Cerise Magazine

By some happy coincidence, Mass Effect, BioWare’s latest RPG offering, was released on my birthday, which meant I got a copy right away, and I didn’t even have to buy it for myself! I popped it in the Xbox 360 that night, and I haven’t stopped playing since.

Gameplay

Mass Effect is, in many ways, an RPG that handles like an FPS game. Instead of being turn-based like many video game RPGs, combat is conducted in real-time, making use of both of the analog sticks on the Xbox 360 controller, as well as the triggers. The other buttons on the controller help you access special abilities and give limited commands to your two squad mates.

The RPG aspect comes into play during all of the many dialogue segments, which offer you a variety of potential responses to each speech from an NPC on a wheel (which gives very short summaries of each response), ranging from diplomatic and persuasive to rude and even threatening. Your dialogue options are grouped more or less by effect, with more pleasant, ingratiating choices at the top of the wheel and the sassier options at the bottom, making it easy to select a response by the desired impact – which is good, because the actual words in the summary versions available for selection on the wheel sometimes seem to have no relation whatsoever to what your character actually says. NPC’s reactions will vary depending on which conversation options you choose, and your choices will affect the outcomes of a variety of side quests, as well as influencing the direction of the main plot.

Customization is not confined to dialogue options. From the beginning of the game, you have a great deal of control over your own version of the main character, Commander Shepard. You can decide to play as male or female, choose your own first name and customize your look with a variety of hair styles and colors, facial features, skin and eye colors, and even your choice of complexion. After settling on your appearance, you’re prompted to choose elements of your character’s history, which will affect some NPC’s responses to you, and even the existence of some side quests.

You move through the game on foot or in your ground vehicle, the Mako, using the analog sticks, and in space through use of a galaxy map on which you select destinations in a way that is reminiscent of the world maps of some classic RPGs, except much more visually impressive.

In addition to moving around, shooting stuff and talking to people, gameplay also involves a fair amount of time spent retrieving locked-up items and encrypted information, which requires you to hit the A, B, X and Y buttons in the right order as a diagram lights up on the screen. This system adds a fun flavor to the in-game decryption process, but feels a little odd and overused in some of its other applications – I couldn’t figure out how exactly such a process is related to surveying mineral deposits.

Atmosphere

The visuals, music and voice acting in Mass Effect are, simply, awesome. Though the game has the occasional weird “uncanny valley” moment (having a recently-killed enemy fall through you is a little startling), for the most part the characters and scenery look great, nicely realistic and cohesive. The look of the game is enhanced by mood music that is tense, stirring and bittersweet by turns, as appropriate to the narrative, and memorable without being distracting. The voice acting is excellent, adding depth and emotion to the characters in ways that text sometimes can’t, though character’s speech can occasionally be difficult to hear when juxtaposed with atmospheric background noise.

Plot

Mass Effect takes place in a future where humanity has become a space-faring civilization, discovering the technology of a race of extinct aliens known as Protheans and using it to travel the galaxy, colonizing new worlds and interacting with a host of alien species. Though humans are expanding rapidly into space, they’re relative newcomers on the galactic scene, and haven’t yet won much consideration from the Citadel Council, the multi-species group that keeps the galaxy running smoothly.

As the game opens, the player, as Commander Shepard, is being groomed to become the first human Spectre, one of the elite Citadel Council-appointed agents who take care of whatever needs fixing in the galaxy, using whatever methods they think most expedient.

This is good, because it turns out that there’s a massive threat to all life building which the player must face and somehow stop, in the grand tradition of epic science fiction storytelling.

The main plot is augmented by myriad subplots and minor missions which add flavor and depth to the game, and interactions with NPCs and allies that provide an emotional connection to the material. Chit-chatting with your crew at every opportunity is not required to advance the plot, but it’s possible, and allows for a fuller experience of the game – and makes some of the choices that are required for plot advancement truly heartrending.

Gender, Race and Sexuality

One of the things that continually delighted me as I played Mass Effect was the prevalence of female NPCs. It seems as though approximately half of the humans you see are women! And the women that you talk to have varied careers, including doctors, reporters, scientists, mechanics and soldiers, and come in a variety of ages and personalities, just like the male characters.

One interesting aspect of the way human gender is handled in the game, which you’ll notice if you have the right combination of characters in your party as you’re riding around in elevators in the Citadel (try Ashley Williams and Garrus Vakarian), is that it’s made clear that equal representation of men and women in some fields, such as in the military, hasn’t always been a given throughout human history. This acknowledgement that gender inequality has existed in human cultures in the past, even though it’s no longer an issue in the present of Mass Effect was nice to see.

Female characters are slightly less well-represented among the alien species you meet. Though one species is entirely composed of females, the other humanoids seem to be entirely composed of males, if the voice acting and gender-suggestive character design is anything to go by. A few aliens who don’t have human-like gender markers at all (aside from voices which still read as predominantly masculine, even when distorted, unfortunately) add some nice variety.

The only thing relating to gender that really bothered me as I played through the game was that while there are apparently female sex workers (provocative dancers in a bar and a “Consort” and her female apprentices whose services may include sexual ones) in the world of Mass Effect, there don’t seem to be any male ones. This is inconsistent with human reality, and I would particularly expect to see more variety in sex work, if it’s included at all, in the worldbuilding of a game that includes so many alien species, presumably with their own sexual tastes and customs.

Mass Effect does quite well in regards to race. NPCs come in many colors, and many have names and accents that make it clear that this future is not completely dominated by any one human ethnicity. And, of course, you have the option of making the main character a person of color, if you so choose.

You also have the option of making the main character a lesbian – or, at least, a woman who has a sexual relationship with an alien who has breasts and other female characteristics. Heterosexual romances are available for both male and female Shepards, as well. You can even play as an indecisive, possibly bisexual flirt, as I did the first time I tried to play through as a female character in search of a romance with the alien Liara T’Soni, but was unable to resist the urge to flirt with (male) Kaidan Alenko on the side.

Interestingly, the scene you’re rewarded with upon completing a romance subplot is almost identical whether you’re a woman romancing a man, a man romancing a woman, or a woman romancing a woman. This was no doubt a time and memory-saver for the designers, but also has the (in my opinion, very positive) effect of making the different sexual orientations feel very equivalent to one another, rather than either privileging or making one choice more titillating than another.

Conclusions

With a great plot, wonderful atmospheric touches and reasonably intuitive and smooth gameplay, Mass Effect would be a title worth trying out even without its overall positive takes on race, gender and sexuality. With those aspects handled so well, it becomes a game I’m more than willing to recommend wholeheartedly to any fan of science fiction, RPGs or simply good games.

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Mass Effect

December 2007 Issue

Features

Interviews

Articles

Gamer Stories

Reviews

Odds 'n Ends

Gameplay

Atmosphere

Plot

Gender, Race and Sexuality

Conclusions