Mass Effect 2 Gameplay

[Stofsk]

As much as the mercs hate each other, they hate the Council races more - and Cerberus isn't part of the Terminus culture.

Dude, you don't actually need to hire the established mercenary groups. You just replicate what Shepard did with, well...anybody else. There's trillions of people in the galaxy, surely it can't be very hard to fine some ex-soldier capable of doing that?

Impossible to find a soldier that's gone up against the reapers and won - only Shepard has done that.

Shepard's mission was never solely intel - he was tasked by TIM to stop the Collectors right at the beginning.

TIM never said Shepard would have to physically go and personally shoot every Collector in the head. If it turned out it could've been done by engineering a bioweapon and unleashing it, Cerberus would've done just that: "stopping the Collectors" involved, by definition, gathering intelligence on them. It was just expected the team doing that would eventually be shot at.

Um... yes he did. And so does Shepard. Multiple times throughout the entire game, the focus was not just on 'finding out' about the Collectors, but actually physically stopping them.

Use a starship, obviously. I have a problem with Shep being resurrected, not necessarily the SR2 being constructed.

Ok, at least we can agree on something.

Well, I just finished the game and White Heaven is right: the IFF isn't just a code, it's a specific piece of Reaper tech, which makes the point moot, since only one ship could've gone through anyway.

Awesome.

Mordin is suddendly expendable now? Shepard is expendable? What about Miranda?

You made the point that its better to send 'expendable' agents to gather intel, but the real world doesn't operate like that. 'Everyone' is expendable in the sense that the mission objectives have to be achieved, but that's not the optimal strategy or outcome to make. To TIM, at least, everyone *is* expendable if it achieves the goals he requires of them; but he wouldn't want to see useful assets be killed off willy-nilly. Regardless, Shepard's the one in charge of the mission. If at that point of the game, you haven't gotten everyone you need and all the upgrades required for your ship and weapons, going through the relay is a stupid move. The point of the game is to prepare for the mission.

Okay, so he fought "The Reapers" (P.S. He didn't, the council fleets fought Sov, Shepard fought through a bunch of Geth and then killed Saren twice)

PS he did, actually. Shepard didn't kill Saren twice, he killed him once (or Saren killed himself if you persuaded him to). What Shepard and co faced was Sovereign.

The game evenly helpfully tells you this by having Sovereign say 'I AM SOVEREIGN' after the transformation sequence. I would have thought that would be enough of a hint.

and has the cipher (he's not the only one, he got it from that Asari chick. Liara should also have it, or parts of it, since she helped Shep interpret Prothean vision).

No he is the only one. I killed the asari chick (you don't have to, but it is an option) and Liara specifically mentions how *you* have the cipher.

If you don't kill the asari chick then you are right, but she was formerly indoctrinated.

How does this translate into him being worth billions of credits? Patton fought the Nazis, does it mean the US should spend billions on resurrecting him if the III Reich rises again?

The Reapers are a threat unlike anything anyone has ever faced before. Your analogy doesn't fit.

Shepard is tought, strong and resourceful, but the galaxy is inhabitated by trillions of people and uncounted billions of soldiers. How hard would it be to find and recruit someone else and give him orders of magnitude more resources to use with the cash spent on Lazarus?

Maybe TIM felt humanity owed it to Shepard after all he did to save them? Maybe TIM also hoped that Shepard's connection with the Reapers has some intangible aspect that could be useful (things like the cipher for example, can be incredibly useful should any more prothean beacons or artifacts or VIs be uncovered).

Furthermore, Shepard is the trilogy. Its his story. Saying 'oh he's not necessary' or whatever is like saying Luke isn't necessary to the Star Wars saga or Captain Kirk isn't necessary to Star Trek.

Huh? The only place the YMIRs won't be able to go are platform at the end, but other than that, they'd be fucking invaluable. Not to mention the Collectors boarding the Normandy would be utterly massacred.

If I remember correctly the initial section has a lot of areas you need to climb up and over. Regardless, the platforms at the end wouldn't be able to be traversed.

War is calculated risk. From what Cerberus knew, they'd lose Shepard, the SR2 and everybody onboard for no gain whatsoever.

This assumes Shepard takes his marching orders from Cerberus. He doesn't.

