Mass Effect 2 gameplay thread

[Monk]

I always felt the Cerberus involvement in ME2 was not entirely..."natural". It wasn't unbelieveable, but they were really portrayed as evil in ME1, nothing about humanity's interests at heart. Felt like someone at Bioware had a soft spot for Cerberus and really wanted them in.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Another 180* with Cerberus now after, in my opinion they tried to paint Cerberus in a more positive light or rather being more "gray than black", has to be believeable, because there are definitely some Shephard savegames out there with a pro-Cerberus bent.
As for characters, I can't see Wrex or Liara becoming squaddies really, as Wrex seems to become the new Krogan Overlord, while Liara is the Shadow Broker. I'd say its more likely you go to Wrex and ask if the Krogan can help you attack the Reapers (Reapers being the most dangerous enemy around, should suit Krogan real fine) and Liara being Shadow Broker, one you can get lots of information from.

You have to remember in ME1 the only background you got on Cerberus was from The Alliance, who labeled them as nothing more than a terrorist group. And this:

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From an admiral scared, on the run and looking over his shoulder every five minutes.

I could buy that we didn't "get the whole story" the first time pretty easily.

More on Cerberus in ME2 and implications for 3, and ME2 and ME1 ending spoilers: Read at your own risk!

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I felt that the endings were much too black and white in regards to cerberus. Either the Illusive man declared you an enemy of Ceberus and went out of his way to insult you "I should have known you'd choke under the pressure." Or, you become the Ceberus Hero set to uhser in a new age for the galaxy with ceberus at its head. With the power given to them by the Collector base their influence would soon outweigh even the Council's. I doubt, if you chose a Renegade ending, anyone would be able to defy Cerberus with the technology they had at their disposal.

Now contrast that to the first game's ending.. No matter what you did, good, evil, neutral, in the final battle of the game no matter WHAT ending you take - the game ends on a "The reapers are coming..." note, setting the clear stage for the next game. It's very neat, very tidy, and VERY easy to continue the story. Whether the council was dead or not seemed very minor in comparison to the impending threat, and the only question seemed to be whether humanity would lead, or simply be one of many, in the coming alliance to defend the galaxy.

ME2 was the complete opposite.