Favorite Piece of Art... Mass Effect? Part 2

In the last segment of this two part blog (something I seem to do a lot) I went over why I believed Mass Effect to be a work of art in a board sense and outlined some of the achievements of its narrative (and probably did not do it justice). I will now attempt to explain the awesomeness of its other assets.

Let us begin with the acting. Normally when you think of video games you do not think of acting. Many gamers underestimate the importance of voice acting in the video game industry assuming that many of the games' "cinematic" features rest solely on the graphics. While this is true (and trust me, Mass Effect has the area covered) video games are looking and feeling more and more like movies everyday, and as we all know, acting is an enormous aspect of film. Relying on graphics for your cut scenes may have been important in the 90's, but times change. With all that said, Mass Effect has some of the most superb voice acting I have ever seen in a video game (on par with some of Pixar's best films) and both games have great casts with well known actors such as (film and voice actors): Seth Green, Keith David, Martin Sheen, Jennifer Hale, Adam Baldwin, Steve Blum, Tricia Helfer, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and even Yvonne Strahovski. Some of the actors even use there likeliness for the characters they play: Jeff "Joker" Moroe (Seth Green) and Miranda Lawson (Yvonne Strahovski).

In terms of art direction I would have to say that Mass Effect has a nice balance of new yet familiar. You can tell its a Sci-Fi epic by looking at it, but the game offers amazing and stunning visuals that may surprise even the most jaded science fiction buff. Mass Effect has some of the coolest looking aliens I have ever seen.

To top it all off, Mass Effect has some of the most unique and interesting lore of any science fiction setting ever seen in fiction. As young as it is, Mass Effect has an enormous amount of depth that will gives us decades of fun and intrigue. Strangely enough, the game is also considered hard science fiction, making it a very believable and relate-able universe. Some well know astronomers and physicists have actually commented on how accurate some of the game's theories are. If you are not into all the scientific mobo-jumbo however, fear not! Most of the scientific lore in the game is optional. When it comes down to it though, the aliens make the lore as awesome as it is.

Anyway I think I have burned out this topic. Moral of the story: Mass Effect is awesome and if you haven't played it please do so. Now, as I promised, the launch trailer for Mass Effect 2, the best launch trailer in video game history: