Mass Effect

I've been tyring to complete this game since it came out for the PC and theres nothing really wrong with it, not many bugs and it's functional but it just isn't fun to play. I asked myself many times, where is the gameplay? Alot of the time playing it's just run to this person to talk to them. The problem is the story isn't interesting and nore is dialogue which is poorly written and acted. Theres these weird kinds of akward pauses all the time between people talking and it breaks the flow and feels odd. It doesn't help that it is also animated poorly and characters mode all stiff and their face is all stiff and they look dead behind the eyes, just isn't believable and ruins it even more.

It's a real big shame because I wanted to love Mass Effect as the opening was pretty cool and the Alien races all have amazing designs. It's just despite all that the gameplay wasn't there and nore was the story which is built on cliches and is so generic. Once you get up onto the Citadel and it's time to leave to go down to the 3 Planets to see if you can find someone it all goes to shit though. I just found myself not wanting to play it because from this point out the game went from being just boring but playable to boring and repetitive and frustrating.

The main problem here is each Planet feels pretty much the same in terms of Gameplay. Theres nothing really itneresting down there and it just feel slike a grind more than anything. The Side quests arn't even done well and I just found myself trying to rush through it asap so I could just try to fine the good part of the game, which never came. You land down on the Planets and you have to drive about on each of them and the combat is broken in the vehicle because it just feels off when you can't shoot people who're on a different level to you. If you jump in the air and shoot then you miss anything all together which is weird for a sci-fi game. The controls on the vehicle like you're steering a brick on Ice, it's got this weird lag between when you press the button and it does it. Also not only that but once it does kick in then all of a sudden it steers too much and you end up having to stop and straighten it up all the time.

Then you get into the squad based combat which I found to be poor because while they did something, I found the friendly A.I to be pretty crap. Atleast it was functional unlike the enemy A.I which doesn't seem to be there and it's really broken and buggy. Not only that but the hit detection in the game is off and I dunno theres just something about the combat which is functional, just not very good and you don't have fun fighting with it. Kinda like Fallout 3 where the combat is no fun, atleast there were other parts of that game that were great though, unlike Mass Effect.

I found the graphics to be very generic and I know it's the sci-fi setting but I mean in nothing amazed me. When I went down onto the Planets it all just looked "Meh" and you just don't really ever see anything apart from the opening that blows you away. The armour and weapons are a Mixed bag too where some will look great but more often than not it looks like complete crap and I'd rather just stick to the starter stuff. Atleast the Alien faces look really good though with all their detail and the small amount of animation doesn't look as weird on them as the humans.

The music in the game is all great, not memorable but it does fit with the atmosphere of the game. The sound effects are okay too and I just wish'd the weapons sounded better because they lacked any weight to them. The voice acting is just terrible and while it sounds okay, it's very akward and not what real life people would talk like and it is delivered funny. What I also hate about it is when it gives you choices to what you wanna say it doesn't display the esact thing. So you could pick something and mean it in one way and then when he says his line then it's like, wait a min thats different to what I meant. I just wish'd they displayed the esact thing so theres no confusion.

So Mass Effect is functional so I can't give it a One but it's just not fun and the gameplay is lacking and so is the whole game really. I can't give it a Three because them games I had some enjoyment out of them but Mass Effect I was just bored all the way through and it felt really repeptitive and lack luster.