Experiment: Playing Mass Effect with my mom

So, I found an awesome blog whilst doing some reading on Mass Effect after my first Campaign session: Mass Effect According to Mom

It was an epic read and it occurred to me that a reason my parents don't really get my gaming hobby is because they haven't really seen me play.

My mom loves movies though, and I thought she would love the story in Mass Effect. The only problem is that she is a bit of a technophobe and freaks out when she has to do anything new on her computer.

So I suggested that we try the following: I play the game (use the mouse and keyboard) while she makes decisions and if she likes it, she can play it herself.

So, I got a hard drive for my old PC, installed Windows 7 and Mass Effect on it and took it to my parents place. In the process of hooking it up to their TV I informed my mom that they could watch movies from my PC on the TV as well. I opened a movie called War Horse just to show her. She was very excited about this part :P

So we started off, me using the mouse and keyboard, mom trying to follow the story and what I was doing with the keyboard and mouse and my dad just watching.

She chose Colonist -> Lone Survivor, which if I remember correctly is the same as what Reg's mom chose(Think I was incorrect here), but she did pick Sentinel instead of Infiltrator. Funnily enough, my mom is a dentist and 56, so that relation is also kind of funny :P

So we started the game and all too soon realised that my mom was having trouble following the story because she was focussing on what I was doing with the keyboard and mouse too much. So we decided to backtrack and start over. This time just watching me play so my mom can follow what is going on on screen. My dad picked up what was going on on screen rather quickly.

At some point we had a break to eat dinner and my mom asked "What is this game called again? War Mass?". I don't know how, but she managed to mix up War Horse and Mass Effect's names.

Another interesting bit, when I talked to Chakwas and she mentioned how Alenko gets migraines due to the L2 implant he has, she immediate identified with this due to her chronic cluster headaches. I'm wondering if this will eventually influence her choice between Ashley and Kaiden. We shall see :)

We played until 10pm and she really enjoyed it :) Next time we'll try making her choose dialogue options again :)