Mass Effect 3 - How Mass Effect Challenges Definitions of RPGs and Sci Fi Achieveme

Torment was also one of the last games to fit that mold. Through the 1990s, more and more games started to utilize the conventions of film. This charge was led, ironically, by a series of role-playing games: Final Fantasy. Nothing demonstrates this better than the opening credit sequence of 1994's Final Fantasy VI, as the ominous music plays and evil appears to march on the innocent. And while BioWare is a western RPG developer, much of their success, from Knights of the Old Republic on, has come from successfully combining the the tropes of both Western and Japanese-style role-playing games, including the use of visual, film-like storytelling instead of novelistic storytelling.

The Mass Effect games are the culmination of this trend. Their voice acting sounds like a movie, the camera angles look like a movie, the storyline is divided into movie scenes, and thanks to the film effect, it even has the visual feel of a movie. And this, I think, is what makes many RPG fans react so emotionally to its occasional placement in the role-playing genre. Mass Effect's surprising popularity seems to say that RPGs aren't novels, they're movies now. If that's something a player is fine with, they'll probably like Mass Effect just fine. But if not – then it's not just a game to be liked or disliked, but it's a symbol of everything that's wrong with video games today – bigger, flashier, and dumber.

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And that stringent scientific outlook, which gives the Mass Effect universe its Hard SF backbone, was there from the very beginning. A lot of research was done during the development of the original Mass Effect. "The entire writing team was constantly reading and researching and reviewing anything we could," remembers Walters. "Everyone was thoroughly immersing themselves in science at the time, and where these things could really go." After all, they had an entire universe to create.......
"I have friends and what they love about it is the characters that they meet. They might be blue and have tendrils, some of them might be reptiles – and that's definitely in keeping with the Sci-Fi genre – but what's more interesting to them is the characters and what they're experiencing. For them Sci-Fi is context, a background; they're really in it for the characters and their relationships.

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Surprisingly, one of the strongest science-fiction influences on the narrative of Mass Effect 3 isn't Arthur C. Clarke or Robert A. Heinlein. Walters cites the recent Star Trek reboot as being a big influence on the latest instalment. "From a narrative point of view one of the things I really appreciated was the way the new J.J. Abrams's Star Trek handled itself. I'm a Star Trek fan, but I wouldn't call myself a huge fan of the series – I'm not a die-hard Trekkie – but at one time or another I've watched all of the series. But I just love the new movie, and the way that they've made it contemporary – they've brought it forward, and the fact I can go watch it with friends who aren't even familiar with Star Trek. They just love the movie.

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If that's something a player is fine with, they'll probably like Mass Effect just fine. But if not – then it's not just a game to be liked or disliked, but it's a symbol of everything that's wrong with video games today – bigger, flashier, and dumber.

Click to expand...

If that's something a player is fine with, they'll probably like Mass Effect just fine. But if not – then it's not just a game to be liked or disliked, but it's a symbol of everything that's wrong with video games today – bigger, flashier, and dumber.

Click to expand...