For the second game of Christmas my true blog gave to me… well, you’ll have to click on to find out.
It’s Mass Effect!
I never got on with the downloadable content for Mass Effect. For a storywhore like me, Mass Effect gave me both a large, established history to investigate, and within it, something self-contained with a beginning, middle and end. While the universe was left with vast, unanswered questions, for Shepherd and her gang there was closure. My cast of characters had achieved their goals, and it was time for a slap-up tea and high fives all round. Why on Earth would I want to go back in time – with them in particular – and delay their success?
The combat was an interesting departure for Bioware, almost getting into a third-person action place, which of course gave me cause to worry it wouldn’t be delivering what I want from their RPGs: big old conversations with my companions, and on-the-spot ethical dilemmas. But of course they were there in force. (And often as daft as usual). And I came to quite enjoy the fights, and most of all, bouncing around planets in that spacecar.
So while you were always pursuing rogue Spectre, Saren Arterius, and attempting to fathom the mystery of the Geth, the real story was one that had happened in the past. An elaborate recent history of the colonisation of space, and the Human’s latter involvement, as well as a far greater story that’s only hinted at throughout, about the very nature of conscious existence in the galaxies. These levels of magnification mean that Shepherd’s story, while of course vital the continued survival of almost every species, seems almost quite minor. But it’s still your story, and I think the role you play only feels more meaningful for its being set within the larger framework.
The scale allows a sense of tragedy to permeate throughout, and never more so than when you discover the Prothean’s underground preservation chambers, intended to save them from the Reaper attacks. But of course all that remains is an AI, long ago having had to turn off the cryogenics to keep itself running. Death is everywhere, and has been happening for an awfully long time. It offers perspective.
If there was one aspect I’d like to have seen explored more – and in fairness, it was explored quite a lot – it would be Humanity’s fledgling role in the universe. Obviously we join the story after the most momentous events, when Humans discovered Mass Effect capabilities and learned they were not alone in the universe. This is such an interesting time as Humans shift from top predator to bottom of the pile, and the game prods at it, most notably with the pursuit of a seat on the Council, but I’d love to have seen it take it further. Human arrogance is talked about, and as a species they’re already not liked by other “minor” races for even being considered for a Council position so soon. But I’d have liked to feel the effects of this a bit more. See what consequences it had had on Earth’s politics, what extremist fractions had occurred (beyond experiencing racism), whether it had dramatically affected the Human psyche.
I’d love to play a prequel set during the earlier times of transition. In fact, if Bioware want to give me a job I’ve got a few pitches… But in the meantime, Mass Effect was a real highlight of 2008 for me. I think Shepherd’s specific tale perhaps felt slightly trivial (despite the implied impact) within such a fascinating context, and perhaps this was in part because of its non-linear paths and side-quests, which let me muddy the story as it progressed. It became hard to differentiate clearing out a bunker on a remote planet for the sake of finding some ancient runes, or doing the same for the sake of the main plot. But I’m left with memories of a rich story, and the part I played in it. I remember Shepherd and her relationships. I remember saving the universe.
Kieron: John’s pretty much nailed the appeal of Mass Effect really. In fact, more than anything else, it’s Mass Effect which allows me to stay hopeful for Dragon Age despite its somewhat iffy I-am-in-armour-i-am-the-armour-man-+3 aesthetics. Mass Effect felt like a lived in, well designed and relatively novel Science Fiction universe. Most videogame fictions don’t really have the sense they could support anything other than random shooting of other characters. Mass Effect did. I have no idea what the Mass Effect novels are like, but there’s no reason why they won’t be good. I’m actually surprised there isn’t a tie in comic – and I dare say there will be when the second part comes out. And it’s one of the games that’s been licensed for film which abstractly could work.
(Er… that “It will be a comic” isn’t me pitching for work, by the way.)
