In keeping with the DWRL mission of “the identification and promotion of twenty-first century literacies,” in the spring 2010 semester, the Games Group split into different areas of games research. My focus was on narrative games, and I chose to look at the wildly popular role-playing game (RPG) Mass Effect.[1] Now in its second generation (Mass Effect 2 was released in January 2010), Mass Effect is a complex character and narrative-based game that incorporates elements of quest and first-person shooter games. In short, the main character is sent on a series of inter-galactic missions to save the universe from semi-robotic bad guys, collecting teammates along the way. Although role-playing games have been the center of considerable academic attention, most of this attention has focused on MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, where players interact with one another in communities. In contrast, Mass Effect builds the community into the world of the single player, which allows for highly developed interactions without the difficulty of engaging other players for long periods of time. The intensive character development and second-person experience of the game cause the player to identify with the character they play, while the extensive use of race, gender, international relations and group power systems in the game play allow for relevancy of the game to real life issues; these features, combined with Mass Effect’s unique approach to “game” and “play” give the game striking potential for use in rhetoric courses.
Character Development
Mass Effect allows players to shape the physical appearance of their characters; although players are limited to male and female human characters (unlike some other games, or builds like Second Life, where you can choose other-species characters or characteristics), within those limits you can change your facial features. That is, eye and hair color, nose, cheekbone, chin and neck shapes are all adjustable via sliding tabs.
Mass Effect Character Creation
Beyond this, players are asked to choose a life history for their character- Earthborn, Colonist or Spacer, and a psychological history: war hero, ruthless, or sole survivor. Finally, you choose one of six skill classes for your character: Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. When you begin to play the game, which relies intensely upon the character’s interactions with other programmed characters, those programmed characters will know the character’s history as you designed it, and interact with you accordingly. For example, you may be approached by a fan who wants your autograph due to your fame as a war hero, or a character may be more or less afraid of you based upon your reputation for ruthlessness.
The Second Person Experience
More interestingly, the interactions you have with other characters in ME are frequently beyond your immediate control. Unlike most first person shooter games, where the player pulls the trigger and the character fires, or other quest games that rely on narrative and you choose between three options, in Mass Effect players choose from a category of responses. In other words, when confronted with another character, you can choose a more amiable, more aggressive, or middle-ground approach to that character, but once you select the approach, what you actually say to that character depends upon the background you’ve chosen, and your choices in the game thus far. So you can select the phrase “I’m in control” as an option, and your character might talk for thirty seconds about why the other characters shouldn’t be concerned about the tactical situation. This is a lot like real life, where people frequently speak with a general intent, but without planning our speech precisely, the characters in Mass Effect act in unexpected ways. We may see a friend, and want to say “Hello” in a friendly way, but we don’t plan every aspect of our conversation with them; in Mass Effect, you watch the character enact the consequences of your intention and history. Because it is a game, character development is part of the leveling out process, so in general, the more amiably persuasive you are, the more amiable options are given to your character as you work your way toward the end of the mission (and likewise, if you are continually aggressive, you will gain more “ruthless” points, and be given more aggressive options and fewer charming options for your character). The potential uses of this second-person quality in a rhetoric classroom are almost endless; watching yourself perform a category of response builds self-reflection into the game experience.
Normandy Paragon Speech
Saving Wrex
This second-person view of your character forces the player to become the viewer, to see themselves as others see them- as the game designers programmed them not to behave but to be perceived. That is, although you choose a category of response, you have no choice over how those responses will be developed by your avatar or how your responses will be received. Although it is true that you can increase your chances of being especially well received (however you categorize “well”- which could be especially ruthless), you don’t always, for example, receive “paragon” points for choosing the most amiable option. In fact, in many instances choosing the most amiable option is the least valuable response, although gaining paragon points leads to “charm” points, some of the most valuable in the game.
The Universe
Broadly, Mass Effect contains a highly developed and complex universe controlled by a central government with representatives from the three “most civilized” species, the Asari, the Turians, and the Salarians. Humans, along with other species like the Elcor and the Volus, continually try to prove their worth to the species in the government so that they might eventually join the governing party. Each species (called races within the game) has distinguishing physical and social characteristics that are almost inextricably linked, so that, for example, Krogan are always large and short-tempered. Detailed descriptions of the various species and their histories are available in the codex contained within the game, which can be accessed at any time through the simple push of a button.
