I finally got around to playing the Mass Effect games, and since I waited this long, I had the opportunity to play them all back to back and enjoy the trilogy as one long experience.
I have to say, it's extremely impressive as a game series, when taken as a trilogy like that. It's actually a pretty good sci-fi story, with characters that evolve over time, and by the end of it you find yourself really caring about the characters and the world it all takes place in.
But why am I mentioning a sci-fi game here on the chivalry forum? There's actually a pretty good tie-in with the concept of the game.
The story starts out with the main character (Commander Shepard) being put forth as a candidate to become the first human "Spectre" in the galactic community. Humans have only discovered long-distance, faster-than-light travel within the last few decades, and thus are relatively new to the community. The different species governments cooperate through a council.
What is a "spectre" exactly? It's short for "Special Tactics and Reconnaissance", and they're very much like Knights Errant. They are chosen from the elite amongst military and law enforcement, operate autonomously, are mostly above the law, and answer only to the council directly.
The story begins with investigating another Spectre who may have gone rogue.
Over the course of the series, you end up attempting to save the galaxy from an ancient threat, one that causes cyclical extinctions of advanced civilizations. Throughout all of it, you're faced with many moral choices and dilemmas, which carry forward with many possible outcomes (potentially in the next game, since you can import your progress to the next game in series each time). Depending on your actions, your squad and friends may live, or they may die. Those who live can help you out with later challenges.
So it feels like you're playing the futuristic, space-traveling equivalent of a knight errant, but one whose heroism saves trillions of lives, while forming deep connections of camaraderie along the way.
If you're a sci-fi geek at all, the story has a lot to offer, and the concept of periodic growth and destruction makes for an interesting back-story and setting. And yet, despite the scale of these ideas, it remains a personal story focused on the characters involved.
Between the moral choices and the Spectre status, it felt like a futuristic story of a knight, just in a different setting.
Anyway, I highly recommend it. I had a blast with these games.
I'm actually tempted to make a Commander Shepard cosplay armor now too.
