prisoner_24601 | Mass Effect

It took me awhile because I had to play in smallish chunks of time, but I finally managed to finish Mass Effect.

Mass Effect spoilers below.

This Shepard is a Vanguard/Earthborn/Sole Survivor who ended up being about 55% Paragon/45% Renegade after she sacrificed the Council, talked Saren into blowing himself away and installing her former boss as head of the new galactic council. I ended up choosing the darkest skintone because I didn't want to get the melty face effect that

plutospawn talked about. Plus I just find the darker skintones in this game to be a lot prettier than the pasty light ones. I think a lot of that probably comes from me not really getting the knack of customizing the faces. Still, I was pretty happy with the way she turned out - except for the hair which ended up driving me batshit crazy by the end (more on that later).

I thought this game, while having some irritating design issues, kicked a lot of ass.

The awesome:

1. Paragon/Renagade system.

I thought this was a great way to make a distinction between two types of play. It's a lot more complicated than just good/evil, lightside/darkside. Sure a lot of the renegade options are the "asshole" options, but there are several occasions where arguably the morally right thing to do is to choose the renegade choice, which usually offered a sure thing, instead of taking a huge risk and choosing the paragon choice. Letting the Council die in order to focus on killing the big bad is a good example of this.

Personally, I would have liked to see this carried a bit further to the point of some of the paragon or renegade choices ending up biting Shepard in the ass such as letting the council live, only to almost lose the game because you didn't have enough firepower to take out the giant alien. There were no real consequences for choosing a paragon or renegade choice and that sometimes cheapened the choices made. Still, most of the time their system worked - and hey - at least they got out of the black and white world view that's in most of these types of games.

2. Jennifer Hale's voice acting.

Her fem!Shep voice just rocked. She was so good, in fact, that I'm having a hard time playing a male!Shep game because the voice actor just sounds horribly wooden in comparison. She also gives Shepard so much personality that I think I'm going to have a hard time reading most fanfic. I can already feel myself cringing at the idea of reading a super sweet, super good, super caring Shepard who talks ad nauseum to Kaiden/Garrus about their relationship. I can already hear the cry of "Shepard is who you make her to be, so shut up, Pris" but I can't agree. Unlike Revan in Kotor, I think the voice acting here and dialogue choices really give Shepard a distinct (hard ass) personality and while I think there'd definitely be some room for interpretation, I don't think there'd be tons - which means I'd probably better stay far, far away from mass effect fandom.

3. Kaiden

I wish they would have chosen someone other than Sbarge to voice Kaiden in a way because it was it was really distracting in the beginning. Still, even though he shares a lot of Carth traits, he's different enough to be interesting in his own right. This is probably a sign of my age, but it's nice to see a romance lead where you don't have to fix their emotional issues because he's grown up enough to do it himself. Out of all the bioware romance options in their games, Kaiden is the only one I'd even emotionally healthy enough to consider hanging with in real life. Plus I found the dialogue options between hard ass fem!Shep and Kaiden to be really entertaining. I have to say that I like him as much as Carth.

4. Hanging up on the council.

This never got old. Never. It's goofy of me, I know, but I thought that hanging up on the Council was one of the best parts of the game.

5. The plot.

I thought the main plot itself, while certainly not original, was well thought out. They took the idea of one person being responsible for the safety of the entire universe almost to it's logical extreme by writing in difficult grey choices for the player to make. I also liked that while the player was another version of "the chosen one" I got more of the sense that it was Shepard's choice, and not fate, circumstances, higher powers or the force thrusting this unwilling person into a position of power (like all of the other bioware games). Shepard seems to be the proactive sort that would choose to do this job, instead of just being anointed against her will. Overall, it was definitely entertaining enough for me to be excited to see the sequels.

