7 ms·

Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation

99 points by kposehn 15y ago

kylemaxwell 15y ago
Perhaps the best piece I have ever read on io9 (which is admittedly not a high bar to clear). I have a few quibbles with it, particularly the bit about not having too many aliens that look "suspiciously similar to humans," but in general the conclusion is well-supported.
- rcthompson 15y ago
  Yes, a lot of the species in Mass Effect are humanoid in shape, but when the author says "suspiciously similar to humans", he really means "exactly identical in appearance to humans except for one tiny difference", which is the standard set by budgetary restrictions in live-action media. Most of the major species in Mass Effect are indeed humanoid, but I don't think any of them are nearly similar enough to humans that anyone would ever for an instant mistake them for human (unless they've been to a lot of Blue Man Group concerts).
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    but I don't think any of them are nearly similar enough to humans that anyone would ever for an instant mistake them for human Really? The article says "Run around the Citadel and you'll be damned if you find more than two or three humans out of hundreds of citizens milling about, shopkeepers hocking their wares, and government officials eyeing you suspiciously. The entire government of the galaxy, known as the Council, is run by non-humans." That all sounds exceedingly human to me. You can't start an article with engulfs all of science fiction's greatest universes and then say that. There are some /really/ great universes out there. A government? Seriously? A government? A mixed species government? Shopkeepers? Wares? This isn't an amazing genre beating non-human future, this is small-town-humans-in-space-in-weird-bodies. AI and FTL and life goes on? Multiple civilizations and they're all basically equal in brainpower? Take a read of this short story http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pdf http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd... and then say this game is Taking Non-Humans Seriously as a concept.
emc12 15y ago
I guess this game never really clicked for me. It seemed too much like a video game version of Babylon 5 on rails with predictable sub plot cliches. I enjoyed it for sure, but I don't really consider much of it ground breaking or revolutionary, as I've seen these plots in various other media forms for decades, and the gameplay felt like any other BioWare RPG I've played.
- Qz 15y ago
  The full voiceover (including player lines) was one of the big things that really sold it for me -- it's really hard to go back to other RPGs and play a silent nobody after playing mass effect (which was one of the reasons I never go into Dragon Age (aside from it being bad)).
tlear 15y ago
Greatness of Mass Effect that I was able to exterminate Arachni, kill the council and give collector base to the Cerberus. Humanity value in the story is that they are new enough to challenge the order of things. Cerberus is the ultimate startup accelerator!
- jakeonthemove 15y ago
  Yeah, and then the head of Cerberus got indoctrinated and turned all their resources against humanity... Damn, I'm going to have to replay ME2 just to destroy the Collector base and generally try to fk with TIM :-D...
ynniv 15y ago
Novels require descriptions, comics require painstaking drawings, films and television require either hours of expression deadening makeup or expensive CGI. In a video game, rendering an asari or a hanar requires the same amount of work as a human. It is easier to have alien life in both a novel (descriptive) and a comic (visual) than in a video game (kinematic). Want a cast of thousands? No problem. Need a mob of hundreds of individuals representing fifteen different species rendered inside an colossal ancient space station? No sweat. Clearly this person has never made a video game. I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important. But you do need to be explained the difference between shared and tailored culture. Having a "diverse" hero of a popular television show has an affect on society. Having a "diverse" hero of the instance of the video game that you are playing has an affect on a single individual (and maybe some friends). One can spend hours tweaking physical appearance (not mere a few options of “races”) to get a character of any ethnicity and build. Oh, and sexuality is an option too. Shepard is yours to design. That's just windowdressing the choose your own adventure. The backstory that you change won't affect the plot any more than picking a "race" in those "unimpressive old games". I opened this hoping for something insightful, but was presented with an adolescent boy's wonder of a story written in a shiny medium. For all of the alien diversity, every picture on the page is humanoid. For all of the glory of the malleable video game, a descent novel would have twice the depth and ten times the perceived diversity. He purports to appreciate the humility of the portrayal of humanity, but it sounds like the whole story is about a rise to power. If you like Mass Effect this much, do yourself a favor and go read a good book.
- fufulabs 15y ago
  Wow, you are the type of person that put down new mediums. This attitude is more dangerous as it will inhibit the new art form's potential by putting it down in favor of an old but more importantly different medium. Books and games are not exclusive to each other. Stop pulling down games when it wants to aspire to a great storytelling format. Stop imposing your cynicism when glimpses of ambition shows in games. Stop this shit.
  - 15y ago
Legion 15y ago
I enjoyed Mass Effect, but Mass Effect 2 undid my interest in the series. Mass Effect's locations offered some freedom of movement - they felt like actual places. Mass Effect 2's settings were extremely constrained by comparison - no longer living locations to explore, but very much tight funnels that might as well have had "== One Way =>" signs posted.
- vacri 15y ago
  If you mean the ability to land on planets and then spend more time fighting the bouncy vertical movement of your vehicle than actually moving around the map, then yes, I guess ME1 had more freedom. I found them about the same in terms of linearity, but I was very glad I didn't have the bounce-o-matic sessions anymore.
  - jakeonthemove 15y ago
    What platform were you playing it on? I have the PC version and enjoyed every moment in the Mako - it goes up, down and side to side like a boss, and you don't even have to maneuver around obstacles :-)
    - vacri 15y ago
