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I've been trying to post this for days. I keep falling asleep at the times when I could use this computer. I think there was more to it, but I can't remember all of it anymore.
I really liked Mass Effect 2. I keep wanting to post a more detailed thing about my impressions of it, but I keep failing. For now, I really enjoyed it and I want to play the first one.
Speaking of playing the second game without playing the first...
If you play ME2 without importing a save from ME1, your character made a lot of questionable decisions in the first game. Two of the main characters from the first died, instead of just one - you could have saved one of them, but apparently you didn't. You allowed the council from the first game to die, and an all-human council took its place, and now the Citadel is a hotbed of racism. Those are the big things, but not the only things... I don't know all of them. Just that apparently you would have to make a fair number of Renegade decisions to end up where you were at the start of the second game.
I didn't import a save - I don't have ME1 yet, mostly because I don't have my own 360 yet and don't know when I'll be able to get one. I might end up getting the PC version if I can find a better PC at some point. At any rate, I went almost completely Paragon, and ended up with a full Paragon bar, or at least very close to it - enough that I was able to resolve both of the Loyalty conflicts with Paragon choices. I'm sure that this would've confused anyone watching who knew Shepard before her death; she would've made close to a total 180 in terms of her loyalties and priorities. (Wait, did the woman responsible for giving humans dominance over the Council just threaten a human C-Sec guard for being rude to a quarian vagrant? Wha?)
I kind of like it from a storytelling standpoint, though. It makes this incarnation of Shepard into something of a penitent character, trying to make up for having made so many bad decisions in the past. As I've said before, I like stories about redemption.
(If I ever write fic about this, one thing I'd like to know first - did the Alliance have policies against relationships with one's subordinates, or shipmates, or anything? Because the one thing that I'd change from the game's backstory for this particular 'verse would be the person who died on Virmire. It's set to whoever happens to be the same gender as Shepard by default, so in the game I played, Ashley died. (Ninja edit! And kind of an important one.) While I have no particular preference or dislike of either Ashley or Kaiden - considering that, again, I haven't played the first game - I like the idea of Shepard entertaining thoughts of beginning a relationship with Kaiden, perhaps against Alliance regulations, and then having to deal with the fact that she lost him because of an order that she made. It would be more fuel for her desire to change, to be a better woman. And it adds some extra pathos to the Shepard/Thane relationship - she loved a man who died unexpectedly, and now she's falling for another man, but one whom she knows is dying. That's going to say something about her state of mind. Although if I do write Mass Effect fiction, I don't want to turn it into a soap opera that happens to be in space; there ARE cosmic horrors to fight, after all.)
(Belated edit: Okay, so, I've actually played the first game now (but I have not finished any of the romance subplots in it yet - I've seen my boyfriend start to romance Liara, but in my game Shepard was flirting with Tali the whole time and was rather surprised she didn't seem to notice at all. But for this 'verse's purposes, I would probably just add the added angst of "Shepard never managed to let Ashley know just how much that she cared about her while she was alive" to the pot. Which, um, honestly makes this whole thing come across as wangsty, but what the hell, it's a rough game in places. Nothing particular against Kaiden, although I never used him in combat because I played an Adept and he didn't have any skills that I particularly wanted that I couldn't get without having Tali in the group. I just liked Ashley better. :D)
(Also, I've still yet to see the mission that the second game was making fun of with my subject line....)
I really liked Mass Effect 2. I keep wanting to post a more detailed thing about my impressions of it, but I keep failing. For now, I really enjoyed it and I want to play the first one.
Speaking of playing the second game without playing the first...
If you play ME2 without importing a save from ME1, your character made a lot of questionable decisions in the first game. Two of the main characters from the first died, instead of just one - you could have saved one of them, but apparently you didn't. You allowed the council from the first game to die, and an all-human council took its place, and now the Citadel is a hotbed of racism. Those are the big things, but not the only things... I don't know all of them. Just that apparently you would have to make a fair number of Renegade decisions to end up where you were at the start of the second game.
I didn't import a save - I don't have ME1 yet, mostly because I don't have my own 360 yet and don't know when I'll be able to get one. I might end up getting the PC version if I can find a better PC at some point. At any rate, I went almost completely Paragon, and ended up with a full Paragon bar, or at least very close to it - enough that I was able to resolve both of the Loyalty conflicts with Paragon choices. I'm sure that this would've confused anyone watching who knew Shepard before her death; she would've made close to a total 180 in terms of her loyalties and priorities. (Wait, did the woman responsible for giving humans dominance over the Council just threaten a human C-Sec guard for being rude to a quarian vagrant? Wha?)
