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alias_sqbrOnce again Bioware have gotten under my skin, I reached a certain point and Had To Know How It Ends, though I decided it was better to take a break than keep playing when my brain is too sleepy to make decisions properly. I think I'm about to enter the Final Confrontation. To stop myself looking up fannish stuff online and spoiling the plot, some rambly non-spoilery thoughts.
Something I was not expecting is that I'm really enjoying the combat. I've used cheats once or twice to buy better equipment, but on the whole have been ok with the stuff I've found lying around and have found the combat fairly straightforward. Sneaking around blowing bad guys into bits is remarkably satisfying. I really like driving around in my tank-vehicle thing too, especially zooming in on distant enemies and blowing them up with the canon :D It's made me a bit more open minded about first person shooters, at least the ones with plots and cheats :) I even survived the bits with crawly bugs and zombie like things *shudder*
And the plot is really good. I think Dragon Age is better at interpersonal stuff, eg the relationships with and between the companions and giving a stronger and more complex picture of individual antagonists and allies. But the bigger picture in Mass Effect is much more interesting, with Dragon Age you know what you have to do from the opening voiceover (stop the Blight!) but I'm still not entirely sure what's going on in Mass Effect even though I'm right near the end.
The interpersonal stuff isn't bad, either. My Shepard has fairly strong feelings about the various crew members and for example when I set her up with the romance option I found most interesting rather than the one she liked(*) was so unhappy I had to go back an hour to a previous save to set it right. And of course the game deliberately takes advantage of this attachment to screw with you.
I really like the complicated moral choices and different possible points of view that Bioware offers in these games. Unlike Dragon Age Origins the player character is forced to have allegiance to a single species and class (human military) but there's some flexibility within that and various characters express dislike for humans and their military without being punished/contradicted by the text. The fact that you're expected to choose one extreme of "paragon" or "renegade" and mostly stick to it is kind of annoying, I preferred the more complex and context-dependant consequences of choices in Dragon Age, but it does make it easier to establish a consistent character.
I have become inured to the fact that all aliens are one gender or another (mostly male) partly by deciding that the more androgynous looking species are in fact half female we just can't tell the difference. I do like that whenever someone calls one of the asari a woman ze politely politely points out that the concept of gender doesn't really apply to zer species. On the other hand, I'm still enjoying the moderate attempt at ethnic diversity and vague gesture towards cultural diversity (eg the very occasional human with an Indian accent etc)
Despite really enjoying the game I can't see myself being inspired to make a lot of fanworks for it, for some reason I tend to prefer consuming scifi and creating fantasy. But you never know.
(*)Bioware once again making them respond to "But why can't we have a threesome?" by dumping you *mutters*
Something I was not expecting is that I'm really enjoying the combat. I've used cheats once or twice to buy better equipment, but on the whole have been ok with the stuff I've found lying around and have found the combat fairly straightforward. Sneaking around blowing bad guys into bits is remarkably satisfying. I really like driving around in my tank-vehicle thing too, especially zooming in on distant enemies and blowing them up with the canon :D It's made me a bit more open minded about first person shooters, at least the ones with plots and cheats :) I even survived the bits with crawly bugs and zombie like things *shudder*
And the plot is really good. I think Dragon Age is better at interpersonal stuff, eg the relationships with and between the companions and giving a stronger and more complex picture of individual antagonists and allies. But the bigger picture in Mass Effect is much more interesting, with Dragon Age you know what you have to do from the opening voiceover (stop the Blight!) but I'm still not entirely sure what's going on in Mass Effect even though I'm right near the end.
The interpersonal stuff isn't bad, either. My Shepard has fairly strong feelings about the various crew members and for example when I set her up with the romance option I found most interesting rather than the one she liked(*) was so unhappy I had to go back an hour to a previous save to set it right. And of course the game deliberately takes advantage of this attachment to screw with you.
I really like the complicated moral choices and different possible points of view that Bioware offers in these games. Unlike Dragon Age Origins the player character is forced to have allegiance to a single species and class (human military) but there's some flexibility within that and various characters express dislike for humans and their military without being punished/contradicted by the text. The fact that you're expected to choose one extreme of "paragon" or "renegade" and mostly stick to it is kind of annoying, I preferred the more complex and context-dependant consequences of choices in Dragon Age, but it does make it easier to establish a consistent character.
I have become inured to the fact that all aliens are one gender or another (mostly male) partly by deciding that the more androgynous looking species are in fact half female we just can't tell the difference. I do like that whenever someone calls one of the asari a woman ze politely politely points out that the concept of gender doesn't really apply to zer species. On the other hand, I'm still enjoying the moderate attempt at ethnic diversity and vague gesture towards cultural diversity (eg the very occasional human with an Indian accent etc)
Despite really enjoying the game I can't see myself being inspired to make a lot of fanworks for it, for some reason I tend to prefer consuming scifi and creating fantasy. But you never know.
(*)Bioware once again making them respond to "But why can't we have a threesome?" by dumping you *mutters*
