4. The Collector Base (Mass Effect 2)

(originally posted July 3, 2023)

A collection of simple thoughts on last levels, final dungeons, and endgame zones.
Spoilers for Mass Effect 2.
Table of Contents

Context: Shepard's objective throughout the game was to put together a team to venture through the Omega-4 Relay and deal with the Collectors - bug-like aliens harvesting human colonies - personally. You have a team; now comes the mission.

Now that I've actually played Baldur's Gate 2, I can appreciate how it's been the template for much of Bioware's output since.

BG2 opens in an unfamiliar land, the trusted party of the first game scattered. Your best friend has been kidnapped, and the only people who care to give you a lead won't do it until you pay them an exorbitant sum. Here's your long-term objective, here's the world map: go wild. Reconnect with old friends and meet new ones. Do some quests. Learn more, get stronger. You'll catch up to the plot eventually, or else it'll catch up to you.

In Mass Effect 2, your trusted party of the first game is scattered, and you wake up in an unfamiliar galaxy. You're told the Omega-4 relay is your goal (the very first time you access the galaxy map, it's right there). The entire game is assembling a team of old friends and new, doing quests, learning more, getting stronger until It's Time. Once it is, the game nails it.

Clinically, the Suicide Mission is a long series of checks to see if you've engaged with most of the content in Mass Effect 2. Did you upgrade the Normandy's armor, shields, guns? Did you do everybody's loyalty quest? If not, someone's going to die, and it's your fault for not mining enough platinum off Rothla or deciding you didn't give a shit about Jacob or whatever. This is what people want out of western RPGs though: it's choice and consequence, baby. Sure, the choices are "play the game" or "don't play the game", but, well. It's a cool marketing pitch. You know.

Narratively, it's basically a heist mission. You have to choose which party member to assign to which specialized role, though there's only a handful of slots and it's usually pretty clear who's good at what. It can be tricky, though, and the player's reasoning might not always line up with the game's. (For the record, when I played the game at launch, everybody survived.)

The ducts. You need someone to crawl through the vents and hack the door at the end so the rest of the crew can infiltrate. You might think Thane, since he's a sneaky assassin, but he's also got the incurable cough disease and the hot steam can't be good for that. Your best hackers are Tali, who has an enviro-suit on at all times, and Legion, an AI construct who needs not breathe. Post-game DLC added thief character Kasumi as another valid option, chiefly because Tali and Legion are recruited towards the endgame and there's a solid possibility you might not have them (or haven't done their loyalty quests) by the final mission.

The secondary fireteam. This comes up twice, with the same valid choices both times. You want someone here who's good at leading a team. Miranda volunteers, which is fair because she managed an entire Cerberus cell. DLC character Zaeed seems like a good choice because he's an old vet, but he's also always the sole survivor; bad call. Garrus is obvious because his squad successfully pissed off every mercenary on Omega and only fell apart due to a betrayal, plus he's your bro from the first game.

The swarms. Someone has to maintain a magic forcefield to keep out the evil mosquitos. The game does an incredibly hackneyed job here of trying to trip you up here as Miranda petulantly whines that she could do this job, any biotic could do it, when you've got Genetic Freak Murder Bitch and Psychic Millennium Milf Paladin standing six feet away. Why would you pick anyone else? Thane's a frog with asthma! Did you even remember that Jacob's a biotic?

The escort / final battle. This is where things get tricky and you might have to actually bust out a spreadsheet. Any loyal squadmate can safely escort the noncombatant crew back to the Normandy, but neither they nor your personal fireteam for the final boss will be present (for good and ill) as everyone else holds the line. Every crew member has a defense value that the game adds up and checks; if it's below a certain threshold, characters start dying in order of how vulnerable they are in a firefight. This was really easy to screw up in the base game (RIP Mordin), which is why the launch-day DLC was Zaeed, who's got the highest defense value (tied with Grunt, a giant regenerating lizard).

This is what I personally want out of a Final Dungeon, I think. Not necessarily something that's Big and Climactic and Difficult - though the Suicide Mission is all of those things, as are most final dungeons - but something that ties together everything you've been doing until now in a satisfying way.