Mass Effect

The Good

• Mass Effect has not only a fantastic story in terms of its scope and imagination, but the structure, pacing, and general presentation of the story to the player is truly superb. This game plays out more like a really well-written novel than a video game or (as some may be tempted to say) a movie. There is an incredibly detailed backstory, intertwining narrative threads, and a plot twist near the end of the game that caught me completely off-guard, yet turned out to be perfectly logical. This aspect alone makes the game worth playing, and sci-fi junkies will walk away extremely satisfied.
• Likewise, the game's characterization is fantastic. The myriad dialogue options allow you as the player to delve as much or as little as you wish into individuals' backgrounds. As a result, the player can become very emotionally invested in certain characters, and this does nothing but increase the game's immersion.
• There are often a number of dialogue choices in the game which can affect your character's good/evil alignment. Although this is by no means an original implementation, the ability to mold your character in such a way is always a welcome addition, and thanks to the game's brilliant writers, there are a number of different dialogue paths you can take through almost any given encounter.
• The voice acting in the game is mostly well-done. There are a few voice actors who noticeably overact occasionally (Ashley Williams tends to sound a little too passionate most of the time), but a greater number do the job very well (Garrus is probably the best example). In no cases is the voice acting stiff or monotone - it is well-balanced from beginning to end, and helps to make the dialogue portions of the game as interesting as any action part.
• The action elements in the game are top-to-bottom fantastic. Going into gunfights is simply fun, and the entertainment really doesn't wear off. There's also an interesting strategy element to such portions; your characters have biotic and tech abilities (the sci-fi analogue to magic in fantasy RPGs), some of which are offensive and others defensive, that can be used at any time in a battle. Although in many cases it's simple enough to just run in and blast everything that moves, just as often it's beneficial to take battles slower and use these abilities to maximize your squad's effectiveness. This gives combat a certain depth that enhances the game's replay value and keeps firefights from getting stale.
• There's a huge number of sidequests, all of which help flesh out the game's universe. Although many of the sidequests differ little from one another, they are a pleasant distraction that allow for extra experience and opportunities to find extra items. Most importantly, these sidequests can provide the player with abundant additional information on the Mass Effect universe, which gives the game significantly more depth.
• Mass Effect has an absolutely killer soundtrack. Most of the music in the game is of the spacey, electronic sort, but it fits the atmosphere splendidly, and often moderates the mood better than anything else. Also, the song played during the closing credits could not have been better-chosen.
• The game's graphics are gorgeous. Although the colors tend to be on the vivid side, I think the game's setting allows for it compared to a duller, more "realistic" color palette. Character designs are all well done, as are ship designs and cinematic sequences.

**The Bad**

• The gameplay tends to focus too much on an exploration mechanic that quickly wears out its welcome. Whenever you land on a planet, you are dropped in an all-terrain vehicle known as the Mako, which you can drive around on the surface. The map is typically marked at objects of interest, the variety of which is unfortunately small - crashed probes, mummified corpses, abandoned bases, that sort of thing. Visit five planets at random, explore them, and you'll have seen just about everything you'll encounter throughout the Galaxy, with few exceptions. Although you get different things when you scan these anomalies, it's a little disappointing to constantly run across the same objects over and over.
• There is distinct evidence of laziness on the developers' part with certain aspects of the game. Planets don't really look all that different from one another, other than different terrain shape and color. There's never any vegetation, rarely alien animal life, and never any cities or anything of the sort, except in storyline missions. Beyond this, it seems that all bases and underground mines established on planets throughout the Galaxy have the exact same layout. You can go across light-years of space to the other side of the Galaxy, and whatever rogue base that you're trying to take down on whatever obscure planet it's on will have the exact same shape and size as a completely unrelated base elsewhere. Besides simply smacking of laziness, it makes the game much more boring, because now you can't even enjoy the scenery.
• Sidequests are all mostly the same. They're either fetch-quests or mercenary ones, where you simply go to a planet and wipe out the bad guys, and few stray very far from here. Although the combat is fun, going through the motions gets rather stale, and near the end I found myself getting frustrated with doing them.
• Absolutely horrendous inventory management. There is no way to organize any of the items you get, making scrolling through them to get to what you want a pain, more often than not. Although there is a basic organization feature built in to the game (all your items are divided by type), a simple "alphabetize" option would have helped enormously, especially because many weapons have the same name, but a different number after them (i.e. a Stiletto VI pistol, which is better than the Stiletto III). Adding upgrades to armor and weapons just complicates the inventory screen further, and as it is it's mostly a huge mess.
• Item overload. There are too many crates, too many secure boxes, too many weapons lockers, etc. that you come across in the game. When you open these (or hack them), you tend to get weapons and upgrades. It's nice, especially in the beginning of the game when you don't have much, but in the mid-to-late game, you find this stuff EVERYwhere, and it gets to be a hassle to manage, especially because you tend to get duplicates and it's hard to remember which guns you have and which you don't. I spent a LOT of time near the end of the game going through all my weapons and discarding what I didn't need, which was almost everything. There are simply too many versions of weapons, and the developers could have reduced the number such that coming across a new weapon was actually a big deal; instead, getting a new weapon is an entirely trivialized event that you'll eventually just get annoyed with.
• The game tends to suffer from occasional slowdown, something I feel should be absent from console gaming altogether. Although this only tends to happen right after entering a new area (i.e. the game is still loading when you begin) or right after autosaving, there were several instances where there was simply too much on the screen and the game slowed down. This is hardly a major issue, but it happened enough to be aggravating.
• The AI is not great. Although I did die several times through my play on Normal difficulty (which was otherwise a cakewalk), such instances were due more to my own stupidity or impatience than because the AI did something particularly clever. Most of the time, enemies will just rush at you and you can simply blast them away, or they'll hide in the same spot behind cover until you come up behind them and kill them.
• Elevators. These "loading screens" take forever - up to a minute or more on the worst occasions. Especially in the beginning of the game, when you're on Citadel, you have to use elevators frequently and too much time is spent in them.