Of course, Shep being Shep, he'd have probably gone through regardless, but this doesn't mean it wasn't stupid to do so. The very fact they didn't get splattered all over the debris in the first ten seconds was pure luck.

'Pure luck'? No, they had the most maneuverable frigate in the galaxy with the best pilot at the controls. That right there is your luck. If they had gone through with a regular frigate, or with someone other than Joker at the helm, or in a heavy cruiser, or any combination - they would have run straight into the debris field, at best become heavily damaged (and at worst, destroyed).

[PeZook]

Impossible to find a soldier that's gone up against the reapers and won - only Shepard has done that.

The fact he fought them once and won is meaningless: just like the fact a soldier survived a battle doesn't mean he won't get shot during the next one. Like others said, if the Collectors sent two pretorians against him even once, he'd be dead. Same goes if Shep went up against a Reaper in a spaceship.

Um... yes he did. And so does Shepard. Multiple times throughout the entire game, the focus was not just on 'finding out' about the Collectors, but actually physically stopping them.

Yeah, I wrote exactly that. They didn't know what would need to be done to stop the Collectors: as I wrote, if they could've been stopped by using a bioweapon, Shep's suicide mission wouldn't have been necessary. Shep had to first find out what needed to be done, then maybe do it.

You made the point that its better to send 'expendable' agents to gather intel, but the real world doesn't operate like that. 'Everyone' is expendable in the sense that the mission objectives have to be achieved, but that's not the optimal strategy or outcome to make. To TIM, at least, everyone *is* expendable if it achieves the goals he requires of them; but he wouldn't want to see useful assets be killed off willy-nilly. Regardless, Shepard's the one in charge of the mission. If at that point of the game, you haven't gotten everyone you need and all the upgrades required for your ship and weapons, going through the relay is a stupid move. The point of the game is to prepare for the mission.

I suppose we can agree that when Shep is in command, it doesn't matter if the suicide mission was a smart move or not, he'd have gone in regardless. The point of contention is whether or not it was smart to bring Shep back at tremendous expense or not.

PS he did, actually. Shepard didn't kill Saren twice, he killed him once (or Saren killed himself if you persuaded him to). What Shepard and co faced was Sovereign.

It was sovereign's avatar, not Sov himself. If the council fleets weren't there, the galaxy would've been SOL, since Sov would finish humping the citadel tower, activated the mass relay and then ventillated the control room with Shep still in it.

The game evenly helpfully tells you this by having Sovereign say 'I AM SOVEREIGN' after the transformation sequence. I would have thought that would be enough of a hint.

Yeah, and when a Collector yells "I AM YOUR HARBINGER" it obviously means it's the actual reaper, not some mook under his control, right? It means that in ME2 you kill a hundred reapers in direct combat

No he is the only one. I killed the asari chick (you don't have to, but it is an option) and Liara specifically mentions how *you* have the cipher.

Liara helped you interpret the Prothean visions, so it's not like she'll be stupified by them. Prothean visions are barely understandable gibberish even with the cipher, anyway, so it's not going to be terribly useful.

The Reapers are a threat unlike anything anyone has ever faced before. Your analogy doesn't fit.

So if the threat is about the survival of the human species it's okay to spend resources unwisely? Again, the fact somebody fought somebody else once and won does not guarantee he can do it over and over and over again and survive. Combat is chaotic and unpredictable under the best of circumstances.

Maybe TIM felt humanity owed it to Shepard after all he did to save them?

If he did, he certainly made sure to never say it.

Maybe TIM also hoped that Shepard's connection with the Reapers has some intangible aspect that could be useful (things like the cipher for example, can be incredibly useful should any more prothean beacons or artifacts or VIs be uncovered).

Well, he definitely thought Shep had some intangible assets, but the mission wasn't about that, it was about shooting people in the face, blowing up their shit and sifting through the debris for useful intelligence.

Furthermore, Shepard is the trilogy. Its his story. Saying 'oh he's not necessary' or whatever is like saying Luke isn't necessary to the Star Wars saga or Captain Kirk isn't necessary to Star Trek.

Or, you know, they might've not killed Shepard in the first place. Alternatively, not made his resurrection something so ridiculously expensive if they really wanted to, since it was kind of cool how it built your legend: "The Collectors already killed you once, and all it did was piss you off."

If I remember correctly the initial section has a lot of areas you need to climb up and over. Regardless, the platforms at the end wouldn't be able to be traversed.

