So Mass Effect had managed to convince me to play just a little while longer with the surprise of expansive exploration. “Just a little while longer” soon became “beating it for the third time” in the space of a few weeks, for the sole purpose of character development.

To begin, here is an actual conversation I had with Teph at the start of my latest playthrough, in which I try to figure out my (female) commander’s path in life:

Mana: This time, Shepard’s gonna be a little Renegade; bitchy when trying to make a point, but she’ll say and do nice things for people if it doesn’t put her out. But I’m trying to decide if I should make her fall in love with Kaiden.

Teph: Oh?

M: Well, see… I was thinking about how in Mass Effect 2, when [SPOILER REDACTED], she’ll probably gravitate towards Renegade, cuz I know I’d be super cranky if that happened to me. Perhaps to twist her even more, I should have her fall in love with Kaiden and then choose him to [SPOILER REDACTED], so that in the second game she’ll have every reason to be even more fucked up, after having lost both her [REDACTED] and her [REDACTED].

T: *stares at me* You’re thinking way too hard about this.

Perhaps I am. But I’ve never created characters before. I didn’t even realize that was what I was doing in this game until I had the exchange with Rob above. But with the knowledge that the decisions you make, the people you help, the people you allow to die in this game carry over to the next two games where they’ll snowball and flesh out your character and your galaxy, thus creating an almost limitless number of endings  in the third volume, I couldn’t help but to attempt some manner of forethought in the path I was driving my character.

Hence why I’ve played this game three times so far. Each Commander Shepard I created with different personalities and relationships to other characters, so that when I eventually get the second and third games, I can choose from a few different destinies and see where they lead the character by the end of the tale.

I think that’s what I like so much about this series. I’ve never identify with blank slate protagonists that you’re supposed to shape as yourself because I never liked playing pretend (you can barely get me in a Halloween costume. Don’t even think about cosplay!). Although you certainly can play the game role playing as Commander Shepard, I felt like Bioware made it possible for me to feel like I am in control of the path that Commander Shepard can take in her life. I didn’t shape my character’s personality after my own so that I can play pretend and be a space hero, I actually shaped my character around events and interactions with others that occur before and during the game. I feel like I’ve been given the chance to tell a story.

I wasn’t convinced I’d be enamored with Mass Effect. But with Saren on the run for the third time, I’d better start looking forward to getting my hands on ME2!

I’ve managed to tear myself away from the original Mass Effect long enough to make a comic, but there were some important decisions still on my mind.

Thanks to the generosity of our friend Gee of I Saw Elvis,  a few weeks ago we were given the opportunity to play Mass Effect 1 and learn more about the series before the release of the sequel. I wasn’t too sure what to expect; I enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic, but I’m not a huge sci- fi fan nor big on western RPGs. In the first few hours of playing, I was still unconvinced and ready to put the game down – the menu system made no sense, the battle system was overcomplicated, and all too quickly my first mission was over and I was trapped on a bland, metallic space station with hoards of NPCs overwhelming me with sidequests before I had been given a chance to give a crap about them and their world. I was just going to give it one more hour, and then I was going to go play something I could actually enjoy.

In that one hour, I was finally allowed to leave the space station and explore. “Feh,” I thought, expecting that Bioware’s idea of freedom to explore was to advertise the idea of space travel but to actually limit me to only like three planets (a la Rogue Galaxy). So I tentatively zoomed out away from the station, but nothing was there, only the nebula in which the station was located. So I zoomed out again, which displayed the Milky Way, with about 8 nebulae/clusters to choose from. “Impressive,” I thought, having expected fewer locations than that. I chose one and zoomed in, expecting my adventure to start. Nope. I was given four star systems to choose to visit. I chose one and zoomed in. My jaw dropped.

I could explore each planet in the star system – not necessarily land on each one (due to inhospitable conditions), but I could survey it from above to earn some money and XP.  According to the Mass Effect wiki, there are over 100 planets to examine. The ones you can actually land and explore are far less, but still one planet per star system. And there are a lot of star systems.

The sheer scope of the game’s explorability (is that a word? No? Well it is now) shocked me and gave me the incentive to try this game out for just a little bit longer. In addition, every planet (even the ones that you don’t actually land on), had a writeup including statistics such as orbital period, gravitational pull, average temperature, etc. Major props to Bioware’s writers: they took imaginary planets and crafted such realistic science around them that I couldn’t help but to believe in the Mass Effect universe.

It was that which took me into my first steps of giving a crap about this sci-fi game and the people in it.

• STILL playing: Mass Effect