Star Wars has a prestigious pedigree of cultural influence that most franchises never see, and despite being tarnished somewhat by the prequel films, love for the series is still as strong as ever. In terms of its footprint within popular culture it is the king of science fiction/fantasy, to the point where it is near heresy to criticise it... well, at least the original trilogy, anyway. And yet, while Mass Effect may be a relative newcomer to the sci-fi genre, it more than holds its own against the competition, including Star Wars. The writers and artists at Bioware have taken classic elements of the genre to create a compelling work all their own. It may be a video game, but Mass Effect can easily be considered one of the best science fiction universes around. In fact, it could be argued that it is better than Star Wars in a lot of ways. Is it blasphemy to say this? Perhaps, but thanks to advancements in technology and the advantage of its medium, many of Mass Effect's accomplishments within the realm of science fiction outshine what the Star Wars films have done. Both series are great and have their own strengths and weaknesses, and in some areas Mass Effect is just better. If Star Wars helped lay the groundwork for contemporary sci-fi, than Mass Effect evolved it to new heights. It should be noted that it would be all too easy to get bogged down in the extended fiction of both franchises. So for the sake of simplicity only the core three games of Mass Effect and the six Star Wars films will be compared. With that disclaimer out of the way, these are some of the things Mass Effect does better than Star Wars.