Yeah, the platforms would be a bitch, but you're incorrect, the initial sections were full of large, open areas. And of course the Normandy would easily accomodate several mechs at crucial points, like the CIC.

This assumes Shepard takes his marching orders from Cerberus. He doesn't.

Yeah. Perhaps somebody else would.

'Pure luck'? No, they had the most maneuverable frigate in the galaxy with the best pilot at the controls. That right there is your luck. If they had gone through with a regular frigate, or with someone other than Joker at the helm, or in a heavy cruiser, or any combination - they would have run straight into the debris field, at best become heavily damaged (and at worst, destroyed).

Or if the first debris piece was 10 meters closer to the relay. Or if there wasn't enough space between pieces later on, when they deliberately flew inside the densest part. Or if the Collector ship explosion damaged the Normandy in a slightly different way. Or if their crash-landing didn't place them conveniently close to an entrance. Etc.

[Vendetta]

No they didn't. They thought he was dead when they learned he was with Cerberus, then they gave him the opportunity to explain, and they reinstated him.

Or tell them to go fuck themselves.

Which was highly satisfying.

[Stofsk]

The fact he fought them once and won is meaningless: just like the fact a soldier survived a battle doesn't mean he won't get shot during the next one. Like others said, if the Collectors sent two pretorians against him even once, he'd be dead. Same goes if Shep went up against a Reaper in a spaceship.

We're not really going to agree here, I don't think.

Yeah, I wrote exactly that. They didn't know what would need to be done to stop the Collectors: as I wrote, if they could've been stopped by using a bioweapon, Shep's suicide mission wouldn't have been necessary. Shep had to first find out what needed to be done, then maybe do it.

Isn't that like saying 'If the Collectors hadn't sprung a trap on them and abducted the crew, the crew wouldn't have been in peril thereby forcing Shepard's hand'?

Sure, coulda woulda shoulda - maybe if the crew hadn't been captured there would have been a different plan in place. As it stands, it wasn't stupid - it was desperation. It's like the Rebels going up with a couple dozen snubfighters against the Death Star - totally wouldn't have worked as a plan you'd want to choose, but when you're desperate you've got no choice.

I suppose we can agree that when Shep is in command, it doesn't matter if the suicide mission was a smart move or not, he'd have gone in regardless. The point of contention is whether or not it was smart to bring Shep back at tremendous expense or not.

Ok - I'll come to this point later on.

PS he did, actually. Shepard didn't kill Saren twice, he killed him once (or Saren killed himself if you persuaded him to). What Shepard and co faced was Sovereign.

It was sovereign's avatar, not Sov himself.

I am not sure what you mean by this. When you kill Sovereign in the council chambers, the bigger ship loses control and its kinetic barriers go down - which is what gives the Alliance fleet the opportunity to strike at it.

Sovereign had to 'possess' Saren's corpse and the implants made that possible; Shepard had successfully locked him out of the Citadel's control console, which meant he had to go in there to physically reverse whatever Shepard had done. Yes the Alliance fleet killed Sovereign, hell really it was actually Joker and the SR1 that gave the killing blow - but if it hadn't been for Shepard - the entire galaxy would have been toast.

The game evenly helpfully tells you this by having Sovereign say 'I AM SOVEREIGN' after the transformation sequence. I would have thought that would be enough of a hint.

Yeah, and when a Collector yells "I AM YOUR HARBINGER" it obviously means it's the actual reaper, not some mook under his control, right? It means that in ME2 you kill a hundred reapers in direct combat

Don't be obtuse. When a Collector gets possessed and you hear Harbinger talk, that's actually Harbinger talking to you through the Collector. What you claimed regarding Saren is that you kill him twice, which was totally incorrect.

Liara helped you interpret the Prothean visions, so it's not like she'll be stupified by them. Prothean visions are barely understandable gibberish even with the cipher, anyway, so it's not going to be terribly useful.

Shepard understood the Prothean spoken language without any effort - Liara (if she's in your party) surmised that between the visions and the cipher, Shepard has developed an intuitive understanding of the Protheans.

How useful this will be is unknown. But literally, no-one else in the galaxy can make the claim to understand the Protheans better than Shepard (other than Liara, who may or may not also have received the cipher - though even she didn't understand the recording on Illos). They might make something out of this in ME3, or they might not, but Shepard is singularly unique regardless.