**The Bottom Line**
Overall, Mass Effect is a game worth playing for most, and there are a number of people out there who will play through it multiple times. It's a game that succeeds mostly on its writing and its design, less on its gameplay, and not at all in its organization. Ultimately, its a bipolar game in the sense that most people are going to be enjoying themselves most either when they're learning about the rich and detailed history of Galactic civilization, or when they're blasting enemies away with their Assault Rifles. Even though the game is filled with a significant amount of filler material, the game is incredibly fun. I just finished and I already want to play through again, even in spite of the large amount of complaints I have. When the game gets it right, it gets it right, and the result is an uneven but ultimately satisfying experience.

The Good
I'm probably the wrong person to review RPG's mainly because I'm not true to the genre. I've mostly played more of the modern releases and some D&D based one's which would include Neverwinter Nights and Rage of Mages not forgetting some JRPGs.

When I look at Mass Effect though I see a RPG made purely on being accessible. And the sales and popularity behind this game proves this, as it has attracted even people not familiar with the genre. It's hard to review this Bioware title according to Mobygame's format because where Mass Effect tends to have a good it also has a bad.

But ignoring the gameplay for a while, the graphics are fantastic. Art direction maybe a bit cliched in the Sci-Fi theme. But the visuals work very well and thanks to the Unreal Engine I'm guessing this console to PC port didn't come with much graphical bugs or surprisingly no technical issues which tend to haunt many modern RPG games.

Mass Effect lets you customize your character from the looks to the Class which the game explains and also the starting skills. You can choose a male or female character with the last name “Shepard” and what's awesome is that they're both voiced. Jennifer Hales performance as the female Shepard is solid, not forgetting the rest of the characters too; topped off with beautiful character modeling and expressions which in all adds a strong foundation to the story telling. Speaking of which the storyline is nothing too original but at least they created a whole fictional universe and lore. The game provides a codex in which you can explore and read about the universe, technology and characters. Traveling to planets has been presented well too with the galaxy map and all. And there's nothing like the feeling of having your own ship “The Normandy”.

The combat system is similar to a shooter in the veins of Gears of War or Rainbow Six: Vegas. You got the cover system and can choose 2 team mates to assist you. Leveling up your character is pretty much the usual gain XP, gain points and spend it to unlock more skills based on which class you take. From there it's your typical RPG where you have a main plot and side quests.

The Bad
The Side-quests however make the game uninteresting. This is a RPG and side-questing is an important part of them. Mostly you travel to barren planets, drive the oversensitive vehicle, investigate which is mostly that hacking mini-game which is overused like crazy! Then go rescue/shoot a few turrets/enemies. Nothing really creative although I had to chase little monkeys for some gadget it had stolen...yes I'm serious. Seems like they were lazy and only focused on the main plot. Which I will admit to some point is good, the characters are memorable but follow a usual formula, there will be the love interest, the Bi curious, the serious mature one. Saren, the main villain is forgettable, the Asari Matriarch who assists him in the start was more memorable thanks to her Asari boobs of course. If it ain't side-quest or the main plot it's console game quests like the hidden briefcases in Rainbow Six. Find all minerals, find tags oh and surveying planets is really stupid.

