Mass Effect Manic: The Bizarre Dichotomy of the Future

I love the Mass Effect series, in fact it’s become one of my favorite games of all time with the sequel that just came out, which I am going to explore further on my next post.  For now though I want to talk about what Bioware presents to the player as normal and how they try to distract you from noticing.

Cardboard Cutouts to Clown Cars

The first Mass Effect was riddled with characters that looked exactly the same.  Almost every woman had dark hair and looked to be if not the immediate sister of the girl you met awhile back, was at least a close cousin.

In fact overall the characters in the first Mass Effect are boring at best and I’m just talking about the main characters.  How often do any of these characters show any emotion besides complete neutrality?  Not much…not much at all.  I mean when it came time to decide who lived on my team and who died I had a hard time deciding only because I could have done without most of them.  Sure they had different backgrounds but they had no soul to them which led me to the next best thing…appearance.  I made my team based on who was the coolest looking, so Garrus and Wrex it was.  Wrex in fact threw me for a surprise when you decided whether he lived or died.  He was pissed and you could feel it.  Why does that moment stick out?  Well for one you either kill one of your main characters or don’t.  But I think the real reason is its one of the only moments in the game where an emotion sticks out at all.

Now fast forward to the sequel.  How does Bioware fix the problem of characters nobody cares about?  Make them super nuts of course.  While I greatly appreciate the change from boring and bland characters…did we order a full serving of crazy?  Cuz I remember ordering just a side.  Let’s take a look:

Don’t get me wrong, I love most of these characters…but too many and too much personality.  We went from cardboard cutouts in the first game to a full-blown clown car.  There are way more real emotional scenes and dialogues within the sequel but with such strong personalities we need some middle ground.  For every Jack we need a Samara.  Keep the balance.

Barbies & Kens Are The Future

Another interesting thing to note is unlike Grand Theft Auto which is filled with people from every shape, creed, and what have you, in the future apparently everyone has plastic surgery and eat space paste because no one is anywhere near fat.  Is this realistic?  No!  Even if in the future obesity was rid of completely, would everyone be in perfect shape?  No!  It just really makes the entire world of Mass Effect flat.  Why do we never see many of the female counterparts of the alien species we’ve encountered?  Why are all of them flawless?  Who ever is doing the character design at Bioware did a superb job with the team characters this time, but just about everyone else is forgettable.  How am I suppose to remember a character when they don’t stand out?

I can name a dozen Metal Gear Solid characters off the top of my head.  Why?  Not because I’ve played it more, because I haven’t.  But because each character is so distinguishable from the next.  Does anybody look like Revolver Ocelot?  How about Drebin the arms dealer?  We remember them because there aren’t a bunch of them running about.  I’m fully aware an RPG can call for a lot of characters but has that ever stopped Zelda, Diablo, or Final Fantasy?

You have an incredible story, so why not paint it with memorable characters?  But don’t drown us in paint.  Keep us wanting more.

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