Mass Effect 2 - What Happens If You Give the Collector Base to Cerberus?
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- čas přidán 22. 01. 2021
- What happens if you keep the Collector base at the end of Mass Effect 2. We'll explore all the unique dialogue and consequences for this choice in ME2 and Mass Effect 3.
MASS EFFECT 3 - HOW TO SAVE THE GETH AND QUARIANS
• Mass Effect 3 - How to...
MASS EFFECT 2 - HOW TO SAVE EVERYONE DURING FINAL MISSION
• Mass Effect 2 - How to...
Near the end of the final mission in Mass Effect 2, The Illusive Man will ask you to save the Collector Base so that Cerberus can research the tech inside. If you go along with his plan, there are a handful of consequences, but most of them are honestly pretty minor.
Consequences If You Keep the Base:
-Boost to your renegade score
-Red orb behind Illusive Man during final conversation + unique dialogue
-ME3 - unique dialogue with Illusive Man at Mars Archives
-ME3 - unique dialogue with Jack during Grissom Academy Mission
-ME3 - unique dialogue during Cronos Station mission
-ME3 - Shepard recovers Reaper Brain (worth 110 war assets) from Cronos Station
Consequences If You Destroy the Base
-Boost to your paragon score
-Blue orb behind Illusive Man during final conversation + unique dialogue
-ME3 - different dialogue with Illusive Man at Mars Archives
-ME3 - generic anti-Cerberus dialogue with Jack during Grissom Academy Mission
-ME3 - different dialogue during Cronos Station mission
-ME3 - Shepard recovers Reaper Heart (worth 100 war assets) from Cronos Station
So yeah, that's basically it - a few lines of unique dialogue and a slight difference in war assets in Mass Effect 3. Pretty disappointing for something that was presented as a major decision. But hey, thems the breaks. - Hry
Bringing Miranda along to the final conversation with TIM can be interesting.
If you choose to destroy the base, Miranda will actually tell TIM that she is resigning. She then proceeds to terminate the call.
I'm actually a little annoyed that she does that even if you haven't gained her loyalty. Feels unearned.
Of course, if she isn't loyal but you still pick her for the final stretch (so that she can offer her formal resignation to Cerberus), she isn't long for this world anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter too much.
I didn't know that. Thanks! :) Btw, I'm now thinking: 'Finally! Someone found a use for Miranda! ;)
@@cassiespencer6134 My Shepard certainly found a few uses for Miranda ; )
Video or it didn't happen. ;)
Control by making lifeforms and control 10% of there mind but. , not control 90% of lifeforms mind , lifeforms can mostly greatly control there acting and thinking , but went lifeforms want to help people's. But lifeforms too self loving to do that , 10% help you do right think more easyer and most people's ,but for most not at first may get good feeling from following that 10% who. Control you.
Hey, heres a video idea. If you choose to save Morinth and have her join you she'll be on Earth as a Banshee.
Man... Banshees are a terrible fate for all Asari.
@@adamgray1753 Yeah, but she was a murderer so it's hard to say that she didn't deserve it.
True, @@geonite2072.
Mordin is a he.
@@ExSpoonman he’s not talking about Mordin
I agree that keeping the base would be the best thing to do ideally. But there's no way I would trust the elusive man with it.
That's exactly right.
💯
If he wasn't indoctrinated he would be a good leader
"What happens if you give the Collector base to Cerberus?"
Nothing much.
That has always been extremely disappointing to me.
@@vgdrent2852 Then again, that's ME3 for you.
:(
@@williamkerfoot8039 Mass Effect 3's combat is freaking amazing. Yes EA fucked over the story in many, many fashions with their insistence on multiplayer and sabotage of the singleplayer team, but Combat itself is absolutely incredible. When I want an amazing story in a space opera, I play ME2, when I want to fulfill the power fantasy, I play ME3 (and choose Control, because nothing sounds more awesome than becoming an eternal AI God .)
@@williamkerfoot8039 TBF gameplay is improved.
Not as good as ME2's gameplay though.
Also consider the world's two most famous aliens are actually romancable in 3.
