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Contains spoilers.

Sorry for the title. You have to admit it would be great of “Effect” and “Affect” were the same though.

The vast majority of the time, I finish games pretty quickly. Even more than that, I just quit them before I finish. But, I have been known to find certain video games that I like so much I play them and play them and play them. I'm not talking multiplayer, either. I’m talking normal, single-player games with a storyline.

Many years ago when I finished Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the first time, the ending played, the credits ran, and then the title screen reloaded. Without shutting off the console, I started an entirely new save file and started all over.

I played Elder Scrolls: Morrowind for months. I played KOTOR and KOTOR 2 both multiple times - KOTOR as recently as a few months ago when I discovered that it had been released on iPad. I must have beaten Chrono Trigger upwards of 30 times. I also finished many other old SNES RPG titles more than once, even though each playthrough was just a copy of the last, except that I knew what was going to happen. Super Metroid and Metroid Zero Mission? Screw, I don’t even know. For quite a while I beat one or both of them once a day for months.

Video games have always held emotional stock for me. I've played them all my life, with my friends, with my mom, etc. I like fiction: movies, books, and a video game with a good story can be every bit as powerful as either of those two mediums.

Now all that said, one thing I have never done, no matter how much fun I had on my first playthrough, is 1. finished the third installment of a game series, 2. turned the game off, 3. immediately booted up the first installment of the series, and 4. started over from the very beginning of, not just the third game, but the entire series of games. That is, until... you know where this is going. Until I played Mass Effect.

By the time I played Mass Effect, all three games had been released. There was no waiting around for me. I knew nothing about it other than it was evidently super great and also everyone hated the ending. Eventually Mass Effect 1 and 2 went on sale on Steam and I said, Why not.

So I started the first game, tried to create a cool personalized Shepard and failed horribly, ended up creating a generic dude-Shepard like the one on the box, and got my Mass Effect on. I enjoyed it enough, but I wasn't blown away. It was relatively fun, but the gameplay wasn't mindblowing. The choose-your-own-adventuring was fun, and while I’m not a huge sci-fi fan truth be told, the story was compelling enough to keep me intrigued and angry at Saren and the Council for being such douchebags and that kept me going to the end. And I’ve gotta say, that ending scene where Shepard crawls out of the rubble and faintly smiles after the Saren fight sort of made my day.

I basically sailed right into Mass Effect 2 from there and, oh my god, commence being blown away. It had one of the most epic openings of any game I’ve played, in which in the first couple minutes Shepard is killed and as his/her lifeless body floats down into the atmosphere of a planet, the “Mass Effect 2″ logo finally appears, as if to say, “Yeah, we just started this game by killing your player character. Strap in, whores.”

Mass Effect 2 is a near perfect game. It took the almost-pretty-cool gameplay of Mass Effect 1 and honed it into a sharp point of awesome. Now not only did I have to worry about cover, but I finally had ammo to worry about, I finally had to aim, I had better AI and more interesting enemies to contend with, and while the story was still simple, I fell in love with these characters and how the choices I had made in Mass Effect 1 had made such a mess, or paid off, in Mass Effect 2. It made me a true fan of the series - I loved it.

I uploaded my dude-Shepard into Mass Effect 3 and was preparing myself to be disappointed because - as you’ll recall - all I knew about Mass Effect before starting it was that everyone seemed to hate Mass Effect 3.

The game play was insanely fun, it somehow managed to improve on Mass Effect 2′s combat. I could see why some people were annoyed with the lack of conversation choices - it annoyed me, too. Both Mass Effect 1 & 2 had so many conversational options that could make or break god-knows-what. Even in meaningless situations you had choices. For example, Joker radios Shepard with some news and the game would let me decide how to respond to him. Trivial? Sure. Detailed as crap? Yes indeed. Yet in Mass Effect 3 you were lucky if you even got an option other than the two obvious Paragon or Renegade choices.

At the same time, it seemed to me that many of the choices had already been made in the previous two games. So much of Mass Effect 3 is spent wrapping up issues from 1 & 2 that I can actually see why there was a lack of conversational freedom. Instead of a bunch of different choices that usually do little more than give you two extra Paragon or Renegade points, you’ll get a good and bad option, and if depending on what you did or didn't do in the first two games, you’ll get other blue Paragon and red Renegade choices. And if you don’t get those blue and red options, well, you’re screwed, because something you did in the distant past has had a big effect on how your current playthrough is going. The choices were made, and now you’re either reaping the benefits (saving Mordin; getting extra EMS points from the Rachni queen, etc) or paying the price (shooting Mordin in the back; losing EMS points because you murdered the Rachni queen in MS1, etc).

