Just thought I'd try out a little German for you, by way of apologising for the lack of a blog last week. Since the previous post was several days late, I felt there wasn't enough time to compile a decent enough post, and so chose to wait until this week's update. I hope you feel it was worth the wait!
You may know I'm quite an avid video-game enthusiast, and recently a game came out which I was extremely excited for and have thoroughly enjoyed playing (yes, it's going to be a somewhat geeky post, embrace your interests people!), and that game is Mass Effect 3. Anyone who knows anything about this series will probably have heard the controversy over the ending, and don't worry, I'll get to that.
First, however, I'd like to talk about everything else, because despite this (albeit quite important) flaw in the ending, the game itself is fantastic. Those of you not video-game-oriented please bear with me, there is a somewhat tenuous link to the literary somewhere down the line...
A quick round up for anyone who has never played a Mass Effect game; the series is set in a future universe where humanity has mastered faster than light travel and encountered several other races, by way of the mass effect. This is the idea of lowering or raising an object's mass, allowing every science fiction trope from faster than light travel to artificial gravity. An elegantly simple and clever solution that more than once has had me hoping for it's discovery in real life... (a man can dream of the stars, right?) The premise of the trilogy is that a race of malevolent beings known as the Reapers are attempting to wipe out all life, and only you can stop them. Boiled down to it's very elements it may seem simple and unoriginal, but the originality and beauty come in the form of the masterful storytelling, making you genuinely care about its universe's inhabitants.
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| Wikimedia |
Turns out space is pretty empty.
But down to the nitty-gritty of Mass Effect 3 itself. One thing that stands out in particular, especially from other games, is the combat system. While the series has always been somewhat action-oriented, in the first combat tended to feel like something you needed to do in order to continue with the game, rather than an integral part of it. The second game vastly improved on this, making tactics and fast reactions a necessary part of combat, and allowing the use of cover to not only make it fun but also feel like you're not just pushing a load of random buttons. This instalment improves once again, further diversifying combat roles, and the seemingly small but very important addition of letting you roll around, which very much helps when trying to avoid all those nasty space monsters trying to turn your head into an alien cupcake.
My one gripe with the system is that it feels a bit awkward trying to take cover, since the controls for this and rolling are the same, meaning often I'll find myself being shot to death because I rolled instead of ducking for cover. But that might just be me being my usual military tactician self.
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| MEFAN8 (Mass Effect Wiki) |
What Cheryl Cole really looks like at 7am.
Now, for that tenuous literary link I promised...one of the things that makes the Mass Effect series so fantastic and has carved it a place in the hearts of sci-fi gamers is it's storytelling. (Totally worth it, right bookworms?) The team behind creating the universe and story have done a fantastic job; there is an incredible amount of detail behind the various characters, planets and civilizations, right down to detailed descriptions of minerals on a given planet, or some history and culture of a race of space-squids. Furthermore, the characters are well fleshed out and players are drawn to care about the fates of their pixelated patriots, especially given that a large element of gameplay is the idea of choice. Often you must make choices that range from dialogue choices that affect someone's reaction to deciding whether or not an entire race survives a planetary genocide.
You feel like what you decide actually makes a difference to the universe, causing you to genuinely feel a part of it. This is present in games 1 and 2, but is most prevalent in this final episode. The choices you made in the first game often affected whether certain characters would be present in the second, and so on. However, in this game, the choices made from both games affect the events in this one far more; while the core storyline is essentially unchangeable, the way you proceed along it and who you bring along with you depends very much on your choices, making you genuinely think hard about whether to save the one captain or a whole squad of lizard people.
Again, that said, my main complaint is that this game is (however understandably) far too linear, featuring mostly storyline missions that progress from one to the next, with a few sidequests involving killing a few extra baddies along the way - unlike Mass Effect 2, which featured a very non-linear form of progression.
Which leads me to my final point, and why I was so disappointed with the ending. So much of this game and series relies on build-up. The first two build up forcefully to this climactic game, and then the whole of this game is one massive build-up to the final encounter and universe-saving moment, which right up until the moment itself is amazing and I found my eyes quite literally glued to my TV. Seriously, I think I damaged them I was that excited.
Without spoiling the plot, you basically get given a choice, which has nothing to do with your actions up to this point. Now that choice itself is extremely difficult, and this I have no problem with. I like the idea and it goes with the feeling of the rest of the game; there is no "pure good" or "pure evil" choice, you actually have to think. However, what disappointed me is that the consequences of said choice were in absolutely no way affected by your actions up to this point, leaving you to wonder as to what the entire point of making any choices whatsoever was. You're given no clue as to what happens to most of the characters, so it feels like it doesn't matter who you sacrificed along the way, whoever is left ultimately has the same fate anyway.
Perhaps our expectations were too high, perhaps it was too much build-up; there are technical limitations, of course, and maybe BioWare could never create an ending that would satisfy everyone or take into account every single choice. But since the series is so detailed and built so inherently on choice, it baffles me as to how they could be so lazy in the ending.
However, all in all, the last five or ten minutes aside, everything else up to that point is phenomenal, and I tip my metaphorical space-helmet to the game's creators. Despite my rant, I enjoyed every minute of making that poor blue alien fall in love with this grizzled soldier. Before I go, I'll leave you with a little something about the next blog...
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| Wikimedia |
"What's 'taters, eh?"
What's that?! Potatoes?! Could it be...?
~ Toby
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