Sometimes a Story Just Has to Get Out of You

I'm quite fond of the game FTL (note the hours played). I frequent the game's subreddit and participate there a fair bit with funny screenshots and comments. A few months ago, I posted another screenshot that had made me chuckle:

A commenter, unaware of what he was about to unleash, commented "Some backstory perhaps?" When I read that comment, a story suddenly and involuntarily flew into my head. I had to get the story out of my head and onto (digital) paper. (I guess this is what artists feel, that they "do art" because they can't not do it.)

The resulting comment was gilded, best-of'd, and upvoted to be one of my most upvoted comments. I figured I'd replicate it here.

---

It had been a long journey for the crew of the Kestrel, Captain Ariel thought to herself. I never would have thought it would have been this bad when I signed up. She and her crew had gladly accepted the assignment of couriering some data to the Federation Base. Lieutenant Mills, or "Bomfy", as he liked to be called, even pushed Ariel to volunteer the Kestrel. "She can take anything the Rebels can throw at her," the engineer boasted. The two old friends, along with tactical officer Lieutenant Mikhail Chernyshev, accepted the small data drive and the mission it entailed.

They knew they'd have to travel through at least eight sectors to get to the Federation Base, many of them hostile. But Ariel wasn't worried; they'd snuck through tighter nets before. The memory of the Elnubian Run made her chuckle. Mikhail was even more blunt: "Why don't we leave the weapons here, eh? We won't need them on this cruise." In the end, they only took a single burst laser and a few missiles.

"Subject goal: long, long journey. Subject vessel: unviable for journey. Assistance offered." The cold words of Maxwell, the Engi crew member first to join the Kestrel's crew, rung through Ariel's mind. Unviable for journey my ass! she thought, though that didn't stop her from accepting Maxwell's help.

They should have listened to Maxwell more in those early days of the journey, especially when they came upon that asteroid mining colony. Bomfy wanted to blow them out of the sky. "Let's shove a missile up their asses and see what happens when you work with the Rebels."

"Assumption: Incorrect. Colony: formerly Federation. Threats: unnecessary. Mission: continues," Maxwell chirped.

"Now hold on a minute there," Mikhail interjected. "The Federation is founded on helping everyone who is a part of it. This colony is in Federation space, even if the Rebels have claimed it. It's our duty to help them!"

"Duty: deliver data to Federation Base. Priority: highest."

"I've had just about enough out of you, tin can," Bomby growled.

"Everyone, calm down!" Ariel had shouted. "We do have a duty to the mission. But our mission is in service of the Federation, and we can't just abandon our ideals for a mission." She turned to Mikhail. "Load the shuttle with 15 missiles and send it down."

The whole crew, even the normally stoic Engi, had been surprised and outraged.

Bomfy: "Are you out of your goddamned mind, captain?!"

Mikhail: "We only have 15 missiles, sir!"

Maxwell: "Duty to mission incompatible with goods transfer. Probably of mission success: low. Recommend revise decision."

"I know you all probably think I'm nuts, but these colonists need to survive out here. With the rebel blockade, not only can they not get the explosives they need for their mining, but they won't have anything to trade with the Rebels. They'll die out here, or worse: enslaved by the Rebels." Ariel looked out the viewport at the colony. "No, we must honor our duty to the Federation. Mikhail, send the shuttle down immediately."

To their credit, the crew had accepted her orders with salutes and swift obedience. The colony wanted to reciprocate, but all they had to offer was a batch of navigational buoys. It had been Bomfy who thought up a novel use for them: "We could reprogram them to match our jump signature. They won't fool the rebels for long, and we can't overuse them lest the Rebels catch on to us. But they might buy us some time."

"I'd trade all of those damned buoys for a single missile," Mikhail later shouted to Charlie, both of them hunched behind consoles and spent missile tubes, trading blaster shots with pirate intruders.

"Their shields are down," Ariel's voice popped on the comm. "Open fire!"

"I'll cover you!" Charlie shouted to Mikhail as he stood up from cover and unleashed a barrage of blasts. Mikhail knew he had only moments before Charlie's blaster overheated, so he bolted from cover to trigger the weapons to fire.

"Firing!" he shouted as he rolled back to cover. The Kestrel shuddered as several laser and ion blasts shot out from the bow, arced across space, and silently impacted the pirate scout. The pirates, shocked by the destruction of their ship detailed on the displays, left themselves open to attack. Mikhail quicked blasted one, while Charlie knocked the other to the ground with his overheated blaster.

