How Mass Effect made a Collector into a Reaper.

We all have our favourites. We have the things that we return to for the sake of reaffirming our identity. For some people it is watching Gone with the Wind or the Godfather. Others enjoy rereading To Kill a Mockingbird or Harry Potter. I read Transmetropolitan every March, Faust every summer, play Goldeneye every October, a Zelda every Christmas, and Earthbound every New Years. These things have shaped me for the greater part of the last two decades. But I think one thing has shaken me to my core in the last five years and that is Mass Effect.

Mass Effect represents adulthood to me. It is about choice, emotion, friendship, intelligence, appreciation, perseverance, adaptation, responsibility, exploration and companionship. I think for every piece of art that we admire we see a little bit of ourselves being brought to life inside of it, whether that is good or bad. Mass Effect came out when I was twenty-three. At that point in my life I had primarily played Nintendo systems and collected video games much like anything else I enjoyed. Like my comic collection I had accumulated a ton of games with a large variety and uneven quality. But in 2008 when I saw a G4 special on Mass Effect I had in recent years only purchased Nintendo Wii. The games I had been playing were just a way of reliving my childhood and continuing the tradition of light-hearted fun and nostalgic oversight. The only shooter I had really played in years was Metroid Prime III. The only RPG’s I touched were published by Nintendo. Truthfully I had probably played two or three games in the last decade made by a Western developer and they were likely Mortal Kombat. I had more or less fallen off the video gamer wagon.

Then I saw that G4 special. And I felt I was watching a monumental shift in gaming. Mature science fiction that gave the player agency in the story and in 5-10 second clips I could hear the voice acting hitting every beat, I could see the characters having actual emotional resonance and connecting with each other. I could feel the anger, the joy, and the power-lust, all of it. I was home on Thanksgiving break at the time. I immediately got up and walked into my parents’ bedroom and asked my mom earnestly if I could get an XBOX 360 for Christmas. She told me she thought I had grown out of most of that, and I tried to put into words what I had just seen on television. She saw my excitement and she knew as a broke college student I would not be able to invest in the means to play the game. She saw an XBOX once and laughed at me for essentially borrowing a $300 device just to play Geometry Wars, a modern take on classic arcade conventions. My dad reminded me that I had my senior thesis coming up and that the last semester of school was important and I said, “Yeah, okay… I’ll beat it before I go back to school anyway!” That was the end of the conversation and weeks later I got my system and ran out and bought the game. I played the game for a week straight and poured over sixty hours into the campaign. My FemShep was a Paragon who occasionally would break someone’s nose for crossing the line, but she was in love with Liara and tender with her crew. She calmed down Wrex in his moment of panic; she made the difficult decision to send xenophobe-Ashley to her grave only to have to try to be friends with snorefest-Kaidan. Jennifer Hale’s amazing voice dazzled me coming out of a Commander Shepard that looked like Audrey Hepburn walking off the set of Sabrina and into the Normandy. I was in love, with her, with her lover Liara, with my Squad, my ship, my Captain, my pilot, my crew, my decisions, my ending, my sleepless nights, it was all just too good.

I grew up a Star Wars kid that still fell asleep as the TV sleep timer counted down every night during the end credits to Star Trek: The Next Generation. I found the universe of Mass Effect both familiar and fresh. As the pretentious bookworm and an indie film director I thought myself above the stories and story-telling ability of video games. I thought it was bad enough that comic books featured men in spandex solving problems by way of violence, I thought video games had become an even worse combination of testosterone, ultraviolence, FPS garbage and they lacked any of the creative talent that at least blossomed in the comic industry. I don’t know if I was wrong to feel that way, or if Mass Effect is just a rare exception. But in the years since I have come to find Bioware is not the only company making thoughtful games that turn the conventions of the medium into ways of telling bigger stories and better ideas. Anthony Burch, the writer of Borderlands 2, years ago was just the fantastic older brother featured on ‘Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin?’ and occasionally REV on REV Rant. On a few different REV Rants that I found in the wake of Mass Effect he talked about games like Uncharted and Gears of War, Bioshock and Borderlands and how they combat the conventions of the genres and try to deliver something other than “Generic First/Third Person Shooter”. I find it a hilarious bit of history that he went on to write the brilliant storyline and side-missions featured in Borderlands 2. People like REV give me hope for the industry, as do Casey Hudson, Ken Levine, Cliffy B and David Cage and so many more.

I guess what I am trying to say is that Mass Effect reflects a lot of my struggle in becoming an adult, not just because it came out as I was stepping out into the world but because as I try to compartmentalise my life and keep my sights on the goals much like Mass Effect. The game always thrusts you forward in the elaborate and long form story that has its parallel paths and various conflicts. Ultimately, the fate of the Mass Effect Universe after three games is more or less the same for all who played it, just like how our lives all more or less end the same. But a legacy lives forever, both in my life, the Mass Effect Universe, and the video game industry that likewise is stepping out of adolescence and into its own form of adulthood. This era for video games is not unlike 1985 for comic books. Frank Miller & Alan Moore had to pull the comic industry by its teeth into the modern era. These days we can look to a few developers who are not content with the status quo. Hell, from what I hear even Call of Duty has player agency and a decent story these days. So in the immortal words of Walter Gretzky I offer the video game industry, Bioware, myself and any reader this sage advice:

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

If other games in several genres are aiming to be what Mass Effect was, I can only imagine what Casey Hudson has planned for us all next. Personally, I cannot wait to reap the benefit.