Andy Laub

Andy Laub is a designer & developer in the Twin Cities.

Tagged Mass Effect

Expansive »

Yes, it's another Fallout post. Also Mass Effect.

I didn’t mention it in my last post, but I am pretty comfortable putting the Fallout franchise on the same level as Mass Effect in terms of how well-developed the universe is. It’s a pretty good indication of my appreciation for the franchise if I’ll spend hours on their respective wiki’s just, well, absorbing, even after the game has ended.

Fallout is particularly interesting because the future as envisioned there (2277 in this case) requires a significant departure from our current universe beginning in the 1950’s, while ME (set in the late 2100’s) is an imagination of where we as a society could go from where we currently are.

Because of the sheer amount of stuff offered by both universes, the series’ are both ripe for downloadable content. And while usually the DLC I acquire is done so with the intent to do things (additional missions in Borderlands, or wanting to drive more, newer cars in Forza), the DLC in these games was appealing because it offered a chance to see more of the universe, even just a small slice; and that’s what this post is really about. Without trying to sound too dismissive, the Mass Effect team likely has a much easier time with DLC, since they can add a new planet, or a new location to an existing planet, and not have to worry about it fitting to deeply into the context of the current game.

Fallout, on the other hand, has a somewhat less range to work with (you are in the DC area, on foot, with a finite number of different “factions” to deal with) and yet it manages to skirt those limits on more than one occasion. This creativity is welcome, but also makes for an inconsistent experience across the five different expansions. That doesn’t mean they’re not fun; they are, just to varying degrees:

  1. Operation: Anchorage was the first piece of DLC for Fallout 3, and basically takes you out of both DC and 2277 by putting you in a simulator where you repel the Chinese invasion of Alaska in 2066. It’s kind of a cheat, but still quite enjoyable. Interestingly, it felt like Call of Duty as imagined by Fallout – that’s not to say it wasn’t fun, but it removed a lot of the attributes of combat that I had been used to up to this point (weapon degradation, scrounging for ammo and weapons, super mutants). Still interesting, but very sterile.
  2. The Pitt, then, is practically the opposite in every way. Where Anchorage is bright and clean and always daylight, Pittsburgh has been cast into a reddish darkness, illuminated only by the flames from surrounding smokestacks. Upon arrival you’re stripped of all your possessions and must work your way out of slavery. Of all the DLC, the pacing on The Pitt felt the weirdest to me, though I’m willing to accept some of the blame for that because I spent a lot of time in the steelyard collecting ingots.
  3. Broken Steel is easily the best of the bunch. Most notably, it allows you to continue playing after you complete the core story, something not formerly allowed. It also boosts the level cap from a measly 20 to a majestic 30 (sorry, nerd-talk), and adds some additional enemies for you to worry about (and I mean that sincerely – they’re badasses). As if that’s not enough, it is the only expansion to lengthen the core story and get a taste of life after the initial game’s climax. This is far and away the one I’d most recommend, but the general consensus is that features it adds should’ve been there in the first place.
  4. I was most skeptical of Point Lookout, which takes you to a swampy wasteland along the coast of Maryland. For the most part things played out pretty normally (considering the context), but I will give it credit for introducing one of my favorite side missions of the whole game — one in which you follow the trail of a Chinese spy stationed there before the bombs fell. Point Lookout (the place) is also the largest and most diverse area to be featured in any of the DLC.

That said, I’d still recommend that anyone looking to play the game look for a deal on the Game of the Year edition, which includes all five add-ons (the fifth, Mothership Zeta, sounds intriguing but I haven’t yet played it), but if you are just looking to add to your existing copy, don’t rush to the Xbox Live Marketplace (or the Playstation Store) just yet – Op: Anchorage and The Pitt are available on a physical disc, as are Broken Steel and Point Lookout.

This is notable for one reason: physical games are available used, which means you may be able to get the four mentioned above for significantly less than you’d have to pay to download them. Had that not been the case I probably would’ve skipped the first two altogether, even though they were interesting. I’ll likely pass on Mothership Zeta for now, opting instead to prepare for the imminent arrival of New Vegas in my mailbox.

And Beyond »

This is really what the other Mass Effect post was supposed to be.

The last time I talked about Mass Effect I ended up off on a tangent about how you need to play through the series from the beginning. Because it’s true. But what I meant to do was compile a list of things that I loved about the game.

