Mass Effect has been out for 7 years and yet somehow I have avoided any major spoilers about...well, everything. I went in blind - other than knowing that it was a space opera, and that the ending of Mass Effect 3 was contentious for some reason.
Boy, I reaaallly like this game. I feel stupid for waiting 7 years (7 years!!) to play it.
So, some themes that have come up in the first couple of hours:
I like the idea of humans being late-comers the space scene. It definitely puts Shepard in an interesting position - not the pawn of some gigantic empire, but not fighting against some evil controlling overlord either. It's nice to be sort of unimportant in the grand scheme, at least at first.
I do have a problem with this scenario though. Apparently, humans have quickly excelled within interstellar politics, and are demanding to be part of the council, which has existed 10-20 times longer than humans have been in space. I get the feeling I'm supposed to agree with the humans in the game, but considering that there are other space-faring races who have (a) been around longer and (b) probably understand the politics better but are still not in the council, it actually seems pompous to me. Specifically, it seems like a very USA-like attitude, the sort of exceptionalism that we really get behind. I hope that there is more complexity to this argument later in the game.
The three major alien races are a bit bog-standard unfortunately, although it's not all bad. For instance, the all female race is actually the most intelligent, longest lived, and most diplomatic species in the game. They were also the first to get into space. This is in contrast to the typical male-centric interpretation of sex-crazed man-eating green-skinned space ladies that I'm used to.
But then we have the typical Warrior Race (TM) and the Hyper-Intelligent Race (TM). It seems like the individual characters are treated with more respect than their stereotypes though, so that is good.
The soundtrack is fantastic - I love the mix of 80's space-synth tracks and the more orchestral tracks.
I'll be writing more about Mass Effect as I play further through it. Consider me a time travelling gamer from the year 2007, and enjoy my first journey through the series.
(No spoilers ahead)
ReplyDeleteRegarding Mass Effect 3:
You are at an advantage. My recommendation is that you get all the DLC and play it before you continue to the end. I had several friends who played ME3 when it came out and were disappointed with the story. I was on a crunch at the time and it was several months before I was able to play it. By the time I got to it, the DLC was out, as was the re-worked ending. I enjoyed it immensely.
In future posts, consider writing about your character decisions. One of my favorite things about this series was hearing people talk about "their" Shephard.