"Phew!" Charlie had said. "If I knew you guys were getting into tussles like these, I would have stayed on that moon!"

The FTL drive disengaged, and the Federation base came into communication range. "Open a channel to Admiral Tully immediately!" Ariel ordered Maxim, the recently recruited Rockman.

"Opening a channel," Maxim rumbled.

Ariel gave one last thought to the journey behind them. After the Lanius attack had partially damaged the data drive that was their mission, Bomfy and Maxwell managed to repair it. However, in doing so, they had unwittingly disabled the encryption on the device, which immediately displayed a hologram showing a massive Rebel Flagship with only a few weak points. She had a feeling that the Kestrel, banged up but also upgraded with new systems and weapons, would be tasked to engage the Flagship. Certainly the other fighters wouldn't be able to take it on, and the cruisers would be too busy engaging the much larger Rebel fleet.

She glanced at the ship's manifest: chain laser, charge ion, burst laser, drone parts, repurposed navigational buoys... She chuckled at the buoys, remembering how long ago it seemed they encountered the mining colony. Then a sudden thought came to her unbidden; she felt compelled to act on it.

"Mikhail," she said through the comm, "deploy the remaining navigational buoys."

All she heard was laughter over the comm and the thud of the cargo bay doors opening.

---

By the way, in case you're curious, I did end up winning that round.

Potpourri

I've been playing a lot more PC games lately. I think the reason is a combination of a more powerful computer, really good PC games coming out, and awesome Steam sales and Humble Bundles. Seriously, I think I've bought more quality games in the past six months than I have in the previous six years. The big winners are DayZ (Arma2 mod), Mark of the Ninja, and FTL, but there are plenty more I've played and loved. I intend to give my impressions on some of those games here (Ryan has a great DayZ story here; I was the friend in the story) in the future, as well as maybe some other original content. It's also the first time I've been buying games on spec with the intention to play later.

---

I have a half-dozen unfinished blog posts about politics that I will never finish. I get really fired up about some things in Washington, and inevitably when I start researching them for a blog post, I find the "answer" I thought is not so clear. For example, I wrote 750 words about job creation, thinking I was some kind of straight-talkin' answer man. Then I started reading to see if I made any sense. Turns out, economics is hard. I did learn that while there is not enough economics in politics, there is entirely too much politics in economics. Not to mention the old joke of "put 10 economists in a room and you'll get 13 different answers." I started regularly reading Paul Krugman's blog on NYTimes; that should give you a good idea of where my politics lie. 

---

Parenthood is a trip, man. Mia is learning how to manipulate us. For example, she learned that we reacted strongly when she said she was hungry. So now, if she wants to delay us from doing something she doesn't want, she says "I'm so hungry!" What a punk. Pretty darn smart for a 2.5 year old. (She just did it again while I was writing this post.)

---

I spent about two hours shoveling snow the other day. My neighbors all have snow blowers, but I kind of prefer to do it myself. Part of it is definitely machismo crap; I'm the youngest father on the block, so I can be all "Look at me, the young strong man." But I think the greater part is the serenity I get while shoveling. The task is sufficiently mundane that my brain can wander freely. It's like when I used to drive places with my family when I was a kid, I would love to just stare out the window and just look. Sometimes my mind would wander to the point where I was totally dazed out; I'd snap back to reality and wonder what I was thinking about. I don't really have those moments anymore, but shoveling snow gets me close to them.

---

The big three games (for me) that came out at the end of last year (Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Halo 4, and Assassins Creed 3) so far have been a mixed bag. BO2 is good, H4 was mediocre, and I've barely played AC3. I've probably played more FTL than all of them combined. 

Mass Effect 3 Ending, and Why I Liked It

If you are a gamer, or a friends of a gamer (unless you've been living under a rock), you've heard about the uproar about the Mass Effect 3 ending. If not, read the brief summary below (spoiler warning: if you've not played any of the Mass Effect games, do not read any further). I'm a little late to the game here, but it took me a while to gather my thoughts about this.

How to Fix Call of Duty, Part 1: What Can They Do

I have been a Call of Duty (CoD) fan since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4), the game that somewhat revolutionized the way first-person shooters were played (things like killstreaks, perks, weapon attachments). I've dutifully bought every CoD game on release day since then. I even preordered MW3's "Hardened" edition (and I hate preordering games). So I can rightfully say that I'm a CoD fan.

