Mass Effect

aka: ME1
Moby ID: 31277
Xbox 360 Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/28 8:53 PM )

Description official descriptions

Mass Effect is the first part of a science fiction RPG trilogy. It is set in a futuristic universe created specifically for the game, with its own history, various alien races, as well as cultural, political, and social background.

The story of the game deals with Commander Shepard, supposedly the first human candidate for the elite group of special agents (the Spectres), who serve the inter-galactic Council, comprised of the oldest and most powerful races in the universe. With or without the help of the Council, Shepard has to stop Saren, a Spectre member who went rogue and tries to exact revenge upon those he was once a part of.

In Mass Effect the player takes control of Commander Shepard, who is fully customizable in the character creation screen; his abilities, gender, and physical appearance can be shaped by the player. Both female and male versions of the character are fully voiced.

Combat in the game is action-based, and is similar to tactical squad-based shooters. As in most of BioWare's previous RPGs, the player can pause at any time to issue orders to other squad members. The squad members are AI-dependable, but general commands (such as run forward, take cover, target a specific enemy, etc) can be issued without pausing.

The six character classes in the game are Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Soldiers are good with weapons, Engineers can use tech abilities to sabotage enemies' equipment, and Adepts are able to use the disruptive biotic powers. The other three classes are combinations of the first three. Character growth features, beside the usual "level up" system, a skill-based advancement. When the characters gain a level, the player is allowed to distribute points into skills of his/her choice. These skills include weapon proficiency, tech abilities such as destroying enemy shields or hacking robotic enemies, and biotic abilities that manipulate the mass effect field to damage enemies and protect the party. Non-combat abilities for the main character include Charm and Intimidate, which influences conversation choices.

Mass Effect comes with its own morality system. There are two sides of morality in the game - Paragon and Renegade, with Paragon being a more diplomatic, official military courtesy following character, and Renegade being the "ends justify the means", damning everything to hell kind of character. The main quest with its choices and consequences is only a part of the experience - there are several optional planets that offer side-questing and exploration. Pursuing a romantic relationship with a companion is also possible.

The game introduces a slightly tweaked conversation system in which responses to NPC's are displayed and can be chosen before the NPC has finished speaking. This, combined with detailed facial expressions, allows for more fluid and natural conversations.

The PC version of Mass Effect differs in some points from the Xbox 360 release. Besides higher resolution graphics, the mini game about hacking a computer has been changed. Now instead of playing "Simon Says", the player has to get a triangle into the middle of a circle by avoiding the blocks that are constantly moving around in a Frogger-like fashion. The interface has also undergone massive changes. Besides a new quick slot bar in which the player can assign up to eight abilities for quick access to the number keys, the pause menu has been changed to give the player faster and better control over his teammates. It's now also possible to give every teammate individual orders instead of having both do the same thing. Item management has also been simplified to account for the new keyboard/mouse control scheme which also allows for better precision in the shooter-like fights.

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (Xbox 360 version)

624 People (566 developers, 58 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 90% (based on 166 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 248 ratings with 15 reviews)

An epic adventure of the most humble proportions.

The Good
I liked Mass Effect. It’s great game packed with action, suspense, impressive visuals and quite a bundle of technological wonders, all of which I’ll try to praise to the best of my ability in the following paragraphs. The only problem I had with this game is that it failed to meet all the expectations I had for it. Or, to be more precise, the expectations I had in mind for a Bioware game.

There are plenty of things to be thrilled at in Mass Effect. Just like a previous Bioware game, Jade Empire, it is set in entirely new universe, which was created specifically for this game. And although the majority of components comprising the world of ME have been clichĂ©d to death, the shear amount of detail and a careful attention to the actual “science” in “science fiction” is admirable. Very rarely we can enjoy a sci-fi game that actually tries to explain the inner workings of its wondrous technological future.

