ivasion or Evolution (wich tells you the backstory on the Illusive Man) if you can before playing 3 , also the Citadel more or less takes the role of the central hub again for 3 it made much sense in 2 that you didn't spend time in it since Shepard went "rogue" he spends more time in other planets or visiting the lawless Terminus Systems while working for Cerberus.

I actually prefered Revelation, with the third book being up there, too. That one has some ME 3 tie ins so it's worth a read.

The shitty part about the suicide mission was due to some hidden numerical value that represented a squad mate's strength during the Collector holdout while you're fighting the final boss. Those you've left behind rely on this number and if its threshold is too low, someone could die a seemingly inexplicable death. Mordin and Tali are among the lowest on the ladder that will die if you choose to bring squad mates with high strength values.

Let's say you bring Garrus and Grunt for the big fight at the end, and let's say they both represent 10 points of strength. Now let's say that the strength threshold you need to meet for the holdout to avoid any casualties equals 50. You've taken 20 points with you, and you've left everyone else, which amounts to 48, so that means typically Mordin, from many reports (if you didn't bring him along), will die.

Of course, all that could be mumbo jumbo. I've had Mordin and Tali die inexplicable deaths even when I've done every mission imaginable in a Mass Effect 2 playthrough, including all DLC missions, gotten all upgrades (excluding the medi-bay upgrade), yet still had specifically one of them die unless I chose supposedly lower "strength" squad mates or them themselves.

Anyway, loved the game myself, too. Played through it at least 8 times now, with the above casualties and left them for dead. Makes for an interesting Mass Effect 3 playthrough, if I say so myself. Makes it less coincidental like some people will say. But, so what? These guys want their race to survive so they go home and defend it.

Other than that, like some have said, it'll be Retribution and Deception next for you to read if you want to go all chronological on this shit. I, personally, haven't read any of the comics, but one does come with the Digital Deluxe version of Mass Effect 3 that explains Aria T'Loak's appearance in Mass Effect 3. Also, you could skip Deception, they'll be redoing that book since it's so fucking stupid.

@AngelN7 said:

Man I would've loved to not lose anyone on that mission but I get where you're coming from the hard choices with harder consequences are a really big part of Mass Effect , I did lose someone in ME3 though I almost stopped playing it because it was a character wich I was really attached to I wouldn't imagine that I'll care so much for a fictional character that's the power the series has , also you're gonna love the references they do in 3 to the books and the comics, read Mass Effect Ivasion or Evolution (wich tells you the backstory on the Illusive Man) if you can before playing 3 , also the Citadel more or less takes the role of the central hub again for 3 it made much sense in 2 that you didn't spend time in it since Shepard went "rogue" he spends more time in other planets or visiting the lawless Terminus Systems while working for Cerberus.

If I had lost someone in the suicide mission I'd probably feel the same way. I'd wish I had saved everyone. I'd probably have to fight my deeply ingrained gamer mentality of "something went wrong, load an old save". But that desire for things to go differently would be part of the experience. I feel like I've missed out on that.

As for the comics/visual novels, I've gone back and forth on whether to get them. On one hand I want to absorb every bit of Mass Effect I can get my hands on, and some of the stories in those sound awesome. On the other, money is tight and those books aren't cheap, and I've never been a big comic book guy so I don't want to spend money on something I might not like. It's something I'll have to think about.

And yeah, in hindsight, the citadel taking somewhat of a back-seat to Omega and Illium does make sense. It was just my initial reaction that was negative. The first thing I did was rush off to the Citadel to see what was there because I loved it so much in the first game, and I was left thoroughly disappointed. Upon landing on Omega, though, I began to realize the shift towards the Terminus Systems and ultimately that shift was awesome.

@csl316 said:

I actually prefered Revelation, with the third book being up there, too. That one has some ME 3 tie ins so it's worth a read.

I'm glad to hear someone say the third book is good. I've heard one or two people say it was bad and my expectations were relatively low. I'm hopeful it'll be decent, anyway.

@rjayb89 said:

The shitty part about the suicide mission was due to some hidden numerical value that represented a squad mate's strength during the Collector holdout while you're fighting the final boss. Those you've left behind rely on this number and if its threshold is too low, someone could die a seemingly inexplicable death. Mordin and Tali are among the lowest on the ladder that will die if you choose to bring squad mates with high strength values.

Let's say you bring Garrus and Grunt for the big fight at the end, and let's say they both represent 10 points of strength. Now let's say that the strength threshold you need to meet for the holdout to avoid any casualties equals 50. You've taken 20 points with you, and you've left everyone else, which amounts to 48, so that means typically Mordin, from many reports (if you didn't bring him along), will die.

Of course, all that could be mumbo jumbo. I've had Mordin and Tali die inexplicable deaths even when I've done every mission imaginable in a Mass Effect 2 playthrough, including all DLC missions, gotten all upgrades (excluding the medi-bay upgrade), yet still had specifically one of them die unless I chose supposedly lower "strength" squad mates or them themselves.

Anyway, loved the game myself, too. Played through it at least 8 times now, with the above casualties and left them for dead. Makes for an interesting Mass Effect 3 playthrough, if I say so myself. Makes it less coincidental like some people will say. But, so what? These guys want their race to survive so they go home and defend it.

Other than that, like some have said, it'll be Retribution and Deception next for you to read if you want to go all chronological on this shit. I, personally, haven't read any of the comics, but one does come with the Digital Deluxe version of Mass Effect 3 that explains Aria T'Loak's appearance in Mass Effect 3. Also, you could skip Deception, they'll be redoing that book since it's so fucking stupid.

Yeah, since completing the game I have looked into some of the backend calculations that go into deciding the outcome of the suicide mission. This flowchart explains it in fairly simple terms. It does make some sense. There is a vague thread of logic running through it. I kinda wish there was more randomness to it. It's a battlefield. Things happen that you have no control over. It might be cool if one, randomly chosen character always dies in the final defence. I dunno, that might have pissed a lot of people off.

I personally sent Tali through the vents and had Samara be my biotic specialist - those were both obvious choices since they are the strongest tech and biotic guys respectively. I had Garrus leading the fire-team on both occasions which was a slightly harder choice, but his history in C-sec and as Archangel on Omega made him a good leader. I sent Zaeed back to the ship with the crew since I felt they needed a tough soldier to protect them, and took Tali and Mordin with me on the final section - I'd been rolling with them for most of the game, mostly since they're my favourite characters and I wanted to see as much of their dialogue as possible. That all added up to everyone surviving.

And yeah, Retribution should be arriving from Amazon soon (hopefully tomorrow, they dispatched it on Tuesday so it should be arriving soon) and I have heard so many terrible things about Deception that I have no intention of buying that anytime soon. If my local library has a copy, I might loan it from there out of sheer morbid curiosity, but I'm certainly not paying money for it.

@MattyFTM: I really wasn't expecting much, so my low expectations may have played a factory. Regardless, cool shit happens and you get some background on one of ME 3's biggest assholes.

@MattyFTM: Oh yeah stay away from Deception I don't know why they picked a different writter for that one but he took a very promising character in the Mass Effect universe (GIillian Grayson) and did horrible things to her (not in that way) besides they didn't took anything from that book the characters and referneces are straight from Retribution.