The gaming community is pretty torn about CoD. Hardcore gamers swear that CoD caters to noobs too much. CoD gamers say that competing titles are too slow or complicated... or they don't say anything at all, as CoD is pretty much the FPS king at the moment. But there are always people arguing about CoD; it's a very polarizing franchise. CoD can even be polarizing to a single person; I am torn about MW3 and the future of the franchise.

CoD's publisher, Activision, and primary developers, Infinity Ward (IW) and Treyarch, have continued to innovate on with each new CoD game. World at War added Zombies mode and co-op play; Modern Warfare 2 added customizable killstreaks, pro perks, and spec ops; Black Ops added CoD points, wager matches, theater mode, and improved scoreboards. Each game also came with new or updated weapons and game modes. None of these updates substantially changed the game in the same way CoD4 did, but this incremental innovation* was welcomed by most gamers. The latest edition of CoD, Modern Warfare 3 (MW3), also brought some innovation in the form of new game modes, "pointstreaks" improvements ,and Survival mode.

* A primer on incremental innovation vs. radical innovation, from the excellent book Making Innovation Work by Davila, Epstein, and Shelton:

Incremental innovation leads to small improvements to existing products and business processes. It can be thought of as an exercise in problem-solving where the goal is clear but how to get there needs to be solved. At the opposite end, radical innovation results in new products or services delivered in entirely new ways. It can be thought of as an exercise in exploration where there might be something relevant in a particular direction but what will be found is unknown. 

However, what really has bothered many of us CoD gamers is that each new CoD title brought with it a substantial set of negatives along with the innovations. World at War had severe balancing issues, MW2 had hackers and its own balance problems, Black Ops had terrible lag/network and balance issues, and now MW3 suffers from challenging spawns, lag/network issues, and, again, balance issues. Why can't each version of the game be better and stronger than the last? Why does each title have to take two steps forward and two steps back at the same time? It's gotten to the point where people still play older versions of CoD because they can't stand the newer versions*. In fact, Black Ops, MW2, and CoD4 all appear regularly on the top 20 weekly Xbox Live titles list.

* Check out i3ears' "BEAR to COMMANDER" series for proof (and some laughs too). 

But that last point underscores why Activision, IW, and Treyarch don't care to fix these problems: Call of Duty sells like wildfire. MW3 sold 9 million copies in it's first MONTH of availability, and that doesn't even count the additional revenue they will get with DLC*. Why should they spend any time fixing problems when they can just work on the next CoD title or DLC pack.

* DLC is a blog post for another day, my friends.

My problem with this way of thinking is that Activision/IW/Treyarch can have their cake and eat it too if they are willing to make a longer-term investment in the game and community. I'm thinking of the model known as "bungee balancing" (think bungee cords; not at all related with the developer Bungie). Let's say, oh, I don't know, akimbo FMG9's are overpowered in MW3*. To find the "optimum" configuration, IW should make a drastic change that dramatically weakens the akimbo FMG9's and then monitor the overall weapon performance. Are they too weak now? Strengthen them. In this way, IW can zero in on the optimum configuration. (If you're familiar with algorithms, you should notice that bungee balancing is like a binary search.) IW could bungee balance spawn logic as well (using heatmaps as the data).

* They should be able to easily see what guns are overpowered by comparing relative weapon performance. Say players in general are at 0.9K/D player in general but a 2.0K/D player with akimbo FMG9's. That would be a clear example that akimbo FMG9's are overpowered. 

Now, I get that the lag/network issues can't just be easily worked out in this fashion, as they are much harder to test and verify. I have no easy answer for these issues, other than to say that Activision/IW/Treyarch should spend the time and money necessary to fix these issues in the next CoD title, as lag issues tend to drive gamers nuts.

We still have the question of why Activition/IW/Treyarch should care*. This sort of work isn't cheap. IW would have to have a powerful set of statistics collections and tools to manage this data. It requires a lot of effort from Robert Bowling (IW's creative strategist) and his team to identify problems and propose and implement solutions. Every update would require a full testing cycle (and title updates would require certification as well). We're talking about a lot of changes and a lot of money. Why would Activision want to seemingly waste money on this sort of work while they sell hojillions of copies?

* I don't give any credence to the conspiracy theories that Activision ensures that every CoD title has unfixed issues in order to convince gamers to buy the next CoD title. 

