Mass Alex: Mass Effect 2 - Part 23

I'm not sure this is true. Hasn't Alex admitted in the past to save scumming a lot, especially with things like Civ and X-Com? I think the only reason he's not wanting to reload for this feature is because he thinks it would make the feature worse/would make viewers mad. I 100% think Alex would reload if he were just playing on his own time.

Rewind time! Rescue Tali! ?

Looking for episode 24,

I am completely ok with, and would even suggest, that you guys save edit (or save scum) to get Tali back. If you want to "preserve" your choices, perhaps you could sacrifice another team member to make up for it, so you still end up losing one person.

Oof, big losses in this ep. There's always the dark magic solution of savegame editing.

Did EA mess with the ME2 ending? I swear on my playthrough that you fought a reaper hybrid that looked like a terminator baby. It made robotic crying noises too. And it was in a location after the Collector Base mission. It was pretty close to the game's release when I played it though and that was a LOOOONG time ago. It's entirely possible I am remembering things wrong.

For many of us, the ME series is one THE most important series of all time and I would love of you'd a Short pod/review of the series when you're done with it all

Seeing Tali go was rough...I would have been in full support of Alex restarting the save and choosing someone else to go. I admire his commitment to being pure and letting it go as he's playing, but damn that was rough to watch.

Hilarious that Shep Shep bones Garrus, then immediately overlooks him for the B team leader role. Tali's blood is on your hands Alex ;)

I'm honestly really bummed how this series turned out. Everything I thought Alex would do, such as go full renegade - did not turn out. It's really unfortunate that the game makes renegade seem like it's the "bad" choice, but it's really just being a bad ass and still making right/good/beneficial choices.

Alex completely ignores 90% of the gameplay mechanics that would make it more interesting, and less painful to watch but he just brute forces through, doesn't use cover or abilities and is just generally ignoring most everything besides the main plot. Hence, why he lost Tali in the end.

I understand Vinny not want to spoil or ruin anything, but hearing him say "get your shields up" 9000 times in this series should make it plainly obvious that Alex is simply refusing to learn or adapt to anything. He probably has no idea combos exist and I shudder to think what his ME3 playthrough will look like, since it's way more technically deep. I don't have anything against him, but it makes no sense to me personally.

Overall, at every turn Alex baffles me with his choices, the main one being saving Kaiden since he is insufferable. I still enjoyed the series but I am clueless as to whether the guys streaming this is affecting logic or what.

Alex should cheat and get Tali back. Potentially missing out on content in Mass Effect 3 kinda sucks!

TBH I hope she stays dead.
Wanting Alex to save scum the end of the game defeats the whole purpose of the 'suicide mission'.
Mistakes should be permanent.
You people are pathetic.

I'd save scum or reload losing Tali is a big deal in 3. She's an actual squad member in 3, most of these others aren't. You're going to be losing out on quite a bit content in 3 without her.

@kaddion: I think if I were Vinny and saw Tali die, I'd ask Alex if he wanted to start the mission over with all the correct choices to keep everyone alive. Now I'm super bummed that Alex won't get to experience any of her stuff in ME3 :(

If I were Alex, I'd redo the suicide mission. I lost Tali in my first playthrough also and she was my romance. I tried to get into ME3 but after a few hours, I realized she was going to be a major character and just went back, reloaded my suicide mission save game and picked all the right people. I can't imagine playing through ME3 without her.

i'm late to the party and haven't watched the final episode (or the rest of this episode actually) but i'm all for whichever way alex and vinny want to do ME3. if alex is a die hard "let my 'choices' stand no reloads" kind of player then march forward. but i'd love to see c'mon you know who back for their parts in ME3. if it bothers you and headcannoning things can help, just say shep shep got cerberus to lazuras project the one that got rocket faced somehow and gave them all her leftover platinum and stuff as payment or it sped up the process or whatever.

either way i'm on board for the next game but i don't think the hardcore tough guy realism of never reloading in a game with a black hole gun is more satisfying and entertaining than seeing alex's reactions to do they all die randomly like that? wouldn't it have been better if they had died as a result of not being up to the task the player assigned them? like they freak out under the pressure of leadership or can't computer hacks fast enough. i know it's a dumb video game thing but everyone has literally taken hundreds of rockets to the face so far and been totally fine's parts in ME3.

also, i know not everyone who enjoys permadeath and wants to see the playthrough continue as is is trying to be a hardcore tough person. i just think the series would be better served if alex wants to bring back it's spoiled all over the comments already and if you're reading this you almost certainly know already. i don't know why i'm bothering with this. and does.