Instead of the Deus Ex Crucible, the Collector base should have been the key to defeat the Reapers. Also it would have been more interesting if you could have chosen to fight the Reapers allied with Cerberus, or allied with the Alliance. As an Alliance member you would have an easier time uniting the aliens but have to fight Cerberus to get the technology to defeat the Reapers. As a Cerberus member you start with powerful technology to defeat the Reapers, but you have limited options to unite the aliens. Instead of the dream sequences chasing the child, you would have to fight indoctrination, wrong outcomes would slowly lead you and Cerberus to become indoctrinated. The same should happen once you get the tech as an Alliance member, but since you would get it late in the game, you would have less chance to become indoctrinated.
If you destroyed the Collector base, but side with the Alliance, Cerberus will be weaker and you gain less from getting the tech from Cerberus, which is offset by having more allied species. If you kept the Collector base you would have a much harder time fighting Cerberus, but you will be most powerful in the end game, and have potentially the best ending. If you destroyed the Collector base and side with Cerberus, you would be the weakest in the end game, and have potentially the worst ending. Also, if you killed the Rachni queen, you shouldn't face Ravagers and swarmers, and you'd find Grunt in some other quest.
Ofcourse the final boss should be Harbringer instead of Marauder Shields.
This..... could have actually work. Of course, with such generic plotlines, most would depend on the execution but just at a 1st glance it seems much better structured, and tied in to the previous game, than that damn star child.
I like it 👍
That would definitely be more interesting. Bioware is(or at least was) good at building things up and creating tension, but dissapointed when the actual conflict started.
@@Mr33500 Exactly. Any writer can build up tension and overcomplicate a plot, it takes a true talent to tie every single narrative up in a truly meaningful and cohesive ending.
props to op, being perfectly honest anything would be better than the actual ending, but your idea is actually interesting, at least it makes the ending of ME2 more important as it should be .
"It process unheard ammount of data"
Best i can do is 110
I honestly was most surprised with the Cerberus instating me as their prime enemy in Mass Effect 3 DESPITE me giving them the Collector Base.
You'd think a move like that would make them think twice before they shoot...
You were never Cerberus's prime enemy. At many points TIM actually denies Kai Leng authorization to kill Shepard. Shepard was always Cerberus's backup plan, until at least TIM fell completely to the Reapers' indoctrination.
@@miloradowiczLet's be real even with All Kai Leng's Upgrades the dude is still no match for Shepard 🤣 I mean he had to call in a gunship because he wasn't able to beat you and even that didn't kill you 💀 And then you smash his sword before stabbing him to finally end his miserable life 😂 He was just another Tool for Cerberus too it's a shame he didn't realise that he would've been a great Ally unfortunately for him and Cerberus he wasn't their greatest Tool that role belongs to Shepard
The biggest disappointment to me (aside from the endings) was the fact that you didn't see the inclusion of the Leviathan in the encroaching Fleet attack on Earth.
We probably would have if they weren't dlc. Such a cool moment gone because of greed.
Well to be totally fair, we never even saw any 'leviathan' ships. Just the leviathans themselves. Its not clear if, at the state they were in, they could even do spaceflight
I think they should have had a bigger role in ME3
from what i could guess is that they use the artifacts to kill reapers so instead of them going to the battle they just had alliance troops place the artifacts behind enemy lines to ig cause chaos within the ranks
My issue was you dont see any of your war assets. Like it would have been cool to see the geth fleet coming in to help and also the rachni if you recruit them - remember they have their own ships. Also the merc gangs, etc
Bioware's mistake was trying to make the player feel like their choices mattered, when they should have made those choices actually matter.
Yes, bioware NEVER was able to make anything comparable to fallout from black isle. And recently it was ruined completly.
Keep carrying that boulder
I’ve given the first three trilogy games over 15+ playthroughs if you still have that problem stop playing and do something different.
The feel is enough, but odd ways to merge alterations gave me "that's bullshit" feel.
There is one more MAJOR difference.
If you only get enough war asset points to have one option at the end of the game, instead of that one option being destroy, your only option is control.
If you save it instead ?
@@Igothemunchies yes
War asset points don’t mean shit your always gonna get one of the three endings lol
@G Aug thats a price i would like to pay, i mean 3 full Games only looking to destroy collectors and reapers, sorry Friends come and go, becoming a superior god or a súper good final, nah i prefer My shepard Alive.
