Mass Effect

The Good

• Detailed, expansive, and interesting universe
• Charming, likable characters with solid voice acting
• Can be visually appealing when it wishes to be
• Highly accessible: A good "Starter" RPG.
• Decent overall story
• A good chunk of content to work with
• Excellent soundtrack
• Engaging & immersive

The Bad

• Gameplay tries to be everything and excels at nothing
• Inventory clutter
• Sloppy controls
• Many side quests rely on boring & recycled content
• Dialogue & writing sees frequent dips in quality
• Many classes feel useless
• Squadmate progression feels like an afterthought
• The story feels shorter than it should
• Marred with technical issues on PC
• Mako sections drag and are generally not fun
• Veterans of the RPG genre may find it shallow
• Awful UI

The Bottom Line
Mass Effect is, in my eyes, a thoroughly mediocre game. And yet it is one I will always cherish and remember. It is a game I have returned to multiple times and I am likely to play it once again in the future.

It all comes down to the fact that Mass Effect has a big heart. One full of life that never stops beating. You could tell that the developers and writers cared about the world they have created, and that love and passion shines so brightly that the universe portrayed in Mass Effect has become one of my favourite universes in the video game realm.

The game follows the exploits of one Commander Shepard. You can pick Shepard's gender and tweak their backstory. My preferred Shepard is typically female, though I have played through the game as different kinds of Shepards. In my latest playthrough, Shepard was a ruthless general who was known for botching a job and sending many brave men to their death. Yet despite her hard edged attitude, she was still always helping people. She wasn't cruel or evil... just a bit thorny.

It isn't the most complex or in-depth roleplaying system out there but I feel it is a very good "Starter" system. If you have not played many RPGs and are intimidated by the depth and complexity of many other RPGs, then Mass Effect is a great starting point. It gives you the thrill of crafting your own character with their own personality without forcing you to stare at complicated character sheets or manage an unruly amount of stats. Hardcore RPG veterans probably won't be massively impressed, as a huge fan of the genre I myself wished it had more depth to it, but I still enjoyed tinkering with it nonetheless.

In general the actual GAME portion of Mass Effect is its greatest fault. If you've played many third person action games from the last console generation (and this is very much a console game) then you may be familiar with many of Mass Effect's mechanics. You dive into cover, you pop out, and you shoot the other dudes popping in and out of cover.

This system is functional but only just. Cover is somewhat fiddly and your AI partners often fail to get into cover even when you order them to, which can lead to many frustrating incidents. The guns don't feel particularly fun or punchy unless playing on the easiest difficulty with the shotgun. Weapon mods and in particular elemental based mods DO add a little more fun, particularly the chemical rounds that reduce foes to a green smudge on the wall.

But much of the game's true appeal comes down to the characters and advancing the story. It isn't necessarily the most well written space opera out there, and in fact the dialogue and writing quality does fluctuate. Sometimes it is genuinely nuanced and well handled but other times it comes across as painfully corny. This is especially evident with the initial antagonist, Saren, who is far less interesting than the game's TRUE foe and never really manages to be all that intimidating. It's the rest of the cast (and even the game's other villains) who make it all so compelling.

At its best, you really do feel a connection with your crew. Commanding the ship is a fun power trip although the sequels do admittedly do a much better job of this. But that is something I will touch upon later down the line as I review them.

The game suffers in other areas as well. The UI is clumsy and in general a pain to work with, and it doesn't help that the game is constantly drowning you in useless items and it is all too easy to make the mistake of keeping them around as the game never actually informs you that there is a weight limit until it is too late and you are forced to melt items into Omni-Gel just to escape the menu. No, the game does not allow you to just leave items you don't want in a crate. If you open up the dialogue, you must either take all the items or melt them.

The game was clearly designed & optimized for a console and this does reflect not just in the UI but how the game controls as well. It is not an ideal set-up and takes quite a bit of time to get used to, especially during combat.

The PC port is also marred with various technical issues. One replay on my previous machine was even brought to a screeching halt due to an issue on modern AMD processors that caused part of the game to be nigh unplayable without making tweaks to how the processor handles the game. Needless to say not everyone will have the patience for that. And when playing it again for the sake of this review I encountered many hiccups and micro-stutters.

Yet it is still all saved because it opens the door to a world I didn't want to leave. The series would improve in many ways, but that is a topic for a different review down the line. Would I recommend Mass Effect? Yes, provided you enjoy a good sci-fi space opera. It is a rocky start for the franchise but if you find the universe compelling and the characters interesting as much as I do you may very well find yourself forgiving its many shortcomings.

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 clichéd 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! ™

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.

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!