While the game was much more limited in terms of conversational choices having immediate, large effects, the way it took all your big decisions from Mass Effect 1 & 2 and had it affect you in very both huge ways (”Wow, I just freaking destroyed the Quarians... why did that happen and how can I keep it from happening next time?”) and subtle ways (”Whoa, that banshee’s name is Morinth.”) was nothing short of masterful.

My FemShep

When I had finished Mass Effect 3 I said, “Well, I guess I should start a new character, makes sense to make it female, and see what other damage I can cause.” So I went all the way back to ME1 and created my first female Shepard. The idea was to go all renegade (With my dude-shepard, I mostly just chose to do what I thought was right, and it turned out to be a mostly paragon playthrough). She was an Earthborn orphan turned Ruthless military commander. She had fought her way up the military ranks and she was willing to do anything to finish a mission, no matter the cost.

To my surprised, I found the experience enveloping. I was much more drawn to this Shepard than I was the last - even though the last was a dude, as I am a dude, and even though I made my own choices in my first run and this time I was making choices that I sometimes didn’t even want to make since I was going renegade.

As I played my way through the games, her character started having more depth. She was so focused on being tough and inaccessible to others, she finished her missions at the cost of actual friendships. In ME1 I romanced Liara (hey, I may be playing as a girl but I’m still a straight guy IRL) and in ME2 I attempted to romance Jacob to keep things interesting. But in my efforts to romance him while keeping my Shepard’s emotions at an arm’s length from him, he totally rejected me. That Jacob is such a playa. As we were flying off to the suicide mission, Shepard looked at the picture she had of Liara on her desk, and jeez, it was pretty heartbreaking.

In ME3, she broke up with Liara even though she (i.e.: I) didn't want to, but I just chalked it up to her wanting to be 100% focused on saving the entire friggin’ universe for the 3rd time. In the end, she took the Anderson route and destroyed the Reapers, along with all other AI’s (sorry EDI), and somehow, to my pleasant surprise, managed to survive the ordeal.

It’s an odd thing: In all my years playing RPGs, I can’t think of another character that I've felt as close to as this Shepard.

The Endings

Yes, the unexpanded ending was disappointing. I can admit that. But the Director’s Cut was pretty great, and I honestly don’t know how they could have wrapped up the entire game and honored Shepard any better than they managed to do. People didn't really expect the ending to consist of 500 different scenes based on what you did, did they? Endings are usually supposed to provide closure. All the endings do that, which is no small thing considering how many branching paths develop over the course of these three games.

But it also has one big open-ended element: Shepard can survive. It’s such a tiny detail, but will it make a difference in Mass Effect 4? Who knows.

Of the four, my favorite actually may be the destruction of the Reapers. The other two are just so... flowery and peaceful. And then the Reject the Choices ending was unsatisfying to me because it means that nothing you did meant anything in the end, even though you had a chance to stop it.

But no matter which ending it is, I’m always fighting back tears as the character Shepard is closest to is placing Shepard’s name on that memorial wall. God, that scene is a tough one.

Conclusions

Mass Effect has made me feel like a kid again. It brings me a lot of joy to know that even though I’m well into adult life, I am still capable of feeling this inspired by a recent game, just as much or possibly quite a bit more than any other one from my childhood.

I am now addicted to Mass Effect. I’m not sure what to do about it. I make no apologies, but should I quit playing? Or just keep playing and playing until I hate it? I can’t even tell if I’m getting tired of it or not. It’s as if I’m addicted to the feelings the game gives me and the only way to get my fix is with a playthrough.

I have yet to play Dragon Age, but you can bet that I will soon. Even so, something is stopping me from not playing Mass Effect “one more time” before moving on for good.

Well hey, that’s my own problem. But I can tell you one thing: I just bought the DLC for ME2, so I’ll be playing that one again anyway... and then it might be cool to see how those DLC’s effect ME3...

Hey, it's the Opera Scene. How can we not talk about that?