I liked the bit where you’re after some mercenaries, and you find a room with a clearly out of her wits and scared asari in, who you convince to drop her gun before she gives you her sob story about not wanting to be here and killing wasn’t like she thought it was, and you let her go… and then a couple of rooms on there’s her diary, talking about how awesome she is and how much she enjoys killing and that she’s the one you’re actually after.
Yeah, I got played. But it was pretty funny.
I killed her. 
Dead.
It’s supposed to reflect both words. The origin of “illusive man,” given in the Codex, comes from the view that he is an illusion - most of the people who know about Cerberus don’t even really believe he exists. Like Todderbob says, it also refers to how he runs Cerberus as an organization. However, the achievement you get after meeting TIL is called “Very Elusive,” which suggests to me that Bioware is aware of the obvious pun - that TIL’s ability to remain hidden and avoid capture, as well as the enigmatic reasoning behind his machinations, make him “elusive” as well as “illusive.”
“Cybernetic” in this universe seems to be associated with blue. Saren’s various mods were blue tinted too (though not pure blue like TIM’s), and the husks are the obvious parallel. They’re probably ocular implants of some sort, whether it’s just because he’s rich and can afford improved vision and whatnot or if it’s a hint at some deeper connection to Geth/Reapers is another topic entirely. It wouldn’t be impossible that since humans are the Reapers’ chosen fodder that TIM is really a Reaper-puppet and “advancement of humanity” is really building them stronger so that the harvesting gives them more/better materials. However, there’s too much evidence to the contrary to make it a great theory.
If you have Miranda with you The Illusive Man tries to order her to stop you, the conversation is something along the lines of:
TIM: “Stop him!”
Miranda: “Or what, you’ll replace me too?”
TIM: “I gave you an order, Miranda!”
Miranda: “I heard, consider this my resignation.”
So with Miranda you can get a double screw-you against him.
Am I the only one who didn’t realize that Harbinger was a reaper until the closing cinematic? I’m sure in the early part on Freedom’s Progress it showed a reaper on the terminal, but I was focusing on that drone/mini-Praetorian/whatever-it-was and assumed that he was the collector leader and they were networked to allow collector control, I didn’t make the reaper connection until I saw his holo on the terminal.
I thought this initially too, but it doesn’t make much sense. The Reapers clearly have an interest in seeing Shep either as worm food or in their hands - in the prequel comic, Mass Effect Redemption, it explains a bit more of Liara’s story after the Normandy goes boom (I believe this is also where the Elusive/Illusive Man confusion comes in - Liara initially called TIM by the former name, although I think Miranda corrects her). In game she says that the Shadow Broker was going to sell Shep to the Collectors. In MER you see a Collector negotiating with the Shadow Broker, with the same eyes the Collector General showed when possessed by Harbinger.
If TIM was working with the Reapers he had ample time tot hand over Shep to the Collectors, yet he actively opposes them.
In one of the novels (Ascension, I think), it’s mention that the Illusive Man had a normal job, wife and child (something Miranda also says) at the time of the First Contact War, which at the time of Mass Effect 2 is about 30 years ago. So clearly he’s knocking on a bit, even though human lifespan is enhanced it’s possible that he needed prosthetic implants as a matter of course.
Ditto, initially I thought the Collector General and Harbinger were one and the same. Only later on I realised that Harbinger was possessing the CG and using him to possess Collectors.
Like I said, not a great theory
So I’ve been thinking about the mission where you recruit Tali. That whole “dark energy star-core infusion” thing seems too important to waste. I was thinking of how Bioware could use it, and came to a few conclusions. The most awesome of them, however, was that Bioware could totally make us blow up a star on a Reaper fleet. Could even be a Renegade option, if there are colonies in the system.
I’m not sure one star going up could stop the Reaper fleet you see at the end - even a derelict Reaper threw up utterly impenetrable shields, and their client race of the Collectors had technology enabling them to exist in the galactic core, which is nothing but exploding suns and black holes.
