This might sound strange for a game centrally concerned with the first human being accepted to the Spectres (a galactic police force who effectively answer to no one), who receives a prophesy that leads them on a crucial, universe saving quest, but despite this grandiose premise, the game manages to largely avoid Bioware’s now patented You-Are-The-Chosen-One-Messianic-Rise-To-Greatness narrative structure. To its credit, the game initially does this by placing its player and protagonist in a disempowered position. Because Mass Effect presents, unique to any sci-fi universe ever crafted, the opportunity to truly discover an unknown universe to use one’s own thirst for understanding and perspective as a videogame player to propel the way in which the narrative and its themes open up in an act of cooperative exploration. So shut up, imaginary naysayer guy.īut the more successful rejoinder would be to point out not what Mass Effect borrows, but what it offers that is purely its own. The first response to such an accusation would no doubt be: So what?! Are you serious? That sounds incredible!Īnd indeed, it is. It emulates the universe-building of Star Trek, the tone of Blade Runner, the political manoeuvring of Babylon 5, the pseudo-magical powers of Star Wars, the ominous dread of Lovecraftian horror, and revolves around a cast of oddball loners on the fringes of respectability somewhat like Firefly. Mass Effect’s detractors might call it merely a pastiche of other great sci-fi texts. And together, through an intuitive conversation between audience and text, both are elevated, entwined in an understanding that validates the journey shared. You play the game, but the game plays you. Its narrative, and the mechanics through which it expresses itself work in unison to create an experience that is thoroughly absorbing and profound. So I was wary when I fired up the game again after all this time.Īnd yet, to my delight, I found the experience to be instantly, gloriously reaffirming.īeyond the comforting thrum of the menu music, which still evokes in me a kind of Pavlovian response of joyful anticipation, beyond the visuals and mechanics that hold up better than I’d feared, and even acknowledging that my affection for the series might lead to some blind spots in my critical thinking (I have always adored that beautiful Mako, wonky handling and all hell, I even like the elevators – yes, really), I maintain that the first Mass Effect is still one of the most perfect marriages of form and function in any text, videogame or otherwise. Awash with recollections of the series’ grandeur and disappointment the prophesy of oncoming darkness and ruin that is about to be vomited into Shepard’s brain already gnawing away at my memory. The player, like Shepard, was able to look ahead and wonder at what was to come.īut now there’s fear – because I already know it all leads to one place. The journey ahead but a series of potentialities, none yet realised. Back when I used to replay this series, that expanse of possibility was delightfully vertiginous. The first game begins with Shepard staring out into the inky black of space, over a planet that either is, or is meant to evoke, Earth. GAME PLAYED: Mass Effect (base game) DLC: ‘Bring Down The Sky’
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