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[FlyingSquirrel]

So, I just finished the Dead Space trilogy (including the Awakening DLC for DS3) and noticed a number of parallels to the Mass Effect storyline. Note that I am *not* accusing Bioware or Visceral of ripping each other off, and I'm sure a lot of this falls under fairly common sci-fi archetypes anyway, but I thought it was interesting to compare the two.

Protagonist haunted by memories of someone (s)he tried to save:
ME: Shepard's dream of the kid and the voices of dead crew members in ME3
DS: Isaac's hallucinations of Nicole in DS1/2

Protagonist has "lost time" at the start of the 2nd installment
ME: Shepard's death and revival in ME2
DS: Isaac's missing memories in DS2 from when he was captured and used to build a Marker

Repeated cycles of genocide and extinction
ME: The Reapers, obviously
DS: The Brethren Moons sort of do this, though they seem to attack one civilization at a time rather than going after all intelligent life at once and then waiting for evolution to play out again

Bodies of the dead turned into hostile attackers
ME: Husks, brutes, marauders, etc.
DS: Necromorphs

Hostile superbeings with mind alteration powers
ME: Indoctrination
DS: No formal term for it, but the markers do manipulate people and/or drive them insane

3rd installment begins with escape from a human settlement under attack
ME: Vancouver in ME3
DS: That colony where Isaac is living in DS3 (can't remember the name)

Protagonist has visions from a previous civilization that fought the hostile superbeings
ME: Shepard and the prothean beacons
DS: Something like this happens to Isaac in DS3 when they are reconstructing the body of the alien on Tau Volantis

Complex alien weapon whose purpose is misunderstood
ME: The Crucible
DS: The alien machine in DS3 - at first they think it's part of the Marker/Necromorph system and that they need to switch it off, then discover that it actually prevented convergence and can be used to kill a Brethren Moon

Some of these are fairly broad, admittedly, and there are some big differences between ME and DS too. For starters, Isaac Clarke has a more ordinary background than Shepard - no matter how you play Shepard, (s)he is always an elite soldier who's determined to fight the Reapers, whereas Isaac is a spaceship engineer who wants to be left alone at the start of DS3. (Unfortunately there's no dialogue choice at all in DS - I think I'd have enjoyed the DS games even more if I'd had a chance to shape Isaac's character to some extent.) I also don't think the Markers and the Moons are as interested in Isaac per se as the Reapers are in Shepard.

The future as envisioned by DS also seems to be noticeably more bleak than in ME (at least before the Reapers turn up) - while there is still plenty of conflict, technological capabilities and quality of life seem to be progressing in the ME universe, whereas humanity seems to be in a state of high-tech decline in DS due to dwindling resources. Space exploration and "planet cracking" are undertaken partly out of necessity because Earth alone can't sustain the population, if I understand the DS backstory correctly.

ME also doesn't really have an equivalent to the Unitologists in DS, who seem genuinely convinced that whatever the Markers intend for humanity will ultimately be for the better. Kenson in Arrival might be the closest parallel in ME, but Saren and TIM don't develop that sort of "worshipful" attitude towards the Reapers - they just think they have more control over the situation than they really do.

Finally, the Brethren Moons and the Markers are a little more consistently enigmatic than the Reapers - they induce psychological effects in people, but they don't seem to communicate directly until the end of Awakened when one of them speaks to Isaac. We also never find out how all this started in DS - it seems unlikely that natural evolution would produce a race of sentient moons that reproduce by combining weird artifacts with dead alien bodies.

[Astartes Marine]

OH ho don't forget that both games have a d***punch of an ending (for DS3 it's through the DLC).

[FlyingSquirrel]

Well, it seems to be up in the air as to whether or not DS is over. It would certainly be difficult to recover from the moons attacking Earth, but maybe there's hope for some of the colonies even if Earth is basically toast. If we ever get a DS4, I'm guessing that at least a more ambigous, less clearly negative ending will be available. I'd be OK with Isaac dying at the beginning, maybe in the act of transmitting one last desperate warning to humanity before the moon destroys his ship, and then a new protagonist stepping in for the rest of the story.

[Br3admax]

You're acting as if EA games are never similar. See every EA game since the beginning of time.

[o Ventus]

Br3ad wrote...

You're acting as if EA games are never similar. See every EA game since the beginning of time.

Because EA publishes franchises and sequels. No sequel is going to reinvent the wheel every time they out out a new release. Dead Space and ME (and DAO) are the only games that share the same basic plot skeleton among EA's entire library.

The only quasi-original game published by EA in the past decade was Spore, which not very many people (outside big name publications) seemed to like.

EA is also barely a developer as much as they are a publisher. It isn't even wholly EA's fault that a number of games under their belt are similar.

[Br3admax]

I wasn't saying that it was a bad thing. If it works, why would you fix it? As long as they sell, use the same format.