Yeah, as I play, I don't generally care much about what my squadmates are doing. They're usually pretty competent, and if they're doing something stupid, generally they're dead or will be regardless of what I tell them by the time I react to them being in such dire straights. So ultimately I don't think it matters. Turns out the ability to order each individual is something that was added to the PC version, too, it wasn't something you could do on 360. So I guess it didn't quite pan out as expected. Still, it can occasionally be useful, and does sometimes work okay for general positioning. It really just doesn't work in tight quarters, and your buddies really do have minds of their own. They won't really and truly do every last thing you tell them, which may simply be a side effect of their usual self-reliant AI. There are times when I tell them stuff, then I realize it was a bad idea, and they seem to have realized it too, so instead of pushing forward to do something, they've fallen back and used a defensive ability. Ultimately, I don't think that level of micromanagement is necessary. It would be nice if it worked, as the game would ultimately feel quite a bit more tactical, but you can still use their abilities in a tactical way and orchestrate the general movements of the whole squad tactically as your guys follow you around. So it works, and once I got used to it, now I don't care.
But I've started to think a little differently about the game's strengths and weaknesses, now. I picked up the first tie-in novel, which is supposed to be a prequel to the first game, and I realized something: the universe of Mass Effect is actually really standard, unimaginative, and derivative. Before I say more, don't think I'm saying I don't like the game, because to be honest I'm so addicted it's ridiculous, and I think the presentation of story, universe, and characters is just brilliant. But that's kind of my point, I guess. The presentation is fantastic, and the people who designed this game are absolutely geniuses at what they do, but the fiction itself is fantastically uninspired. To be honest, it almost just increases my amazement with the game and developer that they've managed to take something this boring, borrowed, and done-to-death, and turn it into a space epic that feels so poignant and delightful. Nearly everything in the game has been done in a movie, book, or game, and all the aliens are pretty archetypical. Even the stuff that at first glance seems unique, really isn't. The quarians? They're basically a hobo version of the Eldar. The protheans, that amazing ancient precursor race that's now extinct and nobody knows what happened to them? That's only been done in practically every sci-fi epic ever made. In fact, the story and certain game elements at times have an alarming juxtaposition with Star Control II, just in the way they feel and certain bits here and there.
What it comes down to is fidelity. This game is, quite simply, an amazing feat of detail and definition. Everything is so well defined, the characters are so personable and interesting, the world is so lively and lovingly rendered. Somewhere between the design documents they drafted in a conference room and the game's first loading screen, all the derivative, boring slop that they decided to use to build the universe is somehow transformed into engaging, fascinating, textured material you can spend hours fiddling with.
Again, I'm not sure if this should count against it or in its favor. There's something to be said for taking the most standard, archetypical, well-worn concepts you can and try to make them really compelling. Starbreeze sort of managed to do that with Enclave just in the artistic sense, taking the age-old fantasy stuff everyone's sick of and making it look utterly gorgeous with some really creative and fun design choices. But I don't know what Bioware truly intended here; whether they wanted to recycle old material into a brilliant new thing, or whether they're just so fucking good at what they do that they managed to overcome their complete lack of creativity by simply doing so well at everything else. It blows my mind.
That said, the novel is... average at best. There's some decent story there, it seems, and I'm not bored, but the writing ranges anywhere from competent to WHAT. THE. FUCK. The guy thanks his editor somewhere in the beginning, but really, he should take the guy out back and beat him to death with a shovel. There's no way anybody read this before it went to print, there are far too many spelling errors and the like. It's all very odd, because the writing in the game itself is actually very good. The dialogue is almost never flat, the characters have immense personalities brought to life in part by brilliant voice actors, and nothing feels uninspired or lazy, and the guy who wrote the novel is the lead writer for the game. So it's weird that the book is so much less than its counterpart. Maybe the guy is a better manager than writer and his staff are the people responsible for all the game's brilliance. Either way, that's what really opened my eyes to the general lackluster, status quo quality of the actual fiction, and gave me new respect for the team that made it shine so brightly. The codex, for instance, is very well thought out and presented, even if the stuff it's presenting really isn't that interesting. But they've obviously taken great pains to work out how the technology works, the cultures of the aliens, etc., as all that is presented very nicely through the codex. And it doesn't bore me, even though very little of it is original. I know they have a "science guy" on the team who most assuredly helped with making the technical stuff seem plausible (and probably helped with the endless number of planet descriptions for when you're on the galaxy map).
Anyway... I can't put this game down. I'm about 20 hours in now and I just can't stop. I love getting to know the characters, the way quests come up through dialogue and character development at times, the way you gradually watch people's attitudes become apparent, or the relationships between people change. For something that takes absolutely no chances with its foundations, and seems to purposely pass up every opportunity it has to do something original, this is a fantastic and highly recommendable RPG on all fronts. And that's pretty shocking.
