Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation

http://io9.com/5886178/why-mass-effect-is-the-most-important-science-fiction-universe-of-our-generation

by kposehn • 14 years ago

99 45 14 years ago

Perhaps the best piece I have ever read on io9 (which is admittedly not a high bar to clear). I have a few quibbles with it, particularly the bit about not having too many aliens that look "suspiciously similar to humans," but in general the conclusion is well-supported.

rcthompson• 14 years ago

Yes, a lot of the species in Mass Effect are humanoid in shape, but when the author says "suspiciously similar to humans", he really means "exactly identical in appearance to humans except for one tiny difference", which is the standard set by budgetary restrictions in live-action media. Most of the major species in Mass Effect are indeed humanoid, but I don't think any of them are nearly similar enough to humans that anyone would ever for an instant mistake them for human (unless they've been to a lot of Blue Man Group concerts).

jodrellblank• 14 years ago

but I don't think any of them are nearly similar enough to humans that anyone would ever for an instant mistake them for human

Really? The article says "Run around the Citadel and you'll be damned if you find more than two or three humans out of hundreds of citizens milling about, shopkeepers hocking their wares, and government officials eyeing you suspiciously. The entire government of the galaxy, known as the Council, is run by non-humans."

That all sounds exceedingly human to me. You can't start an article with engulfs all of science fiction's greatest universes and then say that. There are some /really/ great universes out there. A government? Seriously?

A government? A mixed species government? Shopkeepers? Wares? This isn't an amazing genre beating non-human future, this is small-town-humans-in-space-in-weird-bodies. AI and FTL and life goes on? Multiple civilizations and they're all basically equal in brainpower?

Take a read of this short story http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd... and then say this game is Taking Non-Humans Seriously as a concept.

emc12• 14 years ago

I guess this game never really clicked for me. It seemed too much like a video game version of Babylon 5 on rails with predictable sub plot cliches. I enjoyed it for sure, but I don't really consider much of it ground breaking or revolutionary, as I've seen these plots in various other media forms for decades, and the gameplay felt like any other BioWare RPG I've played.

Qz• 14 years ago

The full voiceover (including player lines) was one of the big things that really sold it for me -- it's really hard to go back to other RPGs and play a silent nobody after playing mass effect (which was one of the reasons I never go into Dragon Age (aside from it being bad)).

tlear• 14 years ago

Greatness of Mass Effect that I was able to exterminate Arachni, kill the council and give collector base to the Cerberus. Humanity value in the story is that they are new enough to challenge the order of things. Cerberus is the ultimate startup accelerator!

jakeonthemove2• 14 years ago

Yeah, and then the head of Cerberus got indoctrinated and turned all their resources against humanity... Damn, I'm going to have to replay ME2 just to destroy the Collector base and generally try to fk with TIM :-D...

ynniv3• 14 years ago

Novels require descriptions, comics require painstaking drawings, films and television require either hours of expression deadening makeup or expensive CGI. In a video game, rendering an asari or a hanar requires the same amount of work as a human.

It is easier to have alien life in both a novel (descriptive) and a comic (visual) than in a video game (kinematic).

Want a cast of thousands? No problem. Need a mob of hundreds of individuals representing fifteen different species rendered inside an colossal ancient space station? No sweat.

Clearly this person has never made a video game.

I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important.

But you do need to be explained the difference between shared and tailored culture. Having a "diverse" hero of a popular television show has an affect on society. Having a "diverse" hero of the instance of the video game that you are playing has an affect on a single individual (and maybe some friends).

One can spend hours tweaking physical appearance (not mere a few options of “races”) to get a character of any ethnicity and build. Oh, and sexuality is an option too. Shepard is yours to design.

That's just windowdressing the choose your own adventure. The backstory that you change won't affect the plot any more than picking a "race" in those "unimpressive old games".

I opened this hoping for something insightful, but was presented with an adolescent boy's wonder of a story written in a shiny medium. For all of the alien diversity, every picture on the page is humanoid. For all of the glory of the malleable video game, a descent novel would have twice the depth and ten times the perceived diversity. He purports to appreciate the humility of the portrayal of humanity, but it sounds like the whole story is about a rise to power.

