Mass Effect, Spectres, Soldiers, Politics, and Making the Player Feel 'Special'
Yeah, it's another Mass Effect entry: not only does this serve as a 'mental warm-up session' (so to speak) for more academic writing, but this game's really gotten under my skin, and not because it's just an awesome game. I'm more interested in the differences in storytelling from other RPGs.
Someone on the ME Community forums asked the question Why didn't we see more Spectres in Mass Effect? which isn't a bad question, but one that I felt missed the point of the storyline entirely. My response (which I'm saving for reference because I believe that it's a good one) is thus:
I believe the reason Shepard is one of the few Spectres you see in the game is that Bioware wants the player to feel 'special' in the story. If you haven't noticed, none of Shepard's allies are on equal footing with him; even his mentor had failed where Shepard succeeded.
The storyline thus builds Shepard up into a ridiculously capable character that finally meets his match at the climax of the game. Simply being a Spectre pushes this point because no other human had achieved that status before Shepard. While other characters may have greater social or political standing or a longer life than Shepard, only one character in the game is written to be Shepard's equal or superior: Saren, and even he's flawed in a fundamental way that proves to be his Achilles' Heel.
Writing in other Spectres would threaten Shepard's position in the storyline because other Spectres would undoubtedly be more experienced than Shepard and above his position in the Spectre's pecking order. Hence, other Spectres are not in the game because you're not supposed to be interested in them. You're supposed to be interested in Shepard, and how other characters relate to him as subordinates.
If you want to see why putting in a primary or secondary character who threatens to eclipse the protagonist is a bad thing, take the time to read The Crystal Shard by RA Salvatore sometime (that is, if you haven't already). The main protagonist of the story was meant to be Wulfgar (as the novel is supposed about his development from an adolescent to a man), yet Salvatore made the mistake of writing in a more experienced, physically adept, and more intriguing character in the form of Drizz't into the story, and...well, yeah.
And Anderson said, Spectres are rare individuals. The chances of running into one in the entire galaxy should be stupidly low.
Something similar happened in Final Fantasy VII; if I recall correctly, Cloud was also supposed to be 'special,' one of the elite SOLDIERs, except that the storyline explicitly had to undercut the idea and break down Cloud's standing in order to build the character back up again from a starting point that the player could be witness to. In other words, because the player never saw Cloud's ascension to elite status, it was simply taken for granted that a SOLDIER was what Cloud was. By pulling the rug out from under him and proclaiming that he never was part of that organization forces the player (if the player is an active reader or viewer) to re-evaluate Cloud as a character based on what he has experienced from the beginning on the game. (I think. Whatever. FFXI was more than 10 years ago, something I wish SE would remember.)
Back on Mass Effect I decided to bite the aural bullet and create a male Shepard. More precisely, a soldier-shock trooper with maxed-out damage reduction, hardening, and immunity. Holy shit, the bastard is damnably hard to kill: I was able to go toe-to-toe with a Geth Colossus, Thresher Maw, and those idiotic rocket launchers. Once the shields go down, I activate Immunity (I don't see why I bother, since it seems that my soldier has already hit the damage reduction cap), and once it runs out, I pop on Shield Boost, and once that goes down, I turn on the Adrenaline Boost and recycle all of my defensive moves. I can only imagine how hardcore this build would be with the Ashley bonus for another 10% damage reduction and a Barrier bonus trait for ~1,000 shielding.
So far, I've completed four of the ally achievements; the only ones I have left, strangely enough, are the easiest ones to get: Ashley and Kaidan. Because I already have Garrus and Tali's achievements under my belt, I'm thinking of starting up an Engineer, if for no other reason than to get AI Hacking and Neural Shock under my belt. I'm just wondering how I'm going to balance this out, because I'd like the get both human achievements at once, but a solider, sentinel, and engineer trio means that my team is going to be weak with biotics. However, I should be able to shut biotic enemies down easily.
If nothing else, Ashley & Kaidan are going to make an interesting pair: Ash is a blunt and brash 25-year old while Kaidan is a diplomatic and cautious 32-year old.
Actually, now that I think about it, Mass Effect, like many other games [that involve politics and/or saving the world in some way or another] nowadays carries with it a political message that is of immediate interest to the player. Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell also had political messages, but those were basically shoved down your throat. In Mass Effect, you act either way you want and you can either be a Paragon who regards the Renegade as an unthinking violent brute who's too willing to take the fast and easy way, or you can be a Renegade who regards the Paragon as an unrealistic idealist who's afraid assert himself and get his hands dirty.
