Rambling - Crumbling Banjo Bombs

I will endeavor, while writing this, to refrain from descending into fanboy ranting and raving.  I have specifically striven to avoid blogging about Mass Effect before specifically for that reason, but this time I can't not write about it.  Mostly because this time, rather than flailing my arms in excitement and screaming the glories of this game, I have something specific to say (I'll try to keep the flailing to a minimum).

I have a bone to pick with Bioware.  By far one of my very favorite development studios, Bioware has had their money in my pocket since I first played Baldur's Gate.  I have happily played each of the Baldur's Gate series, Neverwinter, KoTOR, Jade Empire, and Dragon Age.  With Mass Effect, Bioware absolutely stole my heart.  It is a setting that has struck more than one chord with me; I love the characters, the technology, the history, the themes, the races, I even love the politics of the Mass Effect setting.  Yet most importantly, I love Mass Effect for its refinement of the type of game that KoTOR first hinted at.

Like other RPGs, Mass Effect allows you to craft your own version of the story that Bioware wrote.  They form the setting, create a broad narrative, and allow you to choose the details of that narrative.  Yet Mass Effect went farther than other RPGs in the creation of Commander Shepard, in a way I talked about in a previous blog, and the result is fantastic.  Commander Shepard becomes the personality you want them to be as you play.  There is certainly a broad framework of character already developed, but like the broad narrative in which Bioware lets you choose the details, the character of Commander Shepard is a personality that you can shape to such an extent that he or she becomes your own version.  Often, this can vary quite significantly from other peoples' versions of the character.  Gender, race, and class aside, Commander Shepard's variations exist, throughout the course of the game, on a range from murderous to beneficent.

At the risk of being That Gamer, I can tell you a bit about my Commander Shepard.  Please, bear with me for just a little bit here.  Samantha Lynne Shepard (yes, I gave her a full name, I do that I'm a storyteller) is two years younger than her service file indicates, since she joined with an altered ID to get away from a difficult life on the streets of Earth.  She had no family there, just a small group of friends, and she did what she had to survive; even killed her first person at the age of twelve.  The Navy was her escape.  She made good as soon as she was possibly able, and hasn't looked back since.  Not long after joining, her unit was wiped out on Akuze, and she survived through sheer tenacity, natural ability, and a big mountain of luck.  She's a good person, always ready and eager to help out people at the bottom rung of society, with whom she identifies.  At the same time, she's got a mean streak a mile wide, and never hesitates to make bloody calls in the moment when necessary.

Sorry to put you through that, but I just wanted to specify what Bioware did when they formed Mass Effect in the way that they did.  My Commander Shepard is a specific personality when I play that game.  To me, this is one of several ways to make a game, and it is among my favorites.  I am quite fine with playing a game such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, in which Adam Jensen is a defined character with a specific history and personality.  I like Adam, I thoroughly enjoy that game, and I like the way Adam is presented.  At the same time however, Samantha Shepard is as much a legitimate character to me as Adam Jensen.  And I'm not the only one.  I have met many other fans of Mass Effect who have specific visions of who Commander Shepard is to them, and their version of the character is as legitimate to them as mine is to me or Adam Jensen is to any of us.

Then I read this.  Most of it sounds great; specifically that it's an original story and not a rehash of the games' story.  Yet where they fail, on a staggering level, is when they specify that the movie will focus on Commander Shepard.  The specification that Shepard will be male in the movie is entirely irrelevant, even if I wasn't already a member of the FemShep fan club.  This is a bad idea on a level so much larger than the FemShep fans struggling against the BroShep majority.

I don't know the details about who decided at what point to make Commander Shepard the main character of the Mass Effect movie.  It may have been Bioware, it may have been Legendary.  In either case, the end result is the establishment of a "canon" Commander Shepard.  Since the game's inception there has been that short-haired BroShep glaring sternly at us as he went about his adventures in the game's advertisements.  With that I am absolutely fine; it's difficult to sell a game, especially an RPG, without an identifiable character that people can recognize and associate with said game.  Yet every single aspect of the Mass Effect universe has been carefully built to encourage us to develop Commander Shepard as our own character.

The books don't specify anything about Shepard.  The comics don't specify anything about Shepard.  The Galaxies game didn't specify anything about Shepard.  Beyond the use of an identifiable face with which to sell the game, Bioware has specifically avoided saying or publishing anything that would impinge on the character that customers have created in their own playthroughs.  Each time they did so, they strengthened the legitimacy of the character each of us has created.  Every instance in which Bioware specifically took efforts (even making their own work more difficult) to avoid specifying any details about Commander Shepard, they specifically validated our own versions of the character.

Throughout the Mass Effect games, we are given choices.  Each choice shapes the character we are playing, specifies who they are and makes the story more our own.  It could be argued that this is simply a game mechanic meant to provide us with a bit more of an interactive and therefor entertaining experience.  That argument fails however, as soon as you carry a save game from ME1 to ME2, and subsequently to the upcoming ME3.  Your choices span an entire trilogy of games, a feature largely unseen in the entirety of the video game industry.  This elevates the choices from a simple entertaining aspect to a fundamental feature of the series, perhaps even the setting, as a complete whole.  It makes those decisions important.  Now, with the introduction of a single specific version of Commander Shepard our choices are being made null.  You chose to save the council?  Too bad, FilmShep killed them.  Yet you killed the Rachni Queen?  Irrelevant; FilmShep kept her as a pet.  Who died on Virmire?  Doesn't matter, FilmShep already made that choice for you, the decision you made had no effect.

On a different level, using Commander Shepard in the movie is also a disservice to the setting, and the character, in their own right.  The threat that Commander Shepard faces in the existing trilogy is a very specific, well-crafted saga with a beginning and an end.  To stretch that story beyond its intended length just to put it in a movie would cheapen it.  To invent a whole new story for Commander Shepard to be involved in would risk making the whole idea ridiculous.

Yet most importantly, there is a larger aspect to this decision.  Beyond my hurt fanboi feelings that they're nullifying my character, beyond the ridiculousness of giving the galaxy's savior yet another galaxy-ending threat to defeat, is the fact that Mass Effect should not be about Commander Shepard.  Not if they want to make the setting last.  The Mass Effect setting is rich, intricate, and has the potential to become a Science Fiction setting on par with Trek, Wars, or B5.  Yet this cannot happen if the only thing with which the general public identifies is one specific character.  The setting must be presented as a setting itself, not a story about one individual character.   If too much emphasis is placed on Commander Shepard, then if Bioware ever does attempt to make the setting into a legitimate sci-fi franchise the public will be much more reluctant to accept it without that character.  They won't see it as "that sci-fi setting" but "those movies and games about that one dude."  Much like the reaction that many people had about Halo: ODST.  "How can you call it a Halo game?  There's no Master Chief."  People identify such an iconic and central character as the setting itself, rather than as a part of that setting.

I'll stop rambling now, I just had to write this.  I doubt anyone at Bioware or Legendary will see it.  Even if they do, I really don't think it will have any effect whatseover.   I wish it would.  I wish they would see it, understand my point and the place of genuine love it comes from, and agree with me.  That won't happen, but I just wanted to say my piece.

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