Mass Effect 2: One Year Later

Karen Shepard, my character from ME1 & 2, has helped me explore the galaxy, humanity, and alien cultures.

(Warning: Mass Effect 1 & 2 spoilers follow).

January 26, 2011 marks the first anniversary of BioWare’s Mass Effect 2. It is hard to believe a year has passed since we first got to play the second installment of its epic space trilogy.  Mass Effect 2 continued the saga of humanity’s struggle for survival as well as its quest for political supremacy within the Citadel. It would be the biggest understatement to say I have enjoyed that game.  However having completed the games several times, I think I am in a better position to look at several areas of research available due to the volumes of content that come with the Mass Effect experience.  Some of them I have already touched on, yet there are other areas that cry out for exploration, including disability, body image, moral choices, and several mass communication theories to include framing (in-game media broadcasts), agenda setting (Cerebus network), and gatekeeping. To be honest, I have already dabbled into why Mass Effect 2 address the human condition and how some story elements represent cultural hegemony.  In fact I did that not once, but twice.  A few months later, I wrote we need more characters like Joker. Recently I explored how BioWare uses fictitious faith as an option to avoid the controversies of addressing real-world religions. I even argued that my beloved Karen Shepard should die again at the end of Mass Effect 3. In addition, other writers have brilliantly written about some of the political aspects of BioWare’s epic. Jorge Albor over at Experience Points penned “The Quarian Exiles,” “The Salarian Dilemna” and “Cultural Conflict.” One might think that because of the many articles about Mass Effect that we have sufficiently mined universe for cultural ideas.  Not so.

Mass Effect "Overlord" is an opportunity to study disability.

First, the added content (DLC) “Overlord” infused horror and oppression of the disabled into Mass Effect 2. The “ends justifies the means” mentality used by Cerebus to combat the mechanical Geth put the player in the position of leaving a disabled man in the hands of his oppressive brother or shipping him off to an academy for help and thereby putting humanity at a disadvantage in its war against the Geth’s masters, the Reapers. Anyone interested in exploring how the story unfolds must capture and study the flashbacks the player sees as well as the ending cut scene and in doing so will see how the character Daniel will shift from what Rosemarie Garland-Thomson calls wondrous (awe-inspiring) to exotic (dangerous, alien, strange) to sentimental (to be pitied and taken care of).

Grunt (foreground) and Tali help the gamer explore family issues in ME2.

Body image and gender issues are obvious avenues of exploration in ME2.  Critics will no doubt zero in on First Officer Miranda Lawson, whose tight outfits present the image of sex symbol even as she reminds Commander Shepard, and the player, that she has been genetically bred to be intelligent as well as a powerful biotic.  She therefore often times splits the male player’s focus on her since she is a possible love interest for MaleShep while catering to the Illusive Man’s interest as a Cerberus operative and first officer of the good ship Normandy. Her cool demeanor is offset by the fiery and sexual Jack/Subject Zero who presents the option of unattached sex. In contrast, Samara’s quest to kill her daughter provides room for those interested in the intersection of child rearing and employment and the consequences of being away from home too much.  Kasumi Goto quest reveals a love tale with some James Bond elements thrown in. Of all the characters, it is Tali’Zorah who provides the interesting political/familial/loyalty missions in the game (as does the Krogan Grunt).

The Mass Effect trilogy is well-known for its moral choices.  One of the big selling points was that choices made in the first game carry over into the second.  Likewise, choices made in ME2 will help shape the outcome of the series in ME3.

If you saved the Rachni in ME1 will they help defeat the Reapers in ME3?

I have read accounts of how Shepard’s actions with the Krogan, the Quarians, the Geth, and the Rachni will help to form an alliance against the Reapers in ME3. It will be interesting to see if certain options lead to success or if some kind of pluralism exists in ME (all roads lead to a good ending).

Another rich area of research is in-game media, ala the Cerberus Daily News and in-game news updates on different planets. The CBN ran for one year, providing daily updates from the ME Universe.  These short messages not only enhanced and expanded the canon, but also provide material for textual and content analyses. Just as interesting are the numerous in-game updates the player can listen to.  These quick announcements might provide some insight into how news reports are framed within the game.  What elements are emphasized and which ones are downplayed or even ignored? How do the interests of the Citadel play out against the public’s need to know? Do these news bursts, as I call them, in any way help to set the public agenda for conversation and reaction? This last item is difficult since we are only privy to the reactions of Shepard and those around her.

