In 2008 a game called Mass Effect came out. You may have heard about it. Two long years later Craig and Paul decided to play it at the same time by sheer coincidence, this is what they thought. This is completely spoiler full, too.
Craig: It’s strange that we both finished Mass Effect at the same time, 2 whole years after release without some proir arrangement don’t you think?
Paul: Yeah, I appreciate your company – I felt like a proper gaming freak, like someone who’s never seen the Simpsons or something. It’s possible that we are related, on some spiritual or psychic level too.
Craig: I consider it fashionably late.
Paul: Yes, that’s a pretty healthy way to look at it.
Craig: Ok, so what did you think – in broad strokes?
Paul: It was good – I enjoyed its un-RPGness. That’s principally why I wasn’t in a hurry to play it. Not a fan of talky games, I find their pacing a bit frustrating sometimes.
Craig: Let me stop you there, because for me the talkey in Mass effect was by far the most interesting thing about it.
Paul: Exactly – they did it well. It wasn’t text-based, the ‘gut reaction’ options cut down on waffle and made the experience more cinematic – it was a shame in a way that there was so much combat.
Craig: The way they handled dialogue trees was wonderful. I had a few problems with it, but we’ll talk about that later. More to the point, I didn’t think the combat was as bad as people made out. Sure it wasn’t as good as dedicated shooters, but it didn’t offend me either.
Paul: No, I agree – I was bracing myself for something really terrible and it just wasn’t. It was perfectly acceptable. Did you have any problems with the AI team-mates? I found them to be pretty good as well.
Craig: I had no problems really. Sometimes they used powers on enemies that I would have called differently, and they never really used cover, but they didn’t die enough for me to worry about it. Who were your staple followers?
Paul: Ashley and Liara(?) – principally because I was trying to boff Liara, but her abilities were handy too.
Craig: Ashley the racist? Really?
Paul: Maybe I’m just too ready to see the best in people, but I didn’t really pick up on the whole racism/right-wing thing from her.
Craig: At one point she basically asked me to get rid of all the aliens on board.
Paul: She said she didn’t trust them to me, but I told her to chill out – I don’t think I ever got to that conversation.
Craig: It might have been the same one and I over reacted. Anyway, how could you not take Wrex everywhere? You need a burly sociopath on your shoulder always.
Paul: Well, my Shepard was the burly sociopath. I didn’t seem to find that much Korgan armour either. So you picked Wrex, and…?
Craig: That’s fair enough. Yeah I did, he was my favourite character. His default answer to everything is ‘kill them all’ which is something I can get behind.
Paul: Yes, we GD writers are familiar with this that policy of yours. So what happened to Wrex in your story? (spoilers)
Craig: He followed me to the end. It’s a shame he wasn’t romanceable, we were like that *crosses fingers*.
Paul: Was yours a female Shepard?
Craig: Yeah, it’s the best way.
Paul: (Wrex was totally shot to death by Ashley in my story)
Craig: Wait. What?
Paul: Yeah, you know there’s that late-game Geth battle where one of your team has to support that recon squad of aliens whose species I forget – you know, the fey ones. Basically to destroy the research into Krogan reproduction.
Craig: Yes. I see where this is going.
Paul: Well, Wrex was all “No, don’t blow that shit up” and I was all “Calm down Wrex” and Wrex was all “I’m going to shoot you Shepard!” and then Ashley was all blasting Wrex from behind. It was cold and unexpected.
Craig: You never invested in charm/intimidation did you?
Paul: I think I had a little by that point but even at the end there were red and green dialogue options unavailable to me – there didn’t seem to be all that much need for them, the game was so combat heavy.
Craig: I don’t know, I ran into them a lot to be fair. It saved Wrex anyway. By the way, did you still lose Ashley or Kaiden on that planet?
Paul: I thought it was going to be possible to save them both somehow, and it kind of seemed to me more possible to rescue Kaiden second – but it wasn’t so he died.
Craig: I nuked the fuck out of Ashley the Racist. And I laughed while doing it.
