(spoilers) Opinion: Mass Effect 2 has some of the weakest writing around (spoilers)

[northeast rower]

Now, unlike many people I don't make troll subject lines and then use them to grab attention for something less important. Before I begin my rant, let me just say that this is my opinion and I am entitled to it as you are entitled to yours. Here we go:

(and yes, tread lightly, for here there be SPOILERS)

I'll start by listing my qualms with the characters, probably in a bullet point list so I can pick them out individually.

First, as a whole. There is little to no character development in Mass Effect 2. Blasphemy? Not so much. Let's just step back and think of how much your character, the protagonist, changes.

Shepard starts out the game out dying and then proceeds to crack jokes about it when he is revived. So has the whole experience of... well, dying made Shepard a jokester, maybe a little nihilistic? Nah, he still says SERIOUS THINGS like "I'm offering you to be my friend. You don't want to be my enemy". His personality, even when the player isn't in control, is so damnably inconsistent that he ceases to be a real character. For instance, on Purgatory he lets all of the prisoners out to get Jack. He then watches them rampage through the ship and kill all of the guards. Then, when confronting Kuril, he blasts him for trying to deal with them.

Now for individual squadmates. Each of them seems to follow a very specific characterization. Queen *****? You got it. Femme fatale? Yeah, she's there. Silent assassin with a deeper emotional side? We've got three.

Jack: The Queen ***** I was talking about. Not only is she very inconsistent as a character (Cerberus wrecked my childhood! I can't go with you-- Ooh, pretty files!), her writing is just bad See below:


First, there's the mindless blabbering around 0:16. She's the most powerful biotic known to the galaxy, couldn't she just wreck the ship? Then there's "(paraphrasing, it's not in the video) Cerberus has been chasing me all over the galaxy. Every time I get away they put a HUGE bounty on my head". That bounty's huge, just wanted you to know. Besides, if she so firmly believes that he's Cerberus, why does she have to inform him of what they've been doing?

Miranda: One of my favorite characters in the game and I can still criticize her. Bad. Well, to start off, let's think of her romance with Shepard. "I'm perfect, but damaged". "Beauty is more than skin deep". Rinse, repeat. Then there's her loyalty quest. For the entire game, she acts as Cerberus's top agent, loyal without a doubt and willing to kill anyone who stands in her way. Then she gets to the loyalty mission and she hesitates when given a chance to her friend who betrayed her? Jesus, she took all of .3 seconds to shoot Wilson in the beginning and she had worked with him for years! By the way, I really don't think that the game ever really resolved the opening conflict...

Thane: Take away those segments where he flashes back. What exactly is so interesting about his character then? He essentially becomes a sociopath with a son who was added solely to give him some emotional depth beyond "unblinking killer". Honestly, he would be as deep as Agent 47 (read: not deep) if his son hadn't been added, and that's a pretty strong sign of weak character design. Oh wait, he can used the game's ridiculously underpowered biotics. That's cool, right?

On that note, I'll just do a mini-rant on how the gameplay completely screws with the story.

Biotics are some of the galaxy's most powerful individuals, capable of manipulating the physical world in so many ways. That doesn't come across at all in Mass Effect 2. Not only is everyone's power on a universal recharge timer (Jack's biotic antics in the above video really don't work when she can only push one person at a time, then wait for five seconds to do it again), they can't work if their enemy is using an electronic shield. Confusing? Yeah. I really didn't know that kinetic barriers could undo the power of gravitational forces, but I guess they can now! Also, on a side note, the story screws with the gameplay quite a bit. According to Lair of the Shadow Broker, Thane has a million moves with which he can kill any enemies. However, you go into combat and he takes cover and shoots people with an assault rifle. Sweet moves, Thane! The same things happens with Garrus: his experience as a leader of combat squads doesn't come into play until literally the last mission.

I'm tired. I can't think of how weak the game is anymore. Please respond, tell me I'm wrong or disagree with me or send me death threats or whatever.

 

[Woodsey]

Evidently you haven't played many games.

Personally, I thought the characters were - for the most part - well written and 3-dimensional. Which is rather important, considering its a character-piece.

Its rather hard to criticise Shepard specific arc when you're the person in charge of it.

I try and steer away from going, "hey! Look at all these same-old character types," because you can do it with virtually anything. A trope is not a cliché.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I think the characters were fine and actually pretty well written. (Some more than others. Mordin was the best, in my opinion.) The main plot is really where Mass Effect 2's writing dives into a sea of shit.

 

[AnarchistFish]

yeah I was always annoyed with how much weaker your squad were in practice

I think the characters were fine. The main plot is really where Mass Effect 2's writing dives into a sea of shit.

^^^

the main plot is pretty unoriginal. I'd even say that it's a weaker version of the Halo plot.
The reapers are the flood.
They both had already destroyed a far superior alien population millenia ago.
They'd been locked away in some form so they couldn't come back (except owait now they can).
And the flood are more interesting than the reapers, who are pretty plain and unoriginal. Anyone could make up a story about a super race of alien that come along every 50million years to wipe out all life forms there in a psychopathic genocide but when an FPS does it better than a story based RPG, you have to question it. I always saw the Mass Effect galaxy and backstory as it's strong point.

