Fun Stuff > CLIKC
Mass Effect 2
Alex C:
Considering they ain't no thang to get I didn't really care much if the stats weren't great, just that I wasn't missing out on stats at all. Besides, I thought the Sentry Visor looked sorta cool in a cheesey sci-fi sorta way as I sauntered around in the Afterlife's lighting. Besides, you don't get the goofy muffled effect or look like an idiot when you order a drink.
LTK:
Hm, looks like the codes did expire by now. Too bad.
Hey, you know what? Insanity is really hard! When I played on Veteran, enemies' health regenerating was hardly noticable. Now, I shoot a Vorcha in the head with my Widow rifle and take his health down to a sliver. And by the time I reloaded my gun, he's already back to full health! That's harsh. I don't regret my decision of choosing Neural Shock instead of Dominate as my bonus talent yet, though. Krogan are a bit of a problem now that they can crush me beneath one foot, and Neural Shock is just as good as Concussive Shot or Pull for quickly stunning an enemy that gets too close. Plus, using a biotic power as an Infiltrator feels a bit like cheating to me.
So is it just me, or is the whole 'bad guys are actually good guys' a bit too overplayed here? First it was the Rachni in ME1, who 'lacked decent upbringing'. Then Cerberus, with "They did not have permission to do evil experiments!" Then it's the Geth, with "An equation with a result of 1.33382 returns as 1.33381, which makes them want to kill all organics." So, was everything I killed not really evil after all?
ackblom12:
Well, it's all slightly more complicated than that to be fair. The Rachni in the first game went insane, and the old brood basically had one massive misunderstanding with the rest of the races. Think Ender's Game misunderstanding with the Buggers. The Geth are simply much more interesting if there is an actual split in the base (and it makes a lot more sense considering the lack of reasoning and the religious undertones the geth had displayed thus far in pushing their goals) and Cerberus is... complicated.
I mean, the Geth haven't really proved themselves as good guys as this point, they just happen to share a common goal, and Cerberus is working only in what they see as the best interest of humanity. This on many occasions ends up as something not very good at all.
The Mass Effect universe has, for the most part, done a pretty good job of painting all of the major factions you actually deal with a pretty good grey moral brush, with the Reapers as the one demoniacally evil entity.
Johnny C:
The Geth stuff was foreshadowed in the first game, with the terminal at the end of the Geth Incursion side mission.
LTK:
Yeah, that was the simplified version of every bad guy we fought in ME1. You have to admit, there's a pattern. I remember that the Rachni that were bred on Noveria went psycho by being isolated from the queen, but I forgot what the whole deal with the Rachni wars was. I don't know anything about Ender's Game, though.
I think Cerberus' infamy is a result of them being a victim of their own success. They're a very idealistic organization with the best intentions for humanity and they refuse to acknowledge other authorities. This is prone to attract zealots with similar ideals but slightly more blurry moral boundaries. So they join an organization where they are told they're fighting the good fight and they make a difference, other than those bureaucrats who are blind to how things really are. Next thing that happens, your agents are feeding soldiers to Thresher Maws, still believing that this is the right thing to do, honest!
From what we know about the Geth, they seem to be quite indifferent about other races as long as they stay out of each other's business. Before Legion came along, I never really thought about the Geth as just another galactic race, trying to make it as they go along. That doesn't make them the good guys, only self-preserving. Like Cerberus, you might say. When on Tali's mission, I faced the choice of handing over the evidence and get her father erased from history, or withholding it from them when they might need it. But I never realised what implications it might have for the Geth. They won't like it if the Quarians just come waltzing in one day being all "Hi thar we'd like our planet and our robot workforce back now." Thinking back to how it all started, it really is conflicting for both sides. If you had a robot army as a workforce and a military force, and they became intelligent, would it be immoral to continue to use them for hard labor, that which they've been made to do and have been doing all their existence?
You're right about the grey morals between the races. I think they've executed it a lot better than Bioware did in Dragon Age, which was advertised to be morally ambiguous. The backstory seems much less forced and artificial in Mass Effect than it does in Dragon Age.
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