Mass Effect - Review

Well this may come a little late but finally I got around to playing Mass Effect and I must say it invoked many emotions and thoughts. The first of which has to be how sad it is not more people have not experienced this game. From my personal stand point there where many reasons I was slow to approach this game. I think most the ads and especially the cover give off a crappy made for TV sci-fi channel feel. Then you hear about a lot of the technical problems and it just doesn’t come off as anything really worth the while for someone who hasn’t played Bioware games. Sure people who play it rant and rave but every major fan of any RPG always over hypes their game no matter how bad. Not that I have the answer on how to market this I just whish more people had a real understanding about the game because I think it is something everyone should play for all the things it does rights.



Anyways back to the game itself. So Mass Effect is really two games, one is a piece of carp you hate and wonder what monkey came up with it and the other is the greatest game ever made. At least that’s the two emotions you’ll run through during the game. Again this is a game everyone should play, but I’m going to start with all the bad and then go onto the good.

The gameplay in this game sucks I mean you will die and hate it and then 4 hours later you finally start to get a clue on how to do it. Yet by the end it will seem fine and you will have no problem with it. And that’s because the gameplay really isn’t that bad it just the game doesn’t really tell you how to play properly. So you end up basically dieing until you figure it out and it can be very frustrating. There is a team dynamic and commands which are almost worthless to control the team. So you end up spending a while learning how to use your team in battle and how to use the different weapons. Like I said though once you get the hang of it, it really is not an issue. But early on it will be very annoying.



The next major issue is the menu system/item management. First its not the greatest layout or the easiest navigation its not horrible but some things are down right dumb. You can only hold 150 items (this isn’t resident evil they give items out like candy) which is not where the crime is. The crime is in deleting items it takes forever and in some section after you delete an item it returns you to the top of the list or the newest stuff. So you have to scroll all the way back down and delete 1 item at a time. Then if you just picked up stuff and are over the limit you have to delete what you picked up until it can be filed. There is no easy way to do this the closest is selling items because that is a somewhat organized list. It is a constant battle with the items and far more difficult to manage then it had to be.

The last big issues, the frame rate is all over the place. On the 360 this thing drops down to 15fps all the time and lower which can make some battles tougher. You also have some other technical things like texture pop-in which is really bad but not that distracting. Oh and the driving parts are pretty bad and the feel of the vehicle is weird to say the least.

Ok so time for the good news. The good news is this game is so great that’s odds are you won’t even remember those problems I mentioned or think about them when you’re done. When it comes to story telling in video games Mass Effect sets the standard. It is really incredible to play a video game and experience a story the way you would a good novel or movie. The intrigue that comes with a story that is told right and is good just doesn’t come a long much in video games.



This game story and I mean every part from dialog option to the flow to the choices you can make to the presentation and look to the incredible animation is so well crafted that you’ll be sucked right in and when its over you’ll want to go back and live it again. Also the game play is awesome. Wait you said a minute ago that it was a problem. It has some flaws the biggest is learning the system but what it does right it does in a big way. The fights (once you learn) are fun and very enjoyable using the different skill and abilities just gives you some many options you have a blast. Some have complaned that there is too much stoping and selecting the weapon a returning to action and that it breaks things up. If this was Gears of War it would be a problem but for this game I thik it makes it better, because even though you can play it like a shooter it is not.

To sum up when you first start (for the first few hours) it may be very frustrating but once you figure it out and get the hang of things it will be one of the best game you ever played and you’ll forget about most the problem. One day this game will get re-released with all the problems fixed (As most are technical) and it will be a 10, but for now it is a 9.4.

I played this game on PC, it was good, but I felt it lacked something, I cannot say exactly what, but it's something that I feel with every WRPG (except maybe Kotor), and it's that it doesn't hook me, and make me finish the game. I tend to leave every WRPG without finishing for that reason. I dunno if the characters aren't compelling enough, if the main plot isn't strong enough or what, but I've felt that with a lot of WRPGs (ME, The Witcher, Fable). It didn't help in this game's case that the game was buggy and froze a lot.

I'd give this a 7-7.5

Anyway, good review, kenz

I agree greatly with the review... my greatest hope is that bioware does the same thing they did between Baldurs Gate 1 and 2... they preserved and expanded all the good points of part one and got rid of almost all the problems and downsides... thats why Baldurs Gate 2 is still my favorite RPG and among my favorite games of all... if bioware does the same for Mass Effect 2 and 3 we could be in for a real treat...

I gave this game a 9 when I reviewed it .

I loved this game... imo the best game of its class that ive ever played. pretty sure i played it thu like 6 times to try out the different combos of class/gender/specializations and so forth... great review brian

^^ You where just in it for the sex... btw. since you tried all possibilities... was there some possibe gay sex... or even gay alien sex to be seen ??? I took that hot blue alien chick btw...

lol well guess i did not try all options... but i doubt it. yeah the blue chick was my favorite of the two..

I think everyone took the blue alien chick, well except for zexen I mean what else would explain him not liking ME?

JK

Maybe if I had played it enough I would...sadly I quit it before the sex scene. Shame on me, but I didn't like it, and EA's horrible port was getting on my nerves (froze like 4 times in a row)

you know... i still need to finish this... /me puts it back on my list of things to do.

Hop to it, girl!

And be good to Tali.