It's subtle at first because it manifests itself as reactions to personal experiences, but as the game goes on and you start talking to more and more of your teammates, the political subtext (BTW, I've discovered there's a nice little anagram to 'subtext,' ho ho ho) becomes clearer and clearer thanks to the ethical measuring system and its Paragon/Renegade ends. Selfless and compassionate actions are measured towards the Paragon end of the scale, while ruthless and selfish/apathetic actions are on the opposite Renegade side. Got that? Good, because here's where it gets political.
First of all, the aliens presented in Mass Effect are essentially human in nature: so much so, that one of the characters is hesitant to call human nature 'human nature' because it seems universal among every organic species in the galaxy. What is different about all the aliens races are their cultures, so when they act, they're still very much human, but acting within the restraints of the societies they were raised in. The universality of "human nature" can be summed up in one quote found early in the game:
"A million light years from where humanity began, and we walk into a bar filled with drunk men drooling over half-naked women shaking their asses on a stage. I can't decide if that's funny or sad."
Eventually, and I don't think I'm spoiling the story here, Shepard ends up being both a representative to a intergalactic ruling body known as the Council and the human government known as the Alliance which is a relatively new member in galactic society; in other words, he's acting both as a representative of a greater whole and an individual species (humans). In the storyline itself, a great portion of humanity is somewhat isolationist, believing that it can solve most of the problems in the galaxy on its own, while almost every other race in the galaxy believes in acting through the Council. If Shepard's responses are geared towards selflessness, cooperation, persuasion, diplomacy, honesty, multilateralism and universal tolerance, a desire to avoid conflict, and a pursuit of justice [as defined as the protection of the innocent and weak], then he gains points as a Paragon; if Shepard's responses are geared towards individualism, isolationism, coercion, lying, jingoism, a predisposition towards violence, marked favoritism towards human interests, and a pursuit of justice [as defined as the punishment of evil], then he gains points as a Renegade.
OK, Bioware may be a Canadian company, but does this sound like anything we've seen in real life?
In terms of gameplay, it doesn't matter because either path leads to the same end, so you're getting the job done no matter how you act, but by simply placing these behaviors on an ethical scale, Bioware lays its political beliefs out in the open. Morally, the character is 'good,' but when one side is 'by the book with high ideals' and the other side is 'the ends justify the means,' then it's hard to avoid saying that one side is 'good' or 'evil' when so many characters in the game define these two opposing methods by different (and not illogical) names. Granted, if these are what Bioware's political beliefs really are, then I have no objection to them (I rather agree with them, as a matter of fact), but I do believe that this should be pointed out.
-
Back on the subject of Shepard, the reason I said I bit the aural bullet is because the male Shepard's voice is a bit...nasal and high-pitched. I know that sounds weird coming from a Midwesterner, but that just reinforces my point. I'm sure other people don't mind the voice, and probably even like it, but it's not a voice I can take seriously when playing as a Renegade. Paragon, sure, because the voice sounds like what you'd hear out of a clean-cut honest kid, but not a Renegade; that'd be like asking Rick Moranis to play a bad guy (who isn't Dark Helmet). I'm not sure who'd be a better voice actor for Shepard, but at this point, I doubt Bioware will change it.
Jennifer Hale, on the other hand, is a totally kick-ass voice actress; it's hard to argue against someone with her resume. Plus, I loved her previous work. Having taken both routes with the female Shepard, I can say that her experience shows in the way she reads the lines: her voice easily shifts gears between the classically hard-edged, take-charge, strong female lead and a totally misanthropic bitch who's just on the edge of ripping your throat out. Honestly, I thought Ashley was a bit pushy until I started clicking the renegade options for Shepard, which is when I found out Ashley ain't got nothing on her.
By the way, having checked the chronology of Mass Effect's timeline, I noticed Commander Shepard is around 29-30 at the start of the game. Having been inculcated on 16~19-year old protagonists in RPGs for years, I was pleasantly surprised to play as a character whose age I could best describe as 'realistic': still young enough to learn new things, but old enough to not invoke any suspension of disbelief. Granted, there are characters like Solid Snake, 47, Sam Fisher, and Samus Aran, but with the exception of Fallout (where you can pick your character's age), I can't recall the last time I've played an RPG where the hero was over 20, much less nearing 30.
I'm aware that most RPGs that feature teenage leads are marketed towards teens because they want a hero they can identify with, but last time I checked, we gamers aren't getting any younger. When I was a teenager, a ludicrously competent 17-year old like Cloud Strife was awesome; now that I'm over 30, a 17-year old adventurer seems more like a sidekick - if that. It's like I've moved on from Bucky and Jimmy Olson onto Captain America and Superman. Is it too much trouble to ask that we get more protagonists that age along with us?
Funny that I only get this involved with a game once every few years. I figure once I get all the achievements done with, I'll be moving onto back to FFXI...or something.
