Mass Effect

aka: ME1
Moby ID: 31277
Xbox 360 Specs
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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.

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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)

Great Story and decent game.

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.

Xbox 360 · by Scott Monster (986) · 2012

The expanding universe

The Good
Many things could be said about this great game. Mass effect is the beginning of something big, a new videogame universe with many possibilities is now open, and it's just the beginning. The similarities with the Star Wars saga are clear, a Citadel with a council that rules the destiny of many worlds, different species with different culture and history really attractive to be known, political matters or special combat units trying to keep the order in the galaxy, but that's not all.

Mass Effect is something more than a videogame with some Star Wars references, it's much better than that. Mass effect is a new universe for the player, with a perfect argument that could be the script of any successfully science-fiction film. The story is deep and interesting from the beginning to its ending, and it's because you can change many things of that with your decisions. In this game was really necessary to talk a lot, explaining the main story as well as other aspects such as creatures, political matters and other things. The need to talk was the reason to make a perfect system in which you can say anything you want, with that the game is more than bearable and you don't have to watch how they talk during hours. You'll have to say what you want almost every time, and what you say will have an effect on your mission and progress. If this system would have never existed the game probably would be boring and tedious with hours of talking and the player would lost the interest on the main story.

Beside the deep story, Mass Effect is also good as a game. Gameplay is good, with a tactical group battle system which is not explosive and spectacular but it's ok. You'll need some time to know how it works and many more to know how the weapon system works, with many weapons, different kinds of ammo and other item upgrades. It's a little confusing at the beginning but when you know how to deal with it you'll have no problem.

Graphics are beautiful, every world of the main story has many details and cinematics are good too, which is something important because the whole game is like a movie. Graphics of the secondary planets are a little bit repetitive but they're ok. Facial expressions are good and that's a good point to remark because you can customize your character, with the possibility of being a female character. All the members of your crew are well done too. No matter what character you make or if you use the default one, he/she will be charismatic. We're not talking about one of those games in which the main character don't say a word (it doesn't matter if he's about to die, he won't say anything!), here, Shepard will talk with everybody as a specter and will take care of anything that you want actively. Every character has their own way to be, with different points of view and they will give you their opinion during the game. Beside that they have different skills which makes the game more tactical.

The RPG elements are obvious, it's an action game mixed with some occidental RPG elements. You will gain levels destroying your enemies and you can win some skills with that, different weapons, lots of secondary objectives and different things to do in the order that you want to do.

Sound's good, specially the voices. Voice acting is a good point of the game, and as I said it's important for a game in which talking is something priority. FX is on a par and music is epic and emotive. it's background music at the beginning and maybe you won't even notice it, but when you progress in the game it changes to much more epic and moving.

The Bad
Beside some technical bugs, we have many other things that could be much better. To start with, game duration is short, really short. If you don't want to play the side quests you'll finish the game sooner than you expected. The storyline is short and it's a game made to be played with patience and, overall, doing the secondary objects, because if you don't do that you won't enjoy the game as it should be. You can finish the game with all the secondary quests in 35 hours or so, probably 25 of them are just for secondary missions. Linking with that, secondary objectives aren't spectacular, some of them are boring and just a message will tell you what's happening, something like "with that shot you've killed the enemy, go tell your friend what you've done". We understand that we can't have a cinematic for every secondary mission but... there are many other ways to make them more attractive.

Exploring the planets is cool, the Mako is easy to use but some of them looks like the shame. It's difficult to make an amount of planets, but some of them could be even more singular. You can climb almost every mountain, but there are some planets which have lots of them, and to drive the Mako on those planets is a little irritating. Also, there are many planets and you won't be sure about which of them you've visited, and that's not a help if you're one of those players that want to see everything of a game,

Battles are good, but maybe some explosions could make them much more spectacular. Anyway it's possible that the essence of the game would change because of that, so, that's just an opinion. What's not an opinion is the fact that weapon system isn't the best ever. You'll gain many objects during your battle, and you have to stop just to see what you've taken, and you'll spent A LOT of time in your inventory administering it. You don't have to do it just for you, you have to do it for the rest of your squad, and sometimes you will rule out some items which are better than yours without knowing it. For example, you can't compare the weapon you've just taken with the weapon of a squad member which is on the Normandy because you decided not to carry him with you. A game like this need to resolve that problem.

Difficulty is strange, it's probably one of the few games that has an inverse difficulty. When you start you'll be killed a lot of times, and that's not because you don't know how to play (it could help too anyway), that's because you don't have heavy weapons or special ammo. When you've played some hours and finished some secondary missions you'll gain extra items and it's going to be really easy to kill all your enemies. You'll gain extra skills too, and it looks like the enemies has the same level all the game (which is not true at all, but that's what it looks when you're playing) and that's why the game is difficult at the beginning and easier as you progress.

The Bottom Line
Mass effect is the beginning of a important saga, which needs some improvements in some aspects and much more length on its main playable storyline, but good enough to be one of the best games in some years mixing tactical action with RPG elements. If you love science-fiction movies don't doubt about playing it, the story is attractive enough to caught you from the beginning, short but really intensive.

Windows · by NeoJ (398) · 2009

A space odyssey of epic proportions

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.

Xbox 360 · by Zokolov (49) · 2012

[ 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 寒山端口 (Hánshān 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

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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.