      PC here as well. Sure, you can drive over all but the nearly vertical mountains... but hit the slightest bump and the Mako is like a superball. Mako was fun at first, but planetside gets tedious fast: loading screen - bounce - bounce - hit anomoly 1/2/3 and do same minigame for all - bounce - short, unsatisfying vehicle firefight - loading screen. ME2 was much better - here's a planet, grab the resources, if there's a special mission, then you get a loading screen.
  - Legion 15y ago
    No, I mean the on-foot areas. "Levels" (for lack of better word) were extremely "follow the only road" in ME2. Yes, missions generally had a single start point and a single end point in ME1 as well, but the point is that the path from A to B was MUCH more free an unencumbered in ME1. It was, well, sort of the difference between an RPG and an almost-FPS. Of course, I wish FPS games themselves would return to that kind of free-roaming level design. As put brilliantly in this image: http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/fps-design.gif http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/fps-desi...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nazgulnarsil 15y ago
The next generation is bookended by episodes about how small and limited human awareness and reach are in the universe they inhabit. If anything I find TnG much more realistic in that the enterprise almost always encounters beings that are far more primitive or so advanced as to be somewhat incomprehensible.
vacri 15y ago
I enjoyed both Mass Effects, and think that they're both well-polished, and conducted in an interesting world. I don't think it's the most awesomest evar as this article does, but a lot of the naysaying so far in the comments are overfocusing on the negatives. But if we're talking about inclusiveness... I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important This highlights an interesting current even in mainstream culture - safe depictions of homosexuality. Pretty much it's fine... as long as the homosexuals in question are lesbians... and they have smoking hot bodies. There are 12 romance options combined in both games. Four of them are for either gender protagonist. One is a human woman. Three are of a race with only one gender, that happens to look like human women. If you play with a male main character, you won't be exposed to the slightest homosexual visual, even if you really want it. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Romance http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Romance It brings in another interesting effect - wildly different races are wildly different, crazy body types and so forth... as long as you're male. If you're female... well... you get to look like a human female. Every turtle-man alien we see is just that, a man. They have females, but we never get to see one. Same thing happens in World of Warcraft - the male character models are really different, but females all have similar body shapes.
- agilebyte 15y ago
  Apparently, the male Shepard did have homosexual options in Mass Effect 2, the sounds are still on the discs, but are unused
- potatolicious 15y ago
  > "If you're female... well... you get to look like a human female." This is something that bothered me about previous ME games. FWIW, ME3 (based on the demo) features a look at Krogan gender dynamics.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  This contrasts unfavorably with older media. In the broadcast television show torchwood the main character is a bi-sexual male. In Iain M Banks popular "Culture" series of novels it is common for some species to change gender, for example. in contrast, the extent to which the Mass Effect franchise pushes the envelope of, say, the social norms of j. average suburban American community is roughly on par with the average pg-13 movie.
ableal 15y ago
It's the product of the best parts of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and more The best, most inventive, written SF never made it to the movies/TV, or was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp in the process. No particular snobbery on this, just think you should be aware of it. If "important" is equivalent to popular or well-known, that's another kettle of fish. I'd say no.
- m0nty 15y ago
  What makes SF so damn good is its ability to surprise and challenge us. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Hollywood has decided mainstream audiences are allergic to, so they recycle the same old tropes again and again. Anything new and interesting must be shoe-horned into the familiar shapes, or ignored. For example, how many times have you seen this one: hero's buddy is brutally, callously murdered by generic bad-guy, he decides on revenge and possibly discovers some love-interest at the same time. He is nearly beaten, but by skill and courage wins through to triumph over the bad-guy, although not so conclusively as to preclude the making of a sequel. That is basically the Hollywood plotline, with minor variations. It's present in anything from Avatar to Beverley Hills Cop. The really good Sci Fi makes a point of defying this cliché so it never gets to the screen. Given what happens to SF when it does make it (unrecognizable pulp) this is probably A Good Thing.
Confusion 15y ago
Mass Effect? I've heard of that. The other universes he mentions, those I know. I think he is overestimating the amount of people playing videogames vs. the amount of people reading and watching television. Of course, popularity is not a measure of importance, but it is a measure of influence. I don't think Mass Effect is very influential. At least, none of the authors I read have ever mentioned it, AFAIK.
sycren 15y ago
I wonder what scientific developments or artist interpretations inspired by Mass Effect could come around like those that have come around from Star Trek. http://roadtickle.com/things-we-have-now-that-star-trek-invented/ http://roadtickle.com/things-we-have-now-that-star-trek-inve...
- rkalla 15y ago
  Maybe the LHC will give us the precursor to the Mass Effect drives/relays/weapons? Or giant talking mud-snail people... but I'll bank on the weapons I think.
sbierwagen 15y ago
If you're wondering why a puff piece featuring the Mass Effect series is on io9, it's because the third game in the series is coming out on March 6th.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  ... I just went to the shop and bought ME 1 & 2. Now I feel like a complete idiot, as I knew that ME3 is coming out soon, and didn't connect the dots. :/. I hope 1 & 2 even remotely match the description.
caycep 15y ago
Except I never understood why all the work in writing and researching this rich universe and back story got wasted in the main story arc which was pure hollywood b-movie action...kill-the-evil-cackling-bad-guy.

