Mass Effect 2: Log 1

- Begin Log 1 -

Well, here's something that may surprise some people...
I have never played any game in the Mass Effect series before. I've heard it's a great series, but I never had any interest. I'm not a fan of shooters, and it was practically impossible to avoid hearing about the ending of Mass Effect 3 there was so much hate surrounding it.
So, I don't like shooters, I've never played any of the games before, and I know how it all ends. Why am I playing this game?

Because Steam had it on sale this weekend. For 5 bucks.
I figured "Eh, why not?" and went ahead and bought it. I know a number of people who loved the series, who fully recommend it, so why not give it a try? I mean, I rather enjoyed Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and that was a shooter in the same vein as this, and it was also critically acclaimed. 5 bucks for hours of gameplay, I can work with that.


I've logged 12 hours in it, since I started playing Saturday afternoon.
Now, that's not nearly as much as Pokemon was after a couple days of having it, but the circumstances for the two differ... Mostly in the fact Pokemon came during my school break. It's not a quality problem at all, it's just the timing, and the fact Pokemon is portable.
But I'm getting off track...
I decided to do a series of logs on the game. Similar to vlogs, but in text form. (Which technically is a blog, but log sounds better, and makes the fact it's purely text obvious) This will have my thoughts on sections I've completed, as well as possible predictions, some minor confusion, and just generally anything you'd get out of a lets play... but in text form, with more thought behind it.


Going into the game, I knew a few things:

1. The choice system
     You have complete control over what your character says and does. Your choices affect the ending of the game, as well as your relationship with crew members. You also get two different morality choices; Paragon, and Renegade. Paragon is basically playing as white knight, helping people and protecting the innocent and refusing to give up one's morals. Renegade is the bad cop; a lot of bad ass actions, but poor people skills.

2. 50% of the crew
     I knew about Tali, the girl in the suit with the high-tech gas mask. Pretty much impossible to avoid learning about her. I also knew a couple things about the Asari (matriarchal race of bi-sexual "women." They basically look like the many aliens James Kirk would bang). And I knew about the Krogans and their sterility plague the genophage.

3. The Reapers
     Blame pop-culture osmosis and late-arrival spoiler, I know all about the reapers. Basically they're Daleks, but much less cool.

But beyond that, these are my first impressions.


Now, I actually ran through the intro to the game twice; once without the Origins DLC, and once with. The first time through, I knew bugger all about anything. Who anyone was, or why anything was happening. So, I went ahead and installed the Dark Horse Mass Effect: Origins interactive comic.
The comic basically re-tells the story of Mass Effect 1, and gives you some choices to alter the story, as well as introduce characters. It is basically creating a mass effect 1 save to transfer over.

The intro is simple; the ship is attacked, and the crew must abandon ship. Shepard (last name of the main character, because no one in video game sis researching the ability to name a character, and actually have someone call them by name outside of text) goes to the bridge to retrieve the pilot. She (I went with the female option, because male Shepard seems very dull to me) manages to get him to an escape pod, but before she can get in too, another laser strikes the ship, cutting it to pieces, and sending Shepard out into space, where she suffocates, and plummets down towards a nearby planet.

Two years later, she is brought back to life by a group called Cerberus (after a sequence that looks almost exactly like the one in Deus Ex: Human Revolution). Cerberus is apparently a pro-human organization. Not anti-alien, just pro-human. However, Shepard apparently fought them in Mass Effect 1, so they aren't really to be trusted. I went with the soldier class, mostly just because I'm not very good with shooters, and I didn't really want anything extremely complicated on my first go-through.

After a couple disinteresting battles, I end up on Omega, which is basically Tatoooine without the sand, and the Hutt was removed from power by someone who looks like a hand maiden. Here, I picked up Mordin Solus, who quickly became my favorite person to talk to. I just love smart motor-mouths for some reason. He was on Omega working on a cure for a plague that was infesting a neighborhood; turned out the source was a group of bat-people called the Vorcha, which are in league with the collectors (the ones that attacked the ship in the beginning), who are in turn in league with the Reapers. 6 Degrees of reapers!~
After combating the plague and recruiting Mordin, I then went to recruit "Archangel" A mercenary Turian (think part raptor and part bike helmet) holed up in a building, with mercenary groups beating down his door. Having gone through the Origins DLC, I knew the Turian to be Garrus, a former crew member. And he is awesome.
Leading up to recruiting Garrus though, you are able to sabotage the mercenary's attack capabilities... One is to make a large mech attack the mercenaries instead, and another is to disable an attack copter. I switched the allegiance of the mech, but I couldn't disable the chopper...
Well, I could, but that involved a renegade action. I figured I'd deal with the chopper when it came. However, in a moment that I had initially believed to be a very great player punch, when the chopper arrives, it blasts Garrus, severely wounding him. It really made me wish I had disabled the copter, maybe then he wouldn't have been ambushed and scarred..
Until I looked up online that the chopper attacks regardless. So great, it's a purely gameplay driven effect in making the chopper weaker and easier to fight... Would've been so much better as a flat player punch that can be changed with just one bad deed. But I guess the conversations with him would need to be dramatically different...

Anyway, after picking up Garrus, I went and got Jack, who is basically River Tam from Firefly, but bald and with a lot of tattoos. She did not particularly want to join, and would only do so if Cerberus gave her all their information on her. I have zero qualms with that, I am looking for any excuse to completely cut ties with Cerberus if I can, and I want the information they have too. I look forward to unlocking the blocks on the AI's information so I can learn everything about Cerberus. Sure they revived Shepard, but they are looking to use her (or him) as an icon for the organization, to make it appear "not as bad."

After picking up Jack, I ventured to the Citadel (think Corussant from Star Wars). For two reasons, one to pick up some higher-end rations at the request of the cook, and to speak to the ambassador for the humans. During that meeting, there was a meeting with the council (pretty much what it says on the tin; a group of ambassadors from several alien races). The council wanted to know why I was with Cerberus... I told them I wasn't with them, and I accepted the reinstatement as a Spectre (special ops, allowed to do whatever is necessary to get the job done). However, they told me I'd be fine as long as I stayed within the Terminus systems...

... What are the Terminus systems? Is it the galaxy I'm currently in? Will I get in trouble if I go to the other side of the galaxy? But the normandy crash int he beginning was on the other side, so is it a part of the Terminus systems? Is it even possible for me to leave the terminus systems? Obviously it must be since they have to tell me not to leave them, but just how limiting is that? Am I just going to have to break that clause immediately just to continue? Bureaucracy really sucks when things are unclear...


And, apart from doing some planetary scans and gathering materials, that's where I left off.

I don't know when I'll have the time to play again, but I shall try and make another log when I do.


- End Log 1 -