While not required in order to progress through the game, the in-built Codex containing the lore of ME world has clearly enjoyed a lot of effort on part of Bioware developers. Learning about the world, the customs of its inhabitants and the history of conflict between humanity and other races never get dull. And, although, this information will hardly ever come to an actual use (you don’t really have to know how the scanning equipment of your ship works) this enormous conglomerate of optional information helps to create an illusion of a huge world persisting outside your ship. The world, which is, unfortunately, not there.

However, you won’t notice that at first. Remarkable voice acting and brilliant cinematography of the game’s NPC interaction will make you believe in the characters before you and in things they say. Their actions, gestures, smiles and eye movements feel superbly natural and expressive. Even the species from other worlds have a set of facial gestures transforming the prosthetic mask into a living, breathing alien being. An effort which could’ve been undermined by amateur voice acting. Not this time, though.

Mass Effect contains some of the most brilliant video game acting ever captured on a DVD. Some notable Hollywood stars have been invited to lend their voices to generals, captains, aliens and dozens of other inhabitants of Mass Effect version of the galaxy. Specifically, I wouldn’t forgive myself if I let Jennifer Hale get away from this review without getting a special mention. Her confident and at the same time gentle acting has once again brought life and vigor to her on-monitor persona. This time it was Commander Martyne Shepard, the character I personally assumed control over. It was amazing how good her facial features (created by yours truly via game’s robust character creation utility) complimented on her voice and vice versa. In the end I have established a character, which I won’t be able to forget. What astounds me the most is that Shepard I know is totally different from what you could have come up with. This detail has provided another layer of an emotional connection to the character.

Other characters have also received additional personality treatment. Each character’s voice is characterized not only by its timbre, but by intonation, speed, simple but effective EQ effects and so on. Wry and cynic comments by Wrex, childlike awe by Tali, careful probing by Kaidan and confused arrogance by Liara. Every character is blooming with personality, thanks to ingenious acting performance.

But once they leave your ship they become little more than mindless squad members. Forget about the memorable exchanges between the characters of your party in Baldur’s Gate 2 and Knights Of The Old Republic. The occasional two lines of pointless dialog in a random elevator are all one can look forward to.

And given the game’s quality of tactical combat, I would have preferred to leave all my pals on Normandy altogether. The combat gameplay of Mass Effect bears little resemblance to either elegant brawl of the games based on Infinity engine or spectacular yet still thoughtful battles of Knights Of the Republic. But I have to admit, that gunwaving in ME is rather fun. Taking cover and shooting bastards into small pieces feels very tight, and with the additional support of biotic abilities it can provide an interesting field for experimentations. Your weapon proficiency matters a great deal, so take care while choosing your weapon, a low level in it might result in a quick and painful death. Anyway, the combat of ME is a good blend between Action and RPG with a complete failure in place of a tactical component.

The Bad
This is something I could’ve lived with; if not for other glaring flaws and mistakes Bioware had committed during the development of this game. The major flaw of ME is the lack of variety, scope and content. Everything in Mass Effect is small-sized, short and cut on expenses. Where have all the various worlds of Knights Of the Republic and Baldurs Gate 2 gone? There is only one (!) community area in Mass Effect, the Citadel. It’s impossible to believe, that this is the game made by the same people who created all those phenomenal locations from BG2: the drow city, the underwater fish city, the elven coven, various villages and huge Amn, the size of which alone equals nearly ten of ME citadels. There’s none of that in Mass Effect, there’s shortage on characters to meet, there’s a shortage on engaging side quests, there’s a shortage on dialog options, there’s a shortage on interaction with party members. The game is short of virtually everything which made past Bioware games so appealing.

But what Bioware offers us in exchange for memorable worlds and situations? Surely they must have provided something, since the game took me thirty hours to complete. Quite long for the modern age RPG actually.

They have, but I really wish they haven’t. I don’t know who had the idea, that all, yes, all the side quests (the majority of which rarely deviate from save/kill formula) must be completed in the same backgrounds, over and over again. At least all those barren planets I am asked to land on are reskinned every now and then, but the locations where the game’s side quests take place are totally indistinguishable, - bunker, warehouse, floating ship and an excavation site.

