Mass Effect(360)
2/13/08
Editor in Chief Matt Lucas
BioWare proved themselves to Xbox owners as an incredible developer with Knights of the Old Republic back in 2003. The game filled the void for Xbox owners with an RPG on a system lacking with them. KOTOR is now considered as one of the best games of last generation. BioWare then released in 2005 Jade Empire. The game like KOTOR was released to a tremendous amount of critical acclaim and praise from gamers everywhere. Now naturally gamers have incredibly high hopes for Mass Effect to follow this line of greatness and I am pleased to inform everyone that it does. Mass Effect is an extraordinary experience that every gamer owes it to themselves to play.
The game starts with you creating your Commander Shepard. Some people can choose to be boring and just use the model that is featured in all the marketing or you can dive into the character creation process. The process is a pretty deep experience. First players choose if you want to play as a male or female. Depending on what gender a player chooses some characters in game will react differently to you. After that you get to customize your characters appearance. The game allows you customize the face only. Unfortunately there is no body customization but this is understandable. The face customization is really well done here. Players can tweak pretty much everything on the face to their liking. Its so deep that I heard stories of people playing through the game as George W. Bush. On top of that you get to choose your characters back story. Players can choose to be a “spacer” which means that Shepard was born and raised in space. The other choices include being a colonist or being born on Earth. The background customization does not end here though. Players then get to choose whether they have been the sole survivor of a terrible battle, a war-hero or a ruthless soldier. Many characters in-game will reference Shepard’s background and some side quests are only available to certain backgrounds.
After all that players will then make the most important choice which is their character class. Mass Effect features six classes which are called Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel and Vanguard. Soldiers are the most skilled with firearms, Engineers use tech based abilities and the Adept are the best at using biotics which is Mass Effect version of spell casting. Biotics allow players to use a variety of abilities that range from using a throw that sends an enemy flying back to lifting the enemies into mid air. The other three classes are hybrids of the three classes just mentioned. Infiltrators are a combination of a Solider and Engineer. The Sentinel is a combination between the Engineer and the Adept and the Vanguard are a combination of the Soldier and the Adept.
Each class contains several talents. When the player levels up in the game they are rewarded points to improve their characters talents. When each talent is leveled the character gains a stat increase, unlocks new abilities or even unlocks other talents. Each class all posses one unique talent with the same name of that character class. The characters may also have talents tied to their backgrounds. All of this leveling can also be done to your squad members in the game. The system works really well and improving your character is incredibly rewarding like in many other great RPG’s.
The combat in Mass Effect will be a mixed bag to some. Some gamers will hate it and others will have no problem with it. I fall into the category of liking it. At first it might seem complicated and hard to understand. But players will have to get used to it through trial and error. Many players will probably die quite frequently in the beginning sections of the game trying to get a hang of the combat. Unfortunately there is no tutorials in the game to explain the combat system and make the whole process of learning it a little easier. Many people might mistake this game as just another shooter but it’s not. The game is an Action RPG. When a player engages an enemy in the game you have two choices. One is to shoot the enemy with your chosen weapon. There are four guns in the game these include the pistol, shotgun, assault rifle and sniper rifle. Some character classes are restricted to only some of the guns in the game. Obviously soldiers have free reign and get to choose whatever gun they want. All the guns in the game can be leveled up and be made really powerful. Ammunition is unlimited but the game uses an overheating system in which if a gun is fired too much in a short period of time the player can’t use the gun until it cools down again. Players will be able to buy or find upgrades for their guns and ammo to further improve the weapon. Players can also use grenades to wreck more havoc. The grenades can also be upgraded. The other choice for combat is for a player to use his or her abilities. By hitting the right bumper the abilities menu will pop onto the screen freezing combat and allowing the player to choose the ability they want to use. The player can also choose what moves their squad members can use and they can also give the squad orders in combat to move to cover or hold back and other commands. The problem is the AI in Mass Effect is not so great. I got frustrated and fed up with the squad AI about half way through the game and just stopped giving them orders for the rest of the game. The main problem with the squad commands is that you can’t give individual commands to each member. Both members have to do the same exact thing which is frustrating. This is just disappointing because the game is really difficult on the higher difficulties and having greater squad control would have helped out a great deal. AI for the enemies in the game is also less than stellar. Some enemies will take cover and fight wisely. But others will just run towards Shepard like complete dumb asses and become bullet sponges. On some occasions enemies will just stand there and not even move. I have to stress the fact that if a players chooses to play through the game as a solider it kind of turns into an action game once you level up. The Solider class has almost no abilities so all you do is take cover and shoot. Whereas if a player is playing as an Adept there are many abilities to choose from and you need to choose wisely and strategize.
