Mass Effect 2 Day#6: Blasts from the Past

Day 6 takes me to a very plot rich world. I do one main plot and one secondary plot. There is lots of combat in this session and it remains fun and challenging enough to be engaging without becoming overwhelming. There’s also quite a bit of plot. Some of it is a bit hokey, but some of it has interesting conflict and there are a lot of stuff from Mass Effect 1 popping up in surprising ways . Overall, except for the planet mining grind, the game is remaining pretty good. Spoilers within.

I’ll start by talking about something I should have mentioned earlier — the interstitial screens in this game are weird. They are all these schematics with moving bars and infographics . It doesn’t really make much sense, and I’m not sure what they are trying to depict with them. Anyway, back to the game. I search some planets for resources, which is just as boring as it always is. I then head to Tasale to get more recruits for the team and help Miranda with her family problems. I land on the planet Illium (where all my plots are),  and when I land, I meet some robots and an asari. The asari tells me that my landing fees were waved because of Liara, my lover from the last game.  Liara is an information broker now, and has a lot of power here.  Illium is a wonderful world for those who can afford it.  When I enter the main part of the planet, I get a weird message from an asari that the rachni (a spider people from the last game) are watching for me and will help me in the fight against the collective. She says that she is an agent of the rachni in the external world, and when the conversation ends, she says we will never meet again. I don’t totally remember who the rachni are or how I helped them, but it’s a neat scene nonetheless.

The next scene is with another character I don’t remember from ME1. I apparently helped her bust somebody in the last game. She’s undercover now, and has to run when she sees her target, but she asks me to get info on the target to help her make her bust. I go over to the target and dig up the information about some smuggled technology, and Gianna (the undercover cop) catches her, giving me a kiss as thanks for my help. Subplots down, I go to see Liara. I meet her assistant and she tells me that Liara is very connected before she lets me in. I see a weird conversation with Liara and another guy where she seems to be threatening him, but she ends the conversation as we walk in. We kiss but it’s weird and we end up back in slightly awkward conversation. She tells me about the two recruits I’m looking for:  Samara (a Justicar) and Thane (an assassin). Liara goes on to say that she wants me to hack a terminal for her;  she has debts and needs the hack as a distraction to complete another operation. Especially given the conversation I walked in on, I’m suspicious but I tell her I’ll help out. With that, I leave.

I leave and go to talk to a woman about Thane. Thane is after a target, and the woman tells me that Thane’s target is worthy of assassination. The target is an executive that has killed people herself. The woman will help me get into the office building where the assassination will take place (she hates the woman too), and with that, I go after Thane tout suite.

There’s a nice CS in a car as we drive to the office tower in a hover car. We land and head inside the building. Inside, we run into worker attacked by mercs. There’s a qte to save him from his attackers, and he tells me that the executive turned on them and tried to kill them for no reason. The game is doing a nice job of making me not like this executive. I  fight some mercs to get to the elevator, and kill more mercs to get in. I go up the elevator to find a solo guard near a window, and when the conversation goes nowhere and he gives me shit, I use a renegade qte to throw him out a window. There’s more fighting until I find room with more workers. When we open the door, one of the workers threatens me with gun. There’s a renegade qte I let pass, but I activate a Paragon qte to throw him and get him to stop.  I talk to the workers and tell them to get out of the building. When they leave, I see a dead merc in room that Thane killed. I leave the room and get to a bridge that crosses to the tower where the executive target is. I fight mercs as I cross the  bridge — it’s a slow slog but I make it without dying. Once I get across, I enter a room with the target, Nassana.  I talk to her and she’s a bit of a monster. Thane shows up and takes them all out. When he finishes,  he prays over them. He tells us that he’s dying slowly, but he wants to make universe brighter before he dies.  Thane agrees to work for with me for no charge. And that’s the end of the mission.

We end up back on the ship with Thane.  Jacob tells me he doesn’t trust assassins, and that he doesn’t like mercenaries generally. I talk to Jacob a bit to establish ties, I flirt with my assistant, and I upgrade some non-ship stuff including my armor and my weapons. I then talk to Thane which gives me another ship upgrade. He goes on to tell me he’s  dying of some drell lung disease that there’s no cure for. I go talk to Grunt and see that he’s freaking out. He has some kind of rage illness that he can’t help. I tell him that I’ll take him to the Krogan homeworld for help. Another loyalty mission to watch for.

I go back to Illium to get back to my quests. I find a contact for Miranda’s sister. It turns Niket (some friend of Miranda) is going to escort Miranda’s sister away from her controlling father to a shuttle offworld. Our job is to distract the mercs as they do it.  It seems weird that they were waiting for us to do this thing, but I agree to help. There are lots of gunships as we CS descend in a car to start the mission.  They begin to shoot, but stop because it’s us. It looks like Miranda lied to me again — it turns out her sister is her genetic twin but is actually a little girl. The little girl was made to replace Miranda for her family.  We stop the conversation and fight through the mercs. When we beat them, we have a conversation that questions  Niket’s trust, given that there are so many mercs already after us. There’s more fighting, and it looks like Niket betrayed Miranda, but Miranda tells me that he didn’t know about the fact that her sister is a little girl and Miranda still trusts him. We come upon Niket and a merc leader waiting to stop us. Miranda confronts Niket about trying to stand in our way.  Niket found the truth about Miranda’s sister, and doesn’t want a little girl to be poor or agree about keeping her away from her father, and so doesn’t agree about sneaking Miranda’s daughter away.  However, Niket didn’t tell the father about the little girl yet so he’s the only one who knows.  Miranda goes to kill Niket,  but I use a paragon qte to stop her and save him. I tell her that it’s not worth it,  but then the merc leader kills him herself.  We fight, and I kill the merc leader.  I talk to Miranda after the battle. She asks me why I didn’t let her kill Niket.  I give the answer that she would regret doing it.  She agrees and we talk about how she still has her sister. Miranda says her  father is gone and her sister is safe. I convince Miranda to  go talk to sister for a second before the sister leaves with her surrogate family. I cut to her walking away, and we see the sisters look at each other crying. There’s no dialogue, but Miranda smiles as we leave. That’s the end of the level. It’s late, so I save for the night.