There is the so called “revolutionary” dialogue system which is basically the dialogue options appearing before the character finishes talking (what is that like 2 lines of code?). Most of the time your character will say something far from what you've actually selected. If you select for e.g. the option “Okay follow my orders and you will be fine” your character will end up speaking something like “Yeah keeping it real aite” or “Bush did 9/11” it actually deviates far from the chosen words.

Who am I kidding? The port is actually terrible when it has to be. The User Interface is abysmal and maintaining your inventory is a pain really.The Dialogue system could use a mouse pointer instead of the analogue-like selection. Many times I've selected the wrong dialogue as my mouse jerked a bit before I could click.

Team mates A.I is terrible and to top things off commanding them or positioning them is just as bad an idea as having rough sex with Paris Hilton without protection. Your better off just leaving them to do their own shit. This area supposedly had improvements over it's xbox brother.

The Bottom Line
Mass Effect is basically a 12-15 hours game with the remaining 20-30 hours being fillers. Not saying it's a game to avoid but going into it with no expectation is probably the only way to be satisfied with it. Or maybe playing this after Dragon Age: Origins is a bad idea (yes I did that).

The Good
I've been a fan of BioWare ever since they entered the RPG stage with the legendary Baldur's Gate. Needless to say I was very excited when I heard about Mass Effect, ready to trust the crafty Canadians even after a few hiccups. I grabbed the game immediately. I played it non-stop, having some of the longest gaming sessions in recent times. And, even though it managed to confirm some of my darkest suspicions concerning BioWare's new design philosophy, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.

Mass Effect is a game with a lot of charisma, ranging from cheap bravado to serious cinematic appeal; it cleverly cheats its way out of situations another game would surrender and collapse in.

Many people see the new combat system as a drawback. I think they did pretty well, given the impossible task of combining fast-paced shooting with party management and role-playing. In any case, this is a definite improvement over the paltry choices of Jade Empire. You have a fully controllable party, weapons, armor, upgrades, etc.

A nice gameplay feature is the ability to navigate a "mako", an armored vehicle with guns, through the outdoor areas of most planets. The weapons mounted on the mako are very powerful, and it's fun to use them in combat against the many enemy ambushes you'll encounter on your way. There are many planets you can simply go to and drive around in your mako. You cannot land on all of them, but there are still enough left to explore and to look for side quests. In comparison, Knights of the Old Republic games didn't allow you to go to any planets but those that were required to visit in order to complete the main quest.

Many of the things you say, many of the decisions you take will leave their mark on the game's story. Some of those decisions are tough and go beyond being nice or rude to someone. At one point of the game, you'll have an opportunity to commit a genocide against a race that is perceived as incurably violent by nearly everyone. However, the representative of the race promises you that they have learned their lesson and will never attack anyone again. Will you risk putting peace and safety in the galaxy in danger, or will you exterminate an entire race of living creatures? The choice is yours. At another point, you'll have to take a life and death decision concerning two of your party members. You won't be able to rescue them both, but you will be able to choose whose life you'll save. Which one will it be? It's a shame such meaningful choices are few and far between.

Keeping a well-known BioWare tradition intact, Mass Effect pays a lot of attention to companions. Each party member comes with sharply defined backgrounds, personalities, opinions, etc. Very often party members will interfere in your dialogues, agreeing or disagreeing, stating their opinions, giving you advice. Sometimes I wanted to replay an entire location just because I was interested what other party members would say about what I did. Companions will comment on situations, talk to each other, and generally will always be present. After each major quest, more conversation topics will be open for you with each companion. You can take your time and get to know them all, find out more about their past, their opinions, their personality. And of course, what would a BioWare RPG be without romance? As a male Shepard, you can have love affairs with two female members of your party; as a female Shepard, you can romance a male human soldier, and a sexy female human-like alien. And oh, naturally there is the famous lesbian sex scene that caused so much controversy...

Mass Effect has good writing. Most BioWare games shine in this department, and this is certainly no exception. The writing is fluent and natural, it never gets awkward or too sophisticated, but also never oversimplifies things. Many of the dialogues have that particular fine sense of humor those games are known for.

However, what I liked most about Mass Effect is its ability to create a new world from scratch and immerse the player into it. In that respect, it is like a good sci-fi book, the first part of a series set in an original universe that compels you to get the sequels and have the entire collection. Even though the setting of the game is a rather standard sci-fi, complete with spaceships, different alien races, advanced robotic creatures etc., the developers brought it to life thanks to their dedication. They have created a whole universe in Mass Effect, and that universe became the undisputed star of the nascent franchise and the main justification for its existence.

