State of Affairs — PC Gaming

Coming up on two years since I purchased my PS3 — the first console I’ve owned since the original Gameboy — I find I’m enjoying gaming more than I had in quite some time. This has me thinking about the current state of gaming on my old platform: PC.

Losing People

Rush into a firefight, dive behind cover and start firing. Nearby one of your squad members is taken down by enemy fire. You keep fighting, and eventually prevail. The area cleared of enemies, your fallen squad mate gets back up, running through an animation, dusting themselves off. In the last few years this has become the standard routine for just about any game with AI helpers tagging along.

But then there are those times in games where, aiming for drama, a character can die, permanently. One of the first encounters with this idea that I can remember was back with the original Rainbow Six. In the second mission of the game, I crafted an elaborate plan of attack, with two squads infiltrating a house where terrorists were holding hostages. My team would take out the guards at the front of the house, while the second AI controlled team would sneak in through the basement. On my command my squad would burst in through the front door at the same time the other squad comes through from behind. The terrorists would be caught in the middle with nowhere to go. Everything was going perfectly until the second squad breached the basement door, charging out into the main room — and without thinking, I shot. The leader of the second squad went down, dead. The plan continued well, with all of the terrorists eliminated in a couple of seconds, the hostages rescued. Except that I only realized afterwards that the leader of my second squad was actually dead. Not getting back up. Gone for the rest of the game. This lent a certain gravity to the rest of the proceedings.

Mass Effect 1.5

In the years since I first played Mass Effect my save game has vanished into the ether, joining what by now must be a vast archive of virtual experiences. Normally this isn’t a problem, but with the impending release of Mass Effect 2, it has taken centre stage. The game’s much publicized character import feature has caught my attention — something that I’ve been interested by since Bioware touted the option in the move from Baldur’s Gate to Baldur’s Gate 2. Of course, in that case I never managed to get it to work … besides which, with all the advances in the character creation system, why would you?

According to Bioware, it sounds like Mass Effect handles this much better, and could enrich the story in interesting ways. Indications are that players can tweak their character from the first game, re-specing them with the additional tools that the second puts in front of them, solving the old problems. But, now I need a save game. My save game. The collection of bits that made up my female Shepherd and all the decisions that shaped her over the course of the game. Mass Effect was notable for how well it conveys this sense that you are guiding and developing a person, leading them though a series of life-changing events. It would seem too strange to play the second game without the weight of those decisions behind it. So what to do?

I’ve started playing through Mass Effect again. This makes for something of a strange experience. Rather than making an original set of choices, I find myself intentionally recreating the choices that I made last time around. The physical appearance of Shepherd is as close as I can make it from memory. In the moment by moment gameplay, obviously my accuracy isn’t quite spot-on, but to the best of my recollection I am trying to do exactly the same things over again. Every decision is subject to the question, ‘what did I do last time?’ Was this the dialogue option? Did I take this quest? Side with this character? This playthrough is the COPS version of the game — the dramatic recreation. Shepherd acting out the memory of something already determined.

For anyone who may have read my musings on time in games, this is clearly an interesting situation. What tense is this?

An interesting twist to this is that I am playing Mass Effect on a Macbook via Boot Camp. Performance wise, the Macbook far exceeds my expectations. The frame-rate is smooth even with all settings on their highest options, outperforming the iMac I played it on last time. Except for one little issue: It gets hot. Very hot. The fan blows harder than I’ve ever seen it. Not dangerously hot, as far as I can tell, but hotter than I would like. This has been shaping how I’ve been playing: my longest session so far might have lasted a bit over half-an-hour. Now, I don’t usually play for too long at once, but longer than that.

The game now has a built in ‘do you have anything else to do?’ warning in the blast of that fan. It makes for slow progress through the game, but then again, well, I do sort of have other things to do….