| S.T.A.G.E. said: The majority of MGS4 and Heavy Rain consist of either movies or quicktime cut-scenes and mini-games. This isn't so in Mass Effect. There is open universe traveling, searching for items, weapons, missions, ugrading your player, choosing classes, side-missions and more, complete action with gunfights and choice of powers. You control your partners powers and control who joins you in battle. The cut scenes are apart of the gameplay so it feels like you are the player like an "Space Opera" RPG should be. It's called a Space Opera because it has a deep and gripping space storyline (IE: Star Trek, Star Wars, Serenity movies). |
It's called "space opera" for a completely different reason. Here's the quote of an writer who coined the term:
| Wilson Tucker said: In these hectic days of phrase-coining, we offer one. Westerns are called "horse operas," the morning housewife tear-jerkers are called "soap operas," For the hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn, or world-saving for that matter, we offer "space opera." |
Space operas at the time and nowadays considered a 'low genre' compared to 'high literature' of sci-fi (maybe, with the exception of Simmons's 'Hyperion' novels, and early pioneers like Asimov's 'Foundation' series). That's not mine opinion, but public opinion, like it or not.
