The civilizations of the galaxy call it...

Mass Effect. It's easily the best RPG I've played for half a decade. I'd even place it in the halls of honor which are held sacrosanct for works such as Blood Omen, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, and the earlier Final Fantasies.

I'll start with a few quips about the flaws in the game. They were by and large technical, and in some sections critical. There were two points in the game where my character had gotten stuck by running too close to a railing. I was then forced to reload the game multiple times, each time hoping to perturb my location ever so slightly and shake myself loose of the imperceptible void that held me hostage. This is largely diagnostic of a lack of play testing, which, for a dev house like Bioware, is frankly sloppy. Also the path finding on squad members was often sad even when manually micro managed. I also found sending them to separate locations unintuitive (if it's even possible). The squad programmers were clearly fearful of a second Geth rising within the players console, as the behavior of undirected squad members in combat was often laughable if not frustrating. My quest to stop Saren was often delayed while resurrecting a fallen Asari that felt the best way to deal with a charging Krogan Warlord was to stand their ground and continue firing their pistol, foregoing the shameful act of seeking cover.

On a less poetic note, I'd like to express my elation at having satisfied my long secret desire of blasting my way through an RPG with a sniper rifle. This was a cohesion of genres I did not think possible and would have denied to my dying day if told it could be done well.

As I must serve the community, I will explicitly echo the opinion held by, I'm sure, nearly every other gamer. The article by Kevin McCullough is not only extremely opposed to my own views on gaming it's also shoddy journalism and nothing short of libel. I'd usually let this go as the rantings of a bigoted lunatic, but at times like these I'm reminded of Edmund Burke. I'm a proponent of free speech and I support the columnists right to it. I do not, however, support stating presumption as fact and then basing an argument on it. He states that "shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size and..." Okay. I needn't go further. In the context of Mass Effect there is only one playable race; Human. Dare I say that's one of the messages this game delivers under the radar; compared to a Krogan, we're all the same.

In a deft act of technical implementation, yes you can adjust nearly every dimension and aspect of your characters facial features. And that's it. I can assure you that if there was a way to adjust breast size of the female PC I would have found it. On that note, the so called sex scene wasn't. It was a love scene and one worthy of a feature film. The exposure was tame by modern advertising standards. Watching fifteen minutes of random commercials on basic cable will do more to send the message that women are sinful sex objects than the 15 seconds of blurry stylized PG-13 eroticism contained within Mass Effect.

So, what do I like about Mass Effect? Well for starters it's an epic sci-fi RPG that isn't Star Wars. Don't get me wrong, I like Star Wars. There was even a time I considered joining an earthly sect of Jedi, but Star Wars is an established canon. In an established canon your ability to save the galaxy or even play more than a silent partner in major shifting events of the universe is limited. Not so with Mass Effect. You are once again freed from being shoe horned into an established timeline, lest some canonical paradox rend the fabric of space/time assunder and drive lore geeks to madness trying to regain coherence in their already delicate world view.

Another thing I liked about the experience was the lack of expectation. When I played KoToR I saw a Twee'lek and immediately thought "hey, that's a Twee'lek" and my mind went to work fleshing out my knowledge of the Twee'lek (I'm not sure of their proper conjugation when referred to as a race). In short there was no discovery. I see a droid, wookie, ja-wa or sand people and I know what they are and how they act. With Mass Effect, I could once again enjoy the genuine experience of discovery. When reading or listening to the codex my heart raced with genuine anticipation and wonder as I learned of races I'd not heard of before. Not only that the Asari were monosexual and long lived but how this affected their mindset, culture and government. As I made my way through this game pursuing the just path of the paragon, I was presented with a rich universe that felt alive and was not dumbed down to appease lesser minds. The lore and stories dealt with real issues and concerns of a modern civilization. This is the kind of game that allows us to make a real case for games being a form of art. In the best spirit of Isaac Asimov they have taken us one step closer to being saved if we're to be saved at all. And for this I feel the makers of Mass Effect disserve genuine praise.

- Rovon

January 15, 2008

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