Mass Effect 2 Message Board  

I will point out once more that this after action report contains spoilers.

Just finished ME2 at 04:30 and I have to admit it's by far one of the better games that i've played. I started out as a male Sheperd and moronically decided to be a mix of renegade and paragon. Next time it will be a female Sheperd renegade.

I started building up my team, taking Garrus first then Mordin, Grunt, Jack, Thane, Samara, Tali, Zaeed, and finally Legion. Followed through completing loyalty missions for them. Was successful with all of them except for Tali's and Samara's. For Tali's I guess I kinda told the admirals that her father caused the geth to take over the ship which made her moderately hostile towards me. It was hard to lie to Claudia Black (voice for Admiral Xen/Morrigan in Dragon Age) so I spilled the beans. Even though I had a savegame not so far back I decided to play on anyways, as such decisions tend to make gameplay more comical later on. Screwed up Samara's mission by intentionally talking about dumb things to Morinth.

Just wanted to see her responses... She told me she was going to buy me a drink for all the wonderful conversation I was providing her with. I waited and waited but she never came back. I really don't understand why I couldn't have just gunned her down in the club. I had 10 able bodied team members at that point, you'd think with a little teamwork maybe someone could have followed her. Personally I would have sent Jack in had there been an option.

I chose Jack as my romantic interest because Miranda looked too cliche and Jack might have sprung forth with some comical post coital dialogue. Yeah, not so much. Tali wouldn't talk to me anyways after I legitimately tried to make her look better so I was kinda stuck with Jack. I sided with Jack in the Miranda/Jack fight anyways which ****ed Miranda off for the rest of the game as well. These NPCs are so touchy. Jack does not yield the achievement for relationships, as I suppose it is just a cheathappens. Jack shoots you down for the rest of the game afterwords as well.Then came the final mission. I had all the normandy upgrades, and all of the NPC quests except for the two that I botched. Took me a few times to get Joker to save the ship. I thought maybe he would have had some retard strength in his arms, I wanted to see him tear the collectors apart but it wasn't so much the case.

Made the following team decisions:
I sent Legion into the vents - he was clearly the best choice in my mind as getting the door hacked seemed mission critical and robots don't screw up.

Put Garrus in charge of the fireteam because Miranda was being rude, and that's just uncalled for. She's supposed to be an officer but she acted like a little girl. Next time i'm not going to save her sister. I will call her daddy and tell him where the sister is just so Miranda gets ****ed off to the point that she gets killed first on the final mission.

Everybody made it out of the first section alive, thanks to Legion and Garrus.

Next I put Samara in charge of making the bubble and Garrus as fireteam leader again. Thane and Grunt were in my party during the bubble sequence. Samara fell down at the end i'm assuming because she was thinking about her b!tch daughter - whom never returned with drinks - and got Thane killed. I had a lot of respect for Thane and had the best possible resolution for his side quest. I'm guessing he got killed because of Samara. I was ****ed.

During the final sequence I took Garrus and Grunt on my team. Neither of them died and we saved the day. Garrus planted the radiation bomb and we saved the station for Cerberus. I think that would lead to the most interesting struggle in ME3. You also really don't want to **** Martin Sheen off, lest he send his son Chuck over to your house to beat up your wife.

I was then dismayed to see that Tali and Samara were killed while I was planting the bomb. They had like 7 or 8 people fighting a bunch of bugs while I take on The Terminator with only 3. Speaking of the giant terminator reaper skeletor thing - what a lame end boss. Obviously the team had just finished a full playthrough of Final Fantasy 7 when they thought that up. Totally killed all the immersion. I personally thought I was going to be fighting Martin Sheen at this point, I guess I have to wait until the next game to kill him. "Ohhh, break the glass tubes and he'll fall down. A giant terminator couldn't possibly survive a drop amounting to less than his body length. Oh wait, he's getting up and now he's ****ed. Shoot him in the eye with small arms fire - that will kill him!" Bioware could have done so much better with
this. Hell, it would have been more thrilling to fight a big daddy.

So, Thane, Tali, and Samara were killed, Zaeed rescued the ships crew. I don't know why Zaeed was almost universally
hated. He was mission orientated and knew when to STFU. I'm glad he made it out. Thane was dying anyways, but I must say

I was somewhat saddened by his loss. Samara.. well perhaps next time i'll try to be nicer to her daughter in the night
club. As for Tali, I was most upset by this. She was kind of a b!tch in ME2 but I had gotten along well with her in ME1 so it was a shame to see her go. My primary party throughout the game was Garrus, Thane, and myself with Grunt stepping in
when Thane wasn't available. Had Garrus, Thane, and Tali all died I probably would have reloaded a save.

I felt that I was rewarded with a solid, realistic ending where not all of the good guys make it out. Overall, very
impressed with the game, and despite following playthroughs, I will be using this savegame to carry over to ME3.