Mass Effect Review

Well around 30 hours, plenty of sidequests, one epic ending and plenty of hurling abusive unladylike swearwords at the Mako here is the review to Bioware’s sci-fi epic.

When it comes to Mass Effect as I have said before, few games have had me quite so excited pre-release. I was massively hyped up for another game from my favourite developers and while Mass Effect is certainly not as amazing as the legions of drooling fans believe it to be it certainly is a good game. It is also a game where Bioware make the old move of trying to reach new fans, while taking the risk of alienating those who are already supporting them.

Mass Effect is the first Bioware title to move fully into the realms of real time shooting, you can of course argue that the superb Jade Empire was real time fighting but what we are talking about here is guns. Fortunately as a veteran FPS player on consoles I am used to the left/right thumbstick system, it is a system however that can throw off those who have not used it before (I still remember swearing at Timesplitters when I was learning it). Judging from messageboards, a lot of people who have purchased this game find the combat controls and system tricky as its a big move away from what they usually get from their preferred genre of game. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many RPG’s that actually require you to aim at things and Mass Effect can join titles like System Shock II as one of the few that does. The fast paced real time, ducking and dodging gameplay while alienating those who like slower games does open the market to the more casual gamer one who most likely doesn’t enjoy indirect combat (or again judging from the average gaming messageboard has a case of ADD). Personally as a vetern of RPG’s and FPS’s this was fine for me, but it won’t be for everyone. What you have in Mass Effect is the usual Bioware reams of dialogue and heavy character interaction interspersed with driving and casual style combat, a compromise on Bioware’s part perhaps to reach the whole market.

Unfortunately mentioning driving sections leads me to the Mako, the games single biggest flaw. Who designed this thing? Where they on crack at the time? It handles like a wet sponge that happens to be heavily under the influence of alcohol and it’s about as twice as useless in a fight. A great deal of the games sidequests have you driving this piece of crap and I defy anyone not to lose their temper at some point as the thing goes in the wrong direction/fails to climb the cliff face you wanted it too/ gets blown up. The Mako isn’t helped by the fact the games planet designs decide to use terrain thats so full of ridges and craters you feel like your driving across the face of a teenager with a bad case of acne, but it doesn’t alter the fact the Mako is the biggest unadultarated piece of shite to enter a Bioware game and I hate it.

Fortunately that’s most of the negativity out of the way, tanks aside Mass Effect is great. The main storyline has you visiting some truly thrilling locations and has more plot twists than a slinky would if it happened to be an exciting sci-fi Blockbuster. Your male or female character “Sheperd” must battle his/her way through the galaxy to stop an evil rogue special agent named Saren who wants to create an apocalypse and wipe out existence as we know it. Now while that may sound generic at first things rapidly get complicated and combining the main story with side quests and heavy character interaction with members of your crew what you have plotwise is possibly the best Bioware have created since Baldurs Gate II. Some minor gripes with certain side quests are the fact they have you roaming around identical sets of buildings on different planets and occasionally just reward you with a lot of reading (like a cutscene missed the final deadline of being included in the game), they can be disappointing compared to the fewer in number more complex sidequests but are worth doing for levelling ups sake and if you intersperse them with story planets you shouldn’t get too bored.

Perhaps some of my favourite points of the game were the interaction with other characters (yes as I mentioned in earlier posts I really enjoyed romancing Liara, heck if there were Japanese dating systems over here id probably play those endlessly as the romance parts of Bioware games are my favourite bits), each cast member of Sheperd’s crew has their own unique story and a few of them can meet their deaths by the time the games final curtain falls, but that is all dependant on your actions. The Paragon/Renegade system is not as black and white as good and evil usually is with Paragon being charming and Renegade aggressive, some situations needing Charm and some needing aggression and its a system that works well allowing you to balance your characters personality as you see fit, influencing both the story, the crew and the sidequests.

Visually this game still manages to be quite simply the best I have ever played despite it’s tendency to have ridiculous texture pop that can leave environments looking very bland for up to 30 seconds at times while the data loads off the disc. Perhaps an option for those of us who own a 360 hard drive to be able to actually use it would be good, but I don’t see that coming. Fortunately the texture pop and occasional game slowdown don’t detract from the experience much and are more a minor niggle than anything else. Couple the amazing visuals with some of the best sound in a video game ever and you know this game is even more of a winner, top scores for both the voice acting and the music itself. Fantastic stuff.

Hopefully you can tell other than my Mako and side-quest frustration I loved this game. I enjoyed the combat, I enjoyed the story, I enjoyed the character interaction and development (I don’t want to spoil but I actually liked the cast better than KOTOR) , I enjoyed the whole product. Mass Effect may not be flawless, it has obviously been rushed out before the final polish of the game or the scale of what could have been done have been put in place, but to Biowares credit, even the unfinished product is the best of 2007.

9/10