If you like Mass Effect this much, do yourself a favor and go read a good book.

fufulabs3• 14 years ago

Wow, you are the type of person that put down new mediums. This attitude is more dangerous as it will inhibit the new art form's potential by putting it down in favor of an old but more importantly different medium. Books and games are not exclusive to each other. Stop pulling down games when it wants to aspire to a great storytelling format. Stop imposing your cynicism when glimpses of ambition shows in games. Stop this shit.

glogla• 14 years ago

This is not about new media. There are great games who tell awesome story (I would suggest Planescape: Torment for the old ones, KOTOR2 for new ones, and Aquaria for the indie ones). This is about Mass Effect specifically, which is not really spectacular. It's power fantasy with good pacing and structure and it borrows from movies in ways of soundtracks and atmosphere, yes. But the universe it happens in is pretty boring compared to, say Eclipse Phase or The Culture, the "diversity" is laughable, and I would suggest that characters who are gay only in some playthroughs are pretty dangerous idea.

I would on the other hand argue that Mass Effect series is bad for the video game industry -- for many people, it made voiced main character mainstream. That is bad, because it's very expensive, so not only it makes video gaming industry harder to enter for new businesses, it also makes even the rich studios trim dialogue and actual choice in game to the lowest common denominator.

However once again, this is not about new media. Check works of Paul DeMarinis if you want new media, it's full of win.

ynniv3• 14 years ago

I am the type of person who is capable of critical thought. I love video games, and find that they are an interesting new medium. They are immediate, interactive, visual, auditory environments that have the potential to convey ideas that books, comics, and movies could not.

Take Rohrer's Passage. Without saying a single word, you have an experience that presents a vague glimpse of the past and future while you navigate the present. There are goals that you can pursue (points, coverage, distance, tricky locations), but the limited time that you have in life only allows you to achieve some of them. You can choose to travel with a companion that makes you happier, but also logistically prevents you from going certain places.

The potential of new media is in the ways in which it is different from previous media. An epic odyssey is better told by a respected elder in a social setting than by a a short, unresponsive, bright, noisy projection in a dark room. Literal emotion and visual environment is better portrayed through the lens of a camera than through a drawing or book.

The problem is that you think that games are a great storytelling medium, and they are not. They are a complicated storytelling medium, and an attractive one, but until we see more powerful artificial intelligence, they are not a great one. The closest you currently get to great storytelling in games is the puppet box of Rohrer's Sleep is Death, where the storyteller is actually another human.

So, go read a book, go watch a great movie, go tell a story to friends and family, and go play a great game. But don't tell me that a sophisticated, visually pleasing, well voice acted choose your own adventure game is a modern classic.

ekianjo3• 14 years ago

Well said. Mass Effect fails to deliver anything spectacular and fails on the promise of a non linear adventure as well. The 'reset' happening in episode 2 is laughable. Honestly it fares very low compared to previous bioware titles. For me it has been a major disapointment.

rdl2• 14 years ago

Are there any computer RPGs which have better plot and character development than even a pretty good book or movie? The only games I've played which didn't leave me feeling kind of ashamed to have finished them (rather than reading a book) were GTA3 and successors, Bioshock, Fallout 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4. Stuff like Starcraft and Battlefield 3 is fun for the action, but the story is kind of forgettable.

I have ME3 on order just because it seems like something worth doing to remain culturally aware, but I'm not that excited by it.

rmk2• 14 years ago

Concerning the gender/ethnicity aspect:

I would go even further than to say it only has an effect on a single individual, since I think this "choice" has no effect.

You only play a non-male, non-white, homosexual character if you already are open-minded enough. If you aren't, you can just continue to roleplay your stereotypical strong white male. There is no challenge to the preconceptions of the player, simply because he gets to choose what he wants.

A book, a movie, a comic, they all pose a challenge by presenting you with characters as is.

I fail to see the revolutionary potential here, instead, the player gets to project his already cemented views as well as auto- and hetero-stereotypes onto his character, thus reinforcing his already prevalent world view.

I'm not saying new media is inferior per se, but the choice aspect is really the polar opposite of what you want if you want to make people reflect and think.

ynniv3• 14 years ago

It has the effect of allowing the player to project herself onto the game, which doesn't force her to adopt a more diverse viewpoint, but does allow her to maintain her existing non-mainstream one. Effectively it has no effect if the player is a white male, but otherwise it has a little.