 

[FirMothoth]

Well thought out. I love ME2 and it hurts me to agree with you on many of your points. The most salient for me is the gameplay not fitting the world. All of what you say is true. Why is everybody so awesome in the cutscenes just to be so ... not when we get control of them? Likely hardware issues or some such. Still, it's a difficult thing to ignore. But ignore it I do, because I spent a bunch of my own time and money on the game, so I do my best to enjoy it. Maybe you've just reached the point where the effort required is too great.

 

[DarkRyter]

Dammit, now you've spoiled Mass Effect 2 for me.

You should've had a warning or something.

 

[Woodsey]

Well thought out. I love ME2 and it hurts me to agree with you on many of your points. The most salient for me is the gameplay not fitting the world. All of what you say is true. Why is everybody so awesome in the cutscenes just to be so ... not when we get control of them? Likely hardware issues or some such.

Well, no. Because balance is necessary.

You either overpower them to the point where your enemies have huge pools of health (thereby negating the power anyway), or you keep it on a normal level and accept that there'll be some disconnect between gameplay and plot.

A lot of games have that issue, especially when you go to more hardcore RPGs.

 

[AnarchistFish]

I think the characters were fine. The main plot is really where Mass Effect 2's writing dives into a sea of shit.

^^^

the main plot is pretty unoriginal. I'd even say that it's a weaker version of the Halo plot.
The reapers are the flood.
They both had already destroyed a far superior alien population millenia ago.
They'd been locked away in some form so they couldn't come back (except owait now they can).
And the flood are more interesting than the reapers, who are pretty plain and unoriginal. Anyone could make up a story about a super race of alien that come along every 50million years to wipe out all life forms there in a psychopathic genocide but when an FPS does it better than a story based RPG, you have to question it. I always saw the Mass Effect galaxy and detailed backstory as the game's strong point.

 

[Irridium]

What saddens me most about the characters are the fact that they don't interact with each other. At last count, there's three moments where any interact. When Garrus/Tali are with you on the Citadel, and on the ship for Jack/Miranda's and Tali/Legion's loyalty conflicts.

But that's it. And I think it was worse for it. Yeah, Mass Effect 1's elevators were a pain, but at least we got to hear the characters talk to each other, which was great. But you don't need elevators to do that, Dragon Age 1 and 2 had many moments where the people in your party would talk to each other. And in Dragon Age 2 when you talk to your companions there's a chance they're talking to another of your companions. It just makes them feel more like deep, interesting people, and I really hope ME3 has party banter. And just more to talk about, so to avoid the whole "three conversations then calibrations forever" thing ME2 had going on with almost all of the characters you didn't decide to romance.

 

[Lucyfer86]

As you said, you are entitled for an opinion, but if you think it has the "weakest" writing, you must not have played many games.

And just because i'm not jerk fanboi defending my favourite game, i'm not gonna start insulting people with their poor taste in games (as in only in MY opinion, doesn't mean anyone REALLY has a poor taste).

 

[tippy2k2]

First off, if you want to show that you're not just trolling controversy for points, it's a bad idea to include phrases like "I'm not trolling", "weak game", and end it with nothing but negative opinions.

Anywho...

Shepard himself is just getting the job done. Whether he has to wise-crack a person (charisma), threaten then (intimidation), or shoot someone (uh...shooting your face?) he'll do it. Your example of the prisoner thing I considered more that he was pissed off at what the warden (attempted) to do to him by capturing him. It also seemed that if he wanted to capture you for ransom, how many other people in that place were there for the same reason?

In terms of the Shepard's phrases you gave, I noticed that every chance the player got in that cut-scene, he chose the snarky asshole response. Then, you seem surprised when Shepard is a snarky asshole...

Now characters:

Jack: You act like these are just shitty files, like Shepard convinced her to come with him because he's giving her a copy of Solitaire. She wants to know who she was, she is having a serious identity crisis and Shepard is offering her a big ass piece of that puzzle.

Miranda: Yeah, she's the stereotypical "Hard ass with a gooey sweet center" person but it works really well. There are plenty of people in real life that won't let you in unless you can show that they can absolutely trust you, same with her. She had no problem shooting the guy earlier, which is what you saw. Who's to say that once you gain her trust, she was much more willing to show that weakness and felt horrible about shooting Wilson. Or maybe Wilson was a douche who kept pinching her ass at work so she had no love lost shooting him. Or maybe she liked the person who betrayed her and is having some weird Stockholm syndrome, who knows?

Thane: I didn't use Thane, I can't really argue for or against him, he's on his own

Now the biotics thing and "millions of moves to kill the enemy" is easy to explain with one word: game-play. More specifically, balanced game-play. How much of a challenge would the game be if you could just go "Carrie" on everyone's ass and have everyone dead before they get to do anything? How good could the game be if there was no drawback whatsoever to biotics?

 

[high_castle]

What annoyed me most about the writing in Mass Effect 2 was how many big, pivotal concepts they introduced and then glossed over. Consider Shepard's resurrection. The guy came back from the dead. In our culture today, we obsess over anyone who's been dead for a few seconds. They make the talk show circuits, we grill them about bright lights and did they see their family, etc. In ME2, no one mentions it.