Related Stories:
Someone mentioned Herbert, and Mr. Walker mentioned wanting to see more about the impact of the Mass Effect discovery on humanity so this probably isn’t too random but:
SPACE TRAVEL!
Where is my damn post-space travel religious weirdness! Did everyone but the wibbly goon-skin jellyfish men become comfortably atheist? I seem to recall Gun Chick was religious but she just seemed sort of dull and non-denominational to me. A lost opportunity I think.
Also (I am not afraid to admit it!) I wanted more interstellar banking nonsense. That’s banking.
I wanted more banking and also sex. No one would have sex with me!
I think the thing that bugged me worst about Mass Effect were the party members. None of them were *awful*, but Bioware has previously had an excellent history of deep involvement of the party in your story as well as irrelevant side conversations. This one had several party members (Tali!) who were essentially an info mine on their particular race and never had that much else to do with them. There were all of two companion sidequests, no more interesting or important than the others. Hardly any people whom you could converse with on the ship ever had new dialogue after events except for the couple of love interests.
I guess there were a few transitory elevator conversations, but since you can skip most elevator rides with Citadel fast transit, (and were better off doing so) that wasn’t a satisfactory solution.
Other than that and the woefully bland side planets, it was pretty awesome.
@eyemessiah:
And in the game?
Surely I wasn’t the only one who would form party’s purely for the elevator conversations? I’d go up and down several times, switch out, repeat.. it was great. Even alien elevator music sucks (=
Loved Mass Effect. The flaws imho were very minor, and easily addressed in the sequel. But it wouldn’t be the internet if people didn’t harp constantly on the negative, however trivial.
What game?
EDIT: Equally it wouldn’t be the internet if other people didn’t constantly trivialise other people’s displeasure.
Mass Effect was/is a great game. The universe it built and depicted had so much depth and possibilities. You can see that most of the criticisms here are that everyone wanted more, which must surely be a good sign.
It’s not been mentioned but it has to be one of the best console ports done so far (if ever). The PC version was way better. Something Ubisoft, Rockstar, and even Valve have not been able to do this year.
Plus anyone that played as a girl is a big bufty!
The plot was EPIC, with strong undercurrents of tragedy on more than one level. The bit where you need to choose between the two- my, I wavered before deciding long enough for both of them to die.
SPOILERS
The final race to the conduit on the Prothean world was ethereal, especially with that floaty music (the menu music) and the podfarms with long dead Protheans. The Prothean AI infodumping me with Reaper history was great denouement, if a bit cliche.
Also, was I the only one surprised (as in, jumped out of my chair) when I found out the Relay monument on the citadel (that is, the conduit) was functional?
/SPOILERS
Also, great music. The suitably orchestral intro music makes my hair stand on end.
Mass Effect is easily the best Sci-Fi RPG I’ve ever played. (Actually, it’s the only one.)
@Monkeybreadman
I think you’ll find that the Fem-Sheps you can build are much easier on the eye than the Man-Sheps, but your mileage may vary.
Opposing Force was RUBBISH. Completely destroyed the soldiers as credible antagonists, added new aliens for no reason whatsoever and even went and blew up Black Mesa denying us the possibility of return in future sequels! Blue Shift was better.
Oh, Mass Effect? Still haven’t played it.
Though I agree that Mass Effect is long way from hard sci-fi, what with your ship’s engine fuelled by magic stuff, and that the Reapers were almost a cut and paste of B5’s Shadows, for me the strongest element of the story was the sense of military command.
You took decisions not based on who had killed your father or because you had lost your memories and only the widespread murder of rats and bandits can bring them back; rather you took decisions based on military expedency which was why the political angle worked so well. Also more NPCs should salute me as I pass Goddamit.
The combat was fun – at least if you played as one of up close and personal shocktrooper builds – but the space buggie, for me, was more than a little broken. I did love the fact you could just get out and take down something massive on foot though.
I really liked Mass Effect. Well, apart from the game destroying “infinite-weapon-overheat” bug.
