Mass Effect has been one of the best trilogies I have ever had the privilege to enjoy from start to finish, and so I thought I’d write about how it’s affected me. While I haven’t written any specific spoilers, you may still wish to avoid this article if you care about that sort of thing.
So it’s all over. The trilogy has come to a close and the epic finale has rounded up and packed in the conclusion to one of gaming’s greatest, most incredible experiences. Shepard has come a long way from his mission on Eden Prime, and the conspiracy that first drew him into this impending battle for humanity’s survival, and the 100+ total hours of time I must have devoted to the franchise has been incredible.
Over the last 5 years, we’ve met an amazing cast of characters, alien species and galaxy ravaging machines, had awe-inspiring moments, saddening moments, and even hilarious comical moments, and it all comes together gloriously in a three-part package that tells the story of one man and his journey to save the galaxy from it’s biggest threat, and makes us feel both truly small and yet absolutely integral to the fate of every living being in the game’s universe.
To say it’s been an emotional ride could be considered an overstatement, but throughout the adventure, much like in any film, I’ve grown fond and attached to certain characters in the story, and playing a part in whether they live or die, love or hate, and ultimately achieve their goals or fail entirely has made this connection to the characters ever stronger, upon each iteration of the trilogy. Whilst the conclusion to the trilogy has been widely considered ‘disappointing’, I was personally both thrilled and saddened to see it all come to a close.
To me, the ending couldn’t have been any more epic and enthralling, and whilst I sat there, slack jawed in absolute awe, experiencing what would be the final battle for mankind’s survival, I felt a mixture of happiness, sadness, closure and longing. Happy to have been a part of the story from the very beginning, sad to say goodbye to characters who truly gave the story life and emotional connection, closure for seeing everything wrapped up (though undoubtedly, there were some unusual plot-holes and events at the very end that didn’t make a whole lot of sense), and longing for the story to continue.
However, since the ending wrapped up the narrative very nicely, with an emotional and satisfying conclusion to the plight of the human race, it seems pretty clear to me that the story is over – and being a part of it has been one of the best experiences in gaming I have ever had the pleasure of putting my time into.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Is bingeing bad for us? It seems an obvious question, but I have been thinking about it lately, while revisiting Lost, the tv show that started 22 years ago (cripes, I feel old). Back when it was airing, my friends and I watched it religiously every week, talked about it in great detail, eagerly awaiting the next episode. It was the definitive show of its time, sparking debates and endless theories. It felt great to be a part of that, the sense of all experiencing the same thing together over a long period of time – most seasons had over 20 episodes, which is way more than most shows get these days – and they aired one by one, every week for several months. In today’s age of bingeing a show from beginning to end, I wonder what we are missing by not taking our time.
Format: PC
Year: 2000
It may look clunky as hell thanks to the original Unreal engine, but Deus Ex was a pioneer in videogames because it gave the player so many choices to make. It resulted in one of the deepest gaming experiences of the time, because it went to great effort to show the consequences of those choices. The story was spread across many ‘hub’ levels, giving you total freedom to approach your objectives whichever way you wanted, aided by an RPG style upgrade tree that you invested in as you played. Wanna finish it without killing a single soul? That is entirely possible. Prefer to tool up with a rocket launcher and just murder your way to the end? Nothing could stop you. Your NPC allies would respond differently back in the Unatco base, depending on what you did out in the field. This level of responsiveness was unparalleled for a long time, to the point that even if you walked into the ladies toilets, your boss would scold you for it during the mission debrief later on. It was many little moments like that which made the game so memorable for me.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein introduced me to the world of PC gaming. I have my uncle Dave to thank for this. He used to play two games, Wolfenstein and Fighter Ace, and I loved going round his house because he had a gaming PC, curiously built by a company called Gateway… The PC was something so alien and awesome to me that it made my N64 seem like the toy it always was (I still love you, my 64). Wolfenstein became Enemy Territory, a free standalone multiplayer component, but it was the ‘original’ Return to Castle Wolfenstein that dragged me into PC gaming, and I’ve never looked back since.
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