Paul: Ah yes, the natural liberal response. I actually bought her a really expensive set of armour, so there was a financial reason to keep her alive.
Craig: I admire that decision. And Kaiden was a boring bastard anyway. He tried to have sex with me and I told him to go away.
Paul: Did you feel bad? Did the game at any point make you feel remorse or regret on any level?
Craig: Not really to be honest, but I think that was because of how I fit into Shepard. I was very much ‘getting the job done’. If soldiers die, they die. I just had to save the galaxy.
Paul: Me too. If I was role-playing to any degree it was that – I think the game pretty much sets you up like that though, an evil Shepard for example, just doesn’t fit the story.
Craig: No, I totally agree. But I think it might be more complicated than that. It was the same with Dragon Age. You don’t play like a twat because you actually care about the outcome and you are being the character. It’s role playing in reverse to the gaming norm, but in an excellent way.
Paul: Surely a morality system of any kind is redundant though? Or perhaps ME accepts this with the ‘paragon’ and ‘renegade’ thing – a renegade isn’t necessarily ‘evil’ in the D&D sense, they are just different personalities that’ll acceptably fit the story, which ultimately involves saving the galaxy.
Craig: A morality system is redundant, and you’re right, I do think ME accepts it by that subtle rewording. It’s not like in, say, Bethesdas RPGs where you can just murder the whole world – it’s a tighter, more restricted experience for you to role play in. It’s a risk, I think, because I think it’s easier to disassociate with a character when you have less freedom/control, so I think it’s testament to Bioware that they do get everyone into that role, and story, so effectively.
Paul: Yes, I never felt restricted – it was a great portrayal. BUT – why does such seasoned vet like Shepard commit the cardinal sin of getting involved with someone at work? It’s pretty unprofessional and totally against the grain for someone with her responsibilities.
Craig: Well that’s just that subtle change in Shepard that you brought about. It’s strange because while I think Shepard has a template, there are loads of variations that can be taken from it. While we could look at either of our Shepards and recognise them as the same person, yours might have had more empathy, or romanticism, etc etc. Which is the genius of games over films surely?
Paul: If I were analysing my Shepard’s behaviour, she would appear to be displaying some kind of personality disorder – she just seemed horny, and in the face of galactic oblivion. Weird.
Craig: haha, why not. Those space trips take a long time, she can’t be plotting all the time. Mine was bitter because she was meant to hook up with Liara but had been flirting with Kaiden a bit too much and it all ended up very confused.
Paul: Hah, mine singularly pursued Liara. My Shepard must have sunk in Dr. Chakwas’s estimation. Every time anything happened she’d beetle down to the sick bay to chat up Liara.
Craig: Oh, before I forget, I have to complain about the inventory system. It was fucking horrible.
Paul: Oh yes, ‘half finished’ describes it pretty well. So, you get to your 150 inventory limit, go to pick more stuff up and you HAVE to melt it, you can’t cancel out and melt your crappier stuff. That was balls.
Craig: The worst was shopping because you couldn’t compare equipment to what people were using that wasn’t in your immediate party. And on thre Normandy, which had the best shop, you were the only person in your party.
Paul: It’s almost like they were encouraging simple play and character building by implementing an utterly unusable inventory beyond the most basic of functions.
Craig: Do you think the RPGness was made too simplistic? And is it any coincidence that we get a simple system on an RPG that was a posterboy for the 360? I’m not trying to bait there, it was and it IS a simple system.
Paul: To answer the first part, no – the simplicity worked for me. As has been discussed elsewhere, it’s basically not an RPG in the truest sense. It’s good to have varying shades of games that involve combat, talking and character progression. To answer your console baiting question, I suppose it’s something that just has a wider audience if it is more accessible. Spaceships and aliens is always going to garner a following, you open it up to more people if you play down the RPGness of it. You’re more into your RPGs than me, did its simplicity bore or frustrate you at any point?
Craig: I suppose not, not really. This is going to answer my own question a bit too, but like you said, it’s not that sort of RPG. It’s fast paced, punchy, controlled. I can’t help but feel that endlessly comparing numbers would have just slowed it down. Though it does beg the question – why bother at all? Is the levelling system just there as a carrot?
