Soooo … by now you surely have guessed that apart from being a designer I’m also a gamer. In fact I consider gaming the highest state of escapism. Don’t get me wrong, nothing on this planet beats being outside in the world and experience something firsthand. Also there are few things that can match a good book or a good movie as far as entertainment is concerned BUT if I want to really just drop out, video games are king.

There is an ongoing discussion whether or not gaming is an art form in itself. I believe that wholly depends on your definition of art. For a good game you need good artists for concept art, you need good designers, good writers etc. This is not much different from a movie – movies are generally seen as an art form so in my book it’s the same thing. Of course there are a lot of bad games hardly anyone would describe as being art. But there are also these other games that really have an impact on you, that are so well written and well designed that you have to call them art.

Which brings us to the three games that took a big share of my gaming time in recent years. Mass Effect 1-3. I was aware of Mass Effect since its debut on the XBOX 360 but was not that hyped about it because of some mixed reviews and because at the time I was not that much into RPGs. Eventually it came out for PC and one of the download services here in germany sold it for a good price so I bought it and fell in love.

Mass Effect has become such a massive success that there are a lot of people out there that seem to hate these games just because they are successful and are being published by EA which apparently is the most evil corporation on this planet. Of course all of this is bullshit and in the next part I will tell you why I think the Mass Effect games are a pinnacle in recent gaming history.

Stay tuned!