Though a lot of its themes were hastily taken from various works of American science fiction literature, Mass Effect does manage to combine popular sci-fi tropes with interesting nearly-philosophical speculations and convincing depiction of a vast alien world. It almost makes the universe of Star Wars feel superficial and lacking detail. While in Star Wars there are all kinds of alien races, we never really learn much about them. They are all just aliens, weird or funny creatures. In Mass Effect, every race is described in detail, having its own characteristics, history, social system, customs, values, etc. I've rarely seen alien races so vividly portrayed, so interesting and memorable - surely not since Star Control II a while ago. It's a pleasure to just read the in-game "codex" - information about races, locations, scientific terms, and history of the game's universe. In Mass Effect they have created a setting that could serve as a great background for many stories.

The Bad
There is no way around the fact that BioWare is getting lazy, and unfortunately Mass Effect displays clear symptoms of that disease. The biggest drawback here is the size of the game's locations. I know it probably sounds strange, since there are all those planets you can explore, but the problem is that the planets themselves only offer a very small area for exploration. Same applies to the planets you have to visit as part of the main quest progression: they all consist of a small settlement, that is typically connected by a strictly linear route (on which you drive the mako) to a dungeon-like location.

What I personally missed most of all in Mass Effect are all those large urban locations from other RPGs, in which you can talk to hundreds of NPCs and undertake many side quests. The locations in the game are severely underpopulated. While some characters offer extensive conversation trees, often with interesting personal questions and alike, others either blurt out short, simple lines, or won't talk to you at all. I like the feeling of being lost in a huge, bustling city, exploring it, listening to the latest gossip, talking to everyone, and interfering myself in the local matters. Alas, Mass Effect doesn't really have that. The only location that comes remotely close to that is the Citadel, the main "hub" of the game.

This lack of population and activity probably harms Mass Effect more than it would many other games. The game is set in a very detailed universe, with many distinct alien races and cultures. How exciting would it be, for example, to visit a Turian megalopolis, or a beautiful Asari city! Sadly, there is nothing of that sort in the game. The planets that you can land on are for the most part colonies, with ugly-looking settlements and nothing more. Mass Effect is not very pleasing aesthetically. There is hardly a location that would stun you with its beauty. It is always the same unexciting architecture all over again. Even the dungeons look very similar to each other. There is a certain lack of life in the game's locations, which is even more noticeable when compared to the outstanding liveliness of the characters.

The side quests of Mass Effect are surprisingly uninspired. We are not talking S.T.A.L.K.E.R. here, but compared to previous BioWare games, this offering is less than satisfying in that aspect. The few interesting side quests are quickly dissolved into the many similar "go there, kill everyone, come back, get the reward" assignments. Granted, there are many side quests in the game, since there are so many locations. Unfortunately, the quantity hasn't really translated into quality here.

The paragon-renegade moral system sounds good on paper, more like a law-chaos axis than a good-evil one, like in Shin Megami Tensei. But in reality, the system is nearly always used for plain old good and evil decisions rather than lawful and chaotic ones. Sure, in some instances the game does use its system properly (like whether to report everything to the Council in a paragon fashion or just do your thing on your own, renegade-wise), but many other choices are just standard black and white decisions, much like Jedi and Sith in Knights of the Old Republic games. For example, exterminating a race for the safety of the galaxy is actually a pretty paragon (lawful) decision, while letting it develop, with unforeseen consequences, is much more chaotic (renegade). Yet you score paragon points for sparing the race, because it would be the morally good thing to do. The Council - the very incarnation of the paragon system - actually reprimands you for doing that! Which is another proof that something went wrong with implementing this system.

A minor annoyance for me was the fact that most of Shepard's responses didn't correspond to the conversation choices that were presented to me. Often I would choose a response only to have Shepard say something quite different from what I intended. Sometimes Shepard would change the tone of the conversation without me actually wanting that. That makes it pretty hard to make choices during dialogues. Also, some of the choices suspiciously lead to the exact same answer, adding to confusion and making me wonder why they were made available in the first place.

The Bottom Line
It's tough for someone with classic preferences in role-playing games to appreciate Mass Effect. It is in many ways a typical modern game, and a typical product of commercialized BioWare, with some serious corners cut and efforts spared. It's fun, but there is no denying the fact that deep role-playing has given way to lesbian romances and merry shoot-outs in space where no one can hear you copy-paste.