Your favorite in-game/movie/anime universe

[Ghost Train]

Title self-descriptive. Perhaps I should add a "other then Macross" clause .

My top: The Halo Universe. Halo is not particularly profound - a super soldier tearing through hordes of aliens in a desperate battle. However, starting from game 2 the folks of Bungie added quite a lot of meat to the in-game universe. Perhaps one reason it's my top pick is the usage of sci-fi realism that can also be observed in franchises like BSG. Ballistics are still used as primary weapons, vehicles still have wheels and threads, and the grunts who slugs it out in the trenches are still at the heart of the trenches - no hover tanks, anti-gravity engines, or directed energy weapons used by the UNSC, yet these crude weapons proved at least somewhat effective against the Covenant. Another reason is just the complete bleak desperation that was conveyed in the third game and Reach. It is not the first time a story puts humanity on the verge of extinction, but the story (and advertising) did this in a rather polished and sophisticated way. I still shed manly tears of sadness watching this:

Runner-up: The Dark Tower. It starts off as a spaghetti western, makes a side-trip to 1980's New York City, and continues down a post-apocalyptic world that has moved on. An effective cross between Dr. Who and Clint Eastwood. To sum it up into 1 paragraph is hard, but it is definitely one of the most fascinating worlds of 20th/21st century literature. If you are looking for a nice 7 volume epic fantasy story this is it. What prevents this from being my #1 and dethroning other legends like LoTR is the complete cop-out ending of the last book.

[BeyondTheGrave]

I do agree with halo being a well though out universe.

Farscape is probably the next universe that was Unique imo. The only way I can describe it is Mass Effect the TV series.

Most non logical: Gears of war.

[mecha2241]

My top one right now is Mass Effect. I just regret that the PS3 will never see part one, I don't have a 360 and don't plan to get one...

[Lynx7725]

ME for me too. Universe can be seen to be multi-dimensional, though not all places have been filled in.

I play Halo (Reach specifically). Feel the universe has not been fully explored and as such a bit lacking. I suppose is due to the linear nature of the gameplay.

[CoryHolmes]

While Mass Effect deserves much praise for the depth of its setting, I have to go with Dragon Age right now. From the times of the Tevinter Imperium, through the rise of the Darkspawn and the Grey Wardens, to the apperance of the Chantry and Templars and Circle Mages... You want to talk about layers and layers of detail? Talk DA.

Second to that would be Star Wars. "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights have been the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic." From that one line in the first movie, a whole universe has slowly been fleshed out. From times even before then, to the founding of the Jedi Order, the various conflicts caused by the two major competing religions... and that's not even counting that whole Rebel/Imperial war-type-thing

[Seto Kaiba]

Hm... for me, it would probably be Mamoru Nagano's Five Star Stories. The "universe" of FSS might be geographically on the small side, but the stories cover a MASSIVE span of time in the Joker Galaxy even without counting the way Lachesis plays merry hell with space-time for part of the story. Because of that, and its sizable cast, the story can cover entire lifetimes of characters and have a lot of variety in themes and tone. It keeps the setting from getting stale, and it makes the universe feel absolutely massive even though the story is focused almost entirely on five planetary systems in close proximity to each other. Aside from having some of the most grammatically-torturous names this side of J.R.R. Tolkien, the cast is really engaging and relateable... even though fairly half of the lot are the descendants of genetically engineered supersoldiers or bio-androids. It's kind of a dark story, on the whole, but the way the characters interact and the way they occasionally throw in some knockabout comedy really helps break it up... (and the scene where one of the less sane characters brutally beats the stupid out of one of the galaxy's most dangerous knights with a chef's knife and a fairly sizable fish will stay with me forever...)

[raptormesh]

Well apart from Macross I quite like the Battletech Universe with its focus on warfare and political intrigue. Mass effect is also particularly engaging but I never really liked their mechanical designs.

My favourite universe if I may, is Asimov's Foundation but insofar only exists in books so may not qualify.

[PetarB]

The Radix Tetrad by AA Attanasio. The series consists of 4 books. The first and last book are simply amazing, even if the middle two are somewhat 'meh' - but they can all be read seperately. Where things go crazy is the final book 'Last Legends of Earth'... any SF fan should read this book. The world building, the universe, is simply awe inspiring, from the planetary system 'trap' used to lure the enemy, to the various exotic civilisations presented. A strange, but definitely favourite universe.

[Ghost Train]

I love the Mass Effect Universe as well, love how Bioware invested quite a lot of efforts explaining their version of FTL travel, fleet battles, and writing bios for planets that you will probably not read .

What I don't like about it (coincidentally I feel the same way about Star Trek) is that alien civilization is essentially human in nature (in particular Turians and Asari) - they trade stocks, peddle their goods in markets, enjoy getting drunk, and enjoying watching half naked dancers at Chora's den.

Oh and Lynx, I keep reading that Halo Reach was supposed to be sandbox/open world styled and added much vivid detail to the Halo-verse, which would have been awesome in my opinion!

[eugimon]

I dunno, the hanar and elcor seem pretty non human to me. Even races like the salarians and krogan have pretty profoundly different behaviors and motivations from humans.

[Lynx7725]

What I don't like about it (coincidentally I feel the same way about Star Trek) is that alien civilization is essentially human in nature (in particular Turians and Asari) - they trade stocks, peddle their goods in markets, enjoy getting drunk, and enjoying watching half naked dancers at Chora's den.

I'd agree about the Turians, as they seemed underdeveloped in game; I hadn't read the comics though. But I think both races are deliberately tuned to be human-like as they both have potential love interests and it's difficult to get a player to like a very unhuman character. I mean, a Hanna...?

Oh and Lynx, I keep reading that Halo Reach was supposed to be sandbox/open world styled and added much vivid detail to the Halo-verse, which would have been awesome in my opinion!

A part of Halo multiplayer is, in the Forge map. But that's mainly to build fiendish maps to kill people with... Not that there is much wrong with that. Forge is a huge map, much bigger than what you expect normally, so it is quite interesting... But it acts as a static backdrop, not as an atmospheric addition.

In the campaign itself, the game world is relatively large and you can explore around... But it generally is still confined to an operational area and it's usually unwise to wander away too much. Covenant forces are around after all, they have better tech and generally have you massively outnumber and outgunned. Not to mention that I usually have an ammo problem (not spray and pray but just not a good shot in that game) so I'm not really encouraged to go wandering around the maps.

I think the big difference in immersion between Halo and ME is that ME forces you to go to alien worlds and work with alien teammates, so you inevitably pick up on the culture and style and can see and compare.. while shooting big holes in said aliens. Halo however is a very human-centric story, and the aliens act more as target boards than story. This is especially true in Reach, where the storyline isn't meant to explore the Covenant background.