Legion2• 14 years ago

I enjoyed Mass Effect, but Mass Effect 2 undid my interest in the series.

Mass Effect's locations offered some freedom of movement - they felt like actual places.

Mass Effect 2's settings were extremely constrained by comparison - no longer living locations to explore, but very much tight funnels that might as well have had "== One Way =>" signs posted.

vacri5• 14 years ago

If you mean the ability to land on planets and then spend more time fighting the bouncy vertical movement of your vehicle than actually moving around the map, then yes, I guess ME1 had more freedom. I found them about the same in terms of linearity, but I was very glad I didn't have the bounce-o-matic sessions anymore.

jakeonthemove2• 14 years ago

What platform were you playing it on? I have the PC version and enjoyed every moment in the Mako - it goes up, down and side to side like a boss, and you don't even have to maneuver around obstacles :-)

Legion2• 14 years ago

No, I mean the on-foot areas.

"Levels" (for lack of better word) were extremely "follow the only road" in ME2. Yes, missions generally had a single start point and a single end point in ME1 as well, but the point is that the path from A to B was MUCH more free an unencumbered in ME1. It was, well, sort of the difference between an RPG and an almost-FPS.

Of course, I wish FPS games themselves would return to that kind of free-roaming level design. As put brilliantly in this image: http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/fps-desi...

drostie• 14 years ago

I had a somewhat similar experience when I played Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within.

I remember it being very pretty, engaging, with wide open spaces and interesting combat... and then you would get to a dead end. You would look around a corner and find the way forward. It might sometimes take a while, but there was always exactly one path through the level (and game!) on reflection.

I would contrast this with some of my favorite moments in Portal: you can either get yourself accidentally utterly stuck (and the game has to detect that and let you out), or you can find clever ways with a risky approach to bypass an entire level.

I guess I'm saying that as a general principle, every level should have at least four paths: one is risky and difficult and unconventional but will lead you to the end result a little bit quicker; one is the longer, slower way; and one looks like the longer, slower way but in fact goes nowhere or leads to a trap; and one leads you to a secret which might help.

(I also appreciate situations like Zelda where you don't tell me what order to complete the dungeons in -- maybe dungeon A has an item which is important for solving dungeon C; if so then consider building the risky-difficult pathways through C to not require this item.)

nazgulnarsil• 14 years ago

The next generation is bookended by episodes about how small and limited human awareness and reach are in the universe they inhabit. If anything I find TnG much more realistic in that the enterprise almost always encounters beings that are far more primitive or so advanced as to be somewhat incomprehensible.

vacri5• 14 years ago

I enjoyed both Mass Effects, and think that they're both well-polished, and conducted in an interesting world. I don't think it's the most awesomest evar as this article does, but a lot of the naysaying so far in the comments are overfocusing on the negatives. But if we're talking about inclusiveness...

I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important

This highlights an interesting current even in mainstream culture - safe depictions of homosexuality. Pretty much it's fine... as long as the homosexuals in question are lesbians... and they have smoking hot bodies. There are 12 romance options combined in both games. Four of them are for either gender protagonist. One is a human woman. Three are of a race with only one gender, that happens to look like human women. If you play with a male main character, you won't be exposed to the slightest homosexual visual, even if you really want it.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Romance

It brings in another interesting effect - wildly different races are wildly different, crazy body types and so forth... as long as you're male. If you're female... well... you get to look like a human female. Every turtle-man alien we see is just that, a man. They have females, but we never get to see one. Same thing happens in World of Warcraft - the male character models are really different, but females all have similar body shapes.

agilebyte• 14 years ago

Apparently, the male Shepard did have homosexual options in Mass Effect 2, the sounds are still on the discs, but are unused

potatolicious• 14 years ago

> "If you're female... well... you get to look like a human female."

This is something that bothered me about previous ME games. FWIW, ME3 (based on the demo) features a look at Krogan gender dynamics.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

This contrasts unfavorably with older media. In the broadcast television show torchwood the main character is a bi-sexual male. In Iain M Banks popular "Culture" series of novels it is common for some species to change gender, for example.

in contrast, the extent to which the Mass Effect franchise pushes the envelope of, say, the social norms of j. average suburban American community is roughly on par with the average pg-13 movie.