The answer is the long term. Sure, MW3 (essentially, CoD8) broke all previous sales records for a game, so it looks like the series is going nowhere but up. However, if you look past the sales figures, you see a lot of "CoD Fatigue" out there. Long-time CoD fans, such as myself, are starting to tire of the series. Now, for the next 10 months, Activision doesn't care about me. I bought MW3 and CoD:Elite, so they already have all the money they can get from me for MW3. But is Activision really only looking forward one year? That's not a model for long-term sustainability if you ask me.

Game Log: Farcry 2; or, It's like Mercenaries but it doesn't suck.

Initial impressions: A good game. I like how the story and gameplay is weaved together. Starts with a now-classic "being driven in car but can move camera" scene, then gets you right into the action. A few dynamics have me impressed so far, but we'll see how they hold up.

Sins of an Aging Gamer

I'm not old. Not by a long shot. But I am getting older and more mature. I'm also spending more time with my wife. And more time working on my house. I find I have less and less time to play video games. This is a huge bummer!

I had many video games on my wish list, and I got three for Christmas (Orange Box, Rainbow Six Vegas, and Sins of a Solar Empire). I already beat Portal and am playing through Half Life 2 in Orange Box. I'm saving Rainbox Six Vegas for a rainy day (since the online playing opportunities at this point are almost nil). That leaves Sins of a Solar Empire.

I installed it on our new laptop (a sweet rig, I might add) and fired it up the other day. I've been excited about this title ever since I read about (publisher) Stardock's decision to go without DRM. And I've been craving a new RTS to bide my time until Starcraft 2 comes out. 

But after installing the game and going through the tutorials, I found that I had no energy for playing. None. I thought I'd be chomping at the bit to flex my mad RTS skillz, even if just against the computer. But combine the lack of a solid story element (or at least lack of one that pulls me in from the get-go) and no multiplayer aspect (I have no friends to play the game with) and I just have no drive to play.

There are a few elements at play here. I have less time to play games, which means I'm searching for a greater payoff from games I play. That means games I can jump into more quickly (FPS) and games I can play with my friends (Starcraft 2). And that excludes most RTS games that my friends won't play. 

The real final point I'm making is that I realized that I'm getting older and I have to pick the games I want to play more carefully (and maybe let my friends' game selection guide me more). Of course, I can play all the DS games I want; what else am I going to do on the train?

Game Log: Fable 2

I've played maybe 8 hours of Fable 2, and all I can say is that it sucks. I don't know how different it is from Fable 1, but I just don't like it.

Game Log: Gears of War 2

I just got Gears of War 2, and I love it. Here are some thoughts:

Multiplayer: I've only played about 4-6 hours of multiplayer, and it's been all Horde mode (you plus 4 of your closest friends vs. waves of bad guys). This game mode is more fun than I expected. Plus it's the only way I get to play as Baird. Booya.

Single player: Goddamnit this game is so huge! And I mean that. I've read the word "scope" used to describe GoW2, and they couldn't be more right. The most famous example is the developer making up for the Brumak scene from GoW1 (cut because of time pressure) by having you fight like five brumaks within the first 15 minutes of GoW2. That's big. Then you fight like three corpsers at once, two seeders, a ginormous worm, and a mega-fish (not all in that order). Not to mention new regular enemies and everything.

The basic gameplay hasn't changed too much; you still hide behind cover and shoot at bad guys. Two main things have changed: the enemy AI, and the scope (again). I've been flanked by grubs so many times it's getting me to think the XBox is sensient. And the battlefields are just much bigger (and much smaller sometimes) so you really get caught up in them.

I've said before that the #1 thing I look for in single-player games is immersion: how immersed can I get in the game. Whether it's emotional investment in the characters or just locked-in gameplay, if I forget about the outside world and are thinking solely as the protagonist, that's the win I'm looking for. GoW2 gives it all. They totally sideswiped me with an emotional scene; it came out of nowhere and I totally cried. But the thing is The dialog for that scene isn't even that great. I was just so invested that it hit me harder.

I have yet to finish the game so the ending may disappoint, but I'm already in love. I'll probably play though it like 4-5 times before it's all said and done.

Update 11/26/08: I've played a bit more multiplayer, all horde mode, with some new friends and random people (the matching system for horde is pretty solid). It's still fun, but I can imagine it getting kind of boring soon.

The single player storyline just totally surprised me, and not in a good way. Things happened that totally jarred me out of suspension-of-disbelief. I really hope they tie it all back together.

