Variety Piece: 5 Things That Could Make Mass Effect 3 an Amazing Game

To anyone who follows my Variety Friday articles, they're changing a bit.  They are no longer scheduled to be posted every Friday, but instead every week or two, adding more "Variety" to the articles.

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While Mass Effect1 and 2 were pretty great games, there were a few things that just felt...missing. Couple that with Bioware's tendency to screw sequels up (I'm looking at you Dragon Age 2!) and then you have a nice amount of things that could improve Mass Effect 3, as well as hinder it. This article is to focus on the main features that I feel, if added and done right in Mass Effect 3, could make it one of the best games ever.

Number 1: Meaningful Combat

In Mass Effect 2, if you really sit back and take a look at it, the combat seems more of a filler between story than an actual needed game mechanic. The majority of the time combat is simply allowing Bioware to call the game “A 3^rd Person Shooter/RPG combo” instead of an “Interactive Narrative” and half the time combat is just used as a means to get from point A to point B. Now I'm definitely not saying that they should have taken out all the combat in Mass Effect, god no, but what I am saying, is that combat should have more meaning with story.

What we've seen: With the addition of many more large enemies, Reapers, and a more “apocalyptic” feel in the world, the fights seem to be a lot more dynamic, epic, and useful for the story.

What could be added: Choices from within combat, Bioware has really made an effort to separate story choices from gameplay, but what if some choices were embedded within the gameplay? One example being how in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, *minor spoilers* when your pilot crashed, her survival depended on how fast you could kill all the enemies around her, and the majority of the time she would die. What if Bioware had moments similar to this in Mass Effect, where your combat skills affect the story, or how you can choose what path to take and who to kill.

Number 2: Bringing Back The Scale of The Universe

In Mass Effect 1, actually being able to drive around land on planets gave the game a sense of scale, showing that the game universe is actually large and expansive. I would really like to see them add some sort of “feeling of scale” into Mass Effect 3, beyond simply looking at a map.

What we've seen: Bioware has talked about their “search and rescue” missions which change as The Reapers conquer more of the galaxy, depending on how this is executed, it really could show not only a sense of scale, but a better sense of progression.

What could be added: If beyond “search and rescue” missions, you could explore planets that actually had secrets which could help, or hurt you later on in the story, that would definitely help make the galaxy feel alive. I would also like to see the addition of world exploration/travel again, whether it be with a better controlling Mako, the hover-tank from Mass Effect 2, or a whole new vehicle.

Number 3: Combat Options

One thing many shooters do to help make gameplay more interesting and engaging, is giving the player a choice of how to tackle problems in game (gameplay wise, not story wise) each with their own benefits. For example, with the original Deus Ex, you could choose to go head-on, hack hidden security systems, or be stealthy. A similar idea could be applied to Mass Effect gameplay to make it more diverse, although I'm not sure how you would be rewarded by taking a Stealthy vs. Head-On approach. Perhaps you could use the lives of a boss's employees as a bargaining chip if you sneak by them, and on the hardest difficulty, sneaking by would definitely make life easier.

What we've seen: In The Arrival DLC, you could go through a whole section of a mission without killing anyone, and you would get an achievement for it. The Mass Effect 3 Demo's Multiplayer also shows how level design is more based on levels, and verticality, which can allow for multiple paths to choose from.

What could be added: If they took the stealth aspect of The Arrival DLC and added it to certain sections of Mass Effect 3, it would definitely improve the game experience, and it wouldn't hinder anything since it would be completely optional. Hacking could also play a larger role in the game, such as opening up sniper perches, and alternate routes, or possibly turning a turret against the enemy.

Number 4: A Real Possibility of Failure

In Mass Effect 2, while the developers did say Shepard could actually end up dying at the end of the game, in reality, the only way for that to actually happen, was if you specifically wanted it to. You had to piss off your teammates, do absolutely no upgrading to The Normandy (which, even if you didn't do any mining, you could get ore in other ways), and then some. In Mass Effect 3, there really needs to be a possibility of failure, not only depending on how well you upgrade or make people happy, but also by the choices you make through out the game, and not the obvious ones either. There needs to be choices that, over the course of the game, would evolve and could, quite possibly, screw you over.

What we've seen: The developers have come out and said that in Mass Effect 3, The Reapers can win.