Tloewald• 14 years ago

The writer of the article didn't consider any novels to be in the running (or non-US television shows really), so of course Banks didn't warrant consideration (although humanity is in a pretty privileged spot in The Culture, just not terrestrial humanity)

The general setup of Mass Effect vis a vis humanity's political significance is pretty similar to Brin's Uplift Universe. We're small potatoes and upstarts and most of the players hate us.

I'd also have to say that the article almost seems to ignore Mass Effect 2, in which humans are (or can be, depending on what you did in the original) pretty much running things. (that's how it was for me, and I believe the proximate cause was that I didn't go out of mY way to save the council at the end of thE first installment, because I hate the worn out "let millions die to save the privileged few / my girlfriend" trope in action adventures.

vacri5• 14 years ago

I think the last part of your comment is true for white suburbanites, but it is generally new that you have options to change your race and gender to something that can match your own. It's easy to not realise the difference in immersion if you're white (as I am) and the main character in games is the same as you. In ME1 I ended up going with an Indian main character, simply because I've never played a game which had an Indian protaganist. So it's not so much about stretching the suburbanites as allowing non-white-suburbanites to feel like it's accessible to them.

I also wonder how long it will be before main character voices can have their accents tailored - the Australian female lead in ME2 kept popping out like a sore thumb to me. Here in Aus it's weird to mix Australian and American accents in media. When watching US media, the accent is filtered out a bit and you can get immersed. When you get a mix like in ME2, I find it breaks immersion a bit. Hard to explain, but it's sort of like "these characters are speaking in 'movie' voice, except this one which is speaking 'natural'". A friend of mine was talking to an English teacher relating a story in a drama class in high school, where the kids had to write up some dialogue and present it. Halfway through, she asked "Why are you all doing this with American accents?", the response being "That's the voice you use when you're acting" :)

ableal• 14 years ago

It's the product of the best parts of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and more

The best, most inventive, written SF never made it to the movies/TV, or was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp in the process.

No particular snobbery on this, just think you should be aware of it. If "important" is equivalent to popular or well-known, that's another kettle of fish. I'd say no.

m0nty• 14 years ago

What makes SF so damn good is its ability to surprise and challenge us. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Hollywood has decided mainstream audiences are allergic to, so they recycle the same old tropes again and again. Anything new and interesting must be shoe-horned into the familiar shapes, or ignored.

For example, how many times have you seen this one: hero's buddy is brutally, callously murdered by generic bad-guy, he decides on revenge and possibly discovers some love-interest at the same time. He is nearly beaten, but by skill and courage wins through to triumph over the bad-guy, although not so conclusively as to preclude the making of a sequel.

That is basically the Hollywood plotline, with minor variations. It's present in anything from Avatar to Beverley Hills Cop. The really good Sci Fi makes a point of defying this cliché so it never gets to the screen. Given what happens to SF when it does make it (unrecognizable pulp) this is probably A Good Thing.

Confusion• 14 years ago

Mass Effect? I've heard of that. The other universes he mentions, those I know. I think he is overestimating the amount of people playing videogames vs. the amount of people reading and watching television.

Of course, popularity is not a measure of importance, but it is a measure of influence. I don't think Mass Effect is very influential. At least, none of the authors I read have ever mentioned it, AFAIK.

sycren• 14 years ago

I wonder what scientific developments or artist interpretations inspired by Mass Effect could come around like those that have come around from Star Trek. http://roadtickle.com/things-we-have-now-that-star-trek-inve...

rkalla• 14 years ago

Maybe the LHC will give us the precursor to the Mass Effect drives/relays/weapons?

Or giant talking mud-snail people... but I'll bank on the weapons I think.

sbierwagen• 14 years ago

If you're wondering why a puff piece featuring the Mass Effect series is on io9, it's because the third game in the series is coming out on March 6th.

TeMPOraL• 14 years ago

...

I just went to the shop and bought ME 1 & 2. Now I feel like a complete idiot, as I knew that ME3 is coming out soon, and didn't connect the dots.

:/. I hope 1 & 2 even remotely match the description.

caycep• 14 years ago

Except I never understood why all the work in writing and researching this rich universe and back story got wasted in the main story arc which was pure hollywood b-movie action...kill-the-evil-cackling-bad-guy.

Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation

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