99 points by kposehn 15y ago

Perhaps the best piece I have ever read on io9 (which is admittedly not a high bar to clear). I have a few quibbles with it, particularly the bit about not having too many aliens that look "suspiciously similar to humans," but in general the conclusion is well-supported.

rcthompson 15y ago
Yes, a lot of the species in Mass Effect are humanoid in shape, but when the author says "suspiciously similar to humans", he really means "exactly identical in appearance to humans except for one tiny difference", which is the standard set by budgetary restrictions in live-action media. Most of the major species in Mass Effect are indeed humanoid, but I don't think any of them are nearly similar enough to humans that anyone would ever for an instant mistake them for human (unless they've been to a lot of Blue Man Group concerts).
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  but I don't think any of them are nearly similar enough to humans that anyone would ever for an instant mistake them for human Really? The article says "Run around the Citadel and you'll be damned if you find more than two or three humans out of hundreds of citizens milling about, shopkeepers hocking their wares, and government officials eyeing you suspiciously. The entire government of the galaxy, known as the Council, is run by non-humans." That all sounds exceedingly human to me. You can't start an article with engulfs all of science fiction's greatest universes and then say that. There are some /really/ great universes out there. A government? Seriously? A government? A mixed species government? Shopkeepers? Wares? This isn't an amazing genre beating non-human future, this is small-town-humans-in-space-in-weird-bodies. AI and FTL and life goes on? Multiple civilizations and they're all basically equal in brainpower? Take a read of this short story http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pdf http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd... and then say this game is Taking Non-Humans Seriously as a concept.

emc12 15y ago

I guess this game never really clicked for me. It seemed too much like a video game version of Babylon 5 on rails with predictable sub plot cliches. I enjoyed it for sure, but I don't really consider much of it ground breaking or revolutionary, as I've seen these plots in various other media forms for decades, and the gameplay felt like any other BioWare RPG I've played.

