Mass Effect

[prisoner_24601]

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.

Comments

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

Haven't played it yet and I had to skim read because I wanted to comment on some stuff, expectations and things. I'm trying to avoid any more spoilers than what I already know, (Boom! Headshot!) though I suspect it will all be stuff I've seen before, again.

I'm oddly looking forward to seeing if I'm going to hate the game mechanics or not. They look a bit of a mix up between action and pseudo turn-based combat. I think I might be bored by it, but I thought that about Jade Empire and adored the simplistic joy of beating the crap out of things with a character I liked.

Your fem!shep is oddly reminiscent of your really interesting fem!Revan whose name I have completely forgotten (Min.. something? I fail, I know), but I think that's interesting since, presumably, there's more options than different head swapping (though the grease face thing is annoying from the screen shots I've seen, but I love that everyone seems to be making dark skinned ladies). Male!shep looks like Daniel Craig became a white supremacist and took up steroids and being hit with an ugly stick. I hope the facial expressions are better in game than what I see here, because they look like they are thinking about doing laundry.

I really like what I've heard from Hale's voice work (I think she tends to not use her full range in things, which is why I have trouble liking her work sometimes), but I wish they had used a new voice actor for the Kaiden guy. Not another one that's in stuff all the time (Cam Clarke, Grey De Lisle), or a mimic of someone who's a better voice actor (I always though that B. J. Ward was trying to be both Lisle and Hale and inferior to both) but some new voice we hadn't all heard before.

Actually what I really want is proper male love interest character voiced by Louis Mellis who doesn't want to just slay the main character (yes I know Sion's motivation is more complex than that, I just love that voice).

I did buy the game yesterday, which isn't what I originally planned to do.I was going to hold out until I could be sure there was a sure-fire way of removing that version of Securom, or dummying it, without damaging the game or my system (if that ever happens). But there's so few copies in the stores in the UK (at least in my city), partly because it's a direct PC port of a successful console title, mostly because it's a bit nerdy compared to the casual games the ds and the wii that are the biggest commercial game platforms right now, but also because of the bad press with copy protection. I decided I'd buy it now (and I had a big discount to use up on a reward card) and not install it.

That way I don't mind taking the aaaargh path because I did buy the game. If it was any other company I wouldn't care at all (I recently flashed my ps2 to make it do my bidding entirely, instead of half-way), so it's only a question of my own peace of mind. And the way I'm feeling right now, I think my peace of mind is more important than not very much money. And now I've got it, I can't wait to *get* it, if that makes sense.

I didn't mean for that to be so long or turn into my thoughts on yaoi copy protection, sorry about that, Pris.

[singblueeyes.livejournal.com]

I've managed to avoid reading any horrific woobie!Fem!Shep's so far, but I've got an itchy backbuttonfinger, that leaps into action the moment I smell Mass Effect fluffs. I've written a couple of small pieces, but so far, I think this http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4213483/1/Iunctio is the best of the best - even if her Shep is a paragon's paragon.
I'm actually quite fond of my Male!Shep. http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o288/Uilleand/Mass%20effect/Jamesside.jpg But...I actually think he looks a bit like my dad when he was younger. (Yeah, my dad *is* that cool heheheh)

Where does the soundtrack fit in your awesome/not so awesome scale? And Joker?? (He *makes* the hanging up on the council worth it...every time. "Aaaa..nd we're out..." *snerk*)

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

I loved Jennifer Hale in this, and I loved the way the writing and voice acting combined to give a consistent personality no matter which choices you made. I am currently playing with my charm maxed out, and am way too amused that most of the "sweet-talk" choices still boil down to "Yes, but I do have a bigger gun than you do, and we'll all be much happier if I don't need to shoot it. Right? Right."

Also, this (http://casirafics.livejournal.com/511273.html) fic made me happy - next to no Shepard focus, which can be a very, very good thing when you're determined to dodge woobified PCs. Reminds me a bit of athenaprime's writing in its focus on the relationships between secondary characters.

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.

It's annoying as hell, but I can usually keep myself amused by picturing the victimsNPCs clinging for dear life to the oh-shit handles and trying to figure out ways to keep Shepard from driving next time. (...also, I have an unholy fondness for trying to bounce the Mako on its nose.)