The not so awesome:

1. Ashley.

Honestly, I couldn't stand this character. I think she was supposed to come across as a strong female, but really, she's a xenophobic prude who just irritated the crap out of me (I think I my annoyance with her crystallized the minute we walked into the strip club), especially when compared to the awesome job they did with fem!Shep's personality. This ended up being a problem when it came to the part where you have to decide between saving her and Kaiden, because honestly that wasn't even remotely difficult. It didn't have the emotional resonance that I think it was supposed to have (I felt a lot worse in Kotor when Bastila stays behind to fight Malak - even back when I didn't like Bastila). I'm wondering if she improves if you play a guy. Bioware seems to spend so much time on the romances that it seems like they fall short sometimes on creating same sex friendships between the pc and the romance leads.

2. Mako

I suck at driving vehicles in games. Seriously. I find it extremely frustrating to drive even in a straight line, so I was pretty dismayed to discover how often you needed to drive the damn thing.

3. Repetitive, boring side quests.

First of all, they really need to have more than one layout for a base, mines, abandoned ship, etc because holy crap it's irritating. Second, they should have cut the number of these quests by two thirds and focused on making the ones that they kept interesting and distinct. As it was, I ended up skipping a bunch of them because I got so bored. Third, they should have put more thought into the Garrus and Wrex sidequests which when compared to the ones in Kotor, fall horribly short.

4. Male Shepard faces.

Holy crap is it difficult to make an attractive or cool looking male!Shep face. I know I'm not the greatest at that kind of artistic stuff, but still. It seemed like the fem!Shep got the better end of that deal.

5. Shepard's hair.

What the hell was with the hair choices for both genders? Seriously? I thought they all sucked. On the males, I gave up and made my Shep bald. On the fem!Shep I went for the bob, but still, that irritated the crap out of me after about an hour. They need to come up with better choices. They also need to make it so that you can change the pc's hair mid game if you get sick of it.

As a side note, one thing I really don't get is the Garrus fangirling. Hey, I like the guy. I thought he was cool. I really don't get the fangirling that seems to be happening over him though (especially wanting him to be a romance option). I'm guessing it's because he has a cool voice?

Next up... Ivan Shepard, Infiltrator/Colonist/Ruthless:

I have a feeling he's going to be a raging asshole.

Anyway, post pictures of your Shepards (male and female). I've seen some of them but I'm curious to see what other people came up with, and I can't remember where you all posted your Sheps and am too lazy to go looking.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Probably my favorite game of all time as a matter of fact. It's not perfect (nothing is) and the story's a wee bit overrated (I still think both KOTORs have a better story as well as NWN2 and MOTB) but the gameplay more than makes up for it, as do the incredible production values.

I agree that the paragon/renegade system was great though, like you, I saw ways to improve it. I more or less looked at it as the Helo/Cain axis (Helo being the ultimate paragon and Cain the ultimate renegade) and it was a huge improvement over the open palm / closed fist system in JE or even the light side / dark side in KOTOR (though not in TSL... in TSL the dark side options could be a bit more complex than the thug side options in KOTOR 1).

I've only just started my female level (I just beat ME for the second time a few days ago) and I'm not sure whether or not Jennifer Hale's voicing is better than the male actor's. I heard as much but... well, they sound more or less the same to me - just with different... actors. Still, the male actor was good, so that's not a problem. On the downside it's true (though you can see this as a good side) that no matter what you say there's not as much variation in personality for the PC as in previous BioWare-style games.

I actually though all the romanceable characters were well-written and liked Ashley. If anything, I though Liara was a little too passive but I liked her as well. Honestly, I never saw Ashley as a xenophobe - more of a nationalist (or globalist - neohumanist or whatever you want to call it) with an extremely pragmatic view of other species. Truth of the matter is the other species do put their own species above others on a regular basis - as evidenced in the game itself. That doesn't mean they're evil or should die. It's just in their (and our) nature. It's how we overcome that nature that's important and I thought getting into Ashley's backstory and character were interesting.

Then again, as you pointed out, it may have something to do with playing as a guy. BioWare tends to do that I've noticed. But in any case all three romances are greatly improved over JE's, which I found either boring (Sky and Dawn Star) or unattractive (Silk Fox).

But I still think Garrus and Tali are the most interesting characters in your party.

And don't worry about your driving skills... the Mako's a pain in the ass by all accounts.