Gaming 2: Return to Gamingdom

I was on call this weekend for my project's release. This meant I had to stay within 30 minutes of a computer at all times and have my Blackberry on me all the time (yes, they nailed me with a BB again. Sonuvabitch!). However, this bore unexpected fruit; Annie had plans both Friday and Saturday night. I could not make plans that required me to leave the house. Solution?

Video games.

I played more games this weekend (probably close to 12 hours) than I have the past 2 months combined. It was awesome.

Mostly I played Gears of War 2, but I snuck some Fable 2 in there as well (game logs on both forthcoming). The main takeaway I had was how much I miss playing games. Even a 30-45 minute gamebreak is refreshing. I guess I'm just hard wired for gaming.

Games To Play

1. Gears of War 2
2. Fable 2
3. Castle Crashers
4. Braid
5. Trauma Center 2
6. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

That doesn't look that impressive until you realize that the top 2 are at least 60 hours combined.

Dr. Schwehm or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the DRM

Spore is loaded with DRM. I refuse to buy it on that principle, despite that Joe tells me it's awesome and that I should learn to love the DRM. On the other hand, Sins of a Solar Empire has no DRM. That will be my next game.

Am I a techno-hippie? Maybe.

Video Game Log: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

I don't think I mentioned that I got a Wii. Two of my good friends, Brian and Jay, bought me one as a wedding gift, and, well, they couldn't wait to give it to me, so they gave it to me a few weeks ago. The real reason they gave it to me back then was so that I could play Super Smash Bros. Brawl with them (Brian even lent me the money to buy Smash).

My initial impression of the game was at Jay's house, before they even had the Wii to give to me. He had two Wii Classic Controllers, and I tried to play using one of those. That just wasn't going to happen. This game must be played with a Gamecube controller (good thing I brought my Wavebird).

A little bit about my history with the Smash series. I played probably 2000 hours of Classic Smash for the N64 with Bryan and Ryan. We were absolute experts at the game. We could play as Luigi (worst character in Classic) and destroy anyone else. Then Melee came out for the Gamecube. Try as we could, Bryan, Ryan and I could not get used to the new game (windup smashes and spikes, weird sound effects, jumpy gameplay). We went back to Classic, while Brian and Jay played Melee. 

Once I got the controls down, I proceeded to set my character to random and just play. The more I played, the more I realized that Brawl plays a lot like Classic (Brian tells me the game engine for Brawl was based off Classic's, not Melee's, engine). The balance is good so far, the sound effects nice. So far so good.

Online play is kind of hit or miss. Sometimes lag enters the game in a really annoying way; the game will simply slow down until the consoles are synced up again. Sometimes it can get really bad. Other times it will be perfect. I played a three-person game with me in Boston, Eric in NYC, and Adam in Wisconsin. About 30% of the time it was perfect, 40% somewhat laggy, and 30% one of us dropped out (with either 2 there was almost no lag). I have yet to play random people online.

More as I see fit to post!

Update (5/1/08): Two things I wanted to add. I tried for about 20 minutes the other day to play a random game online and was unsuccessful. The UI isn't really helpful or responsive either.

Secondly, I played my first 4 player game last night (Brian, Jay, Bryan). I have to say, I was underwhelmed. We were all the same relative skill level (Brian the most technically competent, Bryan the most strategic, and Jay and I average), so balance wasn't a problem (I even won a game with Ganondorf, so you never know about balance). It was just "eh". Take that as you will.

Video Game Log: Call of Duty 4 (XBox 360)

I'm not even bothering to write a log for this game, just get it. It's awesome.

Gamestop's In-Store Return Policy

Make sure to save your receipt from Gamestop! I bought an XBox 360 Black Wireless controller from them recently, and it was defective. I threw out the receipt (very uncharacteristic of me, but I figured I could exchange it if it was defective), but apparently you need a receipt even for an exchange, these days. When I got home, I attempted to find their in-store return policy online without success. I finally found an old receipt (for Halo 3 actually), so I've copied the policy below for your benefit. Note: Best Buy and Circuit City also require receipts for all returns/exchanges these days.

"Receipt required for returns/exchanges. Unopened new items can be returned/exchanged w/in 30 days. Opened new video games, new PC games & new systems can be exchanged for the identical item w/in 7 days. Opened accessories & all used items can be returned/exchanged w/in 7 days."

Video Game Log: Heroes of Mana (DS)

Real-time strategy on the DS? Impastabowl! But they did it. Despite the massive dissapointment of Children of Mana (the first in this "World of Mana" series that takes place in the same universe as Secret of Mana but managing to leave all the good bits out), I decided to add this game to my wishlist and give it a swing. I mean, RTS. It has to be good, right?

