Mass Effect Again

          Last week, I blogged about playing the Mass Effect series on the Xbox 360. I said that it's a game about choice and that your decisions have a lot of repercussions. As a result of that, by the time you reach the end of the series your story can be drastically different from someone else's. I knew this going in, so I decided that I would play through the games a few times to experience everything the trilogy has to offer.

          The first time I played through, I rolled Paragon. Most actions in the game are classified as Paragon (which is good) and Renegade (which is evil). These choices can be in conversation, where you can intimidate or threaten people to achieve your ends (if you want to be Renegade), or you can be nice and appeal to their better nature, convincing them to do the right thing. These choices can also occur through your actions. You can, for example, push an enemy out of a skyscraper window to kill him in the second game. many of these choices don't make a huge difference in the way the game turns out, but it affects your character and the way other people interact with you.

          During my second run through the games, I decided to be Renegade. That means that I choose the evil options whenever possible. I threaten, lie, cheat, and kill whenever I feel like it, especially when I feel as though someone doesn't deserve it (the more good the person is, the more Renegade your actions will be if you choose them). I thought that it would be easy.

          Turns out, being evil is incredibly difficult. Even in a video game, which is obviously not real, I felt genuinely bad whenever I would be mean to one of my squadmates. Their reactions to my hurtful words or actions really put a bad taste in my mouth. I don;t know what is is about this series, but I couldn't separate it enough from reality to the point that I could be a terrible person in the game and not feel bad about it in real life.

          For example, in the beginning of the first game you run into a character named Ashley Williams. She is an Alliance soldier like you who has been recently besieged by the enemy. When you meet her, she is the last of her squad, the rest of which had been wiped out. When she apologized to me, I told her that it was her fault and that she was a bad soldier. She was devastated by my words.

          I can't describe how bad I felt after I said that. It was like a slap in the face. For some reason, being mean to a virtual character, one that I never really cared for in the first place, made me feel rotten. The worst part was, that was the very beginning of the first game. I had promised myself that I would roll evil for the entirety of the series, but I was second-guessing my decision from the moment I started playing. I eventually gave up, realizing that I couldn't possibly enjoy playing the game in such a way that my virtual counterparts would despise me for my actions.

          Long story short, I am not evil. 

Mass Effect

          This week, instead of reading a book, I played the Mass Effect trilogy on the Xbox 360. I first heard of this series because I was a fan of Bioware, the company that developed the games. I had played some of their previous games, namely Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (or KOTOR) and the Dragon Age games. I had played a bit of the first Mass Effect about six months ago, but I didn't really care for it. However, I decided to give it another try after I heard such great things about the games from Steve Livoti. So I played the entire trilogy last week. I was glad that I decided to give the games another shot.
          I decided that I could blog about these games the same way I blog about books because of the scale of the story in these games. The story changes with each decision you make, and the alterations cascade though the next games. Because of that, you can play these games several times and have a completely different experience each time. That's one of the reasons why I loved these games so much: you get to make your own story.
          The Mass Effect series takes place in the distant future. The first game starts out in 2183, and the human race has advanced significantly in the past centuries. In 2148, after discovering artifacts on Mars that came from an extinct alien race known as the Protheans, humans are able to make huge technological advances using information from the find. This allows humanity to explore the galaxy outside of our solar system. Contact with other alien races follow shortly, and humanity finds itself quickly becoming a major player in the galaxy.
          In these games, you play as Shepard, a commander in the Alliance Navy. During your career, you discover the existence of an alien race known as the Reapers, who come out of hiding every 50,000 years to destroy all the powerful species in the galaxy. Your goal across the games is to stop them from achieving that goal. As Shepard, your choices drastically affect the outcome. Your choices affect who lives and who dies, and they ultimately decide the fate of the reapers and the galaxy.
          The story in these games is incredible. Even though you're surrounded by tons of alien species you know nothing about, and you're dealing with a previously unknown enemy, it never feels overwhelming. The game helps you to understand things by providing you with a codex filled with info an a large variety of topics. This allows you to choose your level or immersion: you can have the world be as rich as you like by reading all of the entries, or you can simply play the game and accept things at face value with out trying to decipher them.
          The third game in the series reminded me a bit or Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. Mockingjay follows Katniss Everdeen as she leads the resistance movement against the Capitol, and deals with the psychological strain she deals with. In Mass Effect 3, Shepard is doing a similar thing. As Shepard, you lead the races of the galaxy against the reapers, and, after two other games, the stress is starting to get to your character. Shepard feels stressed, he (or she) isn't sleeping well, and the fate of Earth and the entire galaxy is resting upon his/her shoulders. Both stories focus on the emotional impact of the experiences of the protagonists more than the previous iterations.
          Mass Effect is also similar to Ender's Game. Ender fights an alien enemy, the "Buggers," who are hell-bent on destroying humanity in Ender's Game, and Shepard faces a similar situation with the Reapers. For both, the destruction of the enemy is necessary, as the opponents are an obvious evil. But, when all is said and done, both find out that the enemy they loathe is not exactly what they had previously been believed to be.
          The Mass Effect franchise is an excellent bunch of games. Anyone interested in a fun role-playing third-person-shooter, a good story, or hours of entertainment should definitely give these games a try.

