Mass Effect and Star Wars

[lemiel14n3]

I've been playing the Mass Effects again [http://masseffect.wikia.com], as well as kicking around ideas and potential back story for a character in a Mass Effect themed RP here on the Escapist (so far he's an amalgam of my Shepard, the guy from Have Gun Will Travel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Gun_Will_Travel] and the leads of The Searchers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Searchers_%28film%29].

In my musings I started thinking about the closest parallel to mass effect that we have in popular culture, Star Wars. Of course, calling similarities between these two a coincidence would be laughable. Bioware made K.O.T.O.R. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic], THE Star Wars game, and are in the process of making a new one [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Republic] in parallel to Mass Effect 3, in short it's highly unlikely that none of that Star Wars chocolate got into my Mass Effect peanut butter [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0].

Eventually my mind started drawing some of the most obvious parallels they're both sprawling space operas, they're both kind of obsessed with black [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Morality] and white [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi] interpretations of morality. And they both have sexy [http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/844/talinervous4.jpg] alien [http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/6/6e/ShaakTi_tfu.jpg] girls (link NSFW) [http://rule34-images.paheal.net/_images/1ce9c396a022acd90a0d7bc293107c23/581350%20-%20Crossover%20Mass_effect%20Twi%27lek%20asari%20evolluisionist%20star_wars.jpg] (I know I've seen worse than that last one on some "M" rated titles, but if anyone has any major complaints, PM me and I'll take it off) But what struck me as the most impressive was the level of popularity they both enjoy.

Now I'm not saying Mass Effect is anywhere close to its "big brother" in terms of fan size, that would be like comparing a pilot whale [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-finned_Pilot_Whale] and blue whale [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_whale] (thank you Wikipedia) But the amazing fact is that they are both Whales. This doesn't really happen to our relatively new media. Video games don't really expand past discs like films and television does. Yet here Mass Effect is, with a trio [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect:_Revelation] of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect:_Ascension] books [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect:_Retribution], a set of comic books, they're even tossing around the idea of making a film. This almost never happens to video games, with some notable exceptions (Halo, that Super Mario Bros movie, some others that haven't occurred to me) the medium of games has been content to sit on their consoles and never expand outside them.

I know Mass Effect isn't as huge as Star Wars, with it's staggering collections of novels, comic books, video games, toys and other extended media. But it's a start, with Mass Effect branching out into new territories we may be starting to see Our beloved media of video games reaching out to new people in new ways that aren't casual gaming.

 

[Hader]

I don't hate Star Wars or anything, I grew up with it just as much as the next person...

but Mass Effect just feels so much more epic to me. Part of it is likely because it is in a universe that makes sense; mass effect technology at least makes a degree of practical sense, as opposed to force powers and lightsabers and whatnot.

Other than that though, I guess it's just due to Mass Effect being introduced as a video game instead of a book or movie that really made it significantly different from Star Wars. And that is a big draw fr many people in this day and age.

 

[Omikron009]

Did you say that Mass Effect was obsessed with black and white interpretations of morality? I was under the impression that a huge portion of the gameplay was about making tough moral choices, where neither option is inherently right or wrong. That's why they say "paragon" and "renegade" and not "good" or "evil." Even some of the more recent entries in the Star Wars franchise (not including all that kiddy crap, which as far as I'm concerned is ALL NON-CANON) delve into the realm of gray and gray morality.

 

[lemiel14n3]

Did you say that Mass Effect was obsessed with black and white interpretations of morality? I was under the impression that a huge portion of the gameplay was about making tough moral choices, where neither option is inherently right or wrong. That's why they say "paragon" and "renegade" and not "good" or "evil." Even some of the more recent entries in the Star Wars franchise (not including all that kiddy crap, which as far as I'm concerned is ALL NON-CANON) delve into the realm of gray and gray morality.

Well look at the Jedi and the Sith as the best example on Star Wars' side. A force user can either be on the light or dark side of the force, there's no "middle way"(although I'm not really intimately familiar with the extended canon) . With Mass Effect there was a lot more focus on morally tough decisions but they ultimately were shoehorned into "paragon" and "renegade". And while it wasn't "good" and "evil" it was still rigidly dualist.

 

[Omikron009]

Did you say that Mass Effect was obsessed with black and white interpretations of morality? I was under the impression that a huge portion of the gameplay was about making tough moral choices, where neither option is inherently right or wrong. That's why they say "paragon" and "renegade" and not "good" or "evil." Even some of the more recent entries in the Star Wars franchise (not including all that kiddy crap, which as far as I'm concerned is ALL NON-CANON) delve into the realm of gray and gray morality.

Well look at the Jedi and the Sith as the best example on Star Wars' side. A force user can either be on the light or dark side of the force, there's no "middle way". With Mass Effect there was a lot more focus on morally tough decisions but they ultimately were shoehorned into "paragon" and "renegade"

There's actually a huge amount of material in the Star Wars expanded universe about "gray" Jedi. The most obvious example in this context would be Jolee Bindo, a character from KOTOR. Also, the reason decisions are dubbed either paragon or renegade (which I'd like to reiterate doesn't mean good or evil, just how you prefer to solve problems) is because it would be difficult and unnecessary to introduce a different gameplay mechanic. I kind of prefer the way it worked in Dragon Age, where there was no moral choice meter at all, leaving you free to make the choices you wanted without screwing up your character.

 

[Canid117]

Did you say that Mass Effect was obsessed with black and white interpretations of morality? I was under the impression that a huge portion of the gameplay was about making tough moral choices, where neither option is inherently right or wrong. That's why they say "paragon" and "renegade" and not "good" or "evil." Even some of the more recent entries in the Star Wars franchise (not including all that kiddy crap, which as far as I'm concerned is ALL NON-CANON) delve into the realm of gray and gray morality.

Well look at the Jedi and the Sith as the best example on Star Wars' side. A force user can either be on the light or dark side of the force, there's no "middle way". With Mass Effect there was a lot more focus on morally tough decisions but they ultimately were shoehorned into "paragon" and "renegade"

I found that was more of a problem with the second one than the first one because of how the persuasion system was handled. Even then Mass Effect II was a lot more gray than anything that is Star Wars.

 

[theamazingbean]

http://gza.gameriot.com/content/images/orig_320200_1_1257581825.png

You'll find most of the story aspects mentioned on that chart are also mentioned Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, a work of myth analysis that postulated the Monomyth, the single myth that Campbell believed inspired all of human mythology. Compensate for standard sci-fi window dressing, and yeah, the two have a lot of similarities.

 

[badgersprite]

All I'll say is that no one can convince me that Paragon Shepard isn't using the Jedi mind trick when s/he charms people, or that biotics is anything other than the force.

I love it, though. That self-awareness and allusions to the classics of the Sci-Fi Fantasy genre is part of what makes Mass Effect fun, and I know Bioware are totally doing it on purpose; the homages to things like Star Wars, Star Trek and Blade Runner are so thick in these games it would probably take forever to compile them all.