Mass Effect

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!

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

• 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.