What could be added: As I mentioned earlier, I want all of my choices, from Mass Effect 1 and onwards, to fully contribute to whether or not The Reapers win, not just the straight forward actions in Mass Effect 3.

Number 5: Bioware, Don't Suck Money out of Us Twice.

Bioware is a game company, which means they like making money, and that has been seen with the DLC they produced for Mass Effect 2, most of which was quality and well worth the money. Now, the only thing I hope is that they don't over-do it, and force us to buy an additional pack of DLC for Mass Effect 3, to continue a story or see the effects of our choices from Mass Effect 2 DLC we played. I would ultimately feel like I would be getting ripped off, and that Bioware didn't make a full game and took content out of it, if to have Kasumi as a team mate in Mass Effect 3, I had to buy a whole new DLC pack.

A Personal Number 6: Bring Kasumi Back

Out of all of the characters in Mass Effect 2, the one who I liked the best has to go to Kasumi Goto, she is the only character who I actually felt fully interested in with their back story, as well as she had some unique skills. Besides Thane, she was the only other one with an enigmatic personality which made having her on your team, always “interesting”. If Bioware brings anyone back, I would love to see Kasumi return as an actual squad mate.

What we've seen: Bioware said they would bring major characters back, and according to the Mass Effect 3 wiki, that includes Kasumi.

What could be added: Bring her back as a full fledged squad member, not only with more full voice acting, but also playing a larger role in the game.

Variety Friday: Why Skyrim Tries to Make Me a Dick

Skyrim is said to be the “Masterpiece” of modern day RPGs, but I don’t see how it can truly be a masterpiece when they don’t focus on morality.  Morality is one of the best features a modern day RPG can have, and by morality, I mean giving the player choices, and letting them choose their character’s versions of right and wrong.  It allows a player to choose between being an intelligent character who values the lives of others, or a berserker who kills all in his path.  But in Skyrim, I found there to be a severe lack of moral choices, it’s almost like Skyrim is trying to make my character into a big dick!

First, I’m going to touch the basis for moral choices, which are choices within dialog.  In most major RPGs you see the majority of moral choices within the game’s dialog; this is how essentially all choices are giving within the Mass Effect series.  But within Skyrim, in main and major quests, the game does tend to give you choices, but not enough differentiating ones.  And within side quests, you usually don’t have any moral choice at all and they are usually forced onto you with no other choices present.  I found that usually moral choices aren’t even present in the main dialog and that it’s just different ways to say the same thing, and that you essentially will do what anyone asks of you like a bitch, without question.  There are also no big choices that would affect a large span of opinions, say I just led the resistance to victory across Skyrim, and at the end, there are no big choices such as “I was wrong about you, and I don’t think you’re fit to lead *STAB*” and I don’t mean in this certain instance, I mean there are no choices like this within the whole game.

But, that example does bring me to another problem, which is unkillable NPCs; throughout all Elder Scrolls games I found this to be one of the biggest downfalls.  If I thought the leader was unfit to lead, I don’t have the option of killing him myself, since he can’t be killed!  So what if it doesn’t allow access to a quest or two, what matters is that it would have repercussions across the whole land, which would just expand the feeling of a living world, but instead you do the one biggest mistake a developer can do, which is straight up tell the players “no.”

Now telling the player “no” is acceptable in certain games, such as games like Dragon Age where it doesn’t allow you to kill any NPCs unless it’s part of a specific quest, but that’s less telling the player “no” than it is simply saying “it’s not within the mechanics of the game” which is fine.  But since Skyrim allows you to randomly murder almost any NPC you want, having certain NPCs that you can’t kill isn’t excusable.  I understand not allowing the player to kill core, main quest NPCs, but anyone outside of that should be killable by the player, though I never said they had to be easily killable.  The difficulty of killing them would probably have something to do with the character’s level, which I would assume would be in a “tier” such as in DnD, only characters at the highest tier of level could kill a very important a well guarded person, but now I’m rambling on into RPG leveling and that’s a topic for a whole other Variety Friday, so moving on.  Non-Killable NPCs may not have anything to do with morality upfront, but if you wanted to kill a crime leader or town mayor, those choices would be governed by what the player chooses as being right or wrong for their character.

