I
finished playing 'Mass Effect 3' this weekend, wrapping up the
trilogy and ending my spectacular 7 month affair with one of the
greatest video game series I've ever played. Now I am feeling quite
melancholy, blue, down in the dumps, even morose. I am, I've
discovered, experiencing a well-documented phenomena known as
'post-Mass Effect depression'. According to the Internet it's a real
thing; in fact when you type 'post-mass' into Google, the full phrase
'post-Mass Effect depression' autofills as one of the most
oft-searched phrases in all of webdom.
To
the doubters who spend a little too much time in the really real
world who would cry 'what stuff!' and tell me and my millions-strong
support group to grow up and get a life, I can only say 'don't knock
it till you try it.' The Mass Effect trilogy constitutes three of
the most immersive titles in modern gaming, a saga as sweeping as
'Lord of the Rings' or 'Star Wars' to hear some describe it. I'm
inclined to agree. But unlike books or movies, which are static and
unchanging except where people's opinions are concerned, games put us
in the driver's seat and give us control over our own destiny, making
our experiences in that universe infinitely more self-tailored and a
good deal more intimate. I am not the first person to make this
observation and Mass Effect is certainly not the first game or game
series to elicit this sort of feeling in a player, but for my part it
was as close to another life as I've experienced in the virtual
world, one which to some degree I must relinquish forever now that my
first playthrough is over and done. I will go back again; the
trilogy is simply too big to experience everything it has to offer in
one go, but I know (and I'm sure many will agree) that any subsequent
run will be one of diminished grandeur and diluted wonder, an old
pair of jeans compared to a brand new suit. Because no one ever
forgets his or her first
Commander Shepard.
I
was a latecomer to the series. I only started it last year; it
happened entirely by impulse. In the dead of a northeast New York
winter I was fetal with cabin fever and craving some action, looking
for a something to play that might distract me from the icy winds and
three feet of snow outside my window. I perused the Playstation
store until I found the first Mass Effect available for a $15
download. I shrugged, having heard of the title but never having
pursued it, and decided to give it a go. I don't know how long I
played that first night or when exactly I decided I was in love, but
I do remember that first rush of excitement when I realized I was
hooked. I had only planned to test the waters, to try out the game
and see if I liked the mechanics, the look, the feel. But I spent
some time crafting my
Shepard, not thinking too much about it at first and planning to
create a new profile if I decided I'd continue. But after the Eden
Prime introductory mission I decided that I liked my Shepard – the
face I'd given him, the attributes and backstory. To hell with
starting over...I'd made my N7, now I was going to see him through.
I never looked back; I took my Shepard from Virmire to the Battle of
the Citadel, through a laundry list of side quests and a million
upgrades, and when it was over I knew Mass Effect had another
convert.
It
wasn't the greatest game I'd ever played. The combat mechanics were
antiquated for 2012 (R2 to shoot – ugh, and don't get me started on
the frisbee grenades) and the graphics were no longer gold standard,
but I saw past all that because I was so swept up in the story.
Commander Shepard's journey isn't just one of combat and space
fantasy but one of discovery, wonder, humor, camaraderie and as
anyone familiar with the series would tell you, choice. Above all,
Mass Effect is about choice. And therein lies the hook. At all
times the series presents the player with innumerable choices that
shape and color the story and the individual experience as you go.
You can play as a faultless boy scout, a ruthless bastard or any
shade of gray in-between. It has been said that no two Mass Effect
experiences are exactly the same. I don't think I'll ever have
enough time in my day or sufficient sleepless nights to prove that,
but I doubt I could ever disprove it either.
The
genius of Mass Effect where choice is concerned was in the
consequences, something we're not used to dealing with in a game. We
make a 'bad' choice and get a result we don't want, we reload the
save file and try again. But Shepard's journey turned that
convenience on its ear in two ways: (1) rarely if ever were you
presented with choices that were explicitly 'good' or explicitly
'bad'. Instead you were presented with a pair (sometimes more) of
equally gut-wrenching or alternately baffling options, none of them a
game-ender, but all of them most certainly a game-changer in the most
literal sense of the phrase. Whichever path you took was going to
alter the game experience in ways big and small, from dialogue
options to the presence or absence of supporting characters whose
lives quite literally depended on your decision. Then, (2) just as
you're reminding yourself that it's only a game, Mass Effect really
calls your bluff by allowing you to import your save and profile
into Mass Effect 2, forcing your Commander Shepard to live with
his/her choices long after the first disc has been lovingly tucked
back into its case. This was genius on the part of BioWare and ME's
producers, as it launches the player balls-first into the sequel with
a multitude of sins and salvations already on their heads, not to
mention more than a few enemies still gunning for the galaxy's
greatest soldier. Show me someone who saw ME1 through to the end and
didn't buy Mass Effect 2 when it came out. Me? I started it
the night after I finished the first.
