Monday, October 07, 2013
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Just finished my 3rd playthrough of the Mass Effect series. Man that is just an amazing accomplishment. Such a well crafted storyline with rich and deeply written characters. The little things, like how all your decisions from even the first Mass Effect carry through to ME2 and ME3 are pretty amazing. I'm kind of glad I was a late adopter on this one, because I heard there were some bumps and bruises with the first release of the ME3 edition's ending. With a little bit of DLC, everything is rounded out. You really feel drawn into the experience, and your interactions are meaningful.
I'm drawn to gaming experiences where you have to make tough moralistic / pragmatic decisions where there is a lot of grey area, yet the repercussions will be long standing. There are no shortage of these moments throughout the whole series, that's for sure. Pop quiz, you break through to the enemy's command and control center and can hack into the computer to stop one of the two incoming nukes. Do you save the spaceport or the colony? Saving the spaceport will allow for recolonization and keep the military types happier but it vaporizes all those innocent colonists. Saving the colonist will get you popular support with certain factions but at the expense of pissing off the military higher ups and perhaps reducing your available men/materials for later battles.
Anyway. Enough of me being a fanboi. lol