1/2/08: I've played maybe four two hours so far, and I kinda wish I hadn't. You control a ship that's a carrier of sorts. You build your buildings inside of it, so you don't ever have to worry about space or power or that stuff. There are two resources, Gaia and Treant (which you might remember from CoM if you were unfortunate enough to have played it), and your one worker unit can gather them. You control a series of hero units with equipable items and talents. You can bring three of the heroes on to the battlefield, and the rest provide you with a "Support Aura" bonus of some sort. You can select units by tapping them with the stylus, or by tapping the "group select" button, which pauses the game and allows you to band-box select a group of units. It works... sorta. My hand cramps up while playing HoM on the train. Combat is simple; there is a "balance of power" of sorts where each unit type has another type it's strong against and one it's weak against. Anyways, I'm going to play more and see if it gets any better.

1/3/08: Adjusted the play time above from 4 to 2 hours; apparently time goes really slowly. I noticed a few things in my 30 minutes of HoM on the train this morning. The control scheme is actually quite useful ONLY if you always deselect the units (tap the "C" button on screen) when you're done ordering them around. This is because, unlike a mouse, you only have one control action (tapping), so there's no right or left click to deselect units like a PC RTS. Also I noticed most resource sources only have something like 5-10 of the resource in them, meaning that you have to move your ship around a lot or have your gatherer units (rabbites!) travel far.

Video Game Log: Mass Effect (XBox 360)

I received three video games for Christmas: Mass Effect, Lego Star Wars 2, and Heroes of Mana. I plan to create posts for each and update them as I play the game. So, without further ado, my log of Mass Effect begins here.

1/2/08: Log started. Perhaps a little late, as I am already about 12-20 hours into the game. Still, there appears to be plenty of the game left. Love the game; stayed up until about 2AM playing last night. I like what BioWare kept from KOTOR (varying degrees of depth of dialouge, mostly free range of movement) and what they added (separate meters for goodness and evilness, actual real-time control of your character, a usable journal, an ignorable "codex"). Plus my ship is so much cooler than the KOTOR ships. So that's good.

1/3/08: Two things are really friggin annoying. When you die, the camera looks down on your corpse from above while rotating and the screen goes to a red tint. The problem is that you have to look at your corpse for a good 5 seconds before you can select "Resume", "Load", or "Quit". Resume loads from your last save, so that's nice. Also, you can carry a max of 150 items, but any item can be sold to a merchant or converted to "omni-gel" (a resource that you always have more than enough of) to make room. Items are only viewable where you can use them: weapons/armor on the equipment screen, upgrades on the upgrade screen (those are the only items). Of course, this means to find and get rid of your weakest/worst items, you have to go to multiple places. And just to be mean, the upgrades are sorted by level in descending order, but when you convert one, the current selection jumps back to the top (this doesn't happen when selling to a merchant, thank god).  The worst part of this inventory management is when you reach the limit and acquire some new items. You have to choose which of the new items (or possibly all of them) you want to convert; you cannot choose any of your existing items or put the new ones back down or anything. I've lost out on some badass armor because of this. 

1/10/08: I beat the game the other day. It was a less difficult ending than I had hoped, but the story was good. John told me that apparently the game has "New Game+" built into it in a Diablo-2 style (Normal, then Hard, then Insanity). That's certainly a plus for replayability. The achievements also support this; one of them is simply "Complete 2 Mass Effect Playthroughs on any setting." As far as I can tell, you would need to play through the game at least four, possibly five times to get every achievement. I think that's great; on my first playthrough, I got 430 gamer points (by my reckoning, I missed 205 potential points). My general rule is that at least 50% of all gamer points should be unlocked by a basic playthrough of the game. So this works. And I do play to play through at least one more time.

1/15/08: My second play-through as pure evil is going well. With the different dialogue and different order of tasks, the story flows quite different. Garrus is becoming much more of a badass, and Wrex is quite fond of me. Not sure if I really want to [[SPOILER]] on Virmire (note to self: implement spoiler Javascript). This will probably be my last update, since I can't imagine too much more can be added to my thoughts. 

If you like RPGs, and especially western-style ones, you should buy Mass Effect. If you hate RPGs, then stay away, obviously. If you want an introduction to the genre and don't want to step backwards in time, Mass Effect is a good place to start.