My brother, Lance, is a fan of the Mass Effect series, so he's doing some guest posting for me (also, I'm struggling a tiny bit to say something interesting about the games I've been playing, so his timing is perfect). This first post is a reminder about what makes the Mass Effect games awesome, which is sometimes easy to lose sight of. His post:
Now that Mass Effect 3
has finally come out and the outrage over its ending has subsided a
little, this is an excellent time to reflect on what a great game series
it has been and why. While Mass Effect has many elements of gameplay
that attract a wide and varied audience, I believe the greatest strength
of the Mass Effect series is that it captures the epic feel and
prepared script of a movie while still giving the player a relatively
wide range of narrative power and control over the events in the series.
I have been a fan of the
series since I played the first game, and what really grabbed me about
it is the story-centered nature of it and the narrative power it gives
to the player. Shepard shoots aliens, there's no way around that, but
you get to decide when, where, and how he does so. You get to decide
what he looks like, who he's attracted to, and whether or not he's
actually a she. This level of narrative power is not completely
unprecedented, but it is rare in visual media. What's even more rare is
that Shepard's lines are fully voice-acted, despite the fact that you
get to choose what he says. You get to decide whether certain characters
in the game live or die, even including some of your own team members.
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| Commander Shepard (center) prepares to enter Dantius Towers with Grunt (right) and some incredibly boring human male soldier (left). |
One of the big strengths
of this series is that we all ended up caring about most of these
characters. All right, so I didn't think much about Kaidan Alenko from
the first game or Jacob from the second. But then I got to chat with
Tali and Wrex, hear Mordin sing, spar with James, and flirt like Captain
Kirk. I cared about a lot of these characters, and I was emotionally
invested in their well-being... even though I didn't do anything to
think them up or bring them about! This gave the player a sense of
really being a part of the game, even if you're just the angel and devil
on Shepard's shoulders, telling him what to do. Once you're done
talking to your crew members, you get to explore the world around you
and the game even awards you with experience points and credits for
doing so.
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| Even if he doesn't say so in game, the mercenary on the right definitely thanks you for playing Paragon. |
Mass Effect crafted a
detailed, unique, and interesting game world. Like Star Wars and Star
Trek, Mass Effect includes many pages of details on the planets in its
galaxy, the creatures that live in it, and the technologies that have
been discovered by its peoples. While some of the races and creatures
strain believability and other seem to lack depth, they are consistent
much more often than not, and I forsee the Mass Effect universe will
have plenty of spin-off merchandise. When you enter, you feel that there
is still much more to see in this universe than has yet been seen, and
that Shepard's journeys are but the tip of the iceberg. And when you
feel you've reached the limit of your desire to explore, there's plenty
of alien bad guys to blow up in creative ways.
There are lots of games
in which you get to shoot monstrous creatures or save the world. Plenty
in which you save humanity, the galaxy, or even the multiverse. None of
that is new or particularly innovative. Some of these have rich and well
thought-out worlds in which to play, although many don't. Some of these
have reasonably well-written dialogue, and some of them have
challenging yet engaging gameplay. Very, very few games have player
choices that actually alter the flow of the game, or the story events.
Most of the time, the player character's actions are effectively
determined ahead of time by the game's writers and the game progresses
along the only path they provide (and when you don't make progress on
that line, you have to load an old game). In some of these games, that's
not such a bad thing, but every now and then it's good to have
something different. When Bioware made Mass Effect, they were prepared
to write some lines, record some dialogue, and craft some missions that
you, the player, would never see. And that means you have power, if only
a little.
In most games, if the
developers make something, they expect you to experience it. You
progress through the levels at a predetermined order, and often through a
predetermined path. This isn't bad or wrong, but it takes all the power
out of the hands of the player, and tells the player that his or her
decisions are completely irrelevant to the game itself. A few games
break out of this mold completely, and all of these (that I know of)
have been recognized as great in some way or another. Star Control 2,
Deus Ex, and now Mass Effect all give you the sense that you are
stepping into a very real and very large world, and that your actions
will have consequences, sometimes far-reaching consequences you can't
predict. This was an exhilirating experience for me in all three cases,
and all three of these games occupy a very special place in my heart.
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| This is a loading screen from Mass Effect, cleverly disguised as an elevator. Some of these loading screens would actually give you missions that showed up on your journal via the news. |
Personally, I believe
that this is the future of computer games, and it is how these games
will identify themselves as a unique medium with very special
advantages. Games like Mass Effect could be made into movies or
television shows, but the experience would be completely different. I
believe no medium yet discovered can possibly capture the Mass Effect
experience not because of its immersiveness, its rich characters or
background, or even because of its action. The reason Mass Effect cannot
be perfect duplicated elsewhere is because of its interactivity and
player power.
