Mass Effect

The Good
The spirit of the game was definitely inspired by Star Wars. You can visit strange planets and fend off attacks from bad guys. The story unwinds in a way that's easy to follow and continually intriguing. You can customize your weapons and armor to suit the fights you may face. You fight in 3rd and 1st person against a collection of bad guys. You also have several jaunts in a space age tank that seems to magically right itself, no matter what terrain you drive over.

Its easy to compare what ordnance you have in comparison to what you can trade in your inventory. You can upgrade your guns and armor with brands and models that give you and your characters a fighting chance.

The voice acting and music were above par and the characters were interesting enough. I really liked some of the interaction with other characters.

The gameplay required learning by mistakes, and going back again. Once you get the hang of it, It becomes a lot more fun and a lot less discouraging.

Cut scenes were great, and strongly contributed to the storyline instead of distracting from the gameplay. And the ending, Wow....

The Bad
I mentioned the cut scenes. I didn't mention that you can't exit out of them. It's terrible if you get a long one just before a tough fight.

There's only one location in the game that I found that doesn't involve shooting. For an exotic place, I would have liked to seen other places where you can trade and complete quests.

Leveling of your characters isn't as clear a process as I would have preferred. A greater assortment of bad guys would have been nice too. Heck, More aliens with odd quests would have cool too.

And good lord, It's talky...

The Bottom Line
Lots of exposition and talking. The shooting is good, but probably much better on a PC.

But the story is the real gem of the game.

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've played Mass Effect a couple years after it came out and already made a significant splash on the RPG community. Although largely considered one of the best games of 2008 and heartily recommended by each and every one of my friends and associates I didn't really know what to expect from this game. I haven't been a fan of other space RPGs (such as the highly acclaimed Knights of the Old Republic; coupled with intense feelings after playing the fantastic Fallout 3, I wasn't really expecting a genre-redefining game. Let me settle this right here and now: I was totally blown away. Mass Effect is by and large the best game I've played in years.

To start with, the game exhibits top-notch production values. The sheer scope is mind-boggling; not since Star Control II have I experienced a game of such breadth and scope, taking care and time to ease the player into a massive game universe with diverse alien species, each of which has its own history and cultural baggage that bears in ever-so-subtle ways on the progression of the game. From the militaristic but sentimental Krogan through the ancient, misunderstood Asari, the short-lived but brilliant Salarians and down to the exceedingly original Hanar the Mass Effect universe is teeming with life. The amount of dedicated work necessary to bring such a complicated game universe to life is simply beyond my comprehension. The game shines with a coherent, compelling narrative that guides you through the various settings the game has to offer while providing ample opportunities for various side-quests, as with any good RPG.

Mass effect is absolutely beautiful, so beautiful I spent most of my first hours of gameplay just wondering around and gawking slack-jawed at the awesome intensity of the visuals. Everything from the impossibly detailed character models (particularly the aliens) through the sleek, futuristic yet serene Citadel to the marvelous planetside scenery is sheer bliss to look at (and this is a two year-old game, mind -- an eternity in 3D engine time!). I do not make the comparison to Star Control II lightly; that game also featured space exploration coupled with combat and surface exploration, and it seems the Mass Effect designers definitely took a cue from Star Control II in providing detailed planetary descriptions and semi-random surface generation for surface exploration. All said and done, the game is technically as impressive as I've ever seen.

Sonically Mass Effect is equally impressive, with a compelling score by Sam Hulick and brilliant voice acting that, at its best, shines with terrific contributions by the likes of Seth Green and Armin Shimerman (Quark in Star Trek: Deep Space 9); at it's worst it's merely decent -- production values that are light-years ahead of most games and which truly herald an age where such aspects of games aren't treated as low-priority.

Finally, the control system works quite well, the characters are easy to control and even vehicle movement makes sense. This is a major improvement over the occasionally choppy control system in other contemporary first-person RPGs, such as Fallout 3.

The Bad
I have few issues with Mass Effect. The first two are quite trivial; first and foremost, inventory management is significantly less developed than it ought to be. It's hard to tell which items are improved over others, it's quite easy to "lose" upgrades in unequipped weapons if you don't read the instruction boxes carefully, it's almost impossible to track how close you are to the 150-item limit and you'll often find yourself having to dispose of important weapons or upgrades instead of the crappy Lance assault rifle you've been carrying since the beginning of the game because you just didn't expect it to matter.

Next: the hacking/decrypting/surveying minigames are too easy, not nearly varied enough and too random to be effective (I've occasionally failed cracking open an easy crate because the block arrangement was nearly impossible to navigate, whereas a hard-to-decrypt weapons locker merely required a few careless keystrokes).

The bigger issue, though, is the inconsistent depth experienced throughout the game; whereas at first it seems the game world contains infinite possibilities for research and exploration, this sensation doesn't last past the first two or three quest assignments. Although huge and exciting, the main storyline becomes increasingly linear as it approaches endgame; this is admittedly a problem shared by most major RPGs, with very rare games managing to provide comparable breadth towards the end of the game as at the beginning. This is perhaps the one point in which Mass Effect falls just short of truly succeeding Star Control II as the ultimate space opera. Don't get me wrong, the game is never boring, it's just that your choices towards the end of the game are significantly constrained in contrast with the sheer expanse earlier on.

The Bottom Line
The best space opera I've played since Star Control II, as innovative and impressive in breadth and scope. As a huge SC2 fan, that's probably the biggest compliment I could pay this game. Play it, you will not be disappointed!