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?

I really, really like the voice, and that's probably part of it. (Note: not a fangirl.) I think the appeal is that of all the cast, he seems to be the only one who changes as a result of knowing you...much as I like Kaiden's settled adult-ness, I think there's a little more emotional pull in a character whom you can influence. It's a fine line to walk between "needy" and "independent", but I think that's part of the Garrus appeal. (That, and the slight feline vibe which is a lot of fun.)

[witchzenka.livejournal.com]

You don't have to suck at driving vehicles in games to hate the Mako. It was clumsy and counterintuitive. The controls were not responsive enough.
I just really liked the cannon.
I usually let my son run the Mako. He loved it, and I love listening to him say things like "You want a piece a me, sissy old lady?"

[rimwalker.livejournal.com]

Ashley isn't any better when playing as a guy. The redeeming elements to her character were made too subtle and almost exclusively in "throw away" bits and they made obnoxious bits the only up-front things about her. She had potential to be a FUN character but they really dropped the ball when they over did it in trying to make her sound like a hardened soldier chick and just made her sound like a stupid poser.

Kaiden was cool in that he was pretty laid back. But every now and then they made him say something that screamed "HEY LOL I AM THE LADY ROMANCE INTEREST." I would have preferred another VA too. Someone younger sounding to match the face.

Let's not get started on Liara, shall we? (Or the asari in general. As soon as they introduced us to Liara's mom with a close-up of ONLY HER BOOBS, I knew we were in for a hilarious adventure.)

Bioware romances are starting to become parodies of themselves. They need to just focus on good, old-fashioned character development.

And wtf is the thing how simply having conversations is enough to "romance" someone. It should be a separate dialog tree or require some additional work other than just going, "Hi."

Were you on the Xbox? Combat and Mako driving is pretty simple on the PC.

Also, Lance Henriksen as Admiral Hackett will never stop being awesome for me. You know Hackett looks just like him too. I nearly pissed myself in glee every time I got another message from him.

Also, since YOU SUCK... Here is a link to the post where I linked to a close-up of my (so far only) Shep:
http://rimwalker.livejournal.com/314440.html
And another cap of LOLs:
http://rimwalker.livejournal.com/315144.html

[siujerkjai.livejournal.com]

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.

omg, there is some out there and it makes me want to punch a wall in a Shepard-ish way.

Thus far I have felt little desire to write ME fanfic. Unlike KotOR 2, after which I started writing fanfic, I think ME has a strong enough and tight enough storyline and universe that I don't feel the need to fill in the gaps so much. I'm content to sit back and be lazy and let BioWare do it for me with the sequels.

And so much of the fanfic is Shep/Garrus. Which I am totally in the same boat as you with the Huh?

[danel4d.livejournal.com]

On my first play through, I quite liked Ashley and didn't really get to know Kaiden - it doesn't help that he's so quiet, I had to turn up the volume whenever I wanted to talk to him. It helped that my first playthrough was as a guy - while the male!Shepard voice isn't bad, it's simply not as good as the female one, so playing it first meant I didn't know this. But yeah - while Ashley is kind of prickly, she does have reasons for being like that, just as Kaiden has reasons for his issues, and both of them are old enough that you don't know to work through them - you just get to find out about them.

As regards the character creating - I had a forum post once that gave advice on making characters, and mine don't look half as bad anymore.

But yeah, I agree absolutely about the Mako being dull, and the sidequests repetitive as hell. Some of them are actually reasonably atmospheric, while others tie into your character's backstory - but they're let down by the tiny number of maps and the fact that they're almost all the same. The best way to do is to really try to break them up - do as many of you can stand before you do another story mission, repeat. It's how I got through my second play through.

[plutospawn.livejournal.com]

Ashley's not better as a dude. She talks to you like you're a moron and any redeeming qualities are explained by her and most probably in her head. I told you that you were going to hate her.

Garrus felt too much like a "yes" man for me to see the fascination with his character. I love me some Wrex, though. I have a soft spot for murderous bastards. He's up there with the Black Whirlwind.

