Mass Appeal...
... or Mass Potential. Or maybe Missed Potential. I finished the game last night, in the sense that I completed the main storyline, but not all the side quests. Further thoughts below.
I love the setting. A sci-fi universe that hasn't been done a thousand times before. The galactic politics feel believable.
I really, really like the way the "impossibilities" of the setting (FTL travel, "magic," and such) are, at least for the most part, keyed off of one technological leap and themed thusly. Interstellar travel? Well, that's doable because of the element zero-based drives let you alter the mass (at least in a practical sense) to zero in order to break the limits of relativity. Artificial gravity? Same process, but it manipulates relative mass of the ship to create a downward pull inside. Biotics? Through interaction with element zero, humans (and probably other races in the distant past) have developed the ability to use telekinetic powers - but all the ones in the game are telekinetic, so they can all be chalked up to manipulation of effective mass. They can push, lift, sheer, and create kinetic barriers, so they all fit in theme. Somehow that feels more coherent than "FTL drives work this way, and people have mysterious powers, and this other technology uses this principle," and so on. I even makes more sense in the game when it's stated that such technology was left behind in a deliberate attempt to push evolution of life in the galaxy along specific lines.
The things I dislike about the game all involve it being a game.
The bloody thing glitched out and blue-screened my computer a total of three times during the final fight, and had other problems at that same point more than once - like getting stuck "changing" weapons, so I couldn't attack at all. Through the rest of the game, there may have been a half dozen times it froze during a transition to an elevator or the galaxy map. I've read that such occurrences actually increased after the patch that was released, and that's just bad.
As mentioned before, many of the side-quests got repetitive. While the storyline missions were unique, the others had, let's see... There was a starship map, a facility/colony map, a mine/cave map, and... and... heck, I think that's it. Each map has only half a dozen rooms. The room contents may be different, or placed differently, and the enemies vary from the set in the game, but I think there were only those three basic maps. They didn't even attach the rooms differently, though in some cases a room might be sealed off. I experienced this sort of sameness while playing City of Villains (though I remember more variety among the reused tile sets there) and it just makes doing these quests more boring. With limits like that, I'd expect the pieces of the puzzle (room tile set, configuration, contents, etc.) to be randomly generated, at least, but I saw no sign that they were. I was actually grateful for the missions that involved fighting on the surface of a planet instead of inside a mine/research base/colony/whatever because it was some variety. In the end, I didn't do all the non-essential missions in my first play through.
Piloting the Mako was a nice addition, but I really wish the thing didn't handle like a featherweight RC truck. During the plotline quests, runs with it generally worked and looked fine. Running it over random worlds, though, means bouncing over hills, driving at impossible angles up hills, and falling ridiculous distances only to roll over onto its wheels. I suppose they can blame it on a mass-lessening effect, but it just doesn't feel right. If anything, it feels silly. That's out of place when you're going to save colonists from an alien invasion or something.
There are lots of hold overs from its console roots. The achievements, for example, work in an interesting fashion. Depending on things you do in the game, you may unlock certain abilities. Kill X things with an assault rifle and any new characters you make can pick the assault rifle skill as your one extra that isn't normally allowed your class. Do enough of Y and you get a 10% bonus to your shields. Interesting, but you have to play through multiple times to get them all and/or benefit from most of them. And when the storyline is linear, the gameplay not exactly outstanding, and the side quests lackluster, there's not much other reason to play through repeatedly.
I'm still fond of the story. Granted, it is linear. Oh, you can do steps 3, 4, and 5 in any order you want, but you still have to do them all. And you can make different choices in how to deal with things morally, but it appears to matter little as far as how things actually play out in the long run (I'll have to see if shooting people instead of talking them down generates more than a mission-end "Well, I wish you hadn't done it that way, Shepard" message).
I'd give it... I don't know... maybe 7 out of 10? It's better than average and I'm a sucker for a storyline that I like, but it's pulled down by a lack of variety and too many bugs for a big game. I know the PC version is a port, but I can't help but wonder if the original game was pushed to release earlier than it should have been. It could have been a joy to explore the galaxy and drop on new worlds to explore, instead it gets to be a chore after a while.
One little thing I've been thinking about came from a forum post I peek at that I thought was a typo at the time. Someone referred to Saren as the protagonist. "That can't be right," I thought, "after all, you play Shepard. Saren's the bad guy."
But it occurs to me that while Shepard is the main character, Saren could actually be considered the protagonist for most of the story. He's the one moving the plot forward. Shepard is always one step behind, chasing in an attempt to stop Saren. ... So one could certainly say the story is about Shepard's struggle to save the galaxy, but it actually seems valid to say the story is actually the tragedy of Saren's downfall told from the perspective of the antagonist, Shepard.
And that also got me to thinking about how many other games (probably CRPGs, primarily) fall into the formula of "main character chases the villain in an attempt to stop them from destroying the world (or whatever)." The hero/main character is often cast in a reactionary role. In some interpretations, that's more antagonist than protagonist...
I love the setting. A sci-fi universe that hasn't been done a thousand times before. The galactic politics feel believable.
I really, really like the way the "impossibilities" of the setting (FTL travel, "magic," and such) are, at least for the most part, keyed off of one technological leap and themed thusly. Interstellar travel? Well, that's doable because of the element zero-based drives let you alter the mass (at least in a practical sense) to zero in order to break the limits of relativity. Artificial gravity? Same process, but it manipulates relative mass of the ship to create a downward pull inside. Biotics? Through interaction with element zero, humans (and probably other races in the distant past) have developed the ability to use telekinetic powers - but all the ones in the game are telekinetic, so they can all be chalked up to manipulation of effective mass. They can push, lift, sheer, and create kinetic barriers, so they all fit in theme. Somehow that feels more coherent than "FTL drives work this way, and people have mysterious powers, and this other technology uses this principle," and so on. I even makes more sense in the game when it's stated that such technology was left behind in a deliberate attempt to push evolution of life in the galaxy along specific lines.