As for appearance-creation I think you're right in saying you suck at it :P. Honestly, I never found any problem in making a decent-looking guy Shepherd. But then again I exhaustively make my characters, coming up with a backstory and appearance in my head before I even start the creation process. And it often takes me at least five to ten minutes to come up with a name I like (I was greatly relieved not to have to come up with a last name!).

Oh, yes... and the side quests sucked. Well, most of them. There were a few jewels in there. A few. But I at least hope there's a payoff down the line with Cerberus. So many damn quests connected to them that they'd better have a major role in ME2 or I will be thoroughly displeased :(.

"I never saw Ashley as a xenophobe"

Me neither, actually. You hit it on the head, she was just pragmatic and a bit suspicious. She actually has some nice asides that show she wasn't outright prejudiced.

For example, in an elevator, she and Tali had an exchange where Ashley seemed apologetic that many humans back home blame the Quarrians for the Geth attack on Eden Prime and told Tali that having her helping on the mission would help improve feelings about that. She also expresses sympathy for Liara after Benezia dies. There's a potential depth to the character that I think gets lost because of the way they have her come across in cut scenes and the like.

I've also read people calling her some kind of religious fanatic/zealot too which irritates me as it is entirely unfounded and unfair. She says she believes in god because the universe is so big and grand. That's it. That's all she says. Hardly the ravings of a fundamentalist nutjob.

I think the problem was BALANCE and CONSISTENCY. It's possible they tried to have the characters coming in from too many angles. I also have a sneaking suspicion that certain things were written by different people, causing a weird cock-eyed result when it was all put together. They just didn't realize how certain things would come across. (For example Liara's fainting spells were interesting once but just annoying when duplicated a million times afterwards.)

But I am with you though, it is currently one of my favorite games right now. It's not perfect, but it does have really great stuff in it.

I saw Ashley as xenophobic. Not in the sense of, "I hate all aliens and they need to die," but it seemed a subtler, "You can be friends with aliens and work with them, but don't date them or bring them home to Mom" kind of thing. So that way, because she interacts alright with aliens, she feels like she's morally clear, but just replace "aliens" with "black people" or any minority and see how it's kind of... yeah.

I think her biggest poison is that she's a dumbass, coupled with being so stubborn and self-righteous enough to believe she's right when she comes off sounding naive or downright uninformed. Or how she keeps trying to speaking to her Commander like a peer or worse, like she's the Commander without any invite. I kept having to tell her to shut her big mouth and let Mommy handle all the big bad scaries.

You have a point but with the exception of the asari there are no aliens that make a real, logical companion. She doesn't think aliens are inferior morally or otherwise. But she recognizes that they are a different species - and alien.

Mass Effect isn't like Star Wars or Star Trek. The aliens are actually alien. Physically, and mentally. The turians and krogan aren't just different culturally - but psychologically. It's a lot different than black vs. white people.

Actually, I find it amusing that people still make the racism/speciesm connection. Race is almost entirely nonexistant biologically and the genetic differences in different human populations are insignificant. This is not the case with different species, let alone beings from an entirely different gene pool.

I think the reason people still make the connection is that there are still too many bigoted people who think that other races are as "alien" as that, unfortunately. I don't think it's to do with the context of the story so much as the problems that exist in our societies (I haven't played it yet, so this is just a totally stabbing theory, but one that always interests me).

If everyone alive had an accepting and rational attitude about race relations, cultural identity and cosmopolitanism, as the once you are voicing here, then I think it wouldn't be a comparison we make when analysing Sci-fi (but perhaps so much of the stuff wouldn't focus on relationships with aliens then eithe), but I don't know if we will ever get there, xenophobia is just... ingrained in a lot of people. And people will always project their own observations about society onto fictional characters, even if it doesn't always hold true (I'm not calling pluto a bigot for seeing it either, I know why she sees it: I recently quit a job I hated because everyone else in the office didn't understand how racist they were and it hurts to be constantly exposed to people who are ignorant and complete unable to realise how ridiculous they are, still genuinely do think that foreigners are subhuman).

Mass Effect

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