It’s rarely the over arcing story that captures my imagination in a game. Even though Bioshock’s story of the city under the sea was brilliant and the backdrop to Fallout 3 was indeed epic, it was the little traces of life, the items strewn around and stories left for you to make up for yourself, that made these worlds real for me. George Lucas had a name and a story for every background character in the original Star Wars movies. Everything going on, whether a part of the main story or not had a full history. It was a working, breathing universe and everything in it was designed to be a cog in the wheels. I’m a big Star Trek fan too and again it’s the watertight universe that stirs my passion. In a game that element of discovery and hidden depths is all the more fulfilling as you can choose to submerge yourself in it and to what degree for yourself.
The latest game to fill out its story with millions of sparkling little details is Mass Effect 2. Of course there are different races and wars and interactions going on around you. You can take up incidental side quests or not bother. It’s not these gems though that made this one of my all time favourite games. It’s something even smaller. The codex allows you to read up on all different elements of the busy galaxy’s goings on. Like a Hithchiker’s Guide it doesn’t just hold information on your crew, the ships you come into contact with the different races and politics in some sectors, it will actually read out the information to you making it easy to sit back and take in more and more of the complex tapestry of Mass Effect.
But let’s strain our eyes a little further and look at an even smaller detail. One of the elements of the game requires you to scan, probe and mine planets in the various systems for a variety of precious metals. Sometimes you’ll come across anomalies on these planets that can lead to daring adventures, most of the time you’re simply monitoring meters for spikes in your scans. For every planet though before going into scan mode there is a description. These couple of paragraphs about each world’s history and fortunes are fascinating little stories. Some could be whole other games in themselves. I can see in my minds eye, the ruins of vast cities on one planet and the industrious underground caverns on another. War zones vie for space in my imagination with tropical beaches and skyscrapered cityscapes. There are tons of them too. At first I was just scan reading them in case there was anything important but as the game wore on I found myself stopping to read every single one. Visually all I’d get to see is a far off coloured marble, continents barely visible against indistinct seas. But down there I knew plants were thriving, creatures scurried around, lives were being lived. It wasn’t my crew I had to save, my friends or colleagues. It was the teaming life overwhelming every corner of the galaxy who’s existence was in my very hands. These were the people I had to save, and I did.
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