@@MidNightKamisama Shepard shouldn't survive
What should’ve happened is that if you save the base, Cerberus troops would be harder throughout the game (harder to kill and they can kill you more easily) however what you gain is both the brain and the heart and it’s the only way to save synthetics in the destroy ending.
I actually like this idea a lot. Only went the renegade route once, but never finished it because I knew in advance that with paragon you would get the better options in the end. This would have made it worth it to do a renegade run. And would also saved Bioware a lot of grief from the people who did keep going renegade until the end.
Bad choice.
1. Game difficulty shouldn't be at the mercy of a choice from the previous game.
2. If one choice in the game gave the player more rewards, everyone would just pick that choice.
@@rafabuda0 That’s the whole point of choice. If a choice has no rewards or consequences, then why make make one in the first place?
@@souljahbill14 you shouldn't leave GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS dependent on an in-game choice. If you leave the decision of wether you're playing the game on normal or hard mode up to a main story choice then you're not letting a player choose, you're telling them to configure their game, the in-game choice won't matter. As it stands, the Collector Base choice defines what human reaper war asset you get and which Crucible choice becomes available first, defining what ending you get on a low War Effort score. That's more than enough consequences.
Now if it introduces an extra type of enemy like ME Andromeda's salarians X krogans choice did then it's fine, but putting an entire enemy faction on a higher difficulty setting depending on the Collector Base outcome is stupid because it'll make new players pick destroy not because they want to lorewise, but because it won't make 1/3 of the next game harder on them.
@@rafabuda0 I will agree to disagree. If Cerberus gets the base and study the technology, having them more difficult isn’t an unreasonable thing to make work. You already have enemies that can 1 shot your shields and phantoms that can OHK you so making the regular goons a bit more difficult isn’t a big deal. And it’s not like the difficult would be Insanity just for Cerberus. An extra couple of bullets to kill and a few less bullets of survivability won’t drastically change the game.
Default players would just get a destroyed base. Easy.
This game is so old and yet you still make videos and guides about it, thats why I like this channel
I still love the classics - OG Mass Effect Trilogy is still better than most new games released today
"So old"? "Classic"? Good lord I feel old now.
Well it is also getting a remaster in like a month so
@@BigDanGaming Mass Effect 3 multiplayer is still going on strong. I can easily enter a lobby within seconds of joining which is amazing for such an old game :D
@@Erebus04 Don't bother with the remastered version, they censored a whole lot of scenes with it, because someone got triggered over Miranda's butt. In my opinion, censoring all this is basically body shamming.
Obviously bioware had to work within time and budget constraints. They clearly wanted the mass effect series to play out like a big blockbuster action movie series. But that creates a problem when it comes to player choice. Why use a significant portion of the budget to create an elaborate action sequence (or alternate story), when all that work is locked into only 1 branching path? A significant portion of players would never see it. Not everyone does multiple play throughs of a game let alone a game series. That’s why nearly every choice in the entire series basically only amounts to alternate dialogue.
Edit: punctuation
Especially when you are mentally and emotionally exhausted after one complete playthrough of the single greatest Space Operas ever made. I can see why many people would do a single ME trilogy playthrough and that would be that for them. I wish Bioware also put alot more emphasis on "To get the full picture you need to play the first two Mass Effect games in order.". I remember reading online within the first few months of ME3's release it was found out that most ME players were new to the trilogy with the third game. Many of these same new ME players loudly complained about needing to buy more games to understand the trilogy at all. So Bioware seriously dumbed down ME3 to better accommodate the new players. Which of course seriously alienated much of the already existing Mass Effect fan base. Mass Effect 3 was an epic failure in so many ways. I can only hope ME3 will be at least mostly fixed with the Legendary Edition.
This sounds like Cyberpunk 2077.
@@adamgray1753 Imagine being that ignorant and entitled that they think they shouldn't need to play the first 2 games of a TRILOGY to understand the third. I swear these retards are the reason we don't get the proper games that we should.
In Witcher 2 you could skip an entire act when you decide if you should save the girls.
Not to mention EA literally fucked up the development of the game, forcing them to work on the multiplayer side rather than the story, forcing them to cute massive amounts of it.
