Video Games, Mature Romance and a Dictatorship

It has been a while since I've found a topic worth debating about and it has come to my attention that the sequel to Mass Effect has also brought back some old discussions.

For those that do not remember, Fox News aired a report on sex in Mass Effect and attacked the game developers for showing what was nothing more than an aliens rear end.

That was two years ago and today we have Mass Effect 2 which has kept with the tradition and allows players to essentially romance almost all of the characters that accompany you.

However, the developers did not include relationships of the same sex which is an interesting choice and many people have asked why?

Well a forum user called "Menelaos1971" believes that Bioware, the creators of the Mass Effect series held back after the uproar caused by the Fox News debate. He stated that "...it was a step in the right direction for Rated M games."

Interestingly a developer on the team replied to his statement:

"It's kinda funny that this topic keeps coming up over and over again. People who claim to be old enough and mature enough to handle sex and nudity in a game seem to believe that any lack of sex and nudity in the game is a sign of self-censorship. They generally don't believe that a game can be called "mature" without explicit sex and/or nudity.

Let me tell you, folks, that as a developer full of mature individuals, we are also free to not have explicit sex and/or nudity in our games, no matter what you, Fox News, the government, or Bunky the Wonder Clown has to say about it. We have never considered it a "problem," it is simply a choice we have made and we have every right to make that choice."

I agree that a mature game does not need sex and/or nudity and that yes, they do not need to include it if they do not want to however what the developer said next, I do not agree with.

"Game development is not a collaborative effort between developers and gamers; it is a dictatorship, where we alone determine what content goes into our game. You the player make the choice whether that content is acceptable to you (and/or your family) or not."

First I would like to state that game company "Valve Software" would disagree. We the consumers are the reason developers design games therefore many studios do research on what we gamers want in a game. In regards to Valve, they are what I consider a "golden" company in this "dark" industry as they actually listen to their market and implement changes based on the feedback given.

And even now they support the modding community by posting news updates about top rated mods, purchasing them and turning them into full games and even allowing us to become developers in our own homes by giving us a place to share models in the hopes that they will be used in their multiplayer game Team Fortress 2.

It's common knowledge that games take lots of time to develop and they can always be improved so Stanley Woo's comments about how the games industry works are inaccurate. As user Xenris states:

"Its a developers job to make us gamers happy and be open with us and ask us what we want, not tell us what we want."

Of course not all gamers are wise with their feedback. For example they may suggest an idea that would not work well in a game. As a modder myself I can understand the development process and that some ideas sound better as a concept rather than a functional element in a game.

Back to the topic of mature romance, I noticed YouTube have recently removed a few videos containing scenes of these romantic relationships and it makes me wonder what will happen to ratings in the future.

As it stands, sex, nudity and so forth break YouTube's rules and so they are inclined to remove such videos however games are an art and as the visuals get better and better we, the developers will strive to reach for "real-life" elements. Eventually nudity and sex will become an accepted thing in the games industry and that is interesting as websites such as YouTube will probably have to rethink their policy since they cannot deny the video game medium.

I'd like to hear what you have to say about mature content because I believe it will certainly shape the way the games will be made in the future.

Mass Effect 2: My Thoughts So Far...

Now that we're nearly through the first month of the year 2010 I thought it would be a good idea to write about Mass Effect 2 and my experiences with it thus far.

When it first arrived in my post yesterday I was eager to play it but I could not because I wanted to finish up my second play-through of Mass Effect 1 in order to receive the best reward when porting my character over to Mass Effect 2.

You can imagine my desperation as I still had Feros, Virmire and Illos to complete which took me a good three hours. Once I had completed it and listened to the satisfying credits song for the third time I quickly installed the game and jumped straight back into the world of the Mass Effect series.

Immediately I noticed a huge difference in visual presentation compared to the first game and the performance was much better possibly because the game was actually using the full power of my PC unlike older games which were not designed to use Quad Core technology.

From here I'll be talking about a few minor spoilers that take place from start to about five hours in.

Once I gained control of Shepherd I soon realised the controls had been changed and old mechanics had been removed. The changes that effected me the most was the lack of a radar in the corner and the switching of the "shift" and "space" keys on the keyboard. I soon got used to it though and like it more because it means I can rest my thumb on the "space" key and do most of my actions using just my thumb.

As for story I won't go into details as the game is fairly new but some parts such as the return to the Citadel actually brought out an emotional response. I was expecting the council to welcome me back and honour me for what I did in the first game but instead they dismissed all my hard work and the resulting atmosphere was quite sad and frustrating. It was even more effective because hours ago I had saved their lives by sacrificing my fellow humans in the first game.