It seems that the anniversary of Mass Effect 2 raises nearly as many questions as it answers. The middle chapter of this trilogy has one final section of downloadable content due out this year.  BioWare has not revealed if this will be DLC that bridges ME2 and 3, ala “Lair of the Shadow Broker.”  If it does you can bet that researchers will add it to the healthy collection of ME content already available.

Religion in AAA Releases: Some Thoughts on Real and Fictitious Faith

Major digital game titles are not exactly known for straying from the dominant perspective. One only has to look at how these AAA titles cater to white, male, and heterosexual norms. The question (or at least one of them) becomes why does that change when religion becomes the focus?  I am certainly not saying that portrayals of religion should shamelessly adopt a dominant perspective also, but that religion occupies a small space in the narrative of digital games. In the United States, Christianity is the dominant religion, yet games, like other entertainment media, tend to shy away from portraying that faith in ways that reflect diversity of faith while avoiding preaching and cliché religion portrayals.  Of course faith is a touchy topic and just as explosive as race, yet at the same time is core to the human experience.

However religion, at least in the United States, is complex in part because of the diverse nature of our many faiths. After all, to claim Christ does not reveal is one is orthodox, Catholic, mainline protestant, evangelical, and so on. Moreover, those mixtures change depending on what part of the country you reside.  For example, in One Nation, Divisible, Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh report that in New England, 68% of those who claim religious affiliation are catholic and mainland protestants are outnumbered by evangelicals by 3 to 1. When you compare that to the Southern Crossroads (Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri), you find that the percentage of Roman Catholics drops to 18.6 %.  Moreover, half the Catholics in the region are Latino. Lastly, one will find very few minority religions (Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and so on) in this area, less than 0.5%.  The other areas of the country, the South, the Pacific, the Pacific Northwest, etc, are all equally diverse.  How do developers address the many aspects of Christianity in their narratives?  For the most part, they don’t.

Leliana (Dragon Age Origins) is a member of the Chantry and a fierce warrior.

Instead some titles address fictional religions.  For example, religion plays a central role in Dragon Age Origins (DAO).  While it is apparent from the start of the game that this religion is modeled closely after Christianity, there are obvious differences.  Still the similarities are such that one can point out multiple examples of Christian faith playing out in the game world.  This should not come as a surprise to anyone who plays role-playing games, the genre to which DOA belongs.  Other games in this genre, such as The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion and Mass Effect, also have religious elements.

Mass Effect 1 takes a different approach in that it creates a new religion around the antagonists of the game, the mechanical Reapers. These ancient machines are worshipped by other machines known as the Geth.  During the game, the player, kills two Geth as they worship the Reapers in a temple.  The player gets very little information because he/she is still trying to figure out the relationship between the two races, so we are left to wonder what other aspects of this fictional religion exists.  The in-game encyclopedia, the Codex offers some slight clues, but little information is forthcoming about Reaper worship in the first two Mass Effect games.

The writers of Mass Effect created a religion for the game.

Of course creating a whole new faith is far safer than attempting to navigate religious waters.  Yet if digital game producers dare to call their craft a full-fledged medium then this bridge will have to be crossed eventually.  Hopefully games will be more bold than television has been in this regard.  To be honest, I have no idea how such an endeavor will work out.  Any honest attempt to explore religion without being preachy (like many of those awful PC Christian games on the market today) can still draw the ire of different groups. However this intersection of faith and adventure does not have to provide any answers, nor does it always have to be direct.  I recall a conversation between Mass Effect characters Commander Shepard and Chief Ashley Williams where they briefly discuss her faith.  That is certainly more tangible than the heavy religious symbolism we see in Bioshock or Assassin’s Creed, but it is a reminder that there are multiple ways to explore the faith of individuals and communities.

Will Defending the Homefront Mean Being Anti-Asian?

Kaos Studios' Homefront is due to release Q1 2011.