Qz 15y ago
The full voiceover (including player lines) was one of the big things that really sold it for me -- it's really hard to go back to other RPGs and play a silent nobody after playing mass effect (which was one of the reasons I never go into Dragon Age (aside from it being bad)).

tlear 15y ago

Greatness of Mass Effect that I was able to exterminate Arachni, kill the council and give collector base to the Cerberus. Humanity value in the story is that they are new enough to challenge the order of things. Cerberus is the ultimate startup accelerator!

jakeonthemove 15y ago
Yeah, and then the head of Cerberus got indoctrinated and turned all their resources against humanity... Damn, I'm going to have to replay ME2 just to destroy the Collector base and generally try to fk with TIM :-D...

ynniv 15y ago

Novels require descriptions, comics require painstaking drawings, films and television require either hours of expression deadening makeup or expensive CGI. In a video game, rendering an asari or a hanar requires the same amount of work as a human. It is easier to have alien life in both a novel (descriptive) and a comic (visual) than in a video game (kinematic). Want a cast of thousands? No problem. Need a mob of hundreds of individuals representing fifteen different species rendered inside an colossal ancient space station? No sweat. Clearly this person has never made a video game. I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important. But you do need to be explained the difference between shared and tailored culture. Having a "diverse" hero of a popular television show has an affect on society. Having a "diverse" hero of the instance of the video game that you are playing has an affect on a single individual (and maybe some friends). One can spend hours tweaking physical appearance (not mere a few options of “races”) to get a character of any ethnicity and build. Oh, and sexuality is an option too. Shepard is yours to design. That's just windowdressing the choose your own adventure. The backstory that you change won't affect the plot any more than picking a "race" in those "unimpressive old games". I opened this hoping for something insightful, but was presented with an adolescent boy's wonder of a story written in a shiny medium. For all of the alien diversity, every picture on the page is humanoid. For all of the glory of the malleable video game, a descent novel would have twice the depth and ten times the perceived diversity. He purports to appreciate the humility of the portrayal of humanity, but it sounds like the whole story is about a rise to power. If you like Mass Effect this much, do yourself a favor and go read a good book.

fufulabs 15y ago
Wow, you are the type of person that put down new mediums. This attitude is more dangerous as it will inhibit the new art form's potential by putting it down in favor of an old but more importantly different medium. Books and games are not exclusive to each other. Stop pulling down games when it wants to aspire to a great storytelling format. Stop imposing your cynicism when glimpses of ambition shows in games. Stop this shit.
- 15y ago

Legion 15y ago

I enjoyed Mass Effect, but Mass Effect 2 undid my interest in the series. Mass Effect's locations offered some freedom of movement - they felt like actual places. Mass Effect 2's settings were extremely constrained by comparison - no longer living locations to explore, but very much tight funnels that might as well have had "== One Way =>" signs posted.

vacri 15y ago
If you mean the ability to land on planets and then spend more time fighting the bouncy vertical movement of your vehicle than actually moving around the map, then yes, I guess ME1 had more freedom. I found them about the same in terms of linearity, but I was very glad I didn't have the bounce-o-matic sessions anymore.
- jakeonthemove 15y ago
  What platform were you playing it on? I have the PC version and enjoyed every moment in the Mako - it goes up, down and side to side like a boss, and you don't even have to maneuver around obstacles :-)
  - vacri 15y ago
    PC here as well. Sure, you can drive over all but the nearly vertical mountains... but hit the slightest bump and the Mako is like a superball. Mako was fun at first, but planetside gets tedious fast: loading screen - bounce - bounce - hit anomoly 1/2/3 and do same minigame for all - bounce - short, unsatisfying vehicle firefight - loading screen. ME2 was much better - here's a planet, grab the resources, if there's a special mission, then you get a loading screen.
- Legion 15y ago
  No, I mean the on-foot areas. "Levels" (for lack of better word) were extremely "follow the only road" in ME2. Yes, missions generally had a single start point and a single end point in ME1 as well, but the point is that the path from A to B was MUCH more free an unencumbered in ME1. It was, well, sort of the difference between an RPG and an almost-FPS. Of course, I wish FPS games themselves would return to that kind of free-roaming level design. As put brilliantly in this image: http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/fps-design.gif http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/fps-desi...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

nazgulnarsil 15y ago

The next generation is bookended by episodes about how small and limited human awareness and reach are in the universe they inhabit. If anything I find TnG much more realistic in that the enterprise almost always encounters beings that are far more primitive or so advanced as to be somewhat incomprehensible.

