Mass Effect 2: Or Why I Thought I Stopped Playing Mass Effect 2 Four Years Ago, And How I Almost Started All Over Again - A Think Piece

EA/BioWare: To Hell With Your Key-Bindings. Just Do What We Tell You.

This is going to be an interesting article.  I had another one fully written, all 1,148 words of it put down and looking quite charming.  There were sections about starting the game twice, once before importing my character from the first Mass Effect and once about the importing process.  There was another bit about how annoyed I was that the game, when booted up through Steam, was not recognizing that I had bought the Deluxe Edition and that none of the associated DLC expansions seemed to be available.  There was a section, where I kvetched about my relationship options from the first game not being available in the second because Liara was only available through one of the DLC expansions (being the reason that I started writing that first article in the first place).  There was a section where I touched on how I felt that all Mass Effect 2 was, was a dating sim with a Mass Effect skin.  And there was even a part, rightfully justified mind you, about the game not recognizing any of the key re-bindings I had so meticulously done.  I had all of this down and ready to post last Friday and then it all came to a grinding halt when I realized that I was not at all accurate in my reasonings for not enjoying Mass Effect 2 after further research.

This adventure of discovery started when I went looking on my computer for the screenshots folder normally located somewhere in the depths of the Steam folder.  I knew that I had not even tried playing Mass Effect 2 since I acquired this computer four years ago.  I then began downloading Mass Effect 2 through Steam having read an article about Origin recognizing the game through Steam and being accessible through Origin, especially since the game requires an EA login to either play or logon to the Cerebus Network.  So once Origin recognized Mass Effect 2, I decided to delve into the Extra Content section, seeing all of the Deluxe-ness of the Deluxe Edition, and that is when the clouds really parted and I knew that I was not going to be able to publish my article as-is.

It was on Origin that I saw "The Cerebus Network" being what the Deluxe Edition encompasses, which includes some weapon and armor packs, a few new locations, and the Zaeed - The Price of Revenge story.  Before doing research for that article, I had been under the impression that the Deluxe Edition on Steam contained all of the available DLC expansions like Lair of the Shadow Broker and Overlord, none of which are accessible through Steam.  Before I knew this, this was one of the main reasons why I stopped, because the character I had decided to be in a relationship with was locked behind a paywall as Liara does not appear in the main game.  So I started pulling all of the available content over on Origin, but first I booted it up on Steam, in order to grab some screenshots of the prologue/intro for the article.  Then I decided to re-download the first Mass Effect to see if my saves were still up there in the cloud to recover my original save file so that I could import it over to Mass Effect 2.  Sadly, that cloud save does not exist anymore, possibly because I had not accessed it in over four years?  Is there a time limit on how long Steam saves cloud saves before they delete them?  Although that doesn't seem to be the case since I can see that I have save files from Torchlight from 2013 and Left 4 Dead from 2012.  But I also do not see either Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2, or even either of the Dead Space games, which makes me wonder if it is a Steam versus Origin issue?

No Cloud Save Feature for Some Reason.

Either way, it seemed like some games that do not have cloud saves will only save the save data directly to the hard drive of the computer/system that they are played on, which got me thinking about my older Lenovo and whether or not those save files were still on that computer.  The main reason for this avenue of delving was that the only other two options to bring choices from Mass Effect into Mass Effect 2 were to either replay the first game, or spend $5 to download the Mass Effect: Genesis interactive comic in order to make key decisions from Mass Effect into a new save file that would be uploaded into Mass Effect 2.  There is that brief section at the end of the prologue when Shepard is being questioned by Miranda and Jacob about past events, but those are only a handful of questions that do not take into account all of the decisions made such as relationships, who lived/died during the events on Virmire, and who ends up leading the council at the end of the game.  While I do not necessarily recall all of the choices I made four years ago, I feel like I want the decisions I made to actually count for something, otherwise why even play the first game in the series?

In the end, though, neither the external hard drive nor my old computer contained the save files from my first foray into Mass Effect, leading to the question to either plunk down $5* or spend another 46 hours making similar decisions all over again.  How much is my time worth after all?  Would I feel okay with myself if I spent $0.10 per hour playing a video game?  Or would I feel better spending $5, having already played a game in order to not have to play it again?  Putting it that, I am not okay with giving EA my hard-earned money.  I am kind of on the fence about this as I type it out.  Until that is, I read through all of the story affecting choices made in the game and I begin to recall how I played the first game, and spending that $5 becomes more enticing, mainly because I would probably make all of those same decisions again.  Letting the Rachni Queen live, subduing the colonists on Feros and killing the Thorien, convincing Wrex to side with Shepard, choosing Kaidan to stay behind and detonate the bomb on Virmire, and ultimately saving the council and naming David Anderson as Humanity's representative.  Oh, and having a romantic relationship with Liara but because I did not like Kaidan (seeing as how I decided that he would be the one to die) and Sha'ira was not really a long term option.

And after writing all of this, especially about pondering wether or not to give EA/BioWare $5 to not play Mass Effect in order to have my choices carried over, I thought I would just start up a new character in the first Mass Effect, female Shepard as Vanguard born on Earth Survivor of Akuze, and play most of the same choices, including my romance option (again, because I don't like Kaidan as a person).  So I started doing that and got two hours into the game: Nihlus was assinated, the beacon exploded, and Shepard was debriefing Captain Anderson on what happened on Eden Prime.  And I felt kind of over it.  I had played this game before and while playing, the thought of playing all 40+ hours all over again did not seam appealing.  Sure I could play it again and make different choices, maybe be less of a paragon and be more renegade, but that would have to be an intentional choice and not how I would regularly play.  I do not think that would be a good sign to continue and I still do not like the thought of giving EA any more money than I have to.  And I do not have to play Mass Effect.  Or Mass Effect 2 for that matter.  

I don't.  And maybe I won't.  Maybe?



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Please Don't Get It Near Me


*The actual cost of Mass Effect: Genesis is actually 320 BioWare Points (or whatever is the name of their currency), but you can only buy BioWare Points in $5 denominations.