In a digital game market flooded with military shooters, Kaos Studios’ Homefront might just stand out.  As a gamer, I look forward to playing something different from a stilted campaign and the standard team deathmatch in multiplayer.  As a game researcher, however, I wonder if a strong, character-driven campaign might raise storytelling in this medium to a higher level while simultaneously engendering unwarranted animosity toward Asians in general and Koreans in particular.  Now you might think that is a stretch, but it seems that many of the needed elements are already in place.

If the title Homefront doesn’t ring a bell, you can check out the information on wikipedia and a brief interview with Kaos Studios head Dave Votypka. In the piece Votypka said he and his team looked to Half Life 2 for inspiration. Regular readers of this blog know HL2 is one of my all-time favorite shooters. HL2 resonated with me because I cared about the characters, particularly Eli and Alyx Vance.  If Homefront can make me care about its characters, then I might just come to hate their enemies. That’s the problem. Yes, we can debate the likelihood of a Korean invasion all day, but the real danger here is that making a connection with Americans under the heel of a brutal foreign power may very well cause hatred for the enemy. In addition, there is also the risk that some gamers may begin to agree with positive representations of the good guys (the Americans) while agreeing with the negative framing of the bad guys (the Koreans). After all, it is only natural that we promote and support positive portrayals of those we identify with (known as the in-group) while at the same time harboring negative perceptions of those not in our group (the out-group).

North Korean solder in Homefront

Now in-groups and out-groups won’t really matter all that much if the single-player campaign is simply about herding the player from large battle to next while killing as many enemy soldiers as possible. Those faceless, generic enemies could be Koreans, terrorists, Covenant, Geth, whatever.  It makes no difference.  That is exactly what you will find in most games: enemies that try to keep the player from his/her goal, but it’s just business (the business of winning). But if I can revisit HL2 for a moment, I really don’t like the oppressive Combine.  Not only do they threaten “people” I care about but the setting developer Valve created was quite convincing and thus I decided to immerse myself in it.

A Combine soldier from Half Life 2.

Can the same thing happen with an occupied United States? Kaos brought in former CIA field operative Tae Kim to add authenticity of the invasion scenario.  Add to that noted screenwriter John Milius (Red Dawn, The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger) and you have all the elements for an engrossing story. In fact, the assault has already started.  Early promotional images of Homefront typically have the enemy soldiers towering over the camera; the viewer has to look up at the occupier, who is the authority. From the beginning we are made to see the invader as large and intimidating. When you compare that to images of the Combine from HL2 you will see the propoganda machine from the world of Homefront already engaged and doings its best to imitate the atmosphere of a masterpiece.

Of course there are readers who will dismiss this as nothing more than entertainment.

The Other in charge.

Those who support that point of view will argue Homefront is simply fiction.  My response would be that even digital games carry certain messages embedded in their content.  One of those messages here is that a nation and a people most Americans barely know or understand has been written into this game as a merciless enemy who now sits on our shore. While all known intelligence suggests the North Koreans are in no shape to mount such an invasion, because they are (to us) so mysterious, can we really know what they are thinking and planning?  We believe they are aggressive (look at the recent artillery attack on South Korea) and we know they have nuclear ambitions.  What else are they capable of?  They are the classic “other.” It is too easy to demonize and hate that which is other.  Fear and oppression are often-times the consequences of categorizing groups we don’t care to know as “other.”  The phrase yellow peril is not used that much anymore; it has since been supplanted by fears of communism and terrorism, but all that can quickly change.  A triple-A release like Homefront can expose millions of Americans to a hostile Korea. It also happens that the upcoming Operation Flashpoint: Red River features possible conflict between the United States and China in Tajikistan. However Red River is a niche shooter for those who love realistic tactical military games. Homefront has broader appeal by far and the from the looks of reaction so far should steer clear of the outrage surrounding Six Days in Fallujah and Medal of Honor. Those games centered around present US conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Homefront represents a fictional war. To be more precise, Homefront presents a fictional conflict between the United States and Korea and is therefore more acceptable to the American public than those other two games.  However it also embodies cultural conflict with the last cold war enemy, which is also dangerous, albeit in a different way.