The things I dislike about the game all involve it being a game.
The bloody thing glitched out and blue-screened my computer a total of three times during the final fight, and had other problems at that same point more than once - like getting stuck "changing" weapons, so I couldn't attack at all. Through the rest of the game, there may have been a half dozen times it froze during a transition to an elevator or the galaxy map. I've read that such occurrences actually increased after the patch that was released, and that's just bad.
As mentioned before, many of the side-quests got repetitive. While the storyline missions were unique, the others had, let's see... There was a starship map, a facility/colony map, a mine/cave map, and... and... heck, I think that's it. Each map has only half a dozen rooms. The room contents may be different, or placed differently, and the enemies vary from the set in the game, but I think there were only those three basic maps. They didn't even attach the rooms differently, though in some cases a room might be sealed off. I experienced this sort of sameness while playing City of Villains (though I remember more variety among the reused tile sets there) and it just makes doing these quests more boring. With limits like that, I'd expect the pieces of the puzzle (room tile set, configuration, contents, etc.) to be randomly generated, at least, but I saw no sign that they were. I was actually grateful for the missions that involved fighting on the surface of a planet instead of inside a mine/research base/colony/whatever because it was some variety. In the end, I didn't do all the non-essential missions in my first play through.
Piloting the Mako was a nice addition, but I really wish the thing didn't handle like a featherweight RC truck. During the plotline quests, runs with it generally worked and looked fine. Running it over random worlds, though, means bouncing over hills, driving at impossible angles up hills, and falling ridiculous distances only to roll over onto its wheels. I suppose they can blame it on a mass-lessening effect, but it just doesn't feel right. If anything, it feels silly. That's out of place when you're going to save colonists from an alien invasion or something.
There are lots of hold overs from its console roots. The achievements, for example, work in an interesting fashion. Depending on things you do in the game, you may unlock certain abilities. Kill X things with an assault rifle and any new characters you make can pick the assault rifle skill as your one extra that isn't normally allowed your class. Do enough of Y and you get a 10% bonus to your shields. Interesting, but you have to play through multiple times to get them all and/or benefit from most of them. And when the storyline is linear, the gameplay not exactly outstanding, and the side quests lackluster, there's not much other reason to play through repeatedly.
I'm still fond of the story. Granted, it is linear. Oh, you can do steps 3, 4, and 5 in any order you want, but you still have to do them all. And you can make different choices in how to deal with things morally, but it appears to matter little as far as how things actually play out in the long run (I'll have to see if shooting people instead of talking them down generates more than a mission-end "Well, I wish you hadn't done it that way, Shepard" message).
I'd give it... I don't know... maybe 7 out of 10? It's better than average and I'm a sucker for a storyline that I like, but it's pulled down by a lack of variety and too many bugs for a big game. I know the PC version is a port, but I can't help but wonder if the original game was pushed to release earlier than it should have been. It could have been a joy to explore the galaxy and drop on new worlds to explore, instead it gets to be a chore after a while.
One little thing I've been thinking about came from a forum post I peek at that I thought was a typo at the time. Someone referred to Saren as the protagonist. "That can't be right," I thought, "after all, you play Shepard. Saren's the bad guy."
But it occurs to me that while Shepard is the main character, Saren could actually be considered the protagonist for most of the story. He's the one moving the plot forward. Shepard is always one step behind, chasing in an attempt to stop Saren. ... So one could certainly say the story is about Shepard's struggle to save the galaxy, but it actually seems valid to say the story is actually the tragedy of Saren's downfall told from the perspective of the antagonist, Shepard.
And that also got me to thinking about how many other games (probably CRPGs, primarily) fall into the formula of "main character chases the villain in an attempt to stop them from destroying the world (or whatever)." The hero/main character is often cast in a reactionary role. In some interpretations, that's more antagonist than protagonist...
We accept that a protagonist is who the story is about, and the antagonist is the person creating the conflict the protagonist must over come. In the case of the protagonist basically playing "clean up" behind the stuff the antagonist left behind, sure the big bad is messing things up and putting plans into motion, but we watch (or play) the story of the person "setting things right". Does this Saren react to Shepard's actions of screwing with his plans? Does he send in agents or goons? Does he, in turn, react to the reactions Shepard has to his initial machinations?
ReplyDeleteHeh. Not really. Oh, Saren has lines along the lines of "this human must die" but every encounter happens because you chase him down and you only engage his agents as they work to carry out Saren's plan, not because they were sent to stop you. Oh, I suppose it's a narrow view, but I've heard "protagonist" defined sometimes as "the person who moves the plot along." As far as the primary story goes, the PC in this game (any a number of others) is totally reactionary. But yeah, the PC is still the one with the most screen time, and the one standing at the end, and more-or-less the one the story is "about."
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagonist Primarily the part about: "... The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek πρωταγωνιστής (protagonistes), "one who plays the first part, chief actor"[1][2]. Basically, the term protagonist is defined to be either always synonymous with the term main character, or it is defined as a different concept, in which case a single character still may (and usually will) serve the function of both the protagonist and main character, or the functions may be split. "
ReplyDelete