Paul: I suppose it is really. It doesn’t really give you the option to tailor your characters cus the initial choice of type pretty much does that at the start. And the equipment upgrades don’t seem to have the biggest effect on the game – I didn’t bother with the guy selling stuff in the hanger and relied on loot. Didn’t have a problem with any baddies as a result.
Craig: Did you miss the spectre exclusive weapons at the end game then?
Paul: Yup, guess so.
Craig: Shame. That was some good looking gear.
Paul: I started playing ME only to really move swiftly on to ME2, but I don’t think I’d have played any differently if that weren’t the case. The story has such impetus I just didn’t feel like stopping for anything like equipment hunting or exploration – I only explored one unnecessary planet for example. Do you think I missed out on the heart of ME or something as a result?
Craig: Not in the slightest. The heart of ME is Shepard being Shepard. She’s such a strong character (pompus sounding bullshit alert) to experience Shepard is to experience Mass Effect. And I think it’s shown best right at the end when she emerges from the rubble with a grin on her face as if to say “well what did you expect?”
Paul: Oh man, that bit was fucking awful. Hackneyed, errgh.
Craig: What? It was awesome. The last fight with Saren was shit, admittedly, but the rest was fucking super cool.
Paul: Thing is, my Shepard wouldn’t have emerged from the rubble with a smirk. She’d have got out asap and been like: “Ok, I’m fine – what next?” The space battle was cool and deciding to let the smug council to go to hell – I enjoyed that.
Craig: I saved them. And being all smug just fitted mine really well, I don’t know why. Just to go back briefly to you not visiting any planets, neither did I. They would have slowed the game up and “I know I’m saving the galaxy but this alien dude really needs to find his cat” or whatever seemed ridiculous. However, I liked that I could of – it added a massive sense of scale when you COULD visit loads of alien worlds.
Paul: I dunno. Yeah, it kind of did but seemed to fall between two stools. Either have a massive world to explore a la Dragon Age or scale it down and include more mandatory places that will offer that sense of scale anyway.
Craig: Do you not think it could be exhausting though, to go from world to world like that? The extra ones were all fairly generic so you dont feel bad for missing them, and they allow extra awesome to go into the ones you visit.
Paul: What I think BioWare did really well was describing the way the galaxy worked with all the species, the citadel and various places like the colonies and business planet. It made it a living, breathing setting as well as driving the plot.
Craig: It was great, and most importantly believable.
Paul: Yes, they include a fucking business planet – and make it interesting!
Craig: So, briefly, what do you hope changes for ME2?
Paul: I would quite like more discrete choices for Shepard to make – like properly distinctly different story arcs, not just little flourishes. You? Oh and a fixed fucking inventory.
Craig: Inventory, yes. I’d like the conversation options to be made more clear, and yeah – more meaningful branching. Also less lifts.
Paul: Agreed, fewer lifts.
Craig: Mass Effect 1 then, two years on. How high, on a scale from 1 – 100, are your thumbs raised?
Paul: Am I raising one or two thumbs?
Craig: Up to 50 is one thumb, after that your second starts to lift.
Paul: Oh, righto. I would say my thumbs are raised about 80 thumb units high.
Craig: Mine are 90 I think, because I’m struggling to find faults and I couldn’t say to anyone “dont play it”.
Paul: Well, it’s a blockbuster isn’t it? And you know what an elitist shit I am – it could have been more ‘interesting’.
Craig: You saved the galaxy from an infinite, sentient race in a plot that spread millenia with a character that you said could be “the best character in gaming” and you want more interesting?
Paul: :) I deleted that – and it was a question. I dunno, a neat ending always makes me cringe a little.
Craig: It’s that or “to be continued…” or “what will happen to Shepard next? Find out in MASS EFFECT 2″
Paul: It should have been like the end of the Sopranos, then I’d have been ultra happy.
Craig: Journey is not part of the Mass Effect soundtrack. Anyway, now we are just bickering.
Paul: Yes, best stop.