I kind of like it from a storytelling standpoint, though. It makes this incarnation of Shepard into something of a penitent character, trying to make up for having made so many bad decisions in the past. As I've said before, I like stories about redemption.
(If I ever write fic about this, one thing I'd like to know first - did the Alliance have policies against relationships with one's subordinates, or shipmates, or anything? Because the one thing that I'd change from the game's backstory for this particular 'verse would be the person who died on Virmire. It's set to whoever happens to be the same gender as Shepard by default, so in the game I played, Ashley died. (Ninja edit! And kind of an important one.) While I have no particular preference or dislike of either Ashley or Kaiden - considering that, again, I haven't played the first game - I like the idea of Shepard entertaining thoughts of beginning a relationship with Kaiden, perhaps against Alliance regulations, and then having to deal with the fact that she lost him because of an order that she made. It would be more fuel for her desire to change, to be a better woman. And it adds some extra pathos to the Shepard/Thane relationship - she loved a man who died unexpectedly, and now she's falling for another man, but one whom she knows is dying. That's going to say something about her state of mind. Although if I do write Mass Effect fiction, I don't want to turn it into a soap opera that happens to be in space; there ARE cosmic horrors to fight, after all.)
(Belated edit: Okay, so, I've actually played the first game now (but I have not finished any of the romance subplots in it yet - I've seen my boyfriend start to romance Liara, but in my game Shepard was flirting with Tali the whole time and was rather surprised she didn't seem to notice at all. But for this 'verse's purposes, I would probably just add the added angst of "Shepard never managed to let Ashley know just how much that she cared about her while she was alive" to the pot. Which, um, honestly makes this whole thing come across as wangsty, but what the hell, it's a rough game in places. Nothing particular against Kaiden, although I never used him in combat because I played an Adept and he didn't have any skills that I particularly wanted that I couldn't get without having Tali in the group. I just liked Ashley better. :D)
(Also, I've still yet to see the mission that the second game was making fun of with my subject line....)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-30 01:58 pm (UTC)From:You choose which of the humans will die on Virmire, when you play it; they're on different teams and the mission goes badly, and you only have the time to save one of them. So you could save the one you were dating if you wanted to. ^^;
If I had to guess why they set the defaults the way they did, my guess would be that they set it up so you had a relationship with the human option in the first game (instead of Liara, the other choice), and then your paramour dies, because otherwise there is post-relationship weirdness when you run into him on the colony world -- it's a really specifically "we had a thing together" scene, and my guess is that they decided it would work better to have you run into a comrade than a former lover.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-30 11:12 pm (UTC)From:I would've chosen Liara over him if I'd wanted to romance anyone in the first game, anyway. I've heard a lot of icky things about the Alenko/Shepard relationship - bad writing, misuse of gender stereotypes, power issues, and so forth. Enough to convince me that I don't really care to see it. (I've heard bad things about the Jacob/Shepard relationship, too, which is a shame. Jacob seemed like a pretty cool character, but I wasn't trying to hit on him.)
I've played the Thane/Shepard relationship, and I've seen most of the Garrus/Shepard relationship. In the latter the two seem to be on equal footing, which is always nice to see. And Shepard is pretty obviously dominant in the former, but not in a squicky, power-stealing way; he offers it to her, and she accepts it. That was my take on it, anyway, and part of the reason I liked it as well.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 12:48 am (UTC)From:It's pretty clear from the major choice in the ME2 endgame that ME3 Shepard will also be kind of a dick. ...From that perspective, it may be that BioWare just considers the renegade choices more interesting. They certainly make for greater conflict.
For what it is worth I thought the Shepard/Kaidan relationship in ME1 was relatively comradely, but I'm not particularly sensitive to these things. I suspect it may have a lot to do with the dialogue choices you make. Personally, I find the Shepard/Liara relationship to be less appealing because it's hard to engage it without feeling like you're taking advantage. Liara comes down with a bad case of hero worship, and it's never really clear whether she wants Shepard for who zie is or what zie is.
Good luck getting a hold of ME1 -- it's a good story, and worth playing, although you are really going to miss ME2's system. ME1 was rough around the edges.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 11:40 am (UTC)From:Honestly, the main thing I've heard about the thing with Kaiden is how poorly written it is. Like the writers didn't know how to appeal to a female audience, and didn't really try that hard. I haven't heard the same things about the relationship with Ashley; I'm curious about that.
I can get the game easily enough. I just feel a bit weird buying a game for a system I don't own. And I hate to spend a lot of money on renting it, which I probably would. I'll probably try to borrow it from someone once I finish FFXIII, which will be soon.