And it's easy to see why these two have made such an impact. Each universe, in their own ways, tell classic stories of adventure, heroism, exploration, and even romance.
The Mass Effect franchise, though not as universally known or as huge (yet), has the breadth and potential to achieve a similar size and scope.
With a rich background history told through the various tie-in literary and graphic novels, games, movies, and the in-game Codex, BioWare has created a massive fictional world from which they can create many, many stories. And for those of us that love science fiction in all its forms, that is a very good thing.
Commander Shephard's fight against the massive sentient spaceships known as the Reapers is the conflict that drives the three larger Mass Effect games. The trilogy forms the centerpiece for the universe while the other media serve to enrich and enhance the experience.
The video below is a trailer for the release of the collected trilogy and gives a decent overview of the look and feel of the series:
The first game, simply titled Mass Effect, was originally released on Xbox 360 and a little later on PC. After EA purchased BioWare, Mass Effect 2 and 3 became cross-platform titles, adding the PS3. While some core mechanics remain the same, key changes from game to game alter the way each one plays.
But, by far the most innovative aspect of the series is that of player choice. While it doesn't give the same freedom as, say, the Elder Scrolls series, the decisions you make have consequences that impact the story within the game in a very apparent way. Not only that, the decisions carry through from the first game all the way to through the third. A dialog option you picked in Mass Effect that seemed rather insignificant suddenly has a larger story impact that you won't see until you get to Mass Effect 2 or even 3.
Since the release of Mass Effect in 2007, quite a lot of additional story material has been released, so we'll be on this series for a while. Here is a table showing all of the elements of the franchise, in chronological order on the left and by publication date on the right:
Personal Confession: The story told in Mass Effect is my all-time favorite, but that nearly didn't happen. The changes from the first game to the second were pretty drastic and, for a while, I was pretty angry with the changes.
At the time, it felt as though BioWare, in their transition to EA, had gutted what made the first game so special to me. I even wrote a long blog post about it and send an e-mail to BioWare. After a buddy of mine raved and raved about how Mass Effect 2 played and ended, I realized I was being lame and gave the series another chance.
Ultimately, I'm glad I did (which is pretty obvious seeing as I'm dedicating a long-running blog series to it).
I'm pretty jazzed to get this thing rolling. Next week, our first piece is the graphic novel, Mass Effect: Evolution. If you decide to buy the comic to follow along and don't want to spoil anything, I suggest stopping as soon as the first story ends because they tacked Incursion onto the end of it along with a preview of Invasion. Don't say you haven't been warned.
See you next week!
The video below is a trailer for the release of the collected trilogy and gives a decent overview of the look and feel of the series:
The first game, simply titled Mass Effect, was originally released on Xbox 360 and a little later on PC. After EA purchased BioWare, Mass Effect 2 and 3 became cross-platform titles, adding the PS3. While some core mechanics remain the same, key changes from game to game alter the way each one plays.
But, by far the most innovative aspect of the series is that of player choice. While it doesn't give the same freedom as, say, the Elder Scrolls series, the decisions you make have consequences that impact the story within the game in a very apparent way. Not only that, the decisions carry through from the first game all the way to through the third. A dialog option you picked in Mass Effect that seemed rather insignificant suddenly has a larger story impact that you won't see until you get to Mass Effect 2 or even 3.
Since the release of Mass Effect in 2007, quite a lot of additional story material has been released, so we'll be on this series for a while. Here is a table showing all of the elements of the franchise, in chronological order on the left and by publication date on the right:
| By Chronology | By Publication Date | ||
| Title | Publication Date | Title | Publication Date |
| Evolution | 9/21/2011 | Revelation | 5/1/2007 |
| Revelation | 5/1/2007 | Mass Effect | 11/16/2007 |
| Mass Effect | 11/16/2007 | Ascension | 7/29/2008 |
| Incursion | 6/21/2010 | Galaxy | 6/22/2009 |
| Redemption | 1/6/2010 | Redemption | 1/6/2010 |
| Ascension | 7/29/2008 | Mass Effect 2 | 1/26/2010 |
| Galaxy | 6/22/2009 | Incursion | 6/21/2010 |
| Paragon Lost | 4/7/2011 | Inquisition | 6/21/2010 |
| Mass Effect 2 | 1/26/2010 | Retribution | 7/27/2010 |
| Retribution | 7/27/2010 | Paragon Lost | 4/7/2011 |
| Inquisition | 6/21/2010 | Conviction | 7/26/2011 |
| Deception | 1/31/2012 | Evolution | 9/21/2011 |
| Conviction | 7/26/2011 | Invasion | 11/19/2011 |
| Invasion | 11/19/2011 | Deception | 1/31/2012 |
| Infiltrator | 3/6/2012 | Infiltrator | 3/6/2012 |
| Homeworlds | 4/25/2012 | Homeworlds | 4/25/2012 |
| Mass Effect 3 | 11/18/2012 | Mass Effect 3 | 11/18/2012 |
Personal Confession: The story told in Mass Effect is my all-time favorite, but that nearly didn't happen. The changes from the first game to the second were pretty drastic and, for a while, I was pretty angry with the changes.
At the time, it felt as though BioWare, in their transition to EA, had gutted what made the first game so special to me. I even wrote a long blog post about it and send an e-mail to BioWare. After a buddy of mine raved and raved about how Mass Effect 2 played and ended, I realized I was being lame and gave the series another chance.
Ultimately, I'm glad I did (which is pretty obvious seeing as I'm dedicating a long-running blog series to it).
I'm pretty jazzed to get this thing rolling. Next week, our first piece is the graphic novel, Mass Effect: Evolution. If you decide to buy the comic to follow along and don't want to spoil anything, I suggest stopping as soon as the first story ends because they tacked Incursion onto the end of it along with a preview of Invasion. Don't say you haven't been warned.
See you next week!
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