So if the threat is about the survival of the human species it's okay to spend resources unwisely? Again, the fact somebody fought somebody else once and won does not guarantee he can do it over and over and over again and survive. Combat is chaotic and unpredictable under the best of circumstances.

Yeah but so what? Shepard has a lot of unique experiences, and also he's one of the few people in the galaxy who understand the Reaper threat and actively doing something about it. I don't agree that its an unwise expenditure to bring him back.

I don't like the way the game and the story glosses right over that bit anyway - whether more will be made of this later or not I don't know but I hope so - in particular, there are 2 more issues left of Redemption which might shed some more light on this. Maybe TIM used experimental technology and Shep was a convenient guinea pig.

If he did, he certainly made sure to never say it.

TIM doesn't come across as sentimental, though. But who knows.

Well, he definitely thought Shep had some intangible assets, but the mission wasn't about that, it was about shooting people in the face, blowing up their shit and sifting through the debris for useful intelligence.

And ultimately defeating the Collectors. Shepard easily puts most other commandos or operatives to shame.

Or, you know, they might've not killed Shepard in the first place. Alternatively, not made his resurrection something so ridiculously expensive if they really wanted to, since it was kind of cool how it built your legend: "The Collectors already killed you once, and all it did was piss you off."

If your only problem is that, why didn't you just say so? I don't have a problem with it as much as you do, but there isn't any point in arguing about it.

If I remember correctly the initial section has a lot of areas you need to climb up and over. Regardless, the platforms at the end wouldn't be able to be traversed.

Yeah, the platforms would be a bitch, but you're incorrect, the initial sections were full of large, open areas. And of course the Normandy would easily accomodate several mechs at crucial points, like the CIC.

I am pretty sure there is at least one or two areas in the initial landing area where you have to jump over, but I would need to play the game again. Having a mech or two in the CIC would actually be very stupid - a lot of electronics are around in there, if heavy machine guns go off there's a chance to damage them. If you're going to have mechs anywhere it would be in a place where enemies would board - like the air locks and cargo bay area.

'Pure luck'? No, they had the most maneuverable frigate in the galaxy with the best pilot at the controls. That right there is your luck. If they had gone through with a regular frigate, or with someone other than Joker at the helm, or in a heavy cruiser, or any combination - they would have run straight into the debris field, at best become heavily damaged (and at worst, destroyed).

Or if the first debris piece was 10 meters closer to the relay. Or if there wasn't enough space between pieces later on, when they deliberately flew inside the densest part. Or if the Collector ship explosion damaged the Normandy in a slightly different way. Or if their crash-landing didn't place them conveniently close to an entrance. Etc.

Alright, so it's a combination of luck, superior ability from Joker and superior maneouverability from the SR2. Saying it was 'just luck' is a bit disingenuous.

[PeZook]

I am not sure what you mean by this. When you kill Sovereign in the council chambers, the bigger ship loses control and its kinetic barriers go down - which is what gives the Alliance fleet the opportunity to strike at it.

Huh? How would that work? Saren's implants were essentially on remote control, how does wrecking them cause a shield failure in the giant 2km long spaceship doing the controlling?

I always took the cutscene as the Arcturus fleet simply pounding Sov's shileds down and killing him.

Sovereign had to 'possess' Saren's corpse and the implants made that possible; Shepard had successfully locked him out of the Citadel's control console, which meant he had to go in there to physically reverse whatever Shepard had done. Yes the Alliance fleet killed Sovereign, hell really it was actually Joker and the SR1 that gave the killing blow - but if it hadn't been for Shepard - the entire galaxy would have been toast.

Yeah, but that's hardly "fighting the Reapers".

Don't be obtuse. When a Collector gets possessed and you hear Harbinger talk, that's actually Harbinger talking to you through the Collector. What you claimed regarding Saren is that you kill him twice, which was totally incorrect.

Yeah, okay, you kill Saren and then kill his reanimated corpse. There's little difference - meaningfully fighting the Reapers requires destroying their actual physical forms, not some avatars under their control. That, on the other hand, will almost certainly require warships, and lots of them, or some sort of Deus Ex Machina computer virus or something.

Shepard understood the Prothean spoken language without any effort - Liara (if she's in your party) surmised that between the visions and the cipher, Shepard has developed an intuitive understanding of the Protheans.