Continuing on with moral choices within gameplay I find that random people tend to run up or try to kill me way too much.  Now this wouldn’t be a problem on its own if the game would give you ways of knocking out or restraining NPCs other than a shout and about two spells, that really isn’t enough ways to give the player a choice of killing or not, more than half the time I find myself running away since I don’t actually have a reason to kill whoever’s attacking me, and I don’t want to be a dick.  Also, the world of Skyrim isn’t as alive as the developers may have lead on to; I took the time to save a stranger I didn’t even know from execution and I saw him safely run away while I held off guards, then went and talked to him to have him simply say “hello”, and to find next time I came back to town that according to the citizens I didn’t save him at all!

If the game is going to let me stop an execution, at least allow the game to support the fact that I did stop an execution, instead of simply saying “What?  No you didn’t…..”  This is worse than a lack of moral choices, in that it is actually the false sense of choices.  If you are going to try and build a living world, or at least a believable illusion of one, there’s no point in giving the player a false sense of morality because it ultimately takes away the “living” feel of the game, and makes the player less engaged.  A game like Skyrim needs to focus on moral choices, or it will ultimately feel less engaging and not as good of a game.  Because not having moral choices takes the depth and connection to the character away, makes the world feel less alive, and can ultimately force the player into acting like a dick.

Variety Friday: Online Passes

More and more games are including codes in new copies that are required to access certain in game content.  Now, is doing this actually good? I say no.  Specifically when these codes are required to access content that is part of the main game is when this is really bad.  Because from a development standpoint, it ultimately means that content that a lot of developers put tons of hard work into will end up being seen and played by less people.  It’s never good to purposely limit the amount of people who experience a game, because if they are limited to what they can do they’re probably less likely to buy DLC or any sequels.

The reason I’m bringing this up, is that I recently got Saints Row 3 from Gamefly, and when I went to try some co-op with Allan Muir, I got a message saying I needed to activate a multiplayer code.  First off I didn’t even know I needed a code, but it’s also limiting me from experiencing the full game because Saints Row is based a lot around fucking around alone, as well as with a friend.  Now because I couldn’t experience a rather large part of the game, my opinion of it dropped and now I don’t even what to buy it anymore, or recommend it because it limited me from experiencing the full game and thus limits my opinion and understanding of it.

Now while some may argue that it’s your fault for not buying the game, I don’t think that’s a valid argument.  Because while I may not have given the developers my money, that doesn’t mean I won’t later, but making me possibly not like the game because I can’t experience a part of it, doesn’t make me want to buy it.  Also, games are an art form, and while this doesn’t really apply to AAA titles because usually they just want to make money, the more people who experience it, the better.  Finally, not buying the game doesn’t mean I’ll never give the developers money because I may buy DLC or future games, but making someone dislike one game by limiting their overall experience makes them less likely to buy any future titles.

Now if developers do feel like they need a way to get more people to buy the full game; instead of limiting those that don’t buy it, reward those who do.  Instead of taking away part of the game, provide those who buy the game with free DLC or additional content which isn’t part of the overall game experience.  Take Dragon Age: Origins for example; instead of limiting the game, they gave the players around $20 of free DLC which included an additional companion which could be used and talk to throughout the whole campaign with his own missions, just like any other companion, but without him the game isn’t limited in any way and you don’t miss out on all that much.  The players who didn’t buy it still get the option of buying the DLC, but they still get to experience the whole game the way it was meant to be.

Also this is a good time for me to say: Thanks Gamefly for including any original codes that came with the game whenever someone buys a used game from you.  This is why this article was more directed towards people who rent games for long periods of time, rather than used purchases.

Variety Friday: Batman Arkham City - Not All Games Need Choices

While playing Arkham City, there were a few moments when I thought to myself “What if I wanted to kill him?  Why couldn’t the game have let me choose?  It didn’t have to affect the story...” and that got me thinking about the differences between games that offer moral choices, and those that don’t, why sometimes one way is better than another, and why all games don’t just use moral choices in the first place.

Now, starting with “why all games don’t just use moral choices” I’m not going to bring into the argument anything about development time/cost, I’m going to keep this strictly design based.  Now some of the pros of having moral choices include being able to have a deeper connection to your character, since you get to shape him how you see fit, you also get to have a more impactful story.  Now, what if you’re playing a character that isn’t supposed to be the player, instead it is a narrative of someone else and it’s trying to tell their story.  Games like this really relate more to TV and Movies, since the original Star Trek was you simply watching the events of the Enterprise, you couldn’t actually affect them (as awesome as that’d be).

