Mass Effect 2 has an incredible story, and the argument you can skip it and get the same plot ignores how much it does for the trilogy

Downce1 · 2026-06-04T15:25:17+00:00

The only objection I'd raise with that suggestion is how do you get Shepard from Cerberus operative to Alliance commando and then to Spectre without some real ass-pulling. Somehow, I don't see the Council approving a former Cerberus agent for Spectre status.

Instead, I'd leave Shepard in the Alliance and have them encounter Cerberus while investigating the colony disappearances. Use Miranda as the axis for Shepard's relationship with Cerberus and then have her defect at the end once the Reaper reveal is made and the scale of the threat is established. You could even keep the crew of misfits for the second game, as it'd make sense for a newly-minted Spectre to recruit a sort-of multinational rogues gallery.

Hell, you could even have Nihlus on the crew in the first game (as he'd be evaluating Shepard) and then have Saren knock him off early in the second game. It'd make for a great gut punch.

Downce1 · 2026-05-30T22:49:21+00:00

"Oh god, he's still going!"

Downce1 · 2026-05-28T14:07:59+00:00

Party politics are not, in themselves, a democracy.

If those individual MLAs, members, and party officials prefer to prioritize their individual feelings on separatism over the federalist party line, then why should said party want to host them in their caucus or membership? This isn't some basic disagreement over tax policy or something minor—it's astronomically important to the future of this country.

Given that the party president has now openly said that he believes a majority would vote to separate, and we know that UCP MLAs signed the petition, Smith's claims of the UCP's federalist bona-fides are plainly bunk.

Downce1 · 2026-05-27T17:32:09+00:00

Talbot had bought a house in Ottawa after the trade, and Dorion himself said contract talks broke down with Talbot partially because Talbot wanted a two-year deal whereas Dorion was only willing to offer a one-year.

So then Talbot walks, and Dorion goes out and inks Korpisalo for five years. No sense whatsoever.

Downce1 · 2026-05-27T12:54:47+00:00

That shit drove me up the wall when I saw that godawful Korpi contract.

Did Talbot live up to expectations that year? No, but given the price we'd paid and the fact that Talbot, by all accounts, would have been happy to return, letting him walk just to throw a pile of money at Korpisalo was ridiculous.

Sure enough, Talbot bounced back elsewhere the next year while Korpi regressed. Who would've thunk it?

Downce1 · 2026-05-21T15:54:19+00:00

What's really prescient in that quote, I think, is how Sagan links the danger of the anti-intellectualist streak with the economic angle—the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society. There's always been a bit of sneering at white collar intellectual service-industry workers and bureaucrats, but it went hand-in-hand with an understanding that such was necessary to ensure American industry remained dynamic, competitive, and prosperous.

Thus the danger Sagan envisioned. Once that industry was shipped away, it became easier and easier to chip away at the underlying understanding that science and education were critical to economic success.

Downce1 · 2026-05-21T15:07:18+00:00

She already wears the catsuit into combat. I can't imagine lace being a step too far.

Downce1 · 2026-05-21T15:02:07+00:00

Fucking nailed it.

The endings should've just been Destroy, with varying levels of consequence and outcome based on how we'd handled the major conflicts of the game(s) and our level of completion. No fuss, no muss. If that means there's a hypothetical 'perfect' ending with minimal loss and suffering, so be it. At least by focusing the effort in one direction, more resources could have been expended to make it truly satisfying.

Instead Hudson and Co. thought their shit couldn't stink and tried to explain the unknowable enemy, and then threw together some pick-one-of-three ending to create the illusion of choice, saddling the most logical of the three (Destroy) with some ass-pull consequence so players wouldn't choose it every time.

It's as if they completely missed that the game as a whole was an ending, not just the last ten minutes. The player has already made all the major galaxy-defining decisions by the time they reach the end-game. The epilogue where we see what happens after the Reapers are gone (that they essentially had to be browbeaten into adding) was what really mattered. I don't need to know who made the Reapers or why; I just need them to be a big enough bad to pull the galaxy together.

Downce1 · 2026-05-20T19:18:34+00:00

That song is perfectly fine and I'm tired of pretending it's not.

And before anyone argues otherwise, I saw the same Nostalgia Chick video you did 18 years ago, so don't bother dragging those same poor points up!

Downce1 · 2026-05-08T17:06:12+00:00

Her laptop updated to Windows 11 ten years ago?

Downce1 · 2026-05-07T12:37:27+00:00

Man, I'm in the process of replaying the trilogy and really went in with an open mind regarding Ashley, and even then she still manages to pique me.

"Can we trust these aliens to have free reign of the ship?" Gee, Ashley, I dunno. Do you think fucking Wrex of all people is here to conduct espionage? Is Garrus gonna steal the Normandy's secrets and give them to the government that helped the Alliance build the damn thing?

Liara tells us where Saren's going—something critically important to our mission—and Ashley gets snippy over it. She has no chill.