I reckon that the “beings of light” from Klencory will finally be unleashed on the “machine devils.”
Well, I got the Collector’s Edition, but I put off reading the comic that came with it. In fact, I think maybe it’s better if you already have the game to make sense out of what’s happening. But yes, it appears that the Elusive/Illusive split is discussed there.
I also watched the Bonus Disc, which I don’t usually get around to doing. I was surprised to see that the celebrity actors were enthusiastic about the game. I generally assume that at best the career voice actors took an interest in the games they’re actually performing in. But I figure that people more famous than that probably consider the games a little beneath them. I recall a tidbit on Blues’ News once that suggested that Ron Perlman didn’t even know the name of the game for which he was such a beloved narrator. Of course, I would have been surprised if Seth Green hadn’t been a huge fan.
How did you get Wrex instead of his brother on as the clan chief? I started a new game off ME2 because I am still a long way off finishing ME1.
Wrex can die in ME1. The default ME2 start has Wrex dead. You need a playthrough of ME1 with him surviving if you want to talk to him in ME2.
You can find a bunch of savegames here if you wish to start off ME2 with other choices made…
Not just surviving but he has to have joined you. I didn’t have him join me in the play through I imported to ME2 and never saw him in the game.
I loved the mini-quest with the asari who hates aliens and has a change of heart after you talk to her about a contract dispute. It was an extremely short quest but very well done. I reloaded a thirty minute old save just to be able to see it again.
In the same general area is an asari talking to her salarian father. There’s one line where the salarian tells his daughter that he’s 35 years old (salarians only live about 40 years) and asks his daughter to make sure her mother keeps the gift that he buys for her.
Then of course there’s the hilarity of shooting Conrad Verner in the foot.
That’s one of my favorite non-interactive dialogues in the game. It starts off with the father/daughter in family-bicker mode, and I suspect lots of people end up walking right by without listening further. But it becomes a little story that’s really quite touching.
What’s particularly impressive is that this story is only possible given the way the ME universe is built, since its poignancy comes from the contrast between the long lives of the asari and the short lives of the salarians. Ever since the asari were introduced in the first game, I’ve been intrigued by what their actual family lives must be like, given the disparity between their life spans and those of the other species in the 'verse. The salarian father wanting desperately to be remembered by his wife and daughter, knowing that they will both outlive him by centuries, and his daughter’s realization that this is why his choosing a simple gift for her mother is so difficult for him, is a lovely illustration of how that might play out.
It’s interesting how many parent/child plots are in this game. The first one had a few, especially with Liara and her mom, but this time everybody seems to have hang-ups with family. Jacob with Colonel Kurtz for a dad, Miranda rescuing her sister from her father, Tali’s dad nearly causing a civil war by playing with Geth, Thane with the aptly named “Cat’s in the cradle” plot with his wannabe assassin son, Samara hunting down a serial killer who happens to be her own daughter, Grunt dealing with being raised by “the tank”… I didn’t run into the salarian dad/asari daughter mini-conversation but that is an interesting one.
I will give Bioware credit that most of these could have been handed in such a way that turned the game into a sudsy space opera but the characters were in situations that had no easy answer… It never felt like cheap melodrama and was designed to make you think, and the motivations of the players felt genuine. I’ll have to keep an ear out for this conversation on my next playthrough.
Back to the family thing, during Thane’s loyalty mission I kept wondering the whole time what Bailey’s motivation was for helping out. Bailey was obviously on the take, seemed only nominally interested in upholding the law and more interested in keeping higher-ups off his back… I was glad to see Bioware again rewarded deeper investigation, and you can learn that Bailey himself was apparently a candidate for Worst Father in the Universe and was moved by Thane’s attempt to reconcile with his son.
