Mass Effect

The Good
The story is pretty well-written, and to me, it seemed to be adequately wondrous and science-fiction-like enough. Even when the main plot is relatively simple and ordinary, it made me think about stuff and think about the characters - this is always a good sign. I also appreciate the fact that the game is definitely more of a "science-fiction" game than a "space opera" game; the designers put a lot of effort into writing a backstory and a bunch of technobabble that sounds plausible and well-thought-out. It's not just "it's got spaceship and ray-guns in it".

Graphics and music are top-notch, and the character art and animation is very good. Voice acting never really gets jarring, dialogue works surprisingly well.

This game is also one of the few games I really wanted to pick up for a second playthrough almost immediately afterwards. The game is not too long, yet not too short either.

The Bad
The planets you can land on are quite fun to explore, and the sidequest missions are interesting enough, but the problem is that the planets are rather bland and the sidequests are set in The Mine or The Base or The Other Kind of Base or The Spaceship - there's literally one map for each submission, with the interior objects slightly changed. This doesn't allow for much variation, and you can pretty much figure out a single strategy for them and then just say "Okay, now we're raiding The Base, here's my tried-and-true plan".

The firefights are chaotic to say the least. The enemies have absolutely no strategy, and they just run around a lot, usually scurrying around just as you're about to aim at them. This is compounded by the fact that your squadmates have no strategy either, and when these enemies scurry out of your line of fire, your squadmates offer to put their heads on the line of fire, instead, just as you pull the trigger.

Some of the game mechanics remain obscure. I was half-way through the game until I finally "got" some of the subtleties of the game - and could have played through without really getting them.

Yet, none of this is all that big. Even when blandness sometimes shows, the main plot definitely makes up for it.

The Bottom Line
Welcome to an epic science-fiction tale where the humanity has uncovered mysterious alien technology to allow faster-than-light jumping around the galaxy, and met several interesting alien species. Humankind is just about to be admitted to the greater galactic bureaucracy as one of the prominent races. And we, on the other hand, have to go examine the exploits of the crew of humanity's most advanced spaceship. The first call is to examine a rather mysterious conflict that is quickly unfolding in a rather sleepy planet; this immediately leads to the trail of a new threat to all sentient organic races.

The humankind, of course, does what it does best, as far as fiction is to be believed: kicking butt. Mass Effect is a tactical third-person shooter... and a RPG... and you get to drive around in an APC too... oh, and you have a starship and you get to conduct some exploration too. Dialogue is a heavy part of the game: situations can be often solved with guns or through eloquent or threatening speech. The character is given choice between acting nicely and heroically ("Paragon"), or just getting the job done no matter what it takes ("Renegade"). Not really a good vs. evil system, but close. These choices award points which are tracked independently; the better you are at either, you also get the chance to be more persuasive or intimidating.

The player controls a squad of up to three people; each character has unique talents and strengths. The player character, Shepard, can be customised as well. At your disposal you have a bunch of different weapons (grenades, assault rifles, pistols, shotguns and sniper rifles) that come in different makes and models and can be customised with various kinds of mods. Different character types can use different weapons to their advantage. When the characters level up, they learn new powers. Aside of conventional weaponry, there's a bunch of biotic powers that are extremely handy. When you land on planets, you also have at your disposal an armoured vehicle, called Mako, that has the necessary big guns.

In short, Mass Effect is a really well-done science fiction RPG, with only minor flaws that don't really take away too much from fun. It has tons of engaging dialogue, has a well-crafted milieu, and enough interesting plot twists to keep you busy.

The Good
The core of any Bioware RPG is made by three factors: the story, the characters and the game world. Strangely enough, even though the story is standard action movie fare, the characters aren't anything you haven't seen before and the world is outright clichéd, everything still works perfectly. There is a LOT of dialogue, all of it entertaining, with brilliant voice acting. The fact that Shepard, the protagonist, has a voice of his/her own, is also great, since most BioWare PC's are mute.

Speaking of the dialogue, the dialogue wheel is a great idea. Even though the choices aren't always to your liking, I still prefer the wheel over the system in older BioWare games.

The story is entertaining, with enough twists and turns to keep you interested. The characters, including Shepard, are all interesting. Though Tali, Liara and Wrex sometimes feel like they were just designed to tell tidbits about their species, they still feel stunningly real. I especially like Wrex's cynical comments.

The actual gameplay is good enough, at least the shooting. Unlike most people, I really enjoyed the Mako-parts. Not so much in sidequests, but in story missions like Virmire, the Mako is a nice change: running over geth is much more satisfying than shooting them on foot.