Only four three-room levels for every quest you may find in this game. It’s unbelievable. Should I remind that earlier games of this very company have featured hand-crafted environments for every room, closet and object, in a quantity that far surpass whatever Mass Effect may offer? Even Oblivion, which has been criticized for identical-looking dungeons have tried to change the layout of them, and certainly did not copied them over and over again like ME did.

The storyline planets are unique alright. As unique as you would expect four corridor shooting galleries to look. There are rarely more than two additional quests on these worlds, both of which can be completed in under five minutes and there is nothing memorable to them either.

Everything in Mass Effect has this taint of incompleteness, even the praised storyline. The characters arcs aren’t even complicated, let alone resolved. Despite having six party members, only three will actually give you quests, and all three will have no consequences on the character’s development. The main story leaves a lot to be desired too. Forget the violent plot twist of KOTOR, the personal agenda of BG2, or even the loyalty tale of Jade Empire. Saren isn’t cut to be a memorable villain and a mysterious cybernetic race threatening to wipe the whole galaxy is nothing original (I can trace it as far as Frederick Pohl, but I am no expert) either.

“But why are they doing it? Why are they destroying everything?” asks the dialog option, “Who cares? Do you want to die?” answers a superior being. So much for motivation.

Other artificial substitutions for real content which made their way into Mass Effect are: a ridiculous number of collecting mini-games to please Achievement obsessed X360 fans; funny little hacking mini-game, which is overused so many times, that it stops being funny at your first hour into the game; uncomfortable interface that makes party and item management much more painful than they have to be and general repetition in everything.

On this sad note I have only this left to say.

Let’s sum it up! ℱ

The Bottom Line
Talent: 4/5

Whatever Bioware does, it does it like no other can. That much is true, Mass Effect was created by a very skilled bunch of men and women. Even if they did it during the coffee break, the pure talent of those folks demands respect, which I am happy to provide.

Ambition: 3/5

The intention behind this game is a far cry from what we could read in the Baldur’s Gate 2 manual. Bioware didn’t care to deliver the ultimate role-playing experience this time around. However, their ambition was enough to make the most cinematic one.

Pteity (Pushing The Envelope - ity): 2/5

There’s really nothing new to admire in Mass Effect. The dialog system is the same we used for years, albeit a bit more fluid. But what’s point of the system if I have to endure characters repeating the same lines over and over again? If this is what people mean by “next-gen cRPG” then my generation is long gone.

Effort: 1/5

The minimal effort applied shows everywhere. Uninspired quests, lack of exploration options, a vast galaxy to investigate, yet nothing but barren rocks in it. No wonder Mass Effect is just a first game of the planned trilogy. Currently, it doesn’t have even the quarter of the content of previous Bioware titles (excluding Jade Empire, which shared the same disease).

Adequacy: 4/5

Despite couple of questionable aspects to the story, the game’s quite consistent in its presentation. The stylistic approach is maintained throughout the game at the expense of diversity. Why do every species clothe themselves in exactly the same colors and design? The characters feel extremely real though, no matter if they are blue-skinned female aliens with tentacles on their heads or a straightwalking bugs. Mostly thanks to the adequate voice acting.

Total: 2.6/5

As you can see, the problem lies not with the game’s length, but with the type and quality of content it presents. I hate to give Mass Effect such a low score, but truth of the matter is that a company of Bioware’s stature should be ashamed of releasing a game like this. With the amount of the talent the team possesses it’s unfortunate that they decided to keep things as small as possible this time around, relying more on copy/paste techniques rather than on original thinking.

Why? I believe the answer is quite simple. Why bother making a full fledged game with tons of opportunities, options and possibilities, if you can recreate only the fifth part of it and put the same price tag on the box?