I wrote a couple shorts for ME, but they were just quick musings where I would've quickly backed myself into a corner had I continued them. Ullie has a couple really good ones and I've heard strangers on the internet rave over Who is Cagulia, though I haven't looked at her stuff yet. The interesting trend I've noticed is that if they're not Garrus/Shepard romances, most of the time they're just set in the universe with all new characters. I think maybe the story was too tight for much interpretation unlike messes like TSL.

[rose70.livejournal.com]

I would post my Shepherd pics, but I played the XBox version. However, I have a webcam in my laptop, so I may be able to, and probably will, because I am a big dork, lol. Her name was Lily Shepherd, and I kind of tried to play her almost like a female Carth; she was Paragon, but not to the point where she was giving away all her money or going out of her way to help people or not killing people who obviously deserved it.

Being one of the people who wished you could romance Garrus in game, I can't really explain it. I think I just wanted anyone other than Kaidan and Liara, and Garrus was the next coolest dude. You can read all my thoughts on Mass Effect here (http://meraviglia.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/mass-effect/), here (http://meraviglia.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/girl-gamers-and-more-mass-effect-teeny-spoilers/), and here (http://meraviglia.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/final-thoughts-on-mass-effect-no-spoilers/), but basically I loved the overall plot and the universe. I really didn't like the repetition of the side quests, the poor character development/side-quests, and I didn't like the romance. I just couldn't get over Sbarge's voice, among other things.

Kos was interested in a Mass Effect RP, so I wonder what you guys' feelings are on that? :)

[athenaprime.livejournal.com]

Wow, he looks melty. In an inbred, rednecky sorta way.

Here's Athena Sheppard (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v679/athenaprime/?action=view&current=IMG_1158.jpg)

I went with darker skin, too--it looked to me like a Shep with darker skin looked less like she got hit too many times with the "run over by a double-wide" stick. But I put her in the Cosmic Bun hair because it looked least like a bunch of cardboard chunks. And I love her eyes. I must admit that I lucked out on awesoming the eyes.

Absolutely agree with you about Jen Hale's voice. She did an awesome job and made Shep really likeable. The guy who did MShep's voice did okay, I guess--listening to him, I thought he was playing things in this sort of dry, understated deadpan style.

The only quibble I have is that she very firmly established Sheppard on the hardass end of the spectrum, even with Paragon choices. Not that there was much in-game opportunity for it, but all my fic gizka center around a femshep who's actually a bit of a femme-fatale, diplomat, and PR-face person (who's waaay the hell out of her element and has to learn fast).

In the same vein, it took me some concentrating to see Kaidan as more than Not-Carth. Especially in the beginning when he says, "Smells like smoke and death here" - it just seems like such a Carth-emo thing to say. And then my six-year-old started saying, "It smells like beans and weenies here" and the Carth-ness sorta went away. :P And, more into the storyline, he does develop his own personality that's distinct from Carth's.

Ashley--I like her side-stories a lot better than her main stuff. Actually, what I liked best was hearing her little non-sequiturs on the different main places ("Nobody lick any poles." on Noveria. Next to Kaidan's "extranet fetish site...What?" line that made me LUL)

As for Garrus - I can't help but like the guy. It's the bird-alien-d00d thing, the voice, and the subtle changes your PC can engender in him. The turian culture is fascinating to think about, too. And while I liked Kaidan well enough, I had a hard time getting past the fact that I was supposed to be his commanding officer. It lent the romance a distinctly skeevy undertone to it. And while I went with the whole "bunk here tonight" thing just to get the cutscene, if I were pressed, I'd have just shunted it to the side and said, "get yourself assigned to some other ship first, soldier." Even though there were solid story elements that made that little fraternization problem go away.

Great game

[nivenus.livejournal.com]

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 :(.

[midnight-hawk.livejournal.com]

Oh Pris, I wonder if you found that the "canon" surname made it harder to find good names for the player character? I feel like everyone who is not very good at creating new names is going have Jacks and Vondas. Is there a name generator and does it have more options than Kotors, because that one didn't have enough options for people who can't create their own names (which I don't think is applicable to either you or me, but I remember how many people had Revan characters with similar fake names.