How useful this will be is unknown. But literally, no-one else in the galaxy can make the claim to understand the Protheans better than Shepard (other than Liara, who may or may not also have received the cipher - though even she didn't understand the recording on Illos). They might make something out of this in ME3, or they might not, but Shepard is singularly unique regardless.

You know, I completely forgot about that. I guess Shep is worth reanimating just for this capability alone: decoding Prothean artifacts is going to be massively easier if somebody who can read and speak their language fluently.

It should've been mentioned in ME2, though. And TIM would probably be well-advised to manipulate an Asari to transfer the Cipher to somebody else as a backup, but yeah: I concede my point.

I don't like the way the game and the story glosses right over that bit anyway - whether more will be made of this later or not I don't know but I hope so - in particular, there are 2 more issues left of Redemption which might shed some more light on this. Maybe TIM used experimental technology and Shep was a convenient guinea pig.

The tech used for Lazarus was almost certainly experimental: Cerberus built and staffed and entire facility just for this purpose. Thinking about it some more, perhaps Shepard was supposed to be just a trial for a wider application of the tech?

If your only problem is that, why didn't you just say so? I don't have a problem with it as much as you do, but there isn't any point in arguing about it.

I thought I did say this a while back? Can't remember...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Has anyone managed to hit Lvl 30 on single play run?

[White Haven]

If you do everything, you'll hit 30 basically at the absolute tail end of the runthrough, IF you started from a L60 character for the initial level boost.

[General Zod]

Has anyone managed to hit Lvl 30 on single play run?

I believe I hit level 27 or 28 at the end of my first playthrough after doing everything, and I didn't import an ME1 file.

[fractalsponge1]

You will easily hit lvl30 if you have the 25% experience bonus from import. I hit 30 before the final mission, with a bunch of N7 side-missions still left to do, importing a lvl52 (which basically starts you at lvl3 in ME2).

[Vympel]

Huh? How would that work? Saren's implants were essentially on remote control, how does wrecking them cause a shield failure in the giant 2km long spaceship doing the controlling?

I always took the cutscene as the Arcturus fleet simply pounding Sov's shileds down and killing him.

I'm pretty sure the Codex in ME2 clearly that it was Shepard killing ASSUMING-DIRECT-CONTROL-Saren that stopped Sovereign - something about when the ship's "previously impenetrable barriers" went down.

[Stark]

But that's quite possibly Yet Another Retcon; is that suggested in ME1? In between being hired by the stupid space cutscene it looked to me like the fleet just blew him up because he sucked.

I wouldn't be surprised if they worked out that makes the reapers a shit threat and the turians really suck.

[White Haven]

I thought that was pretty obviously communicated by the fact that the fleet was pounding away with no effect at all until the instant Sovvy's avatar went down, and then all of a sudden it not only lost shields but fell off the tower on its own accord. You could make an argument of the fleet dropping the shield at that precise instant, although it'd be a fucking weak one, but the Hand of Doom suddenly going limp?

[Stark]

Except we don't see the whole fight; we see Sov shoot some guys, then we see massed fire kill him. It's pretty weak that Sov stupidly made himself vulnerable instead of just shooting you with his spaceship guns, but there you are. What do you base 'no effect at all' on, anyway? I thought the cutscenes were innacurate?

I just figured over time and with enough Anderson macho talk the remaining ships surrounded and destroyed the stationary target who can't kill 3 humans in line of sight for minutes at a time.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If you do everything, you'll hit 30 basically at the absolute tail end of the runthrough, IF you started from a L60 character for the initial level boost.

You can even get >lvl 30 at all?!

[fractalsponge1]

You can even get >lvl 30 at all?!

He means a lvl60 ME1 character; the ME2 level cap is 30. I think there are only two levels of import bonus; lvl50 and lvl60.

Except we don't see the whole fight; we see Sov shoot some guys, then we see massed fire kill him. It's pretty weak that Sov stupidly made himself vulnerable instead of just shooting you with his spaceship guns, but there you are. What do you base 'no effect at all' on, anyway? I thought the cutscenes were innacurate?

I just figured over time and with enough Anderson macho talk the remaining ships surrounded and destroyed the stationary target who can't kill 3 humans in line of sight for minutes at a time.

