A review by caitcoy
Mass Effect: Foundation Volume 2 by Mac Walters, Benjamin Carré, Mathew Clark, Gary Brown
2.0
1.5 stars, rounded up because the Blasto story was pretty entertaining.
I love Mass Effect but this was even more underwhelming than the first volume.
The first story follows Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor as they hunt for Shepherd's body in the Terminus systems. It shows how Jacob gets drawn into the Cerberus organization and is mostly just a meh story about dealing with slavers and other unscrupulous types. Not terrible but not anything that particularly held my attention.
The second story follows Cerberus agents Rasa and Kai Leng as they try to capture Jack, one of the most entertaining biotic characters from the series. Jack felt true to form and this might have been an okay story had it not been for the artwork. Because good God I have no idea how this is the finished product. It looks like the drafting sketches you would make before actually completing the work. The awfulness of the artwork made it hard to pay much attention to the story in all honesty. Then Rasa ends up crossing paths with Thane Krios in a super lame story that had me rolling my eyes at least every other page. I am so tired of Rasa already, these stories just seem to get more and more boring as they have her cross paths with every single Mass Effect crew mate they can think of.
The final story is the only reason that this volume is getting more than one star. Not sure how many people remember hearing the advertisements for Blasto the Hanar Spectre movies in the first game but they were hilarious. This issue follows one of Blasto's missions and is terrible but in all the awesome, cheesy action movie ways. It's full of one liners and ridiculous villains and it was at least way more fun than the other stories.
Bottom line: this volume reminded me of all the reasons that I generally don't read tie-in stories. They're boring and feel like such a marketing ploy. Most of the stories felt like they had no point except to bring up favorite characters for fans to squeal over. Definitely not worth picking up unless you're super desperate for a Mass Effect story.
I love Mass Effect but this was even more underwhelming than the first volume.
The first story follows Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor as they hunt for Shepherd's body in the Terminus systems. It shows how Jacob gets drawn into the Cerberus organization and is mostly just a meh story about dealing with slavers and other unscrupulous types. Not terrible but not anything that particularly held my attention.
The second story follows Cerberus agents Rasa and Kai Leng as they try to capture Jack, one of the most entertaining biotic characters from the series. Jack felt true to form and this might have been an okay story had it not been for the artwork. Because good God I have no idea how this is the finished product. It looks like the drafting sketches you would make before actually completing the work. The awfulness of the artwork made it hard to pay much attention to the story in all honesty. Then Rasa ends up crossing paths with Thane Krios in a super lame story that had me rolling my eyes at least every other page. I am so tired of Rasa already, these stories just seem to get more and more boring as they have her cross paths with every single Mass Effect crew mate they can think of.
The final story is the only reason that this volume is getting more than one star. Not sure how many people remember hearing the advertisements for Blasto the Hanar Spectre movies in the first game but they were hilarious. This issue follows one of Blasto's missions and is terrible but in all the awesome, cheesy action movie ways. It's full of one liners and ridiculous villains and it was at least way more fun than the other stories.
Bottom line: this volume reminded me of all the reasons that I generally don't read tie-in stories. They're boring and feel like such a marketing ploy. Most of the stories felt like they had no point except to bring up favorite characters for fans to squeal over. Definitely not worth picking up unless you're super desperate for a Mass Effect story.