That makes business sense. But Bioware should take notice, because new kids have already arrived, and in the world of competition, talent is nothing without hard work to support it. Beware Bioware, you’re walking an extremely thin line here; make sure you won’t fall the victim of your own laziness.

Windows · by St. Martyne (3648) · 2008

Fantastic and Disappointing Space Opera

The Good
Mass Effect really propels certain elements of the Action-RPG to new heights. First off, the ability to create an avatar of either sex and any facial type and ethnicity is a welcome ability. Too many games make you play as the same old chiseled/effeminate white dude. Any variety is a very good thing.

The conversation aspects of the game couldn’t be discussed without talking about the plot and voice acting, so let me address all of them at once. This game is based around talking; the combat is really just a way to get to the next conversation, but these are conversations which I love, and couldn’t be happier with. Unlike most Western RPGs that involve a customizable main character, your hero will speak every line of dialogue (there are two voices for your character, one male, one female).

As is often the case with Bioware, the main character and the other characters are all well acted. The dialogue is pretty good, for the most part, and even minor characters have well thought out lines of dialogue, delivered with care. The thing that really sets all this apart from other RPGs is how you conduct conversations. Instead of dialogue trees, you have a wheel. Instead of full sentences, you have the gist of the intended remark. Select the appropriate part of the wheel (maybe it says “no way”) and you character will say “Absolutely not, there has to be another way.”

Luckily, the facial animations in-game are up to the task of conveying emotion, and every conversation has camera angles like those in a movie. You’ll want to listen to every line of dialogue. The plot of Mass Effect is satisfying, and once it gets going, you’ll be drawn into this new world that Bioware has created. You can act in both self-sacrificing (“paragon”) or reckless (“renegade”) ways, and both provide interesting results. This time around, they don’t have to Star Wars license to help support their game, but with th next game in the series, I can see the world of Mass Effect becoming more and more compelling.

As far as exploration and combat goes, I enjoyed the combat, leveling and “magic” (biotics) elements. There are plenty of ways to develop your three character party, and 6 characters to choose for each mission (along with your own character, Commander Shepard). Combat is difficult at first, but you quickly get used to it. It may not have to slick feel of Drake’s Fortune, but it serves the story section of the game well enough.

Again, the plotline of Mass Effect is extremely intriguing, and the fact that your character is always working to save the galaxy makes the game intriguing. You might be committing murders and other horrible acts, but your character will always feel that their actions are necessary. Controlling a dangerous, violent, short-fused vigilante is invigorating and terrifying. You’ll be surprised and frightened as your avatar calmly explains how she had to kill those innocent people. She’s saving the galaxy, after all.

The problem is, you’ll see how she could be right, every time. From a technical standpoint, Mass Effect succeeds and fails. The characters look amazing, the effects are pretty, and the world is fully realized and very detailed. This is a new world, a new galaxy, and you won’t have a problem believing in it.

The Bad
When I said that the combat was enjoyable, I didn’t mean it was great, just that I tolerated it in my odd way. Some parts of combat feel awkward (sniping!), and your teammates are pretty stupid. Why even bother with squad control if it doesn’t help in any way? Your teammates provide gunfire, healing and some biotic attacks, but they never rise past the level of barely adequate.

Even worse, Mass Effect “boasts” an entire galaxy to explore. Sadly, each system has maybe 3 or 4 planets that can actually be landed on. The rest are either blank (save a text description) or “scannable.” Most scans lead to the exciting discovery of different ores, gases or minerals. Wonderful.

Planetside, the average planet looks like a Brice 3D creation. No foliage, no rivers, no animals, nothing. You’ll pilot your space buggy (which is actually fun) to various locations, most of which provide you with anomalies or crashed space probes
 for you to scan. From time to time, you’ll be ambushed by Geth (hive mind AI robots), giant underground worms, or space pirates, but for the most part, planets are very boring.