ME2
was pure genius. It improved on every shooting/combat mechanic
immeasurably, making the action truly thrilling for the first time.
I would've been fine with another clumsy, keystroke-heavy offering if
that's what I was given, but to be able to continue the Mass Effect
saga with a newly tweaked, intuitive control scheme was enough to put
me in nirvana. Some detractors groaned that ME2 sacrificed the more
nuanced role-playing elements of the first in favor of a more macho,
Schwarzeneggerian shoot-'em-up, but I protest on grounds that a
huge quantity of 'pure' RPGs in the gaming world are unspeakably
boring, not to mention populated by stilted protagonists who are
little more than stereotypes and odious caricatures. Some folk can
endure countless hours of such sluggish dreck in the name of
'purity'. I cannot. ME2 was all about character: the
continuing evolution of Commander Shepard as well as the most
narratively fertile cast of supporting roles I've ever seen in a
game. Virtually the entire title is a scavenger hunt for 'the best
people' in the galaxy to counter the steamrolling menace of the
Collectors. These people, naturally, consist of outsiders, rebels,
vigilantes, convicts, zealots, killers, and doctors of extremely
questionable ethics. And it is one of the greatest joys in all the
Mass Effect experience to get to know them, to learn their minds, win
their loyalty and shed some pixelated blood beside them in defense
of the galaxy. I finished ME2 with dread, knowing that I was already
two-thirds done with my tenure, even as I vowed to go back one day
and do it all again just for the Hell of it.
Mass
Effect 3 was a tough one. Until I had started playing, the only
thing I had known about the BioWare masterpiece was the controversy
generated by ME3's end, an issue that received so much coverage I
simply couldn't avoid it even if I was trying to remain spoiler-free.
I'd glanced at the articles, I'd seen the memes, I'd even caught
some extraneous fan-generated blowback from my fellow gaming geeks.
Point is: I knew how it ended; I was prepared, and that helped quite
a bit. I also had the presence of mind to purchase the 'Extended
Cut' dlc ahead of time and load it up well before I actually reached
Shepard's final, critical choice, so when the moment of catharsis
came I was treated to several minutes of added scenes designed
(ostensibly) to better flesh out the trilogy's endgame but in
reality was cobbled together in answer to the tsunami of bad vibes
created by the original ending. Unlike a lot of my peers, I was satisfied with the end (I'll
speculate about the 'three choices' in some other post). I found it
poetic, elegant, thought-provoking and most importantly,
unpatronizing; a savvy commentary on self-reflection and those weird
gray areas we spent the last three games exploring. I will be unpopular among many for this stance. If you're sore about it, we can talk. Just be ready for a brawl.
It
was painful to switch off my console that night. Though he was still
alive in a few dozen save files spanning a trio of disks, my first
Commander Shepard's story was over. Never again would anything he
said or did be said or done for the first time, a virginal
experience, fresh and unspoiled. But here's a testament to the
saga's real strength: afterwards I didn't linger over the last
battle, or the eye-popping end movies, or the possibilities of a
second (inevitable) playthrough. Rather, I replayed in my head the
last conversations Shepard has with his squadmates, a battle-forged
team that long ago became more than just subordinates following
orders. I thought about the writing team at BioWare and how good of
them it was to consider the feelings of the players for whom that
team had become just another room full of good friends; friends we
were bitterly sad to see go and didn't want to let down. Seeing that
made the final decision a little easier, and in the end I managed to
smile, full of the knowledge that I wouldn't have had it any other
way.
That's
the power of good writing (something in which I'm not just a little
bit invested). And it is the power of good gaming, too. Farewell,
Commander Shepard. I'll see you again soon.
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