Massive Effects

Last week, I wrote about how Bioware really pushed the envelope when it came to choice in their early games, namely Baldur's Gate. This week I will continue exploring the accomplishments of Bioware a bit more, and how they further shaped the essence of choice in their extremely successful franchise Mass Effect.

Mass Effect

Mass Effect follows the story of Commander Shepard (you), as he leads his ragtag crew of assorted alien species around the galaxy in an effort to thwart the world-devouring Reapers and save the Universe. Yeah, it's as epic as it sounds. Bioware's major breakthrough with this series of games, however, was the building upon of their conversation tree system, and the inclusion of a morality system. 

Crafting a Player-Character

In order to understand how the morality system works in Mass Effect, the new conversation system warrants an explanation first. Unlike Baldur's Gate, where just a list of responses was laid out for the player to choose from, Mass Effect has the conversation wheel. So the trade-off is this; you get less varied responses than you would in Baldur's Gate, but you can make a choice much faster and therefore actually simulate a dramatic, fully acted conversation with characters in the game--something the Mass Effect series has constantly been lauded for. This all funnels into the morality system mentioned earlier. At key points in the story, the player is given a choice; usually a very difficult one, and upon the conversation wheel will be two color-coded responses; one red, and one blue. As you can imagine, red equated to the 'evil' decision, whereas blue indicated the 'heroic' decision, although not every choice throughout the trilogy is always that cut and dry. What this meant is that each player not only had control over their personal Commander Shepard's combat abilities, but also his or her personality as well, to truly create their own "version" of the game. And all of this was accompanied by a way to port your save file from one game to the next, preserving those choices you made and seeing them ripple across the trilogy was truly a thing of beauty.

Resources

Hillier, B. (2012, March 13). Illusive choice: mass effect takes the "role-play" out of rpg. Retrieved from http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/13/the-illusive-choice-mass-effect-3-takes-role-play-out-of-rpg/

Wong, K. (2013, August 1). Morality systems in roleplaying games. Retrieved from http://the-artifice.com/role-playing-games-morality-systems/