A few more hours of Mass Effect today. It’s so good that I haven’t even taken time off to attempt another futile run at a Geometry Wars 2 achievement. I haven’t even popped in Burnout Paradise and fantasized ways to smush DJ Atomica with my car.
Now that I’m back on the main quest line for a bit, things have gone back to being tight, well-written, and polished. So what if there were monkeys on Eletania — there are survivors, warships, creatures, and plot-points galore on Feros. However, although this game may be getting on in age, I’m still averse to spoiling the plot for my incredibly modest readership, so I’ll describe my latest impression in more general terms.
Knights Of The Old Republic was, for better or worse, nothing more than a Star Wars game, and I say this as an incredibly loyal twentieth-century Star Wars fan. The story may have been set thousands of years in the past, but renaming the R2 unit and throwing on an extra leg does not a new galaxy make. KOTOR was a Star Wars story, and the Star Wars canon, is (to put it lightly) somewhat fleshed out already.
Mass Effect is different. It’s 100% new and original, and after playing this far, I’ve seen creatures and been told stories that would have never meshed with the Star Wars universe. The detail given to every species, planet, and scientific justification is Firefly-esque in its level of tender, loving care.
Mass Effect has a completely game-optional Codex, explaining all sorts of completely game-optional details. You may never read the Codex, but it’s there, available. I appreciate little details like that, just like I appreciate being able to steal every piece of silverware off of a dining room table in a Bethesda game. An uncompromisingly fleshed-out universe can be that extra bit of genuine spirit that can make a game really be something.
It’s important to note here that fleshing out a game is not the same as padding it. The Mass Effect codex is flesh. The monkeys? Marsupial, module-stealing padding.