Jaavik, Omega, the Crucible, a misson on Illos, etc, etc, etc. So much stuff was cut out the last act of the game feels rushed and shallow, because it was indeed rushed. EA and their corporate greed fucked up ME for good.
I feel as though the base should have been use as a way to save synthetic allies in the destroy ending
Given how integral some of the ripple effects were between ME1 and ME2, the outcomes of the Collector Base decision were a massive let down.
The possibilities feel so endless, and instead it amounts to nothing more than a 10 point differential in the war assets (a feature of the game that already felt insignificant due to the ease they could be acquired).
You left out the biggest change. Saving the Collector Base lowers the EMS needed for the Control Ending. This opens up the rare "Low EMS" Control Ending as the mutually exclusive alternative to the "Low EMS" Destroy Ending (that is available if you Destroy the Collector Base).
EMS?
@@epicmiles6534 effective military strength
What's the low ems control ending? Does shep lose control?
@@k9vendettathewolfofmordor529 No, that plays out the same. The only real difference is the Normandy is permanently stranded on that planet they crash landed on.
Basically, the final ME2 'moral' decision had just as little real impact in the next game as the final big decision of ME1 (whether or not to save the Citadel Council).
So it wasn't because ME3 development was rushed, or something. This is just how BioWare handled these endgame moral decisions -- they existed as a narrative capstone for a paragon or renegade playthrough, and were mostly aesthetic.
The council thing might be worse. They appear once in all of ME2
@@DeadManSinging1at least it's different people. If you pick Udina he has a speech about fighting the Reapers. But in the second game Anderson says Udina changed his mind.
Man, the entirety of Mass Effect 3 was a bunch of missed opportunities.
That's cuz the main writer left after the first 2 games
Yep, a big let down. And that’s not even factoring in the ending.
@@johnclark8637 dont forget they didnt have a lot of time for 3 compared to the time between 1 and 2
Basically all of your decisions in the first two games are pointless. Kill the Rachni Queen - Reapers found another one. Don't kill the Rachni Queen - Reapers captured it. Just an illusion of choice with everything
@@johnclark8637 that and the less time explains.... a lot.
Imagine if they put if you keep the base that they reaactivate the human Reaper and you get to fight it again. It would have been cool.
woulda coulda shoulda
😳
And it would be a complete human reaper, not the larva stage. Damn, that would be awesome to see.
@Gameclock10 It would be the core of another Harbinger style reaper
Even if the consequences would have been bigger, I still would have kept the Collector base. It's the most logical choice in military terms and destroying it isn't gonna bring the dead back.
thats what made me pick keeping it in me2; to find out that nothing much at all changes in 3 was just sad.
@@ladyarmourlapras it does give you slightly more war assets if you keep it
I always try too go for the objectively better choice when playing myself, but destroying the base in spite of TIM is always cathartic.
You don't give the base to TIM because you can't trust them with the Collector Base because it furthers his shady advantage.
@@jerm70 What does that change in the game specifically?
Mass Effect 3 had a different writer than the first 2 games
Mac Walters was a writer for the first two games
@@pipboysandlightsabers5478 I think Drew Karpyshyn was the main writer though
@@johnclark8637 He had left after 2, and there was also the lack of feedback. In the first two games, they were receiving loads of feedback from outside sources which helped them write better, but for Mass effect 3, they didn't have any of that and we pretty much all know what happens when you have nobody to give you criticism you do what you feel like, not what works.
When Manveer Heir was hired, it all went downhill.
He's that moron responsible for pile of garbage dialogues & choices and wokeness in both 3 and Andromeda.
The head writer was different i believe. The original story was that the mass effct technology was causing stars to age premeturely like 10s or hundreds of years, instead of millions or billions. Thats why the reapers kept culling the galaxy. Basically to prevent it from being destroyed. And they would make promising races into reapers in the hopes they could solve this problem. It was implied that humans could possibly be the species that would solve the problem.
Theres a ton of forshadowing for the original plot through out the first two games, but it was dumped in the third game for the techno singularity angle.
I keeped them with the base in my first playthrough of the mass effect trilogy 'cause I really and profoundly trusted Cerberus. I don't know why, but the "it can help us fighting the reapers" and the others reasons why the illusive man was doing everything he was doing, seemed somewhat good and had sense to me. When I discovered the Illusive Man was working with the reapers in ME3 I got so sad that when he died I legitimately was happy, or at least felt that I redeemed myself for this wrong decision. What a game.
