[review] Mass Effect – PC/360

I’m sick. I stayed at home today. Today is also a hallmark day in my gaming history, as Mass Effect 2, the sequel to one of my favorite titles, is released. I plan to pick it up tonight, but while I’m home, I figured I may as well publish a review for the first Mass Effect. Since I’m fairly new to this reviewing business, I’ll go blissfully and review each section of a game as I see fit. That being graphics, gameplay, story, and overall. Some may be excluded for other games which are generally not useful of some or most of these elements.

Graphics

To say that Mass Effect’s graphics aren’t impressive would be an easy lie – they are nothing short of impressive. While the 360 version suffers from some framerate droppings in heavily intensive areas, the PC version holds up (dependent on your computer, of course). Less impressive is the few graphical options that were offered on the PC version. While the ability to toggle motion blur and film grain are great, the fact that there is no anti aliasing option is dissuading. Generally, Mass Effect holds no issues with jagged lines, as it seems BioWare handled them well, but there were the occasional slips that made the experience more foreboding. Some lucky users may be able to force anti aliasing or anisoptric filtering through their graphics card control panels… force sