Mass Effect Review
Its developer founded 11 years prior is Bioware, who up to that point had created a number of games for the PC and notably created the Baulders Gate and Neverwinter Nights series'. Hot off the heels of Jade Empire, Bioware got ready for its next big game, announced on October 4 2005, Mass Effect was to be the companies first Xbox 360 game and also an exclusive for the platform. Mass Effect was released to the public Nov 20th 2007 and the reception was unbelievable, receiving critical acclaim from the media.
But enough of all that lets get down to the game!
Mass Effect revolves around the character Shepherd, who is both a default male character as Commander Shepherd and a fully customizable character including gender and class (but still holds the last name Shepherd). We initially meet Shepherd as he is about to embark on a new mission to recover a Prothean beacon found on the human world of Eden Prime, but when the mission takes a sudden turn for the worse it is up to Shepherd to uncover the truth behind the missions short comings, and to gain the trust of those who can help him. The game entails a variety of things to do and paces itself accordingly. Players can do anything from upgrading characters, to discovering planets, killing various enemies or just flat out talking to people. All of these core motivations for the game are crafted around both the main critical path story line, and its myriad of optional side quests.
Your team is compiled of a maximum of 3 characters (Shepherd and 2 others), there characters are met throughout the story and each has individual powers unique to that character/race. Combat in the game is dealt with in a 3rd person manner and often in a team of 3, these two other team mates are just as customizable as Shepherd him/her self, adding a layer of personal preference which can help in tight situations. The customization aspect is mainly dealt with by finding weapons and earning XP from both battles and numerous other things. This XP can then be used to upgrade the various skills of your team, which as stated before, are slightly different from character to character.
If you prefer to stay away from as much combat as possible then there is always a chance that what you need can be ascertained just by talking to the right people. Mass Effect contains a large amount of dialogue which not only flesh's out the story, but can also make the story progress in different ways. Just by helping out a person in a bar to find her sister, or just giving a simple news interview, can dramatically change how others in the world perceive you. Upgrading certain characteristics of Shepherd, as well as simply who you decide to take with you to certain places, can change the course of a conversation. Often being able to act noble or evil or having other characters join in a conversation.
As you can probably tell it’s quite hard to summarize this games achievements and maintain some sense of length on this review, but that is for good reason. Mass Effect, despite being exposed to it this late on, still makes quite a dramatic impact. The way the game handles all of its upgrade mechanics and its squad customization is still beautiful even now. It’s a system which is easy to grasp and immediately after you have done your first upgrade, you have some direction of what you need to be looking out for in the future. The basic premise is simple though, upgrade stuff to use better stuff, it can’t get any more simple than that. It is what’s beyond that simplicity which really counts and most of that came from me deliberating where exactly to spend my points. It is worth noting that there is an option for auto upgrade, which may cut out some choices that could have been available if you upgraded yourself, focusing on specific areas. The combat is slightly sluggish but by no means broken, often not bothering with covering and popping out but instead just standing clearly out of the way of fire. The redeeming feature of the combat to me was knowing the characters was leveling up, and soon my Shepherd could use an item that had been in my inventory for the last 2 hours.
All of the dialogue trees in Mass Effect are superb, each one as rich and detailed as the last. There was a serious sense that saying certain things to certain people could cause a backlash somewhere else. There were pinnacle times in dialogue which forced me to stop and think about what was going to be said, knowing it could dramatically change the next few moments of game play. The method in which the dialogue is handled is also a well crafted system which lets you pick from a select few options that are available to your character, some of which are only available by upgrading certain stats. The only downside to the conversation system is that sometimes an option would come up which could be interpreted in many different ways. The context of the current conversation normally does a good job as to what Shepherd will say from the selection made, but once or twice Shepherd was shouting at people when the real intention was to attempt to calm them down.
With so much on the disk for Mass Effect, it has to be said that the level of quality they have delivered is graphically outstanding. It suffers from the pop in textures that some games using the Unreal Engine have had to deal with in the past, and sometimes that can distract from a cut scene or game play. Never the less, when those textures are fully loaded it’s very easy to forget it even happened as this game still looks fantastic even now. It’s evident that the models have been treated with some of the best textures in the business, especially the normal and detail maps used. There is sometimes some sporadic movement when it comes to facial animation and their reset points, but that is but a small problem when you consider the elegant design of each creature, environment and equipment the game has to offer. There were a few experiences of slowdown in high density areas, though it was being played on a 360 and the game was not installed.
The sound in Mass Effect really brings a cinematic feel to the whole production, making each of the large cut scenes convey the mood and emotion in a clear and thematic way. Although some of the music is reused for certain areas and situations, it really feels like a lot of time and consideration was put into where and when each of the pieces of music was to be played. Voice acting is hard to pull off in any game, often breaking immersion or just being passable enough to bear. The voice acting in Mass Effect is absolutely outstanding, and joins the thin ranks of games that use voice to really enhance the experience. Each person you talk to holds a level of personality which makes everyone believable, voice actors must have been re used but it’s hard to find two people in that game who are alike. The level of depth that goes into each characters dialogue is extraordinary, there was a lot of time spent talking to Joker (who is easily my favorite character in the game) who after a while, will start to open up to you and tell you about his personal life. This alone is enough to grip a lot of people and lock into conversations all over the galaxy.
It’s clear that with Mass Effect’s countless paths of even more multiple options of crew and exploration that there is certainly a high level of replay ability. My review may consist of a play through which was aimed at the critical path, but it got to a point that NPC's wanting my attention had to be ignored as my log of things to do already had countless side quests. Considering it took me 6-7 hours to play the main story, it’s quite easy to understand how people can accumulate a play time of more than 30 hours on this game, probably a lot more than 30. It’s these numerous side quests which not only give Mass Effect more play time, but also flesh out the world around your character. Even when running past people who wanted help, there was a sense that each one would have left me knowing a lot about their personal history, making them someone memorable in the game.
To conclude, Mass Effect despite being released in 2007 is arguably better than a lot of the games that are being released today. It’s the sheer level of detail and polish that haven’t allowed it to age dramatically yet, it still feels fresh and exciting. The combination of story, customization and choices throughout the game, make it stand out not only from the crowd it was standing in, in 2007, but it stands out as a landmark game today. Mass Effect delivers a great experience beginning to end which doesn’t only make it a great game of its time, but also a very important game today.