You played the game right, my friend.
You actually believe the bullshit that comes out of your mouth, do you?
Even after finding out in the ME3 mission "Priority: Cerberus Headquarters," the real reason the Illusive Man had Joker, Dr. Chakwas, Engineers Donnelly and Daniels, and every other sympathetic crew member recruited to be part of the Normandy was to, not only, easily win Shepard's trust, but to manipulate the Commander into seeing Cerberus as a force of good, you don't feel conned?!
I was pretty annoyed with the collector base choice at the end of 2. I chose to save it because it could help fight the reapers. It felt like all the crew members had a 180 on Shepard after that. They all had angry dialog about helping cerberus, but they were all cool with it up to that point. I was like, what changed? They haven't done anything different yet
I thought it would be awesome/crazy if Cerberus finished the Human Reaper then used it
That was the Cerberus boss instead of B*tch-Lang
@@gaelofariandel6747 kai Leng Shit
This decision ultimately ends up meaningless. You still end up fighting Cerberus and they still get the base.
It doesn't matter if you destroy the base or give it to Cerberus. Its the same outcome from Cerberus being the bad guys again. In Mass effect 3.
2:33 the dialog with Jack for keeping the base is also different if she is your romance in ME2 as well. Right after she punches you, she will grab you and kiss you angrily, and add something like "that is what you get for leaving for so long" and you get some slightly different responses too if I recall.
I personally always keep the collector base in ME2 regardless of renegade/paragon. It makes the Cerberus Indoctrination and actions make a lot more sense in ME3, and sort of make it Shepard's fault for a bad impulse decision that was made with the best of intentions. It also makes the Cerberus troops being all jacked up on Reaper tech, like you find out on Mars, fit in the story better. Makes for better lore.
What really aggravated me about the whole suicide mission was if you take mordin with you he will tell you that salvaging the base is the best logical choice but after you decide to save The collector base and go back to the Normandy he tells you that it was wrong decision to keep the collector base and give it to Cerberus. 🤷🤷
exactly why I decided to keep it, because EVERYONE on my team said it would be the right thing, including Garrus! Then when I go to talk to him, he's all "you sure that was the right idea?" GARRUS YOU WERE THE ONE WHO TALKED ME INTO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE
I remember being mad that I had to fight Cerberus in ME3. I actually believed in their cause it's just that they're extreme.
There is an additional difference. In very low War Asset games, if you destroyed the base, then you only have the destroy option at the end of the game. If you saved the base, you only have the control option.
damn it to hell! I was going to wait until the Legendary Edition came out to do another playthrough. Now you've made me have to go at it again! ;)
I feel like a good idea would be to have keeping the base unlock the synthesis or control endings as survivable. You’d get a similar wake up scene as the destroy ending. It’d go along with the whole recycling principle.
like maybe if you saved the base you could rewrite the reaper brain to respond to Shepard or even the council, and use the brain as the control node, so that reaper brain becomes the star child while Shepard still lives.
mass effect was one of the few franchises that kept me into the story, like dragon age origins, where have the days gone of good storytelling..
They've gone Into rushed games/online playing
I found inquisition to be really good tbh.
Um....they're still here. Ever heard of The Last of Us? Ghosts of Tsushima? Horizon Zero Dawn? Persona? Red Dead Redemption? Control? Death Stranding? Let's not start this circlejerk of "games don't have good storytelling" because you're fighting a losing battle.
@@davisbowe8668 bruh sure there are good ones u mention there, thats not the point, the point is a story across multiple games where choices in the first even matter in de 3rd game. Also i was referring to pc only as i dont have a console, might think differently if i played console sure
Fans fighting companies into frustration surely has something to do with it too. Companies have been blasted in the past few years for choices that fans don't agree with. Some them I agree with like micro-transactions and what not. But I'm sure the motivation to care has gone downhill. (Nether Realm Studios, Bethesda, Konami, etc.)
Mass Effect: Andromeda wasn't as bad as the populous would make it, but before things could've been smooth out, they were cancel cultured away. (I'm still wondering what the dlc was going to be before they nixed it).
