Great story, awesome graphics, many upgrades, a must play
Description
Mass Effect was released on November 20th of 2007. It was developed by BioWare and published by Microsoft Game Studios and Electronic Arts. The lead designer was Casey Hudson and the lead composer was Jack Wall. Mass Effect is one of the first open story line video games. Since I Played the story as a Vanguard I'm going to tell the story that way and what my outcome was. The story follows a human who has chosen because he is the best of the best. His name is Commander Shephard. There are various different species in this game and humans seem to be the minority. In particular this human, goes and fights on a planet called Eden Prime to recover an unearthed Prothean beacon. The Protheans were a technologically advanced but long-extinct race that all of the galaxy bases their new technology on the discoveries of the Protheans. After Commander Shephard's exceptional services on Eden Prime he gets promoted to a Spectre. The first ever human Spectre actually. The Spectres are the defenders of the galaxy who serve under the Citadel Council who is the government of the galaxy. Saren who is of the Valkarian species is also a Spectre. Saren has gone rogue and its Commander Shephard's job to stop him. Saren ends up teaming up with Sovereign who is a Reaper. Reapers are the foundation of all the technology in the galaxy. It turns out that The Reapers made the technology that the Protheans found. The Reapers also have this cycle where they completely wipe out an entire species which happened to the Protheans long ago. So now its Commander Shephards job to stop Saren and The Reapers from wiping out the entire human race.
Analysis
Mass Effect is a Role-Playing-Game where you get to choose the direction of the story line. You can either be a Paragon where you choose the good things to say and your nice to people. Or you could be a Renegade where your more of an arrogant person that only does what they have to do. Or you can sort of be half and half, either way at certain points you get to choose who lives or dies and there is also multiple endings to the story depending on how you play the game.
The game is played in a third person view. When you pull the left trigger you get pulled into an over the shoulder view for when you are in combat. Other then the point of view, they also give you options such as having film grain on or off as well as having motion blur when you turn the camera.
Interpretation
Mass Effect is the closest thing you can get to playing a movie or living a video game. It reminds me of a better version of Star Trek. The story line to Mass Effect is absolutely amazing, the gameplay on the other hand is not bad but also not great. When you are upgrading your weapons you don't exactly notice a big difference so it feels rather repetitive. The cut scenes in Mass Effect are very moving. An example is when the council doesn't believe that Saren has gone rogue your character starts to get upset and angry with them and you yourself playing the game feels angry and upset and you want to convince them. So you feel like you are your character and this is one of the best qualities of Mass Effect.
Judgement and Evaluation
In my personal opinion Mass Effect is a complete and utter success. The story line is extremely in depth. They give you a full in depth analysis of each species and what they have done in their existence and what their social status is. As well as when you are traveling through the galaxy you come across around 50 planets. They have descriptions for every single planet such as, temperature, how many earth hours in a day, how many earth years it takes to orbit, what the climate is like, even a history of the planet of what has been either discovered or created there.
The games combat is good but not great. There is an upgrade system where every time you level up you gain stat points which you can add to all sorts of categories like, assault training, armor upgrades, power upgrades, health, weaponry, and more. Like I said before the combat is over the shoulder third person. The enemies in this game are however quite challenging especially when facing enemies with Biotics (powers) and guns.
The visuals of this game are superb. The graphics are top notch and some of the best I have ever seen in a video game. The cut scenes are intense, realistic and very exhilarating. Aside from the visuals of the game the sounds are that much better. Whether your in the menu, walking around the Citadel, or in an intense battle, you always get the feel of the atmosphere from the sounds and they make everything seem hat much more real. Not too mention they have a great voice acting cast with people such as Seth Green, co-creator and producer of the Robot Chicken series and actor, Keith David, who was the voice for the Arbiter in the Halo series, Marina Sirtis who is from Star Trek: the Next Generation, and many more.
To sum this all up whether you hate RPG's of all kind you still need to give this game a shot. It is one of the best stories I have ever played and I think it will stay that way for years to come. Mass Effect is a must play if you own a PC or Xbox 360.