You have to admit a game that can do that must be very powerful emotionally and I have to praise the story writers at Bioware because so far they've surprised even me.

At one point you meet your old friend Garrus from Mass Effect 1 and unfortunately he gets shot down by an enemy flying aircraft. I literally said out loud "No, he can't die, that's not fair. He's an awesome character..." Luckily he survives but he is scarred quite badly which again made me feel sad because he hides his injuries with jokes to uplift the mood.

Enough about the story though, as for gameplay, I am impressed with how fluid it feels now. One improvement is the weapons which now fire more accurate lasers that actually sound like guns unlike the "hairdryer" sound effects from the first game. Taking cover is easier now and issuing commands to your squad has been fixed so that you use the "q" and "e" keys instead of the out of reach "arrow" keys.

As for space travel they have also improved that greatly by allowing you to drive a "mini" Normandy. You can fly to a planet and use a new scanning mechanic that is a hell of a lot better than landing on it and driving around doing the same missions over and over in the first game. It allows you to scan the planet for resources and send probes that search for minerals which are sent back to you so that you can upgrade weapons, armour and even the ship. Searching for resources is necessary as the game designers have stated that you can die at the end of the game if you are not prepared.

Overall I'm five hours in right now and I already feel attached to the story and the characters that inhabit the universe. This is going to be a long game since I'm taking my time with it and I hope you do too.

Mass Effect on the PC

During my Christmas break I managed to get my hands on Mass Effect after finding out it was also released on PC. I also heard it was a really good game from lots of people and I knew it would be as it was made by one of my favourite developers, Bioware.

The reason I enjoyed it so much was the story. Developers, take note as Bioware are the best when it comes to in-depth stories and they are doing it right. When I first loaded the game, I was shot back by the large amounts of information being thrown at me. For a little while, it was overwhelming but you soon sink into it all and you start to learn names of aliens and the history of it all. I can never forget the two enemies that made me jump all the time, Husks and Thorns.

Think of them as the zombies of the game except they run, they suicide in your face and they like to play dead until you're close by...Especially the Thorns, sitting down all the time as if to say "Hey, come over here, we're drinking tea!"

The game is flawless in my opinion; I had NO issues with it except one tonight where my character got stuck on a bad collision model. It's really polished and so in depth at times that I could just fall deep into the story and never come out. I reallyloved the interactivity in the cutscenes because it gives you choice and you get to see what happens because of your choice. In fact, one of my favourite characters died because I chose to rescue the other from certain death. It's very powerful at making you feel for the characters.

The gameplay was quite interesting, it had the "KOTOR" (Knights of the Old Republic) style but it evolved and became Gears of War meets Star Wars. You can take cover and pause the game to plan strategies and so on. You're also given the choice of class when you first start and for once, I chose the soldier as I'm normally the super weak mage in other class based games. I can tell you, being the soldier kicked ass. You become pretty much invincible as you can use all the weapons and all armours. Overall I liked the game mechanics as they worked well on a keyboard and mouse and it satisfied me enough. Oh however, the driving sections were a little annoying as the planet surfaces were so bumpy and the car was a little over sensitive.

On to the sound, I loved it. The music scores were effective at conveying where you were. From the mighty Citadel to the cold peaks on a certain planet I can't remember because there were so many and the names do slip. As I said earlier, the game has scary monsters and what better way to convey the horror aspect than by having a creepy tune. The tune can be heard here:

http://www.habboi.co.uk/mus_area_peak15_2_jack.mp3

(I had to rip it from the game as it wasn't shipped with the OST)

Here's another of my favourite songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fINefilcmZw&feature

These are my favourites because they were really nicely constructed and fit the themes well. The horror song consisted of ringing bell type noises that made you edgy as they used the song in places that seemed empty but were not. The song above, I heard tonight and it's used in a really peaceful sanctuary where you have a discussion with a really old Prothean AI. I would class it as the "relaxing" song of the game.

Back to the story, I won't spoil it but I must say that there are a lot of twists and turns and that's what makes it so interesting. There's so many questions and each one gets answered as you progress so I feel like I'm being rewarded for playing for a certain amount of hours. They ended it in a way that it guarantees a sequel so I will be looking forward to it.

I would really give the game a go as I'm holding it as one of my favourite modern games. If you love story and in-depth history and so on then you'll love it.

(In fact, one of the planets, the snow one, inspired me to make a level on Source involving a scrolling tram. I ended up spending a week modelling the train and texturing it and exporting it in the game. Good stuff.)

P.S. If you want to see the so called "Sex Scene" that Fox News caused a stir about then make sure to save the women and talk to them a lot ;)

(Source Image: http://pix3lnati0n.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/masseffect.jpg - Date Accessed - 09 February 2009)