The Bad
The sidequests all have interesting stories behind them, but gameplay-wise, they're infuriatingly similar. It basically boils down to this: drive the Mako to a place, go inside place, shoot a lot of enemies inside a space station identical to the ones you already visited a million times, some dialogue, the end. The level architecture in particular is dull, with the cut- and paste-levels. Even the story missions, like Therum, suffer from unimaginative design. Not all the worlds are bad, though: the Citadel and especially Virmire are great.

And the inventory... without a doubt, the worst part in the game. Who at Bioware thought it was a good idea that you pick up new stuff and new guns every five seconds? Still, at least it has an inventory, but it's just so bad you never really get used to it.

The shooting segments, while passable, don't really shine, especially when fighting human enemies. Hearing "ENEMIES EVERYWHERE!" a gazillion times may seem funny in retrospect, but during the gameplay it made me feel like crying.

Funnily enough, even though the game has plenty of design flaws, they never really make the game bad or even mediocre. The good parts are just that good.

The Bottom Line
An Action-RPG with emphasis on the action. Unless sci-fi makes you hurl, the story is absolutely fantastic and worth experiencing. Like in all BioWare games, there will be lengthy conversations, so if you're the kind of guy or gal who skips cutscenes and ignores the dialogue, this game is not for you. To anyone who appreciates good RPG's and storylines, get it. The first one is easily the best.

The Good
I'm probably the wrong person to review RPG's mainly because I'm not true to the genre. I've mostly played more of the modern releases and some D&D based one's which would include Neverwinter Nights and Rage of Mages not forgetting some JRPGs.

When I look at Mass Effect though I see a RPG made purely on being accessible. And the sales and popularity behind this game proves this, as it has attracted even people not familiar with the genre. It's hard to review this Bioware title according to Mobygame's format because where Mass Effect tends to have a good it also has a bad.

But ignoring the gameplay for a while, the graphics are fantastic. Art direction maybe a bit cliched in the Sci-Fi theme. But the visuals work very well and thanks to the Unreal Engine I'm guessing this console to PC port didn't come with much graphical bugs or surprisingly no technical issues which tend to haunt many modern RPG games.

Mass Effect lets you customize your character from the looks to the Class which the game explains and also the starting skills. You can choose a male or female character with the last name “Shepard” and what's awesome is that they're both voiced. Jennifer Hales performance as the female Shepard is solid, not forgetting the rest of the characters too; topped off with beautiful character modeling and expressions which in all adds a strong foundation to the story telling. Speaking of which the storyline is nothing too original but at least they created a whole fictional universe and lore. The game provides a codex in which you can explore and read about the universe, technology and characters. Traveling to planets has been presented well too with the galaxy map and all. And there's nothing like the feeling of having your own ship “The Normandy”.

The combat system is similar to a shooter in the veins of Gears of War or Rainbow Six: Vegas. You got the cover system and can choose 2 team mates to assist you. Leveling up your character is pretty much the usual gain XP, gain points and spend it to unlock more skills based on which class you take. From there it's your typical RPG where you have a main plot and side quests.

The Bad
The Side-quests however make the game uninteresting. This is a RPG and side-questing is an important part of them. Mostly you travel to barren planets, drive the oversensitive vehicle, investigate which is mostly that hacking mini-game which is overused like crazy! Then go rescue/shoot a few turrets/enemies. Nothing really creative although I had to chase little monkeys for some gadget it had stolen...yes I'm serious. Seems like they were lazy and only focused on the main plot. Which I will admit to some point is good, the characters are memorable but follow a usual formula, there will be the love interest, the Bi curious, the serious mature one. Saren, the main villain is forgettable, the Asari Matriarch who assists him in the start was more memorable thanks to her Asari boobs of course. If it ain't side-quest or the main plot it's console game quests like the hidden briefcases in Rainbow Six. Find all minerals, find tags oh and surveying planets is really stupid.

There is the so called “revolutionary” dialogue system which is basically the dialogue options appearing before the character finishes talking (what is that like 2 lines of code?). Most of the time your character will say something far from what you've actually selected. If you select for e.g. the option “Okay follow my orders and you will be fine” your character will end up speaking something like “Yeah keeping it real aite” or “Bush did 9/11” it actually deviates far from the chosen words.

Who am I kidding? The port is actually terrible when it has to be. The User Interface is abysmal and maintaining your inventory is a pain really.The Dialogue system could use a mouse pointer instead of the analogue-like selection. Many times I've selected the wrong dialogue as my mouse jerked a bit before I could click.

Team mates A.I is terrible and to top things off commanding them or positioning them is just as bad an idea as having rough sex with Paris Hilton without protection. Your better off just leaving them to do their own shit. This area supposedly had improvements over it's xbox brother.

The Bottom Line
Mass Effect is basically a 12-15 hours game with the remaining 20-30 hours being fillers. Not saying it's a game to avoid but going into it with no expectation is probably the only way to be satisfied with it. Or maybe playing this after Dragon Age: Origins is a bad idea (yes I did that).