Throughout the two games, the Council is really starting to annoy me. If I import my current full-Paragon character and a Reaper attacks the Destiny Ascension I’m not sure they won’t perish (sorry, Anderson) on one playthrough. If that can happen, I hope the renegade option is to say “Ah yes, the ‘Reapers.’” click
I played mostly paragon in both ME1 and ME2, but man was the Council annoying as hell. I took every opportunity to hang up on them whenever they called on the holo-phone. It became almost a sport.
“Commander, we don’t appreciate being disconnected while-”
click
“Commander, I do hope that you are going to be more civil this ti-”
click
“Commander, are you calling to file a report just to disconnect us again?”
“You know it!” click
Joker: “That never gets old, does it?”
So I finished out the game and found a list of all the “anomalies” that can be discovered by exploring the galaxy. I figure it’s another couple hours of play time even though they are just little mini-missions with very little dialogue and back story. The main thing is I’m trying to scrounge up some more paragon points so I can regain Miranda’s loyalty after her spat with Jack. Not that it matters - the collector base is already in the hands of Cerberus, but it bugs me that after all we’ve been through she’s still pouting in her office. But regardless, the three “N7” missions I’ve done so far have been pretty fun.
One other thing playing after the suicide mission has done is unlocked some extra conversations with Legion, or maybe I just didn’t run out the conversation tree by talking with him before hand but he’s got some very interesting things to say about the state of the quarian homeworld and plans for the geth.
Basically, the geth hold no ill will towards their creators and have in fact pretty much abandoned the homeworld in favor of migrating into space where resources are easier for them to gather. My Shep then tried to explain the importance of the concept of home for organics and Legion stated the Geth have no such belief and that “home” was basically where one lives now for everyone, including the Migrant Fleet.
But Legion also indicated that the Geth had, for some reason, maintained and even cleaned up the quarian homeworld after the “Morning War” much in the same way humans maintain graveyards for previous generations even though there’s no practical reason to do so. What’s more, Legion alluded to the idea the geth had done it not for themselves, but for their creators.
Finally, when the subject of peace between geth and quarian came up, Legion said that the geth could only “solve for peace” on the geth side of the equation, and that it was up to the creators to figure out things on their side. If Legion is truly speaking for the geth, there’s a tremendous opportunity for Shepard to broker peace talks since he’s got the ear of the geth, the quarians, the Alliance, Cerberus and the Citadel Council – assuming of course throughout the game he hasn’t gone rogue and pissed all of those respective groups off.
It will be interesting to see in ME3 how much individual choices will change the outcome of major events. In my ME2 runthrough, I was able to keep both Legion and Tali in line when they were about to come to blows over the transmission of data back to the fleet. I’ve seen the alternatives on youtube if you side with one over the other. And if you side with Tali, Legion gives an ominous warning that the creators will one day be held accountable for what they did to his kind. This goes against everything Legion said above, and it would make for a completely awesome game experience if a single decision you make makes the difference between the quarians returning home and co-existence with the geth, or all out war.
Heh. I really enjoy the dry wit Bioware gave Garrus this time around. Came across this little gem in my current playthrough (paraphrased):
The Garrus romance subplot has some hilarious stuff, too.
I had a nightmare of a time with their spat, on my first few playthroughs it always resulted in the death of Miranda. My third time I though fuck it, and exploited a bug in Samara’s loyalty quest for infinite paragon points.
But there’s a trick to it. Rather than waiting to do the loyalty quests and putting off the spat, do both missions as soon as possible. The earlier you do it the easier the paragon/renegade check. If you leave it it becomes harder than the quarrel between Tali and Legion.
Speaking of funny, check out the advertisements on the Citadel. Especially Elcor Hamlet (which was mentioned in ME1).
“Insincere endorsement. You have not heard Hamlet until you have heard it in the voice of Elcor.”
I loved the interactions between Joker and EDI, both before and after he removed her blocks and gave her control of the ship.
On the whole, I thought the dialog was much more clever in this game. It was good in the first game, but I laughed a lot more in the second game.