Why wasn’t that fixed in the bloody patch? :(
The voice of Sovereign is up there in my top 5 of game villians. So bassy, it’s like listening to Unicron all over again…:)
The voice of Sovereign is up there in my top 5 of game villians. So bassy, it’s like listening to Unicron all over again… :D
Yes, Sovereign had a great voice, very much like Unicron. Orson Welles’s finest moment IMHO. Also Saren had a great voice too. Him saying “Blow the colony” was probably the moment when I decided to buy the game.
Yes, the infinite overheat bug wiped out much of my progress several times over. And made the un-skippable scripted sequences even more intolerable. Exposition should always be skippable, particularly if the game is taking control away from the player.
I also really liked the way the plot set you up as an autonomous military unit. It felt very enabling. As you say Phil, much better than the usual compulsory backstory;cutscene driven nonsense of “Avenge your father;Save your sister!”. I liked that you could deal with your superiors as you saw fit. I was pretty antagonistic toward the council but felt very much that we were on the same side. It was a nice interplay that couldn’t have functioned had the game not given me at least the illusion of a bit of authority. If I’d just been a grunt following orders, or a father avenger (who is probably just a grunt taking orders from the “plot”) I wouldn’t have given a damn about the relationship between the Earth Fleet, the council and the Spectres.
Opposing Force was RUBBISH. Completely destroyed the soldiers as credible antagonists, added new aliens for no reason whatsoever and even went and blew up Black Mesa denying us the possibility of return in future sequels! Blue Shift was better.
Half-Life’s fiction wasn’t handled with the greatest of care by Gearbox (the male assassins, particularly, were a bad choice), but it’s all tangential to the original plot anyway and shouldn’t get in the way of enjoying a great game. Opposing Force is a fine example of what an expansion pack should be, while Blue Shift is basically a mini Half-Life with no HEV suit.
Commas; look for them and where they are unnecessary.
The amount of ’space’ in a book to potentially explore ideas is massive in comparison to film (by dint of their history, films have been made to be viewed in one sitting, and must unfold in real time; novels face neither problem) so a sci-fi film has little choice but to appeal to different virtues than a sci-fi novel — usually by pressing for ‘texture’ over actual imparted information (since the alternative usually manifests as great big embarrassing infodumps like at the start of the Dune film — a film should be weighting the maximum possible time to showing, rather than telling). We shouldn’t judge a painting harshly for not imparting as much on its subject as, say, a full-length comic book — the form just doesn’t compare in regards to how much narrative it can naturally supply.
I don’t think Dune and BSG are a very natural comparison; BSG is largely a vehicle for parables about life as we know it, while Dune is a book/saga that starts with a broad First World/Middle East/oil = Empire/Arrakis/spice analogy underneath, and then pummels its human/once-human population with endless situations and value-systems that are extremely alien to us, thereby exploring how humanity might behave under massively different conditions. Both are ’soft’ scifi (assault rifles sit alongside warp drives because it doesn’t matter for series purposes; ditto being able to teleport space-freighters by being good at maths), but BSG’s a drama that uses scifi tropes to abstract itself from real life, and Dune’s a work of social ’speculative fiction’. I like both; I wouldn’t say they’re going head to head (although I hope the Cylon God turns out to have been pursuing a Golden Path-style plan!…)
(…When I read the originals, I liked to picture the ‘Butlerian jihad’ as using all senses of that term — ‘jihad’ means a struggle not just against an enemy, but the internal struggle to overcome sin — thus the Butlerian jihad might even have been largely non-violent, more an ideological struggle to wean humanity off of reliance on computers to the point where they became banned and driven from existence. Sure, chuck some war in there, but I think it’s crude to just read ‘Butlerian jihad’ as ‘Terminator-esque war against the machines’. So James Herbert can fuck off!)
…Mass Effect? Unimpressed.
by a strange coincidence, nuts are a good source of the vitamin B5