As someone who plays a Paragon I keep the Reaper base intact. Despite what some people wish to believe TIM is right. The information that could be gained is invaluable. Cerberus may not be trustworthy but to quote Starship Troopers, "You disapprove? Well, too bad! We're in this war for the species, boys and girls."
On my first playthrough I thought I could keep the base and give it to the alliance, it's not as though Sheppard couldn't pick up a com and tell Admiral Hackett WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON DOWN THERE!
The dead body of a proto reaper just might be the proof I've been looking for to show the council I'm not a crazy person.
I also think if you give the base to Cerberus then you should be friendly with Cerberus in ME3, doing what those weakling cowards in the alliance never had the balls to do, up until you realize at the very end of the game that the Illusive man has resurrected the proto reaper and is feeding it liquefied humans to create his own Reaper puppet to control.
@@GOLANX You're not wrong. The end with TIM and Admiral Anderson is one of the most heart moving things I've ever experienced. Not to mention the raid by cerberus on the Citadel and the death of Thane. That hit me in the feels. And the birth of the sexy, sexy robot EDI just confused things. What was I talking about...?😆
Ya but he was indoctrinated.
@@Knights_of_the_Nine TIM wasn't indoctrinated until after ME2. There isn't any indication (as far as I know) that he'd been turned before that.
@@Nicholas.Rogala But we find out he was indoctrinated the whole time. His eyes were always that clue as well.
If you save the collector base, control ending will ALWAYS be available in mass effect 3, no matter how little galactic readiness score you have.
Big Dan Gaming, Subscribed because your videos always make me smile!
From a Tactical and story standpoint it makes sense that Shepard would keep the collector base intact as at this point Cerberus, while clearly reckless, still seem to be trying to help. It is not until mass effect 3 that TIM is indoctrinated and completely insane
Love your content big Dan!
I always felt giving over the Collector base was the choice Bioware always had in mind. Cerberus could not have expanded and developed tech in the timeframe between games without it.
Another possibility is blowing up the base means Cerberus has no choice but to join the Alliance in game 3. Aria and her merc companies should have been side villians while Cerberus helps Shepard on their own terms no matter what. Omega dlc could have been about wrestling the station away from her and pressing it into the war.
Illusive Man can still betray you in the end. With more time and some creativity, game 3 could have been everything it should have been.
Don't mind me but I subscribe to your channel to help me refresh my memory for the trilogy. Since the legendary edition is coming soon.
Bite me! Better yet, bite garrus.
Shuddup.
Hey drinking garrus' juice was your fantasy not mine.
Yooour soo mean.
Garrus, am i yooour dirty little secret?
*slap*
This is my rectum!
Mans1ay3r🤝🤝🤝
You forgot one detail. Keeping the base makes low-EMS Control possible instead of only having access to low-EMS Destroy. That's a pretty major difference worth mentioning 🙂
Always blow up the base.
It is so worth it to see the Illusive Man's face and story wise, it's the best.
ME was rushed with EA being the publisher thats nothing new. EA like the Illusive man either destroys or taints everything they touch
I love Mass Effect 3 and I will play it again when Legendary Edition launches (after ME1 and 2 obviously), but stuff like that really makes you wonder, what Bioware could have done with a little more time. ME3 might have turned out even better. And the final chapter would perhaps feel less rushed.
I feel like the end made all 3 games pointless. Non of the choices you made matter.
@@Hito_Hito_Fruit_model_UncleSam That's a feeling I do not share. I can feel good about all the games in spite of London. That chapter just needed to be more refined and better thought out. It ends just really suddenly, I feel.
@@dynastes4938 but your choices DONT matter tho when you can go thru all 3 games doing as?little as possible and still get thee same endeding as if you 100% all 3.
I wouldn't because they changed some ridiculous stuffs about it. Like "manspreading" and MirandASS scenes.
Maybe on sale will. Still own trilogy copy with DLC's in on PS3 and plus cracked versions on PC (1st one have colored manual on my language aka original game).
Also both Shepards look fking awful in ME1 remaster. Their faces got "My face is tired from everything" treatment. They look dead.
Also...When the Illusive Man mentions the Collector Base is intact during the Priority: Mars conversation, Shepard can have an alternate dialogue if you were Paragon.
"I gave you that base to find a way to stop the Reapers. You've failed."