And yeah, I put almost all the games I play under this kind of microscope. Hell, I can't even read Superman or Batman without looking for the political spin on it.
Favorite line so far: "Find something we can use to get out of here. Somebody up there needs my boot up his ass."
Someone on the ME Community forums asked the question Why didn't we see more Spectres in Mass Effect? which isn't a bad question, but one that I felt missed the point of the storyline entirely. My response (which I'm saving for reference because I believe that it's a good one) is thus:
I believe the reason Shepard is one of the few Spectres you see in the game is that Bioware wants the player to feel 'special' in the story. If you haven't noticed, none of Shepard's allies are on equal footing with him; even his mentor had failed where Shepard succeeded.
The storyline thus builds Shepard up into a ridiculously capable character that finally meets his match at the climax of the game. Simply being a Spectre pushes this point because no other human had achieved that status before Shepard. While other characters may have greater social or political standing or a longer life than Shepard, only one character in the game is written to be Shepard's equal or superior: Saren, and even he's flawed in a fundamental way that proves to be his Achilles' Heel.
Writing in other Spectres would threaten Shepard's position in the storyline because other Spectres would undoubtedly be more experienced than Shepard and above his position in the Spectre's pecking order. Hence, other Spectres are not in the game because you're not supposed to be interested in them. You're supposed to be interested in Shepard, and how other characters relate to him as subordinates.
If you want to see why putting in a primary or secondary character who threatens to eclipse the protagonist is a bad thing, take the time to read The Crystal Shard by RA Salvatore sometime (that is, if you haven't already). The main protagonist of the story was meant to be Wulfgar (as the novel is supposed about his development from an adolescent to a man), yet Salvatore made the mistake of writing in a more experienced, physically adept, and more intriguing character in the form of Drizz't into the story, and...well, yeah.
And Anderson said, Spectres are rare individuals. The chances of running into one in the entire galaxy should be stupidly low.
Something similar happened in Final Fantasy VII; if I recall correctly, Cloud was also supposed to be 'special,' one of the elite SOLDIERs, except that the storyline explicitly had to undercut the idea and break down Cloud's standing in order to build the character back up again from a starting point that the player could be witness to. In other words, because the player never saw Cloud's ascension to elite status, it was simply taken for granted that a SOLDIER was what Cloud was. By pulling the rug out from under him and proclaiming that he never was part of that organization forces the player (if the player is an active reader or viewer) to re-evaluate Cloud as a character based on what he has experienced from the beginning on the game. (I think. Whatever. FFXI was more than 10 years ago, something I wish SE would remember.)
Back on Mass Effect I decided to bite the aural bullet and create a male Shepard. More precisely, a soldier-shock trooper with maxed-out damage reduction, hardening, and immunity. Holy shit, the bastard is damnably hard to kill: I was able to go toe-to-toe with a Geth Colossus, Thresher Maw, and those idiotic rocket launchers. Once the shields go down, I activate Immunity (I don't see why I bother, since it seems that my soldier has already hit the damage reduction cap), and once it runs out, I pop on Shield Boost, and once that goes down, I turn on the Adrenaline Boost and recycle all of my defensive moves. I can only imagine how hardcore this build would be with the Ashley bonus for another 10% damage reduction and a Barrier bonus trait for ~1,000 shielding.
So far, I've completed four of the ally achievements; the only ones I have left, strangely enough, are the easiest ones to get: Ashley and Kaidan. Because I already have Garrus and Tali's achievements under my belt, I'm thinking of starting up an Engineer, if for no other reason than to get AI Hacking and Neural Shock under my belt. I'm just wondering how I'm going to balance this out, because I'd like the get both human achievements at once, but a solider, sentinel, and engineer trio means that my team is going to be weak with biotics. However, I should be able to shut biotic enemies down easily.
If nothing else, Ashley & Kaidan are going to make an interesting pair: Ash is a blunt and brash 25-year old while Kaidan is a diplomatic and cautious 32-year old.
Actually, now that I think about it, Mass Effect, like many other games [that involve politics and/or saving the world in some way or another] nowadays carries with it a political message that is of immediate interest to the player. Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell also had political messages, but those were basically shoved down your throat. In Mass Effect, you act either way you want and you can either be a Paragon who regards the Renegade as an unthinking violent brute who's too willing to take the fast and easy way, or you can be a Renegade who regards the Paragon as an unrealistic idealist who's afraid assert himself and get his hands dirty.
It's subtle at first because it manifests itself as reactions to personal experiences, but as the game goes on and you start talking to more and more of your teammates, the political subtext (BTW, I've discovered there's a nice little anagram to 'subtext,' ho ho ho) becomes clearer and clearer thanks to the ethical measuring system and its Paragon/Renegade ends. Selfless and compassionate actions are measured towards the Paragon end of the scale, while ruthless and selfish/apathetic actions are on the opposite Renegade side. Got that? Good, because here's where it gets political.