vacri 15y ago

I enjoyed both Mass Effects, and think that they're both well-polished, and conducted in an interesting world. I don't think it's the most awesomest evar as this article does, but a lot of the naysaying so far in the comments are overfocusing on the negatives. But if we're talking about inclusiveness... I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important This highlights an interesting current even in mainstream culture - safe depictions of homosexuality. Pretty much it's fine... as long as the homosexuals in question are lesbians... and they have smoking hot bodies. There are 12 romance options combined in both games. Four of them are for either gender protagonist. One is a human woman. Three are of a race with only one gender, that happens to look like human women. If you play with a male main character, you won't be exposed to the slightest homosexual visual, even if you really want it. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Romance http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Romance It brings in another interesting effect - wildly different races are wildly different, crazy body types and so forth... as long as you're male. If you're female... well... you get to look like a human female. Every turtle-man alien we see is just that, a man. They have females, but we never get to see one. Same thing happens in World of Warcraft - the male character models are really different, but females all have similar body shapes.

agilebyte 15y ago
Apparently, the male Shepard did have homosexual options in Mass Effect 2, the sounds are still on the discs, but are unused
potatolicious 15y ago
> "If you're female... well... you get to look like a human female." This is something that bothered me about previous ME games. FWIW, ME3 (based on the demo) features a look at Krogan gender dynamics.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
This contrasts unfavorably with older media. In the broadcast television show torchwood the main character is a bi-sexual male. In Iain M Banks popular "Culture" series of novels it is common for some species to change gender, for example. in contrast, the extent to which the Mass Effect franchise pushes the envelope of, say, the social norms of j. average suburban American community is roughly on par with the average pg-13 movie.

ableal 15y ago

It's the product of the best parts of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and more The best, most inventive, written SF never made it to the movies/TV, or was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp in the process. No particular snobbery on this, just think you should be aware of it. If "important" is equivalent to popular or well-known, that's another kettle of fish. I'd say no.

m0nty 15y ago
What makes SF so damn good is its ability to surprise and challenge us. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Hollywood has decided mainstream audiences are allergic to, so they recycle the same old tropes again and again. Anything new and interesting must be shoe-horned into the familiar shapes, or ignored. For example, how many times have you seen this one: hero's buddy is brutally, callously murdered by generic bad-guy, he decides on revenge and possibly discovers some love-interest at the same time. He is nearly beaten, but by skill and courage wins through to triumph over the bad-guy, although not so conclusively as to preclude the making of a sequel. That is basically the Hollywood plotline, with minor variations. It's present in anything from Avatar to Beverley Hills Cop. The really good Sci Fi makes a point of defying this cliché so it never gets to the screen. Given what happens to SF when it does make it (unrecognizable pulp) this is probably A Good Thing.

Confusion 15y ago

Mass Effect? I've heard of that. The other universes he mentions, those I know. I think he is overestimating the amount of people playing videogames vs. the amount of people reading and watching television. Of course, popularity is not a measure of importance, but it is a measure of influence. I don't think Mass Effect is very influential. At least, none of the authors I read have ever mentioned it, AFAIK.

sycren 15y ago

I wonder what scientific developments or artist interpretations inspired by Mass Effect could come around like those that have come around from Star Trek. http://roadtickle.com/things-we-have-now-that-star-trek-invented/ http://roadtickle.com/things-we-have-now-that-star-trek-inve...

rkalla 15y ago
Maybe the LHC will give us the precursor to the Mass Effect drives/relays/weapons? Or giant talking mud-snail people... but I'll bank on the weapons I think.

sbierwagen 15y ago

If you're wondering why a puff piece featuring the Mass Effect series is on io9, it's because the third game in the series is coming out on March 6th.

TeMPOraL 15y ago
... I just went to the shop and bought ME 1 & 2. Now I feel like a complete idiot, as I knew that ME3 is coming out soon, and didn't connect the dots. :/. I hope 1 & 2 even remotely match the description.

caycep 15y ago

Except I never understood why all the work in writing and researching this rich universe and back story got wasted in the main story arc which was pure hollywood b-movie action...kill-the-evil-cackling-bad-guy.