True, the game provides you with many side quests, mostly involving mining facilities, abandoned spacecraft, or science facilities, but each of these interiors looks the same, with only a few different enemies. Boredom eventually sets in. Finally, the inventory system could use some work. You’ll pick up a lot of weapons and items from enemies, but you do this automatically. Yes, you can break unwanted items into omni-gel (which allows you to hack items), but eventually this process will annoy you.

As I mentioned before, the graphics aren’t up to everything Mass Effect demands of them. Pretty they may be, but there are hideous (and slow) draw-ins when you enter a level. There are also elevators that take 3 to 4 minutes to get to their destination. Excuse me? Just give me a loading screen.

The Bottom Line
Mass Effect is hugely flawed. It has egregious load times, hugely boring planet exploration, and an infuriating inventory system. Yet at the same time, I have never been so invested in the outcome of a game. It also made me feel more strongly about my own decisions than any other game ever has. The characters in this game are so real (special thanks go to Keith David, who voices Captain Anderson), and your own character’s reaction to them is so believable, you won’t want to stop playing. Plus, the decisions Bioware asks you to make become meaningful and scary, quickly. Like I said before, this game gives you tough decisions, and shows you the brutal consequences of every single decision. Have fun saving the galaxy.

Xbox 360 · by Tom Cross (28) · 2008

Biowarian Imperialism At It's Worst

The Good
[At the time of writing this review, Mass Effect 2 is about to be released in 6 days. Rabbi Guru took the time off to share his thoughts with us about the first game.]

During the reign of Catherine II the Great (one of many female rulers in the overtly feminine russian 18th century), there was this general guy called Potyemkin, who also got to fuck the said empress every now and then. This general Potyemkin was leading the conquest of Crimea and when the empress wanted to see her new lands, general Potyemkin constructed a lot of hollow facades so it would look more impressive. Ever since then, the term Potemkin village is used to describe when someone, usually a backwards totalitarian regime, constructs a special happy village for the western visitors to see how happy life is in that backwards totalitarian regime. Now Mass Effect isn't a totalitarian regime, but it certainly is a backwards game that has a nice facade to fool the world to think that it's the best thing ever. The world, being full of stupid people, bought it and now it depends on me to reveal the lie that Mass Effect is.

Mass Effect is a lie pulled over the eyes of feeble-minded gaming world! Only with Rabbi Guru's intellectual mental discipline can you emancipate your mind from the lies of your society! Become who you are born to be! Cast away Mass Effect and become the revolution! Gamers of the world, unite!

The Secret Conspiracy of Bioware

There once was a small canadian developer called Bioware. It was founded by two doctors who decided to produce games. They gathered a group of people and made couple of nice games in the 90's.

Then at the dawn of the new millennium they made Baldur's Gate II. This game was such a brilliant piece of work balancing brilliantly between story, characters and exploration. It was unformulaic. It was one of the many games in late 90's/early 00's that awakened the individual player. It was a product of the revolution.

But I guess, for some reason, Bioware decided to go on a different path. I guess like Napoleon or Stalin before it, Bioware saw that the winds were changing. And I guess it was right, because Bioware is the only child of the revolution to survive. Troika, Looking Glass Studios, Black Isle, Ion Storm - all dead.

They then made Throne of Bhaal. And that game marks the first usage of standard Bioware formula that has been used to imprison the minds of would-be rpg players ever since.

The standard Bioware formula looks like this: you got 4 locations, you need to go through them but in any order you like, then after the 3rd location something happens, either a plot twist or something similar, then after the plot twist, you go to a fifth location and then you are in the final battle location and game over man, game over!

TOB only created the 4+1 locations part of the formula. Since it was the conclusion of BGII, it did the characters a bit differently than the nowadays standard Bioware formula. Cue Neverwinter Nights for creating the standard party member formula.

In NWN though, they just went crazy with the 4+1 locations. The game has like 4 chapters, and in each chapter there are 4 locations you must battle through to get into the 5th location to finish the chapter. 4+1x4=20 fucking times, the same thing over and over again. Fortunately for Bioware, only the third world of the gaming world played NWN, and thus for most of the world the unspeakable atrocities this game commited remained unknown. It was an experiment commited upon people the world didn't care about, an experiment to create the perfect formula to imprison the world. At first they came for us and you were silent... and then they came for you!