Game of Thrones

          Last week, I read Game of Thrones, the first book in the "Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin. I first heard of Game of Thrones because of its popularity on HBO after the book was adapted for TV. Many of my friends saw it, and they said it was awesome. Mitchell, who also heard great things, procured this book the same day I got Ender's Game. After reading it, he recommended it to me, so I read it.
          My expectations of the book were high, perhaps too high. They were all of them exceeded. The novel, already rather long at 674 pages, seems to contain ten books' worth of narrative. This could be because there is a purpose for every chapter: every section of the book has something important going on in it. Contrast this with The Fellowship of the Ring, where two chapters that span fifty-nine pages, Many Meetings and The Council of Elrond, could be shortened to a matter of sentences, and entire sections, like the Tom Bombadil and Barrow-Downs sequences, could be removed from the book entirely and no difference would come of it. You can understand why a more purposeful book could be appealing.
          The story of Game of Thrones centers around the Starks, a family of nobles living in the northern part of the Seven Kingdoms. Lord Eddard (called Ned) is the head of the family. When his king and long-time friend Robert Baratheon tells him that his assistant, the Hand to the King, is dead, Ned is devastated, and surprised to hear that Robert wants him as the replacement. Ned travels to King's Landing, leaving his home of Winterfell and his family behind, in order to serve and protect his friend and King. The plot thickens as the king's enemies attempt to secretly dethrone him.
          The perspective, once again, is a huge aid to the storytelling. In The Hunger Games, the first-person point-of-view allows you to feel Katniss's pain more clearly. In Ender's Game, the third-person perspective told you how lonely Ender was. In Game of Thrones, each chapter is written from another character's perspective. Each of the characters has their own plan and motivation, and seeing things from their perspective helps you understand the complexities of the story. Because of this, you get the feeling that there are a lot of different things going on.
          One of the nice things about this is that you don't read about a certain character unless they've got something going on. Contrast this, again, with The Fellowship, where there's a lot of sitting around and waiting. For example, if Martin wrote the book instead of Tolkien, instead of Frodo sitting around in the Shire wondering why Gandalf wasn't there, the perspective would change to Gandalf's, where you would see Saruman's treachery from the grey wizard's point-of-view. I think that this would be much more interesting, and it could be why I like Game of Thrones so much.
          One other thing that this book has over Lord of the Rings in my opinion is that it doesn't beat you over the head with ancient lore. There is history in the book, but the characters don't waste their times singing songs about it. The author lets you know what you need to know to understand the world that he creates, which is exactly how much I want to know about it. When I read a book, I want a story about what's happening as the characters experience it, not some tale from long ago.
          Game of Thrones was an excellent read. I've started reading the sequel, A Clash of Kings, and so far it's as good as the first book. I look forward to reading the rest of the books as well as watching the HBO series based on them.