I just interpreted it as Sovereign needing somebody to interface with the system internally, and/or needed the tower to be intact; he could obviously blast the tower to bits but then wouldn't be able to bypass the keepers effectively. Maybe dreadnought-sized machine-gods do not interface well with controls meant to be manipulated by human-sized green bugs? By the time Saren died, most of the Geth and his other forces were dead or not near enough to the tower, or did not know how to manipulate the Citadel's systems, hence the desperate and improvised "assuming direct control" move with frog-Saren-of-doom.

[Stark]

Dude, he could have POKED YOU TO DEATH when you ran up the tower. A single plink - even a miss - would have kille you, blown you off the tower, blocked your route, etc.

Sorry, I know talking about how retarded Sovereign is is redundant.

[Darksider]

Dude, he could have POKED YOU TO DEATH when you ran up the tower. A single plink - even a miss - would have kille you, blown you off the tower, blocked your route, etc.

Sorry, I know talking about how retarded Sovereign is is redundant.

The easiest (although it's still a bit of an eye-roller) rationalization is that he needed some of the machinery in the citadel tower to activate the Mass Relay or control the keepers or something, so he needed to keep it intact. Otherwise the entire fight with possessed Saren doesn't make any sense.

As for sheppard's killing of cyber-Saren also killing Soverign, it's unlikely. You kill numerous collector drones possessed by Harbinger in Mass Effect 2, and it does precisely dick to him. It's possible that it stunned or disoriented him for a second and gave an opening for the Alliance fleet to finish him off, but he was definitely still "alive."

[Stark]

Oh yeah, he was clearly trying to have sex with the tower and just decided not to provide any fire support to all the krogan and geth fighting you. It's still dumb.

And instead of stupidly moving his intelligence into a dead guy (who you already killed, demonstrating how outclassed he was) he probably should have just put a bomb in there.

[Vympel]

The Reaper plot re: the Citadel doesn't survive even a cursory once-over.

Consider - the Reapers built the Citadel - but they can't activate the Citadel's Mass Relay by just - sending a signal for it to do so - no - they send a signal to the Keepers instead. Why?

And why does Sovereign need to hump the Citadel to activate the Mass Relay? Why can't he just hack it remotely?

The former is the big problem though, the latter you can just say the Protheans made sure that the Reapers wouldn't be able to hack the Citadel control systems.

[Stark]

Hell, they could have had something really simple (like a bomb that drops a weight on a switch) hidden away in the secret 'relay system control hardware' nobody noticed and bang no keepers required. You show up, you pop the relay network, you kill everyone.

[Artemas]

But then they would be out a really expensive fishing lure.

[Stark]

Eh? They send in a drone, reset the system, and they're ready to go. They don't have 10000 years to do that? Making their plan simpler both in conception and execution would have meant Sovereign wouldn't have suffered a humiliating death due to stupidity.

[Artemas]

Maybe they figure out their social hierarchy via pointless games like this. Sovereign was obviously a parasite feeding on the entrepenurial spirit of the reapers.

He deserved what he got.

[Stofsk]

The Reaper plot re: the Citadel doesn't survive even a cursory once-over.

Consider - the Reapers built the Citadel - but they can't activate the Citadel's Mass Relay by just - sending a signal for it to do so - no - they send a signal to the Keepers instead. Why?

And why does Sovereign need to hump the Citadel to activate the Mass Relay? Why can't he just hack it remotely?

The former is the big problem though, the latter you can just say the Protheans made sure that the Reapers wouldn't be able to hack the Citadel control systems.

Well you answered why for the latter, but for the former, I always took it as a sign of the reaper's overconfidence. Their use of indoctrination is extremely powerful and maybe they rely on it too much, which in the case of the keepers ultimately bit Sovereign in the ass due to the prothean scientists screwing around with the signal the keepers respond to.

Its also possible that they didn't want to add any obvious vulnerable backdoor signal control because it might be detected by emergent races, who would figure out that the Citadel seems open to hacking from a specific source. Each emergent race seems to think the last one built the Citadel, but I'd think a prothean signal would be different to a reaper one. Otherwise,

And some think that ME1 had a better plot than ME2

[Andrew_Fireborn]

The actual overarching -plot- in mass effect is built on "Bad by the standards of Saturday Morning Cartoon Villiany."

The real story draw are the characters who invariably end up stealing the show. Like Wrex, Garrus, and Mordin.