"The rulers of this world live on the backs of the people, and yet the people praise them as benefactors." - Jesus Christ

NWN also introduced a ghastly addition to the formula. The party members. Now you had only one or two with you. You had to speak to them and they told their sad life story. Then you got a quest. You solved it and voila! Instant friends for life! Since NWN was an inhuman experiment, you got to do this 4 times, in each chapter. Now that's just cruel. Also there were four parts for each sad life story. And to unlock those parts you had to wait until you're level was high enough, so they could finish their current sad story of the chapter. It was an inhuman experiment. Many human lives were wasted. Bioware made it's notes and...

Before the globalization of the gaming world in 2000's, gaming world was divided into many different inbred small communities who had no idea what happened in the other village. You had adventure gamers, you had shooter players, rpg fans... in fact adventure gamers are still somewhat a traditional people. I heard that UNESCO planned to add them to it's representative list. You see, when you still visit an adventure gaming community you can still see that really isolated gaming culture of yesterday's world. Those people just have no idea what happens outside their village. They're a living example of what gaming world used to look like.

Anyway, there was also this divide between console gamers and pc gamers. Console gamers grew up on different types of games. Let's think of a standard stereotypical example – a pc gamer might have gone through Monkey Island, Doom, System Shock, Deus Ex and a console gamer most likely was raised with Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Megaman and other consoly stuff like that.

When the globalization of the gaming world started, many pc game developers started to expand into the console world. Bioware was about to expand into the console world. NWN experiment was succesful. They got the formula more or less pinned down. Console gamers were living in their inbred world... and suddenly they got Knights of the Old Republic. The Standard Bioware Formula RPG. But you got to understand that these people had only seen something like Super Mario or Metal Gear. They were overwhelmed. Bioware's strategy was succesful. It managed to convert half-witting sheep into believing that Bioware was a God. Now they never had to perfect the formula, because consolers were raised to like formulas. Bioware had the perfect mass to control. And that's why you still see people claiming that kotor changed their lives or that it is the best rpg of all times.

An ignorant delusion of course. And we'll now dissect the formula of Kotor. First the 4+1x4 of NWN has now been just reduced to 4+1, with a plot twist after the 3rd one. And there's also the starting planet, before you get to choose between planets. You battle through the planets, and you always have this chance to end them in two different ways. Kill that guy or kill the other guy. Deliver item to that guy or to the other guy. Actually make that the formula for every quest. Standard NWN stuff but much more polished.

You also have the party member sad story tied with your levels. Only now there's only one sad story. And of course the sad story ends with a quest. But there's also another thing. The party members themselves are now very familiar. "Didn't I see you in NWN somewhere?" the survivors of that experiment asked themselves. And yes they did see them in NWN. One female character in particular was exactly like a certain female character in NWN. Aribeth meet Bastila. Both of these were love interests to the male characters, with sad stories, and both of these gals turned evil and only the love of the male player can deliver them from the dark side.

There's also Carth, the sad man for female players... who is kinda like the sad man for gals from NWN: Hordes of the Underdark, and the sad man for gals in BGII. With the exception that the BGII sad man was a complete failure amongst gals, while the other two got major followings in slash/fanfic world.

In fact every character was like a mix of different or just a slight alteration of previous Bioware characters. But of course, the consolers who were meant to love this game didn't know this.

Cue success. Bioware now equals rpg's. It's imperialistic conquest of the gaming world was succesful. It's magic formula worked and will never be changed again.

About Mass Effect and what it reveals about the current state of Biowarian Imperialism...

Now we're here with Mass Effect. So what you get? The Learn the Game Zone (Beginning), The Starting Planet (Citadel), the 4+1 Story Locations (with the 4th or 3rd being the OMG PLOT TWIST!!!) and the Final Battle Zone.

