Comments on: Mass Effect and the Magician's Choice http://tleaves.com/2008/02/13/mass-effect-and-the-magicians-choice/ Creativity x Technology Sat, 17 Mar 2012 05:09:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: J. Prevost http://tleaves.com/2008/02/13/mass-effect-and-the-magicians-choice/comment-page-1/#comment-4700 J. Prevost Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:30:08 +0000 http://tleaves.com/2008/02/13/mass-effect-and-the-magicians-choice/#comment-4700 ME was worst when it got away from the story (the exploration missions, especially), and best in the story moments. They've definitely elevated the dramatic side of things to a high art. With the magician's choice you describe, they avoid wasting time implementing changes to the world except in cases where it's a really big deal choice. Another thing that was nice about the moral choices is that they all made sense in some way. There was no situation where you slaughter innocents just for the hell of it—you can always see a motivation for each choice. That made the "bad" choices much more interesting than in many games. I felt myself compelled to think about the kind of person who would make these choices, and that drew me in deeper than the KoTOR games did. (Although they had some real gems of "Oh my god, I can't believe I just did that" that were enjoyable as well.) My only complaint about the moral choices would be that the "renegade" choices were not as well focused as they could have been. The feeling alternated at different times between "I'm a badass anti-hero out to save the universe, but I'm not taking no orders from nobody" and "I'm out to save the human race, and I'm not going to let any concern for the other races get in my way, because what have they ever done for us?" I think that if they had focused on one of those two moral threads (preferably the latter), it would have come out stronger. Still, I find that I can't wait for the sequel, even though there really wasn't much more hook for it than "and then our hero sailed off into the sunset". Not especially because I want to know what happens next, which is the normal way of things, but because I want to play more games *like* that one, regardless of the universe they're set in, or who the characters are. (And I certainly wouldn't mind a fresh set of side characters who actually had some character—the drama was amazingly strong, but the companions were weak.) ME was worst when it got away from the story (the exploration missions, especially), and best in the story moments. They’ve definitely elevated the dramatic side of things to a high art. With the magician’s choice you describe, they avoid wasting time implementing changes to the world except in cases where it’s a really big deal choice.

Another thing that was nice about the moral choices is that they all made sense in some way. There was no situation where you slaughter innocents just for the hell of it—you can always see a motivation for each choice.

That made the “bad” choices much more interesting than in many games. I felt myself compelled to think about the kind of person who would make these choices, and that drew me in deeper than the KoTOR games did. (Although they had some real gems of “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just did that” that were enjoyable as well.)

My only complaint about the moral choices would be that the “renegade” choices were not as well focused as they could have been. The feeling alternated at different times between “I’m a badass anti-hero out to save the universe, but I’m not taking no orders from nobody” and “I’m out to save the human race, and I’m not going to let any concern for the other races get in my way, because what have they ever done for us?” I think that if they had focused on one of those two moral threads (preferably the latter), it would have come out stronger.

Still, I find that I can’t wait for the sequel, even though there really wasn’t much more hook for it than “and then our hero sailed off into the sunset”. Not especially because I want to know what happens next, which is the normal way of things, but because I want to play more games *like* that one, regardless of the universe they’re set in, or who the characters are. (And I certainly wouldn’t mind a fresh set of side characters who actually had some character—the drama was amazingly strong, but the companions were weak.)

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