Yes that's true
@@BigDanGaming
And that is why I made 2 Paragon playthrough. With different endings. 😊
Yes I was a Paragon and it felt bad but I thought it Could give the galaxy an advantage in the war with the Reapers
Saving Maelon's genophage data has a bigger impact on the story than saving the collector base.
Holy shiet, that's actually a good point XD.
Though, my theory is that by saving the Collector Base, it's what actually exposed TIM and Cerberus into their indoctrinated state by ME3, thus giving us half of the antagonist group in the entirety of ME3. Of course, the destroyed Collector Base might still be able to do that, but it makes more sense if the base itself is intact.
I think in the Omega dlc in Mass Effect 3 technology from the collector based is talked about and is used in some ways such as the energy barriers to separate parts of the space station, some robots and an alien infection.
That’s not just an orb behind Illusive Man, that’s a star!
Would have been nice if you saved the base and then had to face Cerberus controlled Collectors with Javik. Or at the very least had more dialog from Javik about the Collectors.
Nice video Dan thanx 👏
Nice video!
Excellent video. 👍😄
I watched the entire video... but you had me convinced at "... a big boost to your renegade meter" LOL :)
Interesting!! Nice to know, ty man!
My first playthrough of M3 I let them keep the collector base thinking it'd lead to either a massive ally in the end or a fun and challenging extra enemy. I was so disappointed when it didn't really do anything and I ended up dieing in the end anyways :/
I personally like giving the base to The Illusive Man, I'm pretty sure is a fair repayment for reviving Shepard, not only that, TIM sends you the most e-mails than any other character in the whole Mass Effect trilogy, like, if you're a Spacer, not even your mom sends you that many messages, the dude was so cool to Shepard while they worked together.
I wanted it to be like fire emblem fates, where if you saved the base, you be on Cerberus side, but you change it from the inside like conquest
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but a notable addition to this video is that the choice actually has a much higher impact if your war assets aren’t high enough to obtain multiple endings. If your war assets are
I'm unable to play anything but perfectly good, so I really appreciate you making all these videos, even though it's really hard for me to watch them.
Getting ready for legendary edition
Same - I'm stoked for it
Not sure if it will be worth getting
@@surge123456789 think of it like this. Your getting content that costs more than $120 for $60 with 4K graphics
@@mrtymin3024 Yeah, if it was released back then. This game is worth much less with all 3 games and DLC's in today.
So comparing current game trilogy with all DLC's and games that came out on sales back then (even months after ME3 came out) is illogical thinking, kid.
@@mrtymin3024 And also 4K is just giving more smaller pixels that you cannot even see from far away. It's just giving more clear quality.
I actually like how little the Collector Base matters in the grand scheme of things. It shows that TIM actually used caution in his approach to the Base and Reaper tech, probably what lead him into thinking that he install Reaper parts into himself and his minions without repercussions.
I don't think I've ever given the collector base to the Illusive Man. Knowing what happens in ME3 just makes it even easier to give him the finger in ME2 every time.
Thank you, I appreciate this. It was really helpful to me at the end of my game play with my renegade fem Shepard, Lucy. Since she is a renegade and her goal has been to just kill the reapers, and since there is just do little change in the “What if” factors, I’m gonna have her save the base as a misguided attempt to stop the Reapers once and for all
5:55 I think the issue with this is that it continues to force the whole "renegade choices are always the bad choices" too much
When I first played ME3 importing from my ME2 first ever playthrough (A one which Garrus accidentally died in) I was so annoyed that the only bonus I got was a reaper war assist. Would of been interesting to see you use it in some form like it was prior in the final battle for Earth or elsewhere. Even if just a cutscene.
So I think you've missed the most important difference between keep/destroy the collector base, and that's if you have low EMS (which is unheard of since the dlc came out, but was an issue in of me3 if you didn't multiplayer), your choice would lock you in to the corresponding choice with the catalyst; so if you destroyed the collector base, you'd be locked to destroying the reapers, but if you kept the collectors, Shep would be forced to take control (this is why Shep says "so the illusive man was right after all", regardless of your playthrough, as originally it would be heard in isolation most of the time based on this choice). The active choice between destroy/control was originally fairly difficult to get and synthesis was next to impossible without a lot of multiplayer to raise galactic readiness level. Bioware eventually patched this to be easier and now most every playthrough regardless of actions can access all choices. But originally, the collector base choice did matter somewhat more.