And characters? Slightly altered. To unlock their sad stories you don't need levels anymore, but you need to finish one story planet. So their sad story still comes in 4 parts. And not all sad stories end with a quest. And not all sad stories last actually 4 parts. Some go by quicker. Only 3 sad stories end with a quest. And that's it.

And their personalities? Have I still seen them from somewhere before? Yup. Pretty much. Except for Garrus who is completely new type for Bioware, everyone is a variation of Bioware archetypes. One of them, the sad man for gals of this game is even voiced by the sad man for gals from a previous game (Carth).

But that's not the worst of it. The fact that it's the same game since Throne of Bhaal is actually one of the positive things considering the atrocities...

The Bad
Because, the main story only lasts some 12-16 hours, this game like any other rpg game has sidequests. Only those sidequests all happen in one fucking room!

Actually three. There's the mine, space station and some planet quarters thing. You got like 100 sidequests. You go to a planet. You drive with your mako to the location. You go inside, kill a lot of people and quest solved. Then you go to another planet, do the same thing and kill a lot of people... only that it's the same fucking room. Only that crate is in a different location. Can you imagine it? Can you imagine going through the same fucking room for hundreds of times and pretending that this sidequest is "oh so fucking different?" Can you? No you can't! No one can imagine the depravity of this biowarian imperialism, because it scares even ctulhu gods. It's supposed to rob one of his will to live, to make you conform to the standard formula, to become like a sheep in a slaughterhouse. It's evil.

But that's not the worst of it. The story planets themselves are also incredibly formulaic. You get the talking zone, the drive with your car and shoot robots zone, and the other talking zone with combat. Sometimes you go back to the first talking zone to have more combat.

Bioware is now so powerful, that it doesn't bother to make the facade any less formulaic.

And the writing? Oh dear god. It's almost like the people have exclamation marks on them yelling "I'm kill this guy" ,"And I'm kill the other guy" and "I'm the optional kill me guy." And the quests and everything is just lifted from previous games. You've seen these random people with these random problems before. And they're still so... such simplistic writing with no insight.

Random person: "Hello hero, I want to commit abortion. My issue is very edgy."
Hero: 1) "Okay."
2) "Abortion is wrong."
3) "I'm Commander Fucking Shepard! I will blow your brains out!!!"
Random person: "Okay thank you. Wasn't my issue just so edgy and mature?"
Hero: "Yes I have a lot to think about now. Thank you."

About the future...

The future of humanity is very white. It's not like Bioware isn't trying. All other racial looks do get represented. But for some reason there's this general brown look. I mean, you can't tell if the person is supposed to be like Evo Morales or Grace Park, or like Hugo Chavez or Aishwarya Rai because there's only this one general brown look for asians, latinos... heck, even southern europeans. Because in real life their all the same mass of brown people, no? Unfortunate racist implications of the unreal engine I guess.

Player: "Oh hi, Michelle Rodriguez look alike."
NPC: "My name is Fuji Fukomora."

The reason for this could be that except for the main characters, other people aren't designed by hand. Only the main cast is designed by hand. But all the non-alien main cast is white. Only one main character is black. He's also the only black character in the game. The only one that speaks anyway.

And let's not even discuss the fact they market this game with a white anglo-american military boy. Quite problematic.

For a sci-fi to be progressive one really needs to eliminate the percentage of white people from 90% to like 20-30%... because with the mexicanification of US and the rise of China and India... Well, future generations will get to laugh a lot, so that's good.

Actually you can recognize indians, but only because they have funny accents. Sigh...

So we have a very formulaic game with unfortunate racist implications. Anything else? The real-time cover-person combat is, like everything else, also just a facade and descends into a depraved formula quite quickly. Because you mostly just fight in the same room you've been so many times before, and you kill the same enemies again and again... and the level design is just so contrived. You'll be recognizing combat zones immediately because of the amount of obvious obstacles to cover behind.