Hell, Shepard himself doesn't mention it. He's just died and come back to life, and he's perfectly fine with it. There's no existential crisis. He doesn't look in the mirror at the amount of cybernetics keeping him functional and wonder at his humanity. Which makes me think he's not very human, as that just doesn't seem like the sort of reaction you'd expect from someone in that situation.

I know it's a game. But saying it's just a game cheapens the medium. Video games can be art like anything else, and if we're going to make statements like that, than we need to address the human condition the same as any other artform. If this were a book or even a film, you could damn well be sure there'd be some serious reflection about the nature of death after Shepard's resurrection. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer did that.

 

[Trillovinum]

I like mass effect a lot but you are right about many of the things you say. some of the characters are really well written while others aren't.... that thing about the gameplay can be true but I don't really know because I usually only use my own powers and leave my squad-mates on automatic.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Characters were fine, and they do have a lot of development, but yeah, the main plot was a pile of crap with so many bad excuses to make the player do things that no sane person would.

 

[northeast rower]

Well thought out. I love ME2 and it hurts me to agree with you on many of your points. The most salient for me is the gameplay not fitting the world. All of what you say is true. Why is everybody so awesome in the cutscenes just to be so ... not when we get control of them? Likely hardware issues or some such.

Well, no. Because balance is necessary.

You either overpower them to the point where your enemies have huge pools of health (thereby negating the power anyway), or you keep it on a normal level and accept that there'll be some disconnect between gameplay and plot.

A lot of games have that issue, especially when you go to more hardcore RPGs.

It honestly seems like you've blinded yourself by your loyalty to Bioware, which I've managed to shake off. Open your eyes, heathen! (joking)

As for your other comment, I've played more games than you can count. Don't pander to me. Though I agree that it is difficult to steer away from the trope/cliche, it doesn't seem like Bioware made much of an effort. And I'm not criticizing the Shepard arc- read more carefully. I'm criticizing how inconsistent he is when you aren't in control of him.

I haven't played many games? What a fucking joke. Don't insult me.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

Eh it's like with fallout 3. I have enough explosive ordinance to finish what the Chinese started or I'm wearing a suit of powered armor that increases my strength but I still need to pick locks on doors I could blow up or kick down. It all comes down to gameplay really. Biotics are shown as very powerful but they need to be balanced. Most games have that problem not just RPG games. In saints row 2 I remember a cutscene where I'm chasing after someone and shooting them with a pistol while a fully automatic rifle and a grenade launcher sit in my inventory or in final fantasy when I'm controlling huge summons that could easily destroy the door that I need to unlock by finding a key.

 

[FirMothoth]

Well, no. Because balance is necessary.

Alright, you caught me. I was hoping to be lazy and include all other probable causes such as balance, time to make the game, inclusion of too many varying mechanics, etc. in my 'and some such' statement.

You're right, though. I can't help but too often see the cutscenes as the game the designers wanted to make and the gameplay as what they were forced to turn it into for whatever reason.

 

[northeast rower]

As you said, you are entitled for an opinion, but if you think it has the "weakest" writing, you must not have played many games.

And just because i'm not jerk fanboi defending my favourite game, i'm not gonna start insulting people with their poor taste in games (as in only in MY opinion, doesn't mean anyone REALLY has a poor taste).

I've played many games. I meant "weakest writing" for our generation. No one will compare Mass Effect 2 to "All your base...". The writing itself is flawless in terms of grammar, which is what most people call writing "weak" for. The flaws lie in how it fits into the game and in how it characterizes the characters.

 

[Woodsey]

Well thought out. I love ME2 and it hurts me to agree with you on many of your points. The most salient for me is the gameplay not fitting the world. All of what you say is true. Why is everybody so awesome in the cutscenes just to be so ... not when we get control of them? Likely hardware issues or some such.

Well, no. Because balance is necessary.

You either overpower them to the point where your enemies have huge pools of health (thereby negating the power anyway), or you keep it on a normal level and accept that there'll be some disconnect between gameplay and plot.

A lot of games have that issue, especially when you go to more hardcore RPGs.

It honestly seems like you've blinded yourself by your loyalty to Bioware, which I've managed to shake off. Open your eyes, heathen! (joking)

As for your other comment, I've played more games than you can count. Don't pander to me. Though I agree that it is difficult to steer away from the trope/cliche, it doesn't seem like Bioware made much of an effort. And I'm not criticizing the Shepard arc- read more carefully. I'm criticizing how inconsistent he is when you aren't in control of him.

I haven't played many games? What a fucking joke. Don't insult me.

I'd suggest warm water.

Anyway, I'm saying a trope - in and of itself - is not bad (virtually everything is a trope), as long as the characters are interesting and have depth, which I felt they were (some more than others, of course). Mass Effect 2's cast were more interesting than any in other BioWare games I've played.

And OK then, he's not always cracking jokes and is sometimes serious. I can't remember specific instances of when he said stuff by default (although there was a little more of that then I'd have liked).