Long Tail Gamer

In a bizarre turn-around of my usual long tailyness, I'm actually up to speed on Mass Effect.  I finished the game recently, and I'm looking forward to playing the sequel.  Say, isn't that coming out sometime soon?  I might even get to it this year.

The cutting edge, exclusive first-view blogotubes make their hay from this perspective: "All the stuff that was broken in the last game is fixed in this one."  (See Adrien Cho's remarks if you're interested.)  He makes lots of comments like "the planets are now all different" and such.  Me, I don't think the planets were really a problem with the game.  Game play in just about every form was, I think, very solid.  I was truly impressed with Mass Effect.  

(Is it weird that there are a lot of exclusive preview posts?  Shouldn't there be, like, just one?  Anyway.) 

But since we're all on the same "It could have been better" page... I have one thing I'd really like to see addressed.

Remember the part about how the secret, scary space monster was able to secretly corrupt good people's moral sense?  How it could subtley turn even the most trustworthy, indominable will into a servant of darkness?  How every major bad guy you face was once a shining beacon of hope ... until they discovered they had succumbed to forces beyond their measure?  Each one talked about the gentle penetration of their mental defenses, the corruptable righteousness of their cause, the horrific realization that they'd been converted ...

Yeah.  They missed an opportunity there.

OH BTW SPOILERS AHEAD.

....

I'd hoped that Shepard would have to face that very problem while hunting down the evil.  And by "Shepard," I mean "me," because I'm the player, and I play for exactly that kind of experience.  Every RPG sense I have was tingling at the notion. 

Wouldn't that have been cool?  I'm Shepard the Paragon, out to save the galaxy.  Over time, I begin to suspect: I'm being manipulated.  Choices aren't as clear cut as they once were.  I'm working for the benefit of all, but the elevator news updates paint a different picture.  Galactic civilization is weakening, despite all my efforts.  Or maybe... because of them?  The allies I've gathered around me start to question my orders -- or perhaps complain that I haven't gone far enough down a road I'm sworn against.

Or maybe they're starting to sound more sympathetic to the cause I've been fighting to defeat.

Suddenly I realize: I've been gently and pursuasively diverted onto a new course ... just like Saren and the Matriarch.  My team is being influenced.  I'm being influenced.  My personal scenario becomes horrifically familiar.  I've become like the people I had to destroy.

In retrospect, I don't recognize myself.  Something's changed.  And I don't know if I loathe it, or if I want more.

Now I have to find my way out of an ontological nightmare.  That, or discover my place in the enemy's plans.  Am I truly a paragon, or do I embody a more cunning, debilitating approach?  Either way I have to bring my own ethics and values to bear.  I must  face the real aftermath of my own good intentions, knowing that I may be deceived.  I have to reveal my frailty in the face of temptation.

Maybe this scenario flashes back to Revan from KOTOR, but that's a good thing.  KOTOR had a brilliant twist, executed with style.  In Mass Effect, I felt set up for something similar, yet unique.  I was convinced that before the Big Battle, I would discover that my morality was not what it once seemed.  With that expectation, the actual climax was disappointing, to say the least: a battle of guns rather than wits, reflexes over ideology.  It lacked the "role" of role playing.

That's what I'd fix for ME2.  Give Shepard an ethical challenge that blows open the battle for Humanity beyond just the body count. 

The corruption of Saren and the Matriarch exposes the existential, transcendant notion of Humanity as something that all races can share: in trying to do good, we are sometimes corrupted to do evil.  It's something that every species has in common.  As the uniquely Human Spectre, Shepard is perfectly positioned to let the player embody that on a galactic scale.

Mass Effect successfully captures the generic conventions of militaristic space opera: the stars, the armor, the telekenetics... but in the end that's just for show.  It's the setting, not the premise.  The theme of "the road to Hell paved with good intentions" is a more powerful weapon in the RPG arsenal.  It contributes to an RPG's ethos and power.

My real hope is that Mass Effect 2 makes the player's own humanity the real batteground.  Shepard's role is ripe for that richness, and I long to experience it through her eyes.

Game-Central.org is host to my latest monotribe on PC gaming: "I'm in Love with a Strict Machine."

We take you back to yesteryear, to a day when games were fickle, gamers were tech-heads by neccesity, and play elements would just plain go missing because of your mouse drivers. Here's a sample:
 

Gaming on the PC, on the other hand, was practically an act of masochism. Forget the cost of specialized components like “monitors” and the dim, Carcosian landscape of an alien DOS prompt. You *had* to get mired down in fancy technical stuff for it to do anything remotely game-like. Example: high-end PC video that could show more than FOUR COLORS AT A TIME didn’t hit the mass market until around 1982. And even then, setting them up felt a lot like brain surgery: crack the case, perform precise work, and never touch anything inside … even if you knew what it was connected to.

LTG isn't exactly a full-time job, you know.  But still: even when I'm not buying a house, packing the apartment, smooching with Linda, or shopping for food,  I -- oh wait.  I PLAY GAMES TOO.  Okay.  (Right now I'm playing Psychonauts.  You heard it here first.  Or last.)

Anyway, even when I'm not wrapped up in all that, I do get a lot more done that it may look like from here.

• I twitter like a fool at @longtailgamer all the ding-darn day
• I sometimes hang out in the #gog channel at IRC.Quakenet.org
• I podcast with the good folks at Game-Central.org every week

And oh yes, sometimes I write essays for Game-Central.org as well.  Such as this peppy little number: "Wing Commander and the Awesomeness of the Epic Fail."  When's the last time you finished a game by failing?

Here's a bit to whet your appitite:

More often than not, I’m reloading and re-attacking a game with prior knowledge gained from a splattery death. My in-game avatar, however, would remember it differently. There’s a discontinuity between me and the avatar. He can’t see the quick saves and the rage-quits. In his story, he’s just an awesome guy with an awesome destiny.

But destiny didn’t always have its day. As game studios began to unify video games and filmic narratives, the idea of multiple endings emerged. I’m going to explore how multiple endings work in one particular game here: Wing Commander, released in 1990 by Origin Systems.

It was a fun article to write, and I'm glad Game-Central wanted to host it. Go pay them a visit, won't you?

So here's a reason to follow me on Twitter: That's where I give stuff away.  Case in point, here are the winners of the "rename Divine Divinity to something equally silly and alliterative" contest!  ON TWITTER!

• KeenanW won with "Omnipotent Impotence," because God apparently requires you to level up before enacting His celestial will.  WTF?  Like, did the archangel Uriel ever totally biff his perception rolls to spot the lamb's blood on the doors during Passover?  "OOPS, HAHA REZ PLZ"
• TheOfficeTroll won with "Sacrosanct Sacrament," because syllables have to count for something too, and the "sacr-" prefix doesn't get as much mileage as it should these days.
• CaptainFitz won with "Endocrine Endocrinity," for reasons I cannot fully articulate.
• Weclock won with "Devastating Demons," because he efficiently describes not only what you do in the game, but also what you face.
  

Thanks for playing, everyone!  And if you're looking to pick up Divine Divinity yourself -- which is a wonderful game, and everyone should -- you could do a lot worse than to get it through this link to GOG.com.