As it turns out that, I was too lazy to actually record them as I played (aside from the infrequent Tweet), so instead here is a haphazard-but-not-as-comprehensive-as-I’d-like list of things that are great about the series:

Environment

I’ve spent plenty of time talking about how the environment is as much of a character as anyone else in the Grand Theft Auto series. The same is true for Mass Effect; to the point where it’s at the very least on the same level as GTA. As you explore in either game, you’ll overhear conversations between other characters and be exposed to various forms of media. And in both cases, that media is extremely well-written and enjoyable to listen to, and often deals directly with the plot that you are involved in.

Mass Effect 2 continues the tradition of acquiring side missions by observing your environment, whether that be by hacking a computer terminal, talking to a bystander, or simply by picking up an item that you have to find a use for. A few times the latter resulted in me finishing a side mission that I didn’t even realize was happening, and that kind of simple entertainment can be a welcome diversion from the core story.

Experimentation

I mentioned previously that the game keeps a running tally of the decisions you’ve made throughout the series, which results in some really surprising and well-executed events in ME2 that you’d likely miss completely if you skipped the first game, and it enforces their assertion that the decisions you make may come back to help or hinder you later.

And while it’s great to see those decisions persist throughout the series, it’s likely you’ll want to approach the story in a few different ways, especially given the breadth of things you didn’t experience if you only played through once. Thankfully, the games welcome multiple playthroughs, whether you choose to replay the story with your now-leveled-up character or start fresh. They even go as far as to separate your save files for each character (so no accidentally overwriting Character 1’s file with your progress in Character 2).

Exploration

In a universe as deep as Mass Effect‘s, it only makes sense that the player be provided with some sort of guide to it all, hence the codex. Accessible from the pause menu of both games, the codex functions as a portable, built-in encyclopedia. The depth of knowledge and the work that went into creating and compiling this information is simply astounding as it references nearly every race and creature you’ll come across in your travels, providing you with information on biology, demeanor, culture, and other pertinent details. But it doesn’t end there; the codex serves as a reference for everything from space combat to galactic history. In short, the codex is the embodiment of everything there is to love about the series.

To Infinity »

Mass Effect is simply amazing.

I bought Mass Effect a month or so after it was released in late 2007. Even after playing through the roughly 20-hour campaign (estimated), I didn’t give it more than a sentence of attention:

Mass Effect was pretty darn good once I figured out how to play it

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it; it just didn’t register as much more than a tiny blip on my “totally hawesome games” radar. There was some neat stuff that happened, and that’s all I could really say about that.

Suffice it to say, I was wrong.

I decided to embark on another playthrough of the game when I was going through my annual pre-Christmas gaming drought, in anticipation of the soon-to-be-released sequel. I spent significantly more time exploring and talking the second time around. In some games all this would do is add time to your play clock, but in Mass Effect every conversation, every scan, every hacked computer terminal held the potential for a new discovery; a little more insight into the universe Bioware labored to create.

As the first in the series, it wasn’t surprising for a game of ME‘s scope to have some teething problems. Many of the side missions were a little too generic; the environments just a little bit sterile. The inventory system was frustrating to deal with. The loading screens were frequent and generic. The elevator rides were… long. But in spite of all this, you could see what the game wanted to be, and you could appreciate it for that.

Now let’s take all of those complaints and throw them away, because they’ve all been remedied in Mass Effect 2. Bioware could’ve continued down the same path. They could’ve used the first game’s mechanicals in their entirety, pasted a new story over the top, and called it good.

But they didn’t do that, and the sequel is better for it. Yes, it’s a little different than the first game. Especially if you just (re)played the first game. But it’s for your own good. You may find it off-putting at first – get over it. If you use that as an excuse not to play it, then you’re just stupid and your face is stupid.

Here’s the thing, though: some sequels are way better than their predecessors. The Uncharted series is a great example of this. Drake’s Fortune was good, but Among Thieves was GOOD. As such, it’s easy to take that knowledge and skip the first game completely. You are doing yourself a massive disservice if you do this with Mass Effect.

Unlike Uncharted, ME‘s central focus is your relationships and interactions with other characters. And I mean all characters, not just your squad. I can’t imagine how uninteresting or confusing some of those conversations would be if you didn’t have the context and experiences of the first game. There’s a reason that the first option when starting a game is to import your character from the original: the decisions you made there do affect the ME2 universe, albeit in generally minor ways.