Personally I think it's fine to resurrect Tali for ME3; they'd miss out on some good content if they don't. I understand wanting to be true to the story, but Alex did nothing wrong. He did everything he thought was correct. He chose a sensible option for the vents and a sensible option to lead the fire-team. Unfortunately, the game doesn't consider Samara a good squad leader (despite the fact that she clearly would be), and it's because she's fire-team lead that Tali was destined to die.

this turian groove music is awesome

Man, Tali's death would be a lot easier to swallow if the game actually gave you the idea that you fucked something up. Like if Samara was a bad team leader, show her sending a squadmate out there to die or a squadmate ignoring her orders or something. That would immediatly tell the player that they made a wrong decision. Now it's like huh.. was this preventable? Was Tali a bad door-opener because she couldn't close the door fast enough? There's nothing in the game that suggests that Samara was the one to fuck up here. Instead the game is like ohhh.. what a great choice you made there Shephard!

For the love of Brad Shoemaker, when will they announce Mass Alex 3?!

The method you lost Tali was bullshit and honestly as she's a squad member in 3 its going to detract from the gameplay so bring her back. On paper sure you could say that Samara isn't a team leader but they literally say hey that's a great choice and she has tons of experience which they claim is important in the choice. This isn't like Wrex dying in 1 where he's not even going to be in the squad in the next game. I'd rather you just have a more complete game in 3 rather than adhering to bad game design.

Just getting around to finishing this season, and I have to say the character death is absolutely bullshit. I get why Samara isn't a good choice for a team leader--because she has spent 400 years working on her own--but as others have pointed out, the game makes her seem like a good choice. More importantly, the second squad leader has no effect on the tech specialist. It literally doesn't make sense. It's pure game logic, and it's bad.

Alex made the right choice in bringing back that character for ME3.

The best choices, imo:

Leader 1: Garrus

Tech: Tali

Leader 2: Garrus

Biotic: Jack

Escort: Miranda

Final Squadmates: Thane and Legion

Also, seems I'm in the minority but retconing to save Tali is super lame as, regardless of whether you think her death was justified, it's completely against the artistic vision of the devs.

I've been catching up on Mass Alex 2 and this episode was my favorite of the series so far. ^.^

The game doesn't make Samara seem like a good choice at all. Please point to the dialogue that you think implies that. If you mean what Miranda says afterwards, then it's completely irrelevant. You've already made the (wrong) choice at that point, so it's not influencing you to pick her or affecting the outcome. And yes, the leader of the second squad DOES affect the tech specialist, because they're always the one responsible for closing the door, and the second squad leader directs the covering fire. If they're not the right person, the covering fire isn't directed appropriately and your tech specialist eats it. Not hard to understand, and if you're looking for more subtlety or complexity than that, clearly Mass Effect isn't the series for you. It's always been as delicate as a brick to the face when it comes to the choice stuff (people instantly changing their entire world view based on a single line of dialogue from Shepard, for example).

If you actually take ten seconds to consider what the game says is required of the second squad leader before picking someone, you should come to the conclusion that Samara is a bad choice. Unfortunately, Alex just rather decided to button through a lot of the important choices here without giving them any thought. That isn't bad design, unless you believe the game is simply too boring to hold the player's attention.

Same thing happened for me... immediately reloaded save to keep Tali with me. I'd liked her since the first game, and took her with me almost everywhere.... so when they finally let me hook up with her, only to immediately watch her die, I lost my shit.

Happy I redid the mission. It was completely worthwhile just to hear her say "I love you" as we ride off to a firefight in ME3.

@aretak:

Nah. Samara's a badass who everyone seems to respect, and has been a huntress for centuries. The one who surprised me was my Grunt taking the role and tanking the shit out of that scene. He's not really seen on the spreadsheets, but he worked for me. And it does make sense... even if it was artificially implanted, Grunt has THOUSANDS of years of experience from historic Krogan figures, leaders and individuals.

Watching my way through this series for the first time, and I have to say: whatever you think of Alex's decision-making here, the game itself just executes that one big moment very, very, VERY poorly. And I'm not just talking about the misleading wording of the in-game explanation, either. It just fundamentally feels like he's being punished for getting a question wrong, rather than being given the chance to make a meaningful choice, and accept meaningful consequences, based in story and character development. Which, in a game SO heavily focused on story and characters, is a baffling move, at best.

I still agree with how the game treats it: Samara's a rugged individualist, she's been on her own for centuries, and even before then wasn't any kind of "leader."

If you needed someone to send on their own and draw fire while coming back alive (which is what I THOUGHT the second fireteam was doing, hence why I recommended, and lost, Grunt my first playthrough) but just because Samara is "good at what she does" doesn't mean "being a leader of people" is one of those things.

You've got Garrus, you've got Jacob, you've got fugging TALI all as people who have led soldiers into, and out of, dangerous combat situations, but putting Samara in charge is like putting Zaeed or Jack in charge: they're a total badass, but more used to keeping themselves alive than keeping a squad alive.