Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2 came out a couple of weeks ago, which anyone with an eye glancing near the realm of computer games would know about and think was old news. It showed up to my apartment on release day, having been preordered by my boyfriend David, which he quickly installed once his new computer arrived. I had heard enough about the series to be interested, so once he got his fill and played ME2 all the way through, let me start my own character on ME1.

So I went through the process of making a new character - first and foremost, my character was going to be female - cause you don't have to be a man to save the galaxy. I then had some fun tweaking her appearance, giving her blue eyes and dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail (I had to submit to the "I am a hero, look my character looks like me!!" complex), and then had to give her a background. David told me that this didn't really impact on the story line, but was important to the character development, so I read through my options and actually had a hard time choosing.

The first choice, belonging to your upbringing, wasn't too difficult. I stuck with the spacer option, being a navy brat of sorts and jumping from spaceship to spaceship with my parents until I enlisted myself. The second choice, of what happens to you after you enlist, was a little harder. I was torn - do I want to be the war hero, risking my life to save others and ending up saving the colony, or do I want to be the sole survivor, through sheer might and will surviving when everyone else around me fell?

War hero seemed too pompous. Sole survivor seemed too dark. But there was a certain appeal to being the dark survivor - I could play a character with a hidden knowledge that other characters would respect or fear, which would give me clout. I could mow down enemies without remorse, be brutal, but also be forgiving to others, possibly with a hint of sadness or regret glinting in my computer-generated eyes, before walking off alone.

I stopped here. I realized that I hadn't even started the game, and yet I was struggling with minor choices and extrapolating to potential gameplay. And then I realized, if I was to play myself the first time through, since my character looked enough like me, then I should stay away from the sole survivor past. I would want to save others, at a potentially high cost, so I went with the war hero.

I stumbled through the first mission, David sitting next to me watching me get used to the controls, commenting on when I was getting shot and didn't notice, giving hints like, "Maybe you should use your sniper rifle," because I would forget that I had that item on me. The first time I brought out the sniper rifle I was expecting to remove the enemy several hundred feet from me easily, but when I aimed with the sight, I couldn't keep it steady. My character didn't have enough skill points to aim well, so struggling with the sight probably turns out to be fairly realistic. (And with enough patience I was able to blast that guy away and some of his friends, which led to a "Nice shot" or two from David.)

I actually had more problems with dialogue and interactions, since I knew that THOSE were important. And there are so many chances to interact with people, to be good or to be bad or indifferent, that I would stop at a point when my character needed to say something and I would turn to David and ask him, "Is this a good thing to do?" And pretty much every time he would shrug, tell me that it was my character, and I would feel frustrated. There were several times when I didn't know - do I let the jellyfish-looking character preach in a public place, or do I get rid of him like the guard wants me to? Do I help certain side characters by giving them items or information, or do I stick with the mission at hand and be dismissive of everyone else? In other games I felt it was easy to pick right and wrong; this game mimicked life, where right and wrong are not obvious, where you do what seems like the best idea at the time, and go from there.

Now that I feel better about selecting dialogue options, and have dusted off my Call of Duty and Resident Evil shooting skills, I'm looking forward to the rest of this game. That is, if I can get access to David's computer again. :)