1:31 In retrospect, the colour change doesn't make a lot of sense. Since it's an actual star and not a fancy hologram.
My ears disagree with the decision not to use a limiter lmao
I think it’d have been cool if keeping the Collector Base or not was what made available the Control option at the end of ME3. That way it’d make that decision much more consequential instead of just changing up a bit the war asset quantity for the Human Reaper
Couldnt agree more. Was largely let down by the end choice of ME2 having little to no effect. I feel like maybe the Cerberus soldiers you fight are tougher throughout the game. Or to like you said, Cerberus builds a weapon that destroys an Alliance frigate, but that was Admiral Hacketts ship, thus losing Hackett before the battle on Eartg
There's a line of dialogue that states the augmentations to Cerberus troops were based on tech from beyond the Omega 4 relay, so I always felt keeping the base makes more sense from a lore perspective. Although it would have been cool if keeping the base made all Cerberus troops harder to kill in ME3.
I think is was a moral decision more than a cost/benefit for the story, which was predetermined anyway. Good video.
I played the entire trilogy as a Parangon, but I chose the Renegade option and saved the base. It was the final choice of the second opus, I thought it would have more repercussions, but...
My man TIM were sitting in his chair for so long he learned to turn stars different colours based on the mood.
I believe in an earlier draft the choice affected the ending of ME3 at low war assets. If you saved the base you could then only get control, and only get destroy if you didn't... but then at higher assets it wouldn't matter and you could pick
Thank you for the hardest choice in the game
If I recall correctly, if you save the collector base and have SUPER low EMS, you can still use the control ending instead of wrecking the galaxy to pieces. I don't know if they kept that with the extended cut or if I'm just misremembering.
I am so glad I watched this...I had to restart my play through of ME2 as I had messed up my save files and didn't save the whole crew on the suicide mission...was wondering what the heck to do with that thing
**loads last checkpoint**
WE BOUTTA FIND OUT!
Actually, there is one more consequence as far as I'm aware. If you're low on war assets, then at the end the Synthesis ending isn't possible, and you might not even be able to choose between Control or Destroy either. If you destroyed the base, then Destroy becomes the only option available, and if you spared the base, Control becomes the only option available.
I don't know if the Extended Cut changed that, but I'm pretty sure that was a thing.
I’ve always kept the base. I figured the illusive man really could’ve utilized in the near future. Glad I did.
Big Dan, i am a huge fan of you and Mass effect. To be honest i played it so many times lol. But i got 1 question. What armour piece are you wearing for shepard at 4:06 because it's the first time I saw such a armour piece.
The eye of the human reaper is also a different color depending on what you pick
I wish this decision had more effect on Mass Effect 3. It seemed like such a big choice and it basically only effected a few conversations and changed some war assets
The mass effect trilogy is deeply flawed but I love it.
We need a remastered version.
@@dustykolkin6215 I’ve got good news for you...
@@dextergrif1052 I doubt they are gonna change anything about story or characters, just graphics and game models
4:27 Shepard's face after he says 'you're here now'...We'll bang, OK?
I know if I was killed by a machine that could also be used against the ones that murdered me - I'd want them to use it.
you forgot to mention that when your war assets are minimal in the end of the game you're only left with one option. after destroying the base, you can only choose destroy ending, but if you keep the base you can have control ending instead
I'd advise moving the mic away from your mouth. I can hear all the plosives.
Also pop filter
Lol
1:33 The orb in question is a star.
"He tried to control us.. now we control him" - The Citadel
Remember though - your choices MATTER
omg the audio is giving pain to my ears holy shit
Eating the mic
Yeah, great concept overall, but he needs to turn his mic gain down.
You get a codex update.
Next question.
I did this in all of my playthroughs of the game, i didn't know it wasn't intended lol
I've read from guides that your ending choice in me2 has an effect on the ending in me3 if you are choosing to control the reapers or destroy all ai.
One of the best game saga ever made
I think I'm going to keep it this time around, I think I did once before but I don't think I ever carried that save over to Mass Effect 3.
So the renegade ending is actually more beneficial than the paragon?