The only way to get any enjoyment out of this game is when you don't look beyond the facade, but it's impossible not to look beyond the facade, because the facade is just so half-heartedly put together. It's like Potyemkin was drunk when building this village.

Because they don't care anymore. Bioware is blowing it's imperialistic wad at our faces and laughing. It's a mighty empire, and it can do everything it wants and the people will love it. Just like Jesus said above.

But I am asking you, as a human person, as an individual to not let yourself be humiliated like this. Down with Bioware's Imperialistic Wad! Join the revolution. Mass Effect 2 is coming out the next week (at the point of the writing date of this review), and I'm asking you to consider before you succumb to serve Bioware's imperialistic needs again. Think about it.

Because we the people are like that damaged broken girl with daddy issues, and Bioware is like that old guy who protects us and takes care of us. But the question we need to ask from us before we run, like that little girl to her "daddy", to Bioware, to feel like we have a worth in this life, the question is - don't we deserve better? Let us stop for a moment and think about this.

The Bottom Line
I am Rabbi Guru and I endorse this message!

Windows · by The Fabulous King (1332) · 2010

[ View all 15 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Rate My Shepard The Fabulous King (1332) Nov 20, 2009
Yeow. What a lousy port. Indra was here (20756) Mar 22, 2009
UPDATED: I cannot role-play evil or ruthless characters MichaelPalin (1414) Aug 11, 2008
First Impressions St. Martyne (3648) Jun 20, 2008
Who would've thought? St. Martyne (3648) Apr 1, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Mass Effect appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.### Books

Drew Karpyshyn, writer/designer at Bioware, has written two books set in the Mass Effect universe so far, Mass Effect: Revelation and its sequel Mass Effect: Ascension.

Noveria

Regarding the corporate enclave planet with an arctic climate -- Noveria, where the normal laws of Citadel Space do not apply -- the name of the planetary capital, Port Hanshan, is a romanization of the Chinese for "cold mountain," a reasonable name for a city on an arctic planet. On Earth, there are currently at least two geographic areas in China which have that name, and in ancient times there was also a poet who used that pen name. Perhaps the first people to lay claim to the planet, or to underwrite the colony, were representatives of a Chinese corporation. The actual Chinese would be ćŻ’ć±±ç«ŻćŁ (HĂĄnshān Duānkǒu).

Release

The game's street date was broken multiple times. In the United States, several K-Mart stores started selling the game on 9th November 2007, eleven days before the official release date. The same happened in Australia, where EB games started distributing it on 16th November 2007. Other retailers quickly started selling the game early as well.

Singapore ban

The game was initially banned in Singapore, because a female character is able to pursue a same-sex love scenario (spoiler alert) with another female alien character. The ban was eventually overturned by the same government censorship body itself and it now carries an M18 rating.

Awards

  • GamePro (Germany)
    • March 28, 2008 - Best Console RPG in 2007 (Readers' Vote)
  • GameSpy
    • 2007 – #8 Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #6 Console Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #5 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
    • 2007 – Xbox 360 Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2007 – Xbox 360 RPG of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Soundtrack/Score of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Voice Acting of the Year
    • 2008 – #8 PC Game of the Year

Information also contributed by 88 49 and Alaedrain

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Mass Effect Trilogy
Released 2012 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Mass Effect: Galaxy
Released 2009 on iPhone
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Released 2017 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Mass Effect: Infiltrator
Released 2012 on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry...
Mass Effect 2
Released 2010 on Windows, Xbox 360, 2016 on Xbox One
Mass Effect 2
Released 2011 on PlayStation 3
Mass Effect 3
Released 2012 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Mass Effect: Zolotoe izdanie
Released 2009 on Windows
Mass Effect 3: Leviathan
Released 2012 on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 31277
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by The Fabulous King.

Windows added by Cantillon. Xbox One added by Kennyannydenny.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Sciere, Picard, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, Plok, FatherJack, firefang9212.

Game added November 24, 2007. Last modified March 6, 2024.