Having my cake and eating it too: The Mass Effect Conundrum

Let's not beat around the bush. I am in love with Mass Effect 2. Frighteningly so. To further hyperbolize, I feel like the rest of 2k10 is going to have a hard time stacking up to the experience that ME2 has given me so far. There is, however, something I've been struggling with. Something that the game is giving me, but I'm really not sure I deserve. I present, for your consideration, The Mass Effect Conundrum!

Anyone who's played the game is well aware of it's morality mechanics. It's hardly a new concept. You have a choice of whether to play the game as a Paragon, or a Renegade, and much of the game can differentiate based upon these choices you make. I'm the type of person who will choose the White Hat, good guy route the first time, every time. Still, no big. Mass Effect 2 has taken the game in a direction I like, where things are in more of a morally gray area. Good people do bad things for misguided reasons, and bad people are the way they are for unfortunate reasons. Things like that. The issue that I wrestle with is that, whereas I like that I've been able to get everything I want out of the game being a pure-hearted Paragon, there's a part of me that wishes that the game would ask me to sacrifice.

A large part of the game hinges upon whether or not you can gain the loyalty of your various crew members. Once gained, these characters unlock special powers and are more likely to survive through the end of the story. Early on in the game, I was asked to make a moral choice which conflicted with my Paragon leanings. I believed that, if I stuck to my guns, that I would lose the loyalty of this character. I saw things through, as a Paragon, and realized that I could gain this characters loyalty by disregarding his wishes and, basically, guilting the character into being loyal to me. This is good for me, for greedy reasons. I got what I wanted and didn't have to compromise my morals.

Since then, the part of me that loves Mass Effect for it's closer-to-life morality has been wrestling with this. Should this be okay? Would my experience have been more memorable if I'd had to choose between compromising my morals to ensure the safety of a crew member, or stay true to myself but allow this character to potentially expire? I put this question to the great leagues of people who don't read what I write and ask you, can you solve the Mass Effect Conundrum?!