The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
I think I can honestly say that Mass Effect changed my life.
Before Mass Effect, I used to be more of a casual gamer; The Sims games and some old school platformers, but nothing really significant.
Mass Effect was the first time I became wholly immersed in a game’s story and characters that I learned everything there was to actually playing the game well. Post-Mass Effect, I feel like an actual gamer. Through it, I started to appreciate shooters and full RPGs, and I really dove into the gaming industry as a whole.
If I had to pinpoint some specific moments, I think those would have been the ability to move from friends to lovers for my Shepard and Garrus in ME2 and my Shepard standing tall and fighting hard in her last moments with the Destroy ending in ME3. I literally cry multiple times throughout ME3 even though I’ve played it a million times, and I enjoy the whole story so much that I’m recording my gameplay and editing into a sort of Mass Effect “show” so I can enjoy the story while I’m just lounging or hop in quickly even if I’m in the midst of playing something else.
Before ME, I would never have considered myself a gaming fan at all, and now there’s ME gear, fanart, cosplay items, and such every few feet in my house. 😅
I’ll add that the “big reveal” in KotOR made me put down the controller and stand outside on the patio for a moment because I was so shocked, but Mass Effect is like amped up KotOR, so I’ll lump them all together.
The kaitco of today is definitely a different person than the kaitco who hadn’t played Mass Effect, and I love the series for that.
Oh boy, I was so young playing kotor for the first time that when I hit the twist I literally thought it was some dark side trick until Bastila fessed up to knowing about it, lol. Definitely blew my mind.
As for Mass Effect, it really is such a great universe to get lost in. I wish I could relive that moment when I booted it up back when it first came out and heard the opening theme. It’s such a moody tone setter.
To this day I still go back at least once a year and do a full playthrough or two of the trilogy.
And I still sometimes find situations I’ve never experienced before despite knowing all 3 games by heart after thousands of hours of playtime