Enough about the combat. Mass Effect is an RPG and we all know one of the most important aspects that gamers look forward to in an RPG is the storyline. Mass Effect delivers and boy does it tell one hell of a story. I won’t ruin anything because it is best going into this game knowing very little about the story. The storyline is pure Sci-Fi and will throw you for a loop on numerous occasions. There are many difficult choices to be made during the course of the game. BioWare went all out when writing this game. Every species and character you encounter all have a rich deep back story. Its incredible the amount of the depth that was put into the history of the whole world. Gamers can pull up their codex and listen to all the passages about the different species to the history of humans and alien contact. There is so much to learn and most gamers will get immersed and want to just learn about the history of this universe that Bioware has created. The camera work in the game is so well done that it engrosses the player even when they are just chatting it up with someone. Mass Effect is a true cinematic experience.
The dialogue and voice acting in the game is extraordinary. Players will get to choose what they want to say to any character in the game. You can choose from being a dick to being a goody two shoes or somewhere in between. Characters will react differently to how a player speaks to them and certain situations will not occur at all depending on how the player interacts with the characters. Many players will get emotionally attached to your squad members. I always wanted to talk to them as much as possible and learn more about their past and their motivations. It honestly feels like you are talking to a human being and not some character in a video game. Mass Effects raises the bar in terms of story telling in a video game.
Mass Effect features a whole morality system. Players can play the game as being a hero who looks out for others this is called Paragon. There is also Renegade which allows the player to be a bad ass anti-hero. No matter how you play the game Shepard’s overall intention is the same. But how the players goes about fulfilling their goals is really different with the whole morality system. Many characters will treat you differently depending on how your playing the game. Players will want to play through Mass Effect at least twice because Paragon and Renegade offer a really different experience.
The main quest in the game is one hell of a journey. The games takes players to all these different places with really interesting stories in Mass Effects huge galaxy. If the main quest is not enough Mass Effect boast a huge amount of side quest. These side quest have Shepard mostly traveling to uncharted planets to fulfill his or her goal. These side quest also tell really interesting stories that make you want to play through the many quests in the game. The only problem with these side quest is that all the uncharted planets you land on are pretty the same. They are all the same mountainous environment just with a different filter slapped on it to distinguish them from one another. One planet can be snowy and one planet can be a desert like environment but they are both pretty much the same except for their climate.
The graphics in Mass Effect are beautiful but it seems the engine can’t keep up with Mass Effect and slowdown happens a little too much. The environments are rich with detail. The design for the different cities in the game are incredible and will make players want to explore them. Characters also look incredible and the facial animations are amazing. When you talk to someone in the game you get see these characters up close and the amount of detail in the face is astonishing. All the species are designed so well and its so interesting when these species are encountered for the first time.
Another amazing thing about Mass Effect is the sound. Everything just sounds so damn good. Its another thing about the games the just sucks you to this universe. The music is the game is really well done is seems like a throwback to the old Sci-Fi movies of yesteryear. Synthesizers are used quite frequently to fill out the audio. I have to give a shout out to the awesome end credit song. Its awesome.
Mass Effect does have some big problems though. When the games loads in a new environments or cut scene there is a tremendous amount of pop in. There is clipping through the scenery a lot. Shepard can get stuck in objects sometimes which is frustrating. But the biggest bug that I ran into was when I was running around and all of sudden my character just stopped. Well it turns out the game didn’t want to register any of my button presses. What the hell? So I restarted my system and everything was fine and I have not ran into that problem again. It seems like Mass Effect needed just a little more time to get these glitches ironed out.
Mass Effect is an incredible game from start to finish. It will probably last most gamers about 30 hours on their first play through with side quest. But then players should run through the game again playing the opposite from what they did they first time through. Even with the bugs this game is incredible. The good differently out weighs the bad in this case. Mass Effect is a true cinematic and amazing RPG experience. Every 360 owner owes it to themselves to play this amazing game. My game of the year for 2007.