First of all, the aliens presented in Mass Effect are essentially human in nature: so much so, that one of the characters is hesitant to call human nature 'human nature' because it seems universal among every organic species in the galaxy. What is different about all the aliens races are their cultures, so when they act, they're still very much human, but acting within the restraints of the societies they were raised in. The universality of "human nature" can be summed up in one quote found early in the game:
"A million light years from where humanity began, and we walk into a bar filled with drunk men drooling over half-naked women shaking their asses on a stage. I can't decide if that's funny or sad."
Eventually, and I don't think I'm spoiling the story here, Shepard ends up being both a representative to a intergalactic ruling body known as the Council and the human government known as the Alliance which is a relatively new member in galactic society; in other words, he's acting both as a representative of a greater whole and an individual species (humans). In the storyline itself, a great portion of humanity is somewhat isolationist, believing that it can solve most of the problems in the galaxy on its own, while almost every other race in the galaxy believes in acting through the Council. If Shepard's responses are geared towards selflessness, cooperation, persuasion, diplomacy, honesty, multilateralism and universal tolerance, a desire to avoid conflict, and a pursuit of justice [as defined as the protection of the innocent and weak], then he gains points as a Paragon; if Shepard's responses are geared towards individualism, isolationism, coercion, lying, jingoism, a predisposition towards violence, marked favoritism towards human interests, and a pursuit of justice [as defined as the punishment of evil], then he gains points as a Renegade.
OK, Bioware may be a Canadian company, but does this sound like anything we've seen in real life?
In terms of gameplay, it doesn't matter because either path leads to the same end, so you're getting the job done no matter how you act, but by simply placing these behaviors on an ethical scale, Bioware lays its political beliefs out in the open. Morally, the character is 'good,' but when one side is 'by the book with high ideals' and the other side is 'the ends justify the means,' then it's hard to avoid saying that one side is 'good' or 'evil' when so many characters in the game define these two opposing methods by different (and not illogical) names. Granted, if these are what Bioware's political beliefs really are, then I have no objection to them (I rather agree with them, as a matter of fact), but I do believe that this should be pointed out.
-
Back on the subject of Shepard, the reason I said I bit the aural bullet is because the male Shepard's voice is a bit...nasal and high-pitched. I know that sounds weird coming from a Midwesterner, but that just reinforces my point. I'm sure other people don't mind the voice, and probably even like it, but it's not a voice I can take seriously when playing as a Renegade. Paragon, sure, because the voice sounds like what you'd hear out of a clean-cut honest kid, but not a Renegade; that'd be like asking Rick Moranis to play a bad guy (who isn't Dark Helmet). I'm not sure who'd be a better voice actor for Shepard, but at this point, I doubt Bioware will change it.
Jennifer Hale, on the other hand, is a totally kick-ass voice actress; it's hard to argue against someone with her resume. Plus, I loved her previous work. Having taken both routes with the female Shepard, I can say that her experience shows in the way she reads the lines: her voice easily shifts gears between the classically hard-edged, take-charge, strong female lead and a totally misanthropic bitch who's just on the edge of ripping your throat out. Honestly, I thought Ashley was a bit pushy until I started clicking the renegade options for Shepard, which is when I found out Ashley ain't got nothing on her.
By the way, having checked the chronology of Mass Effect's timeline, I noticed Commander Shepard is around 29-30 at the start of the game. Having been inculcated on 16~19-year old protagonists in RPGs for years, I was pleasantly surprised to play as a character whose age I could best describe as 'realistic': still young enough to learn new things, but old enough to not invoke any suspension of disbelief. Granted, there are characters like Solid Snake, 47, Sam Fisher, and Samus Aran, but with the exception of Fallout (where you can pick your character's age), I can't recall the last time I've played an RPG where the hero was over 20, much less nearing 30.
I'm aware that most RPGs that feature teenage leads are marketed towards teens because they want a hero they can identify with, but last time I checked, we gamers aren't getting any younger. When I was a teenager, a ludicrously competent 17-year old like Cloud Strife was awesome; now that I'm over 30, a 17-year old adventurer seems more like a sidekick - if that. It's like I've moved on from Bucky and Jimmy Olson onto Captain America and Superman. Is it too much trouble to ask that we get more protagonists that age along with us?
Funny that I only get this involved with a game once every few years. I figure once I get all the achievements done with, I'll be moving onto back to FFXI...or something.
And yeah, I put almost all the games I play under this kind of microscope. Hell, I can't even read Superman or Batman without looking for the political spin on it.
Favorite line so far: "Find something we can use to get out of here. Somebody up there needs my boot up his ass."