Mass Effect 2: The Banality of Evil, Part 1

With the past weighing down Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 2, BioWare makes another significant change to the universe in the game: it puts good and evil under debate and encourages the player to be the hero who rids the galaxy of the Collectors while also pushing him to act more like a scumbag than ever before.

Consider the actions needed to ensure the loyalty of the party set to follow you on the so-called “suicidal missions” that Shepard is set to take on. All involve killing pretty big amounts of space denizens, most of them gang members, so that is in part justifiable.

But to make sure that a certain Cerberus representative follows the player till death, one has to actually protect a kidnapper and undergo significant effort to relocate the victim to a place where their family cannot find them in any way. The game narrative offers a framework of understanding for the actions themselves but it's still going against the instinct of most gamers and the laws of the established in-game universe. It's an awful act needed to stave off an even more awful occurrence.

There's also the settling of accounts between a long time space mercenary and his business partner, who at one point during their relationship actually shot the party member in the head. This mission is straight up revenge and seems not to touch on any sensitive moral points but a choice is needed between the loyalty of one man and the safety of many. The missions asks the player to choose the man.

Not to talk about the whole mess built around Mordin Solus, the early encountered Salarian who was linked to the genophage and must wrestle with a huge number of issues related to what it means to artificially reduce the fertility of an entire race and then work hard to actually keep it at about one in a hundred to limit the chances that the Krogan will actually overrun the galaxy. Solus must actually confront himself and his own regrets in his loyalty quest in a manner thought provoking for both the character and the player engaged in Mass Effect 2.