Bioware is trying to tell a cohesive story here, and each game is an important chapter. These add up to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, and anyone who doesn’t experience all of those parts as they were meant to be played is missing out.

In retrospect, I’m not sure this is what I meant to write when I sat down, which means there will probably be another Mass Effect post in the near future. Still though. Seriously.

Brothers Unfinished »

I've been seeing a lot of Mario (and that green guy) lately.

If you were to examine my recent gaming habits, you’d notice that in between my sporadic bouts of Borderlands and my re-play of Mass Effect to prepare for the sequel, the void is filled by an unlikely source: Nintendo. More specifically, Mario. And not New Super Mario Bros., even.

One of the games on my Christmas Manifesto™ was Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story for the Ninetudo DS. It’s your basic RPG: levels, hit points, etc, etc, but one that takes place in the Mario universe (but not the Mario Galaxy). I was somewhat excited for it ever since playing Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, which I look back upon with much fondness as likely being my favorite Gamecube game.

Bowser’s Inside Story doesn’t share the same paper atmosphere as the Paper Mario franchise; it’s actually a direct successor to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, a game I’ve long since owned for the Game Boy Advance and struggled with, to the point of abandoning it near the end of the game.

Fortunately that problem didn’t persist with the new game. I really enjoyed the characters and the humor this time around. You’ll find yourself alternating between playing as Bowser (super fun) and the Mario duo (not quite as fun), as you attempt to thwart a villain who speaks fluent Engrish. The biggest complaint I had was the extensive explanation that accompanied every new discovery or ability. You have the option to skip it, but then you risk not know what’s going on. After about 30 minutes of the game, 15 minutes of which is text, it was awesome to hear Bowser echo my sentiments: TOO MANY WORDS!.

Actually, that’s not true. The biggest complaint I had is one that I will attach to every modern Nintendo game, and that is gimmickry for gimmickry’s sake. I can live with the touch screen, but blowing into the microphone to engage certain actions (fortunately this is rare) is nothing more than a pain in the ass, and would make me ashamed to play this game in any sort of public setting. The game still remains a ton of fun to play and I enjoyed the vast majority of it, so much so that I decided to revisit Superstar Saga after a hiatus of over 6 years.

It was a little weird to try playing it again; at first I tried loading up my last save, which was at the front gate of the final area, but I quickly found myself outclassed. I cursed my past self for being so unprepared for these sorts of situations and decided it would be best to start from scratch. I’ve adopted a philosophy in playing RPG’s recently that seems to pay off more often than not: fight everybody. Fighting equals experience equals power equals victory. For comparison’s sake, the duo in my saved game was hovering around level 30, while my new game ended with them having reached level 40. That doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but trust me, it was worth the extra effort, especially when the main difference in my playing was confronting enemies that were nearby instead of avoiding them.

All of this Mario RPG-ness has made me hungry for the other games in the series. I’ve already found myself giving Super Paper Mario another chance, and Paper Mario 64 and Super Mario RPG are available on the Wii Virtual Console. As if that’s not enough, I just found out that there’s a third game in the Mario & Luigi series that will be requiring my immediate attention as soon as I can find a used copy of it. So I have to go find a used copy of it.

Status »

It could practically be a LiveJournal post, it's so emo.

The last couple weeks have proven rather interesting for me. Fridays have found themselves full of meetings, and as a result more work and some exciting prospects that are still in the early stages of the maybe possibly happening?

I’m part of a podcast now, The Insophisticate. It’s about technology, but really it’s just my friend Dino and me talking for a random amount of time about the stuff we’d talk about anyway. You might find it interesting if you dig that sort of thing.

Wausau Community Theatre is presenting Gypsy at the end of February. I’m fortunate enough to be a member of the cast, which means I get to hone my acting skills and be with people whose company I enjoy. There’s no dancing or singing for me in this one, which I was kind of bummed about at first but has actually been a blessing in disguise since it leaves me with more open evenings.

Mass Effect was pretty darn good once I figured out how to play it; Orange Box is a game no 360/PS3/PC owner should be without. I’m probably 5% into Mario Galaxy but I haven’t picked it up since last month.

But seriously. Good things are coming (I think). There’s not one big thing that I’m looking forward to, but rather a bunch of small things that, when combined, make me happy.