Games without choice really need to have good gameplay, so that the players can get the same type of immersion from simply controlling the character, and frankly, there is no problem with this.  While you may not have as much control of a character, I’ve always wanted to see an RPG with choices that aren’t presented in dialog, and instead are all portrayed through actions. But, back to the question at hand, games don’t always use moral choices, because it isn’t always necessary.  Some games don’t want you to have that connection to character(s), and instead want you to try and predict what happens next, like in any good novel.  It’s less about choices, but more about the experience of “going along for the ride”.

While Arkham City was initially what got me thinking about “why doesn’t this game and similar ones have moral choices”, I didn’t actually find an answer until I played the Dragon Age: Origin’s DLC “Leliana’s Song” earlier for the first time.  This DLC takes a turn from everything else Dragon Age in that you play as one of the well known characters in a prequel, and Leliana is a voiced character unlike the character you play all throughout Origins/Awakening.  While at first I was iffy about the character actually being voice and me controlling her, I finally realized that it was actually for the better, since I was reliving a story from the character’s past, which had a deep moral lesson embedded with it, ultimately I didn’t need the choices or the feeling of it being my own character, because in the end I “went along, on a ride from the past”.  This allowed me to get a deeper understanding of that character which was really interesting, after already knowing some things about her.

I think this actually comes down to two things.  If you know of the character you’re playing as, it allows you to enjoy the game with the mindset of further understand whoever that fictional (or on rare occasions, non-fictional) character may be.  Or, if you’re living through a specific flashback or experience(s).  These are perfectly valid reasons to why a game without choices may actually be the better route.  But this doesn’t mean the game has to sacrifice narrative, one great example of this is Bastion, you don’t really have moral choices, it is instead a story of survival (and of rebuilding) which presents its narrative in a different, yet interesting way which takes the “try to understand the character” approach, even though you don’t know anything about him.

Now to get back to the actual question at hand, not all games have moral stories, because, frankly, it would be bad if all games were like Mass Effect.  Games need to tell stories, immerse in stories, immerse people in worlds, aswell as simply letting the player have fun.  This brings up another problem, in that every gamer experiences fun differently, but I digress (possible future article?)  In a past setting, the player shouldn’t be able to affect the past, unless that’s a gameplay element.  Besides, sometime game designers aren’t trying to immerse players with the character, but instead with the world and the overarching story, like TV Shows and Movies do.  Now there are a lot of times when moral choice are good and make a game much better, but this isn’t always the case, because in the game industry there are so many different ways to portray narrative, there can’t be one precise way, it depending on the game, the setting, and the situation.

Happy Halloween Everybody!  PS: I would have made this Halloween themed if I didn’t just realize Halloween (AKA Nightmare Night) was in 3 days…because I already wrote this article.

Variety Friday: Quick Pick - Divinity 2

I'm going to be doing Variety Fridays a little different starting now.  Instead of always doing a long article about some game mechanic, I'm going to instead really make it "Variety" and do anything from a short recomendation to a long article!

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Today I'm going to give a recommendation to a pretty amazing, although a bit old, RPG. Divinity 2, and it's available for PC or Console. One thing this game really excels at is pacing; while if you watch trails it shows how the player can turn into a dragon, you can't actually do this until 20-30+ hours into the game. It really helps show the progression of the player from a nobody, to a somebody.

Another thing which I personally like is how there are no classes. You are free to use any weapon and upgrade any combination of skills/spells. Not only that, but there isn't much grinding, you can usually level up in 5 minutes of fighting and while some enjoy long grinding, I dislike it and I really like how this game handles it. The story itself is an interesting one and strays away from the usual elf/dwarf/human fantasy setting and the world itself is as immersive as it is different from most other game settings.

Although what I love most is how the game handles player choice. For one it has the basic dialog choices, but they are never overused like in some Bioware games. They present themselves from time to time in side quests, and then your choices can end up affecting the game. Later on in the game, it has you choose what 4 people you want to be your "servants" from a pool of 8, and anyone you don't choose dies. It is nice to see choices which don't have obvious good or bad answers, and you'll just have to see how they play out. The choices aren't as big as in, say, Dragon Age, but they are a good addition and work well with the rest of the game.

If you can find this game cheap and need a game to waste a lot of time on, I highly recommend anyone who likes RPGs check this one out.