A Few Minor Flaws Keep It From Perfection
There's an epidemic going around. It's symptoms are readily recognizable: clothing made of iron, weapons made of steel and wood, haughty elves, drunken dwarves, prophencies being fulfilled and, of course, severe dragons. I'm talking about the epidemic that seems to be sweeping the game industry that forces all RPGs, be they MMO or single-player, to take place in a post-Tolkien (sometimes even within Tolkien) fantasy setting. For those who prefer lasers over crossbows, plasteel over regular ol' steel and aliens over elves, the pickin's are, in general, slim.
Along comes Mass Effect, developed by perrenial fantasy RPG purveyors BioWare, it is a sci-fi RPG that is MASSIVELY ambitious, that sadly falls short on a few key points but, taken as a whole, is an amazing gaming experience.
The game begins with the file on your character becoming corrupted and irrevocably lost. This means, naturally, you'll have to refill all the information and in the process create your character's backstory. This is somewhat like the character creation in the game Arcanum, in which you not only chose your class and appearance, but your character's background. This will result in certain dialogue options and reactions from certain characters and is a nice touch, though it doesn't alter the game significantly or give you any different choices for dialogue.
The game proceeds as most RPGs do, with the threat you originally thought was so important becoming but a stepping stone for a much larger and more significant threat, but it does so in such an organic and fluid way that you'll barely notice the stakes being raised until you find yourself battling for the very future of galactic civilization. This epic scope is well realized by an excellent cast of voice actors and dialogue that is the kind of quality rarely seen in novels, letalone videogames.
The gameplay is where Mass Effect missteps, though it's a minor misstep. You'll have two party members with you at a given time and these party members can be given specific commands. The problem is that they rarely follow the movement commands that you give, opting instead to strafe aimlessly, often directly in front of your line of fire, obstructing you from shooting enemies. This is rarely a game-breaker and never caused me to die, it's simply very annoying. The shooting is somewhat simplistic as well with your character able to choose from an assault rifle, shotgun, pistol or sniper rifle, some classes being more profecient in these guns than others. There are also special abilities that can paralyze enemies, freeze their special attacks, or cause them damage and access to these is strictly determined by class, or mixed class. The only thing missing is a true melee system. Characters (and enemies) can sprint forward and will automatically swing their gun for a large damage chunk, but there are no melee weapons to speak of and the system in place is fraught with flaws, though these rarely come up as the guns and special powers do the job just fine.
Mass Effect truly shines in character development with each of your party members and even ship's crew having fairly extensive backstory that you can explore between missions through conversations with the characters. You yourself have quite the backstory and the morality system is unique in that you have two separate meters for judging your actions (called paragon and renegade since the game actually shies away from strictly good or evil), and the decisions that affect them seem much more organic than a lot of games' "GOOD" or "EVIL" designations.
Mass Effect is an easy game to reccomend to any fans of sci-fi and RPGs, but even fans of one or the other should find plenty to love in the complex characters and twisting plot. This game was one of the greatest experiences on the next-gen consoles and has already helped usher in new and critical ways of handling RPG stories and choices. Definately worth a look before the sequel comes out.
