Day 9 is my next round of loyalty missions. One of them is quite good just by how theme-appropriate and anticlimactic the mission and tone are. I also explore the personal relationships a bit more for some more good story. There’s still very boring planet exploration, one bug that had the potential of being game-breaking, and a bit of aimless running around because I’m missing a party member to activate a task. A couple of hiccups there, but overall a fun session. Spoilers within.
I return to the Normandy and it’s time for the “what loyalty quest next?” game. I start with a boring planet scan for more resources. With the resources I get, I buy some ship upgrades including better scanning — I’m really praying that one works. To test it, I do another planet scan. So all it does is make the scanning go faster? Why the fuck did they ever not make it faster? It is not an improvement to have something miserable go quicker. Try not making it miserable in the first place. Anyway, I decide to go to the Serpent Relay to do my first clean-up missions, helping Thane and Garrus. This takes me back to the Citadel. I have to say that the CSes of the landings are great, just beautiful to watch. Once I’ve landed, I go to Zakara Ward warehouses to help out Garrus first.
When we get to the warehouses, there’s a CS of us talking to Fade, a Volus who sold Garrus’s betrayer a fake id. We confront him and Garrus gets threatening almost immediately. The Volus has guards I can do a renegade qte against, but I pass and they back down from our threat as a normal result of our conversation. I talk to the Volus, and he reveals he’s not Fade; to find Fade, I have to go to the factory district. In this dialogue we also learn that the Blue Sun mercs are protecting Fade, and Harkin (he’s from last game) is also here for some reason. We go to the factory district, and there’s a CS of me seeing Harkin. He runs and his goons attack. There are a few fights with robots — it’s a little tough but I walk through it. I bypass a door, and there’s more fun fighting. The last fight ends oddly because there was a nasty bug where soldier was caught in wall and I couldn’t shoot him, but I also couldn’t leave room until he was dead. I’m lucky that a biotic worked to kill him because I probably would have quit if I had to replay a good chunk of the game. Having dealt with the bug, I enter the next room and have a conversation with Garrus. He wants to torture information out of Harkin and then kill the traitor. I am all good with that; these are people who slaughtered Garrus’s team, so I’m am all for killing them. The fights in next room are with two big mechs. It’s fun and ends in a pretty explosion. This is followed by a CS of us coming in on Harkin, who is the actual Fade. He tries to run but Garrus cuts him off. Harkin gets beat up by Garrus and gives up the info. After getting roughed up, Harkin says Garrus has changed, but Garrus replies that Sidonis (the traitor) changed him. Harkin sets up a meeting for us with Sidonis. Garrus is going to shoot Harkin in the leg as we leave. I paragon stop him and we leave Harkin to go to meet Sidonis in the cafe in daytime.
There’s a CS of us arriving at the cafe. Garrus confronts me about the blocked shot on Harkin, I tell him it wasn’t worth it and he agrees. The plan here is that Garrus is going to snipe while I talk to the guy. My job is that I have to give the signal for the shot. I walk up to the target and my choice is to warn him or not. I don’t. It’s a cold as ice scene. I say like five words to the guy and it’s a one shot kill when I chose to step out of the way. I love this loyalty mission — it’s very nicely anti-climactic, and I love that I could choose (as I did) to have Shepherd just let his friend do his assassination without asking any questions.
I go back to the Ward lobby to continue my clean-up. I overhear something about some Krogan wanting a special Citadel fish. I’m looking for the contact for Thane’s quest, but I can’t find him. I buy a random fish and sell it to the Krogan who wanted a fish earlier. There’s still no sign of the contact for Thane. In desperation, I try the presidium and talk to Anderson about Kaiden. Anderson tells me he assigned Kaiden to look into Cerebus. I go back to Normandy for a sec. I talk to Garrus and we have some nice bs — the friendship between Garrus and Shepherd is really one of the best relationships in the game. I then talk to Miranda. We flirt and she mentions not expecting to fall in love. I have a nice moment where I dismiss the idea of us being in love (“Love? I just wanted to get into your bed.”) She still wants more time, but she definitely wants me. Space stud, hoooooo!
I still want to get this Thane mission done, so I go back to the Citadel. Oh I needed to have Thane with me to find the contact; that would have been nice to know. The custom guards did see his son. He’s with some petty criminal named Mouse. We find Mouse and talk to him. It turns out Thane knew Mouse and used him to get information in his earlier assassination days. I have a renegade qte in this conversation I pass on, but then I paragon Mouse into telling us who hired his son — Elias Kellham. I also learn in this conversation that people have been selling versions of Shepherd’s voice for devices, but I don’t get to make that dialog choice before Mouse leaves. I talk to Thane about all of this, and there’s another creepy robot talk moment. Oh he’s got some kind of photographic memory and that’s how they represent it. Anyway, I finish the conversation with Thane and get back to the quest.
I liked ME2 a lot… I found the story interesting and enjoyed the characterization. I had a few complaints but will wait til your final smack to throw them in.
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I enjoyed ME2 but had a few problems with it. I will give my feedback on your final smack.
Agree on the planet exploration. As I told Potter previously, “I’m not really sure this is all that better than the friggin’ vehicle.” I have a suspicion that they might have been planning more with the system, but ran out of time. My 2nd run-through I learned to get that upgrade before doing any scanning, then just do some “short” scans on planets as the need arises. Still sucks rocks, but at least it doesn’t last as long.
I managed to get it right on bringing Thane to talk with the Captain the first time, but that was more luck than anything else. If you try to go and talk to the clan leader without Grunt, he tells you to come back with Grunt; I was surprised to learn that this wasn’t the case in Thane’s quest.
Also agree on the bs chats with the various characters; there’s some great moments in them, and Garrus does seem to get some of the best one-liners in the game.
Oh, not a spoiler, but worth doing: when you have a chance, go to Zakara Ward on the Citidal with Garrus and Tali, and walk up the steps between levels 25 and 26 (as I recall). It spawns a short 30-sec non-CS dialogue between them that is pure Win.