RETRO PLAY-THROUGH | 'Mass Effect 2' Part 3
With the 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' release in five days, gamer David Nolan continues to walk us through 'Mass Effect 2'. [Catch up on the 'Mass Effect' play-throughs HERE.]
With a couple of new squad members safely aboard the Normandy, and a message from our old mentor Anderson bidding us come see him, now seems like the right time to reveal ourselves to the galactic government aboard the Citadel.
Upon arriving we hear a message telling us to talk to an advertisement: it turns out this is a new squad member named Kasumi Goto - super thief and overall charming person. She gets aboard the Normandy while Shepard goes to deal with the bureaucracy.
In the first room, it turns out that you’re dead! Of course, the government has no idea that Cerberus brought you back yet so with a bit of help from C-Sec’s Captain Bailey, we are reconfirmed as alive. Now we can explore this new version of the Citadel. It’s not as big as the last game, and much like the rest of the hub worlds in this game feels a little underwhelming. There are still plenty of things to do and see, including some nice side quests and shops to peruse; however, Shepard has more important things to deal with right now so it’s off to see the Council’s newest member: David Anderson.
The Council meeting is already underway when Shepard enters, but while Anderson is happy to see Shepard, the rest of the Council is not. The turian councillor remains standoffish while the others are just aloof. The lack of development in their characters is one of the weaker elements of the portrayal of galactic government in the series. Fortunately, the Council agrees to reinstate Shepard as a Spectre, right before the other weak element of this part of the series, Ambassador Udina, enters the office. He is equally as mad about Shepard’s presence but isn’t able to do anything about it. So, now we can get back to building our team.
The next stop is a krogan warlord named Okeer. Apparently he’s working on building an army of cloned krogan for the Blue Suns. After landing, Shepard’s team finds themselves on a desert like world covered with wrecked spacecraft as the building material. This proves to be a common trend amongst worlds in Mass Effect 2 and points to several shortcuts being taken during development; this might also be why the three gangs seem to have armies rivalling the major galactic powers. For now, the look is still fresh, so the team fights through what appears to be a training area, hearing announcements from the leader of the Blue Suns as they go.
Eventually, they come to a single krogan fighting a number of Blue Suns mercenaries. After helping him take them all out, we can talk to this 'tank-bred' and learn some interesting information about the Warlord Okeer. The krogan tells the team about Okeer’s goals and says that he isn’t perfect enough for the warlord. Most surprisingly, the krogan is only a few days old. Despite Shepard’s best intentions, the krogan will insist that he remain and fight the mercenaries as that is what he must do. He aids the team by lifting a barricade to let them inside but that is the last we see of him.
Inside, the building the fighting gets more intense as the Blue Suns aim to protect their investment. The arenas are a little pokey and there might be a few cases where the team loses a member temporarily to gunfire but it is not the hardest mission in the game.
Right before Shepard meets Okeer, she runs into an old face. An asari who worked for Saren in the last game, strange that she’s working for someone who had contact with the Collectors; but since it is somewhat more altruistic and she claimed to help by disabling the cameras, Shepard lets her go.
In the next room, Shepard meets Okeer. He’s finishing off his project: one perfect krogan. He agrees to help you against the Collectors in exchange for getting his perfect krogan safely off world. The Blue Suns commander decides that she will shut down the project and destroy all of Okeer’s research; this is the set up for the boss fight. The fighting takes place in an arena of two raised sections separated by one lower section; this design takes advantage of the combat design of the game and allows the team to manoeuvre around the powerful enemies. The Blue Suns commander is a potent threat and a large mech is also around but Shepard and her team succeed. However, Okeer has been killed trying to save his project. In his dying breath, he begs Shepard take it and give it purpose.
Back on board the Normandy, there’s a disagreement over whether to activate the tank and let the krogan out or keep in their for study. Shepard decides to wake it up and it immediately pins her to wall by its forearm. After some mumbling it decides on the name Grunt. While Grunt is eager to fight, Shepard manages to convince him that he will have plenty of worthy enemies to fight. Grunt agrees and Shepard lowers the pistol she had pointing at his gut the whole time: one of my favourite character moments from the whole series. With Grunt now a part of the team instead of Okeer, Shepard can head to the final recruitment mission of this part of the game.
The last squad member we have to pick up is named Jack, who is presently on a prison ship - a good sign that they’ll be a stable individual... Initially, the welcoming is a little tense as the guards try to disarm Shepard’s team, but we’re not falling for that trick. After some dialogue explaining the prison’s business structure, we head to processing to pick up Jack. But as the Admiral of the Rebel Alliance once said, “It’s a situation in which people lie in wait to make a surprise attack!” Or words to that effect. Now we must fight through the prison guards trying to catch us and get Jack out.
We quickly find Jack’s cryo-cell and deactivate the security, releasing not just Jack but all the prisoners. It turns out Jack is a very powerful biotic woman who wears little more than tattoos. She quickly despatches two heavy mechs trying to stop her and now we need to chase her down, too.
The fighting through the prison ship is rather straightforward for much of the level. The escaped prisoners will distract and damage the guards so Shepard can sit back and relax for a while. It’s a common level design in action games for there to be two sides fighting simultaneously, but it’s rarely pulled off well. And much like the rest of the game, the lighting is still very dim. A prison ship going through a breakout wouldn’t exactly be the mostly brightly lit place but it gets frustrating how often Shepard fights in mood lighting.
The boss fight for this level is actually not a bad one, although the mission is probably the weakest of the early game. The head guard has a sniper and several shield generators, plus several weaker minions around the arena, so the fight can get tense; however, with a decent sniper rifle it’s quite simple to find a comfortable piece of cover or two and quickly dispatch the dirty guard who wanted to sell the hero of the Citadel.
Jack has made it to the docking bay and isn’t happy to see a Cerberus vessel. Shepard has to work hard to convince her to come along willingly but, after offering access to Cerberus’ files, she does so.
We now have the first half of our squad fully together and not a moment too soon. The Illusive Man calls and says that one of humanity’s colonies is about to come under attack and that Kaiden is stationed there. The Normandy heads there immediately leading to the first of several compulsory interludes in the main quest line.
But, we will cover that and the first couple of the new recruitment missions in the next instalment... Stay tuned and ready yourself for the release of 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' in five days!
