Way back in January, I wrote that the suicide mission at the end of Mass Effect 2 is the greatest "level" in video game history while only providing one paragraph for why. Well, I also hinted at that topic being covered in more depth so, here you go. Why the suicide mission from Mass Effect 2 is the best level in video game history (You: "YES JASON, I read the title").
The suicide mission is the centerpiece to the entire game. Nearly half of the actions taken in this game, outside of the first 15 minutes, is to build up a squad of the finest soldiers in the galaxy to take on a mission nobody fully believes they will survive. This game is yet another of the dozens (hundreds?) of fictional stories that take inspiration from Kirosawa's masterpiece, The Seven Samurai. Just like Mass Effect 2, that excellent film has a final battle that it spends most of its run time building up too. There is a reason so much fiction copies it. That movie is routinely in top 10 films ever made lists and usually the only foreign one.
The other half of the game is based on establishing the squads loyalty, resolving any loose ends they may have, before possibly dying on this impossible mission. It helps build up the suspense and tension of what the final mission is going to be like. There is also a few Collector missions thrown in there too which tend to be a bit harder. That final section of Horizon is rough. The Collector ship mission has a horror game feel to it at first and I love it too. The Reaper IFF mission was the hardest mission in the game in my opinion and I was woefully under prepared for it the first time through.
This is punctuated by a near invincible villain named Harbinger, who can ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL......whoa. Sorry, I just blacked out for a moment. Also, I have a weird obsession with human DNA all of a sudden.
I forgot to ask Javik in ME3 if Prothean blood is made of lava.
Anyway, the game builds up the stakes for the final mission. Collector missions establish the threat you are going up against, and the excellent characters constantly give insights of determination, support, fear, and uncertainty as you build up to the final showdown. The stage for a final mission could not have been built better. I am seriously having a hard time trying to think of another game that did this concept this well. I'm sure another RPG has done this before....right?
As for the suicide mission itself, it's absolutely amazing. It blends cutscenes and gameplay beautifully. The initial Reaper "jet fighter" attack is entirely dependent on the upgrades made to the Normandy. Then you have a boss fight in the hanger, sort of, with one of those fighters which is the 2nd weakest part of the mission. You have to fight it with heavy weapons, making most previous big fights moot as you are restricted to one form of combat. THIS...IS...FINE! I don't mind having to do things differently. The only problem with the fight is how hard it is for stupid reasons. The Reaper fighter has absurdly good aim and the high ground....and it's significantly faster. It's not bad, it's more annoying than anything.
After a cutscene of taking down the Collector ship, the decisions begin. This is so cool to do in a video game, particularly an RPG. Every member of the crew is "involved" even if they are not a part of your party. Who you have lead the 2nd party is important (I chose Garrus 1st time). Who you send into the vent, who should be a tech specialist, is also important (I chose Tali). Fail at these decisions and squadmates will die.
Here is a chart. No cheating Randy. Click on the picture to enlarge.
The fight during the vent crawl is pretty intense. You have a time limit to vent heat from the, uh, vents so that the tech specialist doesn't burn to death. At the same time, you are fighting waves of Collectors, some of which are beefed up as Harbinger.
Then, the decisions get harder. If you saved the crew (I did not on my first playthrough), you have to choose a squadmate to escort them back to the Normandy. It's very easy to get Mordin killed here. Mordin is the ideal person to send, otherwise, you need to keep him with Shepard to keep him alive or have a really loyal 2nd team at the end. I got lucky (I chose Mordin 1st time). But it doesn't end there as you have to pick a team 2 leader again (still Garrus), and a biotic specialist to put up a biotic shield against the Collector swarm. This is relatively tough because you have 5 biotics on your team, excluding a potentially biotic Shepard. I stressed on this one, trying to decide if Samara or Jack was better for it on my first playthrough. Later I learned, EITHER are solid (I chose Jack, if you care).
I can't help but think Jack is just Sci-Fi Sinead O'Connor
I am surprised anybody failed these decisions to be honest. Dialogue is important here. When they say you NEED a tech specialist to send into the vents, why would somebody send Grunt? At least the biotic field decision helped the player by limiting the choices but shouldn't you know something about these characters by now? Why would you choose the limited biotics of Jacob, Miranda and especially Thane who never talked about his biotics. Samara is obviously a good choice and Jack is a straight up OBVIOUS choice. Were these people not listening when the game was talking about her being the most powerful human biotic they have ever seen?
That said, the decision of who to escort the crew back was vague. I'm not gonna lie, after thinking it over, the only reason I chose Mordin was because I love him and it seemed like an obvious video game freebie save. I IMMEDIATELY regretted it, thinking I needed somebody hardcore like Grunt because obviously Bioware wouldn't be that cliche...would they? (They were).
Regardless of good or bad decisions, it is an amazing experience to see a video game's final level deliver on its promises. The actual fight in the biotic field is tense and one of the few times I still die on this mission. The fight on the moving platforms afterwards, which has a killer speech Shepard gets to deliver beforehand, is good when the music kicks up holy shit!
YYYYYYYYEAH.
The soundtrack really takes it up a notch. While it's probably not THE best final level theme ever, it's definitely in my top 10, possibly top 5. The theme is simultaneously epic and most importantly, desperate. If I were ever to go out in a blaze of glory, I would be rocking this in my headphones. I'd get pumped up for most of the track, then at 2:47, I'd start my dirtbike. I would rev my engines some and let the epicness take over. Then I would take off but I would time my jump over the Grand Canyon at approximately 3:44 so that the horns kick in just as I come off the ramp. Then land, and let the horns take me away into their sweet embrace........
Uh...anyway, you know a final mission gets it really, really, right when even the music is damn near perfect. Even with other final themes I may like a bit more, this one truly captures the tone and emotion of the final level. I was so into it my first playthrough, I swear the music made me see the gameplay in slow-EPIC-motion. It's hard to explain but it was amazing.
Even with the best final level in video game history, it's still flawed with an awkward boss fight against a giant Terminator...er, "Human Reaper" who dies in two hits from the nuke gun. It took me until my 2nd playthrough until I even noticed that Harbinger and other Collectors attack you when it's at half health. Credit to the games friendly AI for keeping them off me though! Well done Jack and Grunt.
This mission capped my favorite game of all time, and it is my favorite largely because of the suicide mission itself. It's kind of weird that this game ended sooooo fantastically while the trilogy ended questionably. (See post coming soon). Although, Empire Strikes Back is by far the best Star Wars movie, so it makes sense that the middle Mass Effect game is the best. Mass Effect 2, and the entire trilogy, saved my love of games singlehandedly (another post coming soon).
The suicide mission has a sense of closure while also leading into one of the best epilogues ever with a fleet of Reapers bearing down on Earth. You think you just won this incredible battle? Think again. Shit is going to hit the fan in Mass Effect 3! It's going to be awesome! (And 99% of it was awesome).
But, the suicide mission had the build up, an entire games worth of build up which is rare in video games, and the level itself hits on all counts, boss fight be damned. And that's the thing, without the rest of the game, this final level probably isn't so great. But it is the best final level in video game history simply because it is the only one that I know of that took an entire game to make special.
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Follow my personal Suicide Mission here.
If you missed my Top 5 Favorite Mass Effect Characters, it is here.
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