References to the histories of the species punctuate conversations throughout each level of the game. Interspecies disagreements that occurred thousands of years ago are still relevant for characters in the game, as is the role of ancient species and gods. Most of the disagreements that occur or have occurred in the game are due to territorial disputes over land or resources such as minerals or slaves, and population control and breeding is an ongoing issue within the game. Without going into detail here, the applicability of these conversations to our current political situations is readily apparent.
PEDAGOGY
Using games in the classroom can be complicated for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which are student resistance to non-traditional teaching practices, access to sufficient computers or gaming systems, financial resources, and administrative support for video games as “serious” work. Mass Effect circumvents at least a few of these difficulties. First, the game runs on pcs, and is available through the gaming website Steam for only $20.00, well under the cost of most textbooks. Running the game on the site allows the player to save the game and pick up again where they left off. Secondly, although the game itself is approximately sixty hours long, even a short amount of time spent on the game can be useful, as the character building alone provides significant player investment in process. Thirdly, the game is very easy to use; as a non-gamer, I was apprehensive about the learning process, but the user interface is straightforward, and the main action commands are limited to just a few keys.
ME is unique in the gaming world, complicating both the strictly quest narratives of World of Warcraft, which are character, point, and community driven, and the strictly open expanse of Second Life, where the player has complete control over their avatar. In this way, Mass Effect is in many ways more like real life. Confronted with a large array of aliens and humans with personal problems, good guys and villains with little to no information about who is who, characters must find their way through the bewildering number of choices that are available to them – just as we do every day.
You can cheat, of course. There are innumerable online guides for every version of the game that will show you how to get inexhaustible bank accounts, extra armor, or maps that are more detailed than the original game provides; but we can cheat at real life, too, however we define cheating. This is just another rhetorical (ethical) choice that we make every day. However, Mass Effect is only game, and there are enough videos online to show you every version of every option, but no matter how many videos you watch, nothing prepares you for the shock of watching your tank explode for the first time, or the frustration of watching yourself die over and over again as you attempt to complete a task.
Finally, in the way it forces the user to play – to seek out options, missions, people to enhance their world, Mass Effect echoes more concretely than many other less paidic[2] games what we as rhetoricians might consider a more fulfilled life. To succeed in ME you must leave the prescribed paths, talk to strangers, get out of your vehicle and look around in new worlds. Without wandering, seeking, exploring, the player never discovers the new adventures, and instead is left alone, trapped in a foreign world without companions and without a mission. In this case, which happens frequently to the new player, the player soon loses interest in the game, and gives up. You will only be successful if you question the rules and goals of the game; as this is one of the more important lessons of introductory rhetoric, I look forward to using Mass Effect in my own classrooms.
Links:
The official Bioware forums for Mass Effect 1 & 2.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/subindex/102/
The manual for Mass Effect 1.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18200984/Mass-Effect-PC-US-Manual-Dd
The Escapist is an enormous (generating 25 million views per month) online news and social site devoted to video games.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/
Game Studies is an open-access, peer-reviewed, crossdisciplinary journal that publishes current game research.
http://gamestudies.org/
The official homepage of Mass Effect 1
http://masseffect.bioware.com/me1/
A non-Bioware site on Mass Effect 1 & 2, with walkthroughs and spoilers.
http://masseffect360.com/faq
The wiki page for Mass Effect 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect
The wiki page for the races of the Mass Effect universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_of_the_Mass_Effect_universe
[1] Video games, of course, are still fairly rare in rhetoric pedagogy, but I agree with the ideas of Bogost, Hayles, Ryan and Voorhees, among others, who assert that video games can provide a rapid entry into cultural critiques, and further that they can be legitimate modes of narrative. These aspects of video games, combined with the visceral and emotional responses they inspire in players, make them an ideal form for teaching rhetoric.
[2] I’m relying on Frasca’s version of the term; Frasca, Gonzalo. “Ludology Meets Narratology: Similtude and differences between (video)games and narrative.” 1999. http://www.ludology.org/articles/ludology.htm
Tags: dwrl · narrative games · video games
