93The_Ace

You're right.

I'll never forget one of Austin's early quick looks when Vinny was playing that bridge building game, and one of the scenarios was to get a school bus to the other side of a ravine and the first thing Vinny did was start the scenario without building anything. Austin starts yelling "VINNYYY!" but he let's the school bus just *barely* drive off the cliff and then Austin yells "SPIDERMAN!" and the Vinny restarts the scenario and just says "He got it, he got it." Such a great and endearing moment. Haha

I'd like to highlight a really important moment in Mass Effect 1 for me, which I still think is my favorite ME game while not being the best to play.

MASS EFFECT 1 SPOILERS AHEAD

I was thinking about Mass Effect a couple months ago and was trying to remember why I loved it so much, and I believe it goes back to two critical moments in particular. Mass Effect, being a Bioware game is of course predicated on the dialogue and how Shepard interacts with characters. This also carries over to the player, me in this case, and how the mystery of the ME universe unfolds. I loved how often a big encounter or climactic moment would be punctuated by incredibly poignant conversations with characters. The first major instance of this is near the middle of the game after a mission Shepard and the crew are discovered of this planet by Sovereign the big ancient immortal being! You get to talk to him and try to understand every morsel of information that you can about the mystery behind the Reapers and their mission, which up to that point the details have been pretty scarce. What an amazing end to a mission that wasn't just a mini-boss or something to that effect.

The other moment that holds up as one of my favorite moments ever in a video game was the encounter with the Vigil AI toward the end of the game. For me this was such a significant moment not just because of the information that you get, but for the placement of this conversation in the game. Essentially you've been going at a breakneck speed through this last mission trying to catch up to Saren before he can get back to the Citadel. So, you're hot on his tail and then you end up going into this room and a little glowing orb that represents an entire race is there. Vigil tells you its story, it's tragic, and it reveals some deep fascinating mysteries about things in the ME universe. This all happens right in the middle of the last mission when the stakes feel so high it seems like there's no time to lose, but this AI makes you pause for a moment to reflect.

(Honorable Mention to the Rachnai Queen's for a similarly awesome moment. It sort of setups up these other two I talked about by being first and introducing what Mass Effect is really about which is that stellar dialogue and sense of discovering a universe that feels fully realized and lived in.)

To me Mass Effect was never about the gameplay anyway, it was these short moments of wonder and discovery that made that first game in particular so interesting. That was the one where you learned about that universe and the intricacies and mysteries. I should also mention that the soundtrack really went a long way in helping to create the proper atmosphere during those dialogues.

I actually think the game's really fun. I can see playing this a lot with some of my friends. The Call of Duty games don't really interest me anymore, and I don't want to play something competitive like counter strike. This strikes a balance for me where I can jump in, have some fun and I don't have to worry too much about K/D and all that. For those that enjoyed the original battlefront there is really is a lot of content in the side missions and things like that. I think 3/5 stars is a fair review, but I've been looking for an easy going and fun shooter for a while, so this is exactly what I've been looking for.

Visually, this looks good.

This is the best thing I've ever seen?