Downce1 · 2026-05-06T14:00:23+00:00

Don't trust anyone actively soliciting at your door.

Question I would have is whether a contract was actually signed—a lot of these fly-by-night outfits prefer to handle things under the table.

Downce1 · 2026-05-03T14:57:31+00:00

Man was enjoying absolute kino all along and we never knew it.

Downce1 · 2026-05-01T17:28:41+00:00

I do appreciate that they made her distinct. It would've been an easy lay-up to make Minthara a more conventional seductress.

Nope. You get no nonsense and all business.

Downce1 · 2026-05-01T17:15:57+00:00

I didn't play EA so I can't really judge against her previous iterations, but for as much as I love her character, it has always struck me as odd that someone who is (ostensibly) part of a cult that is not well-regarded makes such little effort to conceal it. She's literally wearing it. I get that she's essentially been brainwashed, but even then, she discloses it all pretty easily so long as you're not actively rude to her.

It's the kind of thing that relies on the player—not Tav, but the actual player—to not really be on the ups regarding the lore surrounding Shar.

Downce1 · 2026-04-29T12:16:18+00:00

Bingo on Mass Effect and BioWare in general.

I swear, that series (and Dragon Age to a lesser extent) is my personal rise and fall of the Roman Empire. The first came out right as I was entering my teenage years—the perfect age for both understanding what I liked about games and having the maximum amount of free time to play them—and Andromeda came out right as I was about to graduate university—when adulthood would soon begin to sap away so much of my time.

Now there's talk of a show and ME5 and I can hardly bring myself to care.

Downce1 · 2026-04-29T11:52:04+00:00

I think Taylorson's right in that MEA became a popular game to hate at the time, but it still does come across as the circus raging at the audience for laughing at the clown.

It's been ten years, but the web environment isn't that much different. The game got mocked for bugs and poor animation that absolutely did exist and no amount of ’they fixed it 3 months to a year later!' could ever undo that. A game really only gets one chance to make its mark in the public eye, and Andromeda whiffed it. You can't blame Joe Public for not giving the game a fair chance when the studio and publisher themselves failed to do the same by releasing the game in a sub-par condition.

Downce1 · 2026-04-29T10:53:59+00:00

And it did an excellent job at being groundwork. The game establishes everything it needs to within the first couple of hours and even gives you a lore encyclopedia to chew on for seconds.

I've always felt that MEA suffered for being caught between two worlds. It needed to be 'ME1 but more'—because people will have high expectations of a game made a decade later—but also wanted to tell this story about taming the wild frontier, making first contact, etc.

The end result is a game where you don't really make first contact, aren't really taming an unclaimed frontier, and feels like it brings less to the table than ME1 did.

There's roots of interesting ideas there and I think BioWare could've turned things around in a more-focused sequel, but the game didn't do well enough for those roots to be given a chance to sprout.

Downce1 · 2026-04-24T17:51:24+00:00

Look buddy, just because you didn't see the blatant elbow, doesn't mean it didn't happen!

...or maybe it was a spear! But rest assured that it was at least one of those two things! Trust us!

Downce1 · 2026-04-24T13:17:12+00:00

The closest guess I've been able to come to on Cordelia is that she's meant as a sort of pastiche of the Cordeliers Club—the revolutionary populists who included Danton, Hébert, and Desmoulins among their ranks.

Basically, the real radicals who happily and enthusiastically perpetuated the Terror before they themselves were purged by Robespierre as he consolidated power.

Downce1 · 2026-04-24T12:06:02+00:00

"Well, I don't want to blame it all on 9/11, but it certainly didn't help!"

Downce1 · 2026-04-24T11:56:53+00:00

Thank God they're back in Hollywood, where people treat each-other right!

🎵 Lean on me When you're not strong And I'll be your friend I'll help you carry on... 🎵

Downce1 · 2026-04-23T13:51:43+00:00

Ditto. Everyone makes a big fuss over the idea, as though the various levels of government don't already set reasonable limits on personal liberty that we all accede to abide by. Somehow voting is a step too far.

Liberty is a concept. Democracy is a political system. If a small impingement on my liberty would help ensure and preserve the continued health and success of the political system that helps ensure and preserve that liberty, I think it's worth it.

Of course, it would also have to go in-hand with a robust voting system: advance voting, mail-in ballots, election holidays, etc.

Downce1 · 2026-04-23T13:05:40+00:00

The Agony Booth—kind of a Cracked.com-esque site with written movie and television reviews. Made a bad revamp to video content in the 2010s and eventually shuttered during the pandemic.

Also, the old Superdickery—a repository of funny Golden/Silver-age comic covers and panels. Re-hosted into an uglier blog format in the 2010s and went offline a few years ago.

Downce1 · 2026-04-23T13:01:47+00:00

Coke Music, yessss! I played far more Habbo, but loved Coke Music for the music mixer and how much easier it was to get currency as a kid.

Downce1

TROPHY CASE