I didn’t mind the reboot, even if there were more sensible ways of doing it; I just assumed it was Bioware’s method of putting you in a rough spot, of owing your life to the wrong people.

The rest of the plot (the collectors, the end game choice, the total absence of foreshadowing, the final boss) was hogwash, though.

Zel wrote:

I still can’t explain why Cerberus, given their past, decided to spend 2 billions on recreating you, several more on rebuilding your ship, yet more on funding a fully staffed crew with unneeded personnel, again more on developing a working self-sentient non-rebelling AI, while they could have made or bought a couple of nukes, destroyed/disabled the Omega 4 Relay that only leads to the collector homeworld, and be done with it. If these Relays are indestructible, just plant a couple of space mines to greet any ship coming out. If I were an investor I would not be happy at the Illusive Man’s management of my money.

The illusive man always wanted the collector tech, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to seal off the Omega 4 relay. In fact, it’s fair to say the tech was the main reason he invested in Shepard. (He knew the collectors were behind the abductions from the start.)
That, I suppose, was Cerberus’ angle from the start.

The collector-prothean link was just plain bizarre, and the human reaper was a true WTF moment. Nothing in ME1 suggested the Reapers were made of organic stuff, and Sovereign expressed undisguised contempt for all organic life.

Did Bioware plan this thing out at all? The ME plot didn’t even inch forward. The only explanation I can think of is that Bioware wanted to get the team building out of the way now for ME3, focusing primarily on the Reapers. All in all, you’ve got a total of 17 possible team members, an impressive list that includes people in high places, like Liara and Wrex.

That said, I think ME2 had some foreshadowing for the next game. For one, there’s the dark energy / collapsing stars observation, which I believe will be crucial to defeating the reapers in the next game (catch them in a supernova, maybe). Then there’s the allies and resources you have thus far: the Krogan genophage research if you chose to save it, the Rachni massing under your command (eventually), and the Geth faction also under your sway.

I just hope now that ME3 isn’t more filler to bide time. Harbinger is coming? I would hope so.

Maybe they made the reboot so you can change your face. Oh and add those bionic implants scars that show how *evil* you are – terminator style. Just because you’re having a negative outlook on things.

I agree it doesn’t make any kind of sense to reboot the serie that way, unless it’s a badly disguised filler episode. See, ME1 was a strong hit. The situation at the end of ME2 is the same as the end of ME1 : the reapers are coming, you have your team, your ship. It’s hard to claim an episode is not filler if you finish the exact same way you started, so they had to strip everything out of you in the beginning, to make it feel like you’re building up, while you’re just catching up. It wouldn’t surprise me if the 3 part story suddenly became … 6 or 9 parts, with as many filler episodes as people are willing to buy. I doubt Mass Effect will end with the third game.

I also agree that Collectors were badly explained and didn’t fit, and it doesn’t look like they were given much thought. Yet they don’t exist anymore and their station is lost whatever you choose, either to the space cemetery around the center of the galaxy or to Cerberus. You’ll probably never hear anything of it the coming games, apart from a posible sidequest, email or radio broadcast if you made the non-ridiculous choice. All in all, they could be erased from the Codex and it wouldn’t make a difference. I suppose it works well with the “filler episode” theory.

The end-game choice doesn’t make sense especially since you’re the sole proprietor of a the only ship capable of reaching said station, so it’s not like you’re in a rush to decide. The Illusive Man can’t take it while you discuss it with the council or with him for some much deserved reward. You can always come back and destroy it later, or salve some of the thousands ships crashed around for more technology.

I still can’t explain why Cerberus, given their past, decided to spend 2 billions on recreating you, several more on rebuilding your ship, yet more on funding a fully staffed crew with unneeded personnel, again more on developing a working self-sentient non-rebelling AI, while they could have made or bought a couple of nukes, destroyed/disabled the Omega 4 Relay that only leads to the collector homeworld, and be done with it. If these Relays are indestructible, just plant a couple of space mines to greet any ship coming out. If I were an investor I would not be happy at the Illusive Man’s management of my money.

@ Stuart Blessman:

If they were planning ahead, they wouldn’t really need to destroy Normandy at all. They could be like: hey, look – we liked Normandy so much we built a new one that’s even better. We want you to use it for the next mission.

There is nothing in the new game that could not be explained via a cut scene or two which would be much cheaper to do than a DLC. I really can’t figure out why they wrote this game the way they did. It’s weird.

Just finished ME2 this weekend, in fact…and thank you very much for pointing out the flaws in what I thought was a cohesive plot. Guess I was wrong, lol. But you make some legitimate points; at times I did feel like I had missed something, especially with the Prometheans. Also, things felt unresolved, such as the whole Ashley Williams thing.

IF Bioware had been planning ahead, they should have released a late DLC that was the battle that destroyed the Normandy, thus setting up ME2 a little bit better.