The Art of the Mass Effect Universe Book Review
16The Art of the Mass Effect Universe is an average video game art book. It shows art from all stages of development, from rough sketches to final in-game CGI, with lots of developer commentary.
0:00 - Introduction
0:28 - Quality of the Physical Book
0:43 - Content
3:00 - Aesthetics
3:30 - Nostalgia
4:10 - Backstage
5:34 - Closing Remarks
QUALITY OF PHYSICAL BOOK
-9x12 inches.
-It has around 180 pages with art on them.
-The quality of the covers, pages, and printing are about average.
CONTENT/INNARDS
Variety of images and image types
-Early development sketches
-Some parts that show how sketches become developed
-Finalized concept art
-And what seem to be in-game images
Organization
-The art is organized by game and goes from Mass Effect 1 through 3. I think the organization makes sense and the bottom of each page labels where you are at, which is nice.
Is there writing or insight from the artists and developers themselves?
-Apparently all the captions are written by the art director and executive producer.
-Lots of the captions add insight into the art design. For example: there’s a bunch of sketches for the Shadow Broker, and they write that they wanted it to be “something inhuman and alien that would be a new and frightening challenge for Shephard.” You can look through the sketches the artist created and, due to the developer commentary, better understand why they picked the image that the did. Lots of the commentary is this way and it’s like having a tour guide with you as you look through the book.
Does it have what you want it to have?
-Well I wanted this book to show how they came up with so many distinct alien species, and this book addresses that, which is great.
-There’s a fair amount of focus on individual character designs.
-I love that there’s commentary from the developers about lots of stuff, including little bits of trivia For example, Shepherd’s armor was originally red and white, but they thought it looked too much like a medic’s armor.
-While it’s nice to have all three games in the same book, there isn’t enough content overall for such a huge series. On average it’s about 60 pages per game, and the games are humongous.
AESTHETICS
-The aesthetics are pretty good. There’s nothing visually offensive.
-It is yet another video game art book that would have benefited from a wide format as many images are wide set.
-The book has a lot of full pages of art.
-One thing that isn’t ideal is that the cover feels a bit plastic-y and thus a bit less fancy than usual.
NOSTALGIA/AFFINITY EVOKED FOR THE GAME
-In general, seeing the images bring back some nostalgia but the glimpses are so brief that there isn’t enough room for nostalgia to really settle in. There might be just one page for a whole planet.
-Seeing all of the alien species developed gave me a nostalgic feeling, as well as the main characters.
-It was more interesting than nostalgic.
BACKSTAGE
-The book offers lots of insight into the game and art design. Here’s some examples:
-They write about the challenges of designing things like a suit that is recognizable as a formal suit, but that doesn’t conform to any particular era of Earth.
-The intro mentions that the series has over ten thousands concept sketches, including over 200 types of helmets when they were trying to get Shepherd’s helmet just right.
-I find it amazing that they could invent a new species and then give them easily recognizable facial expressions. There are truly talented and creative people in the gaming industry.
-I found it interesting how game designers can impact the art direction. For example, they talk about how they planned for The Illusive Man to transform into a monstrosity for a battle, but scrapped this when they decided they wanted the player of having the satisfaction of fighting something that they’ve been familiar with rather than some random monster.
-More than once the developers mention that technological and animation restraints impacted how they designed things, including species like the Crogun. Apparently certain things just couldn’t be animated properly, and I surmise that’s why so many characters are wearing armor.
There are 17 book reviews in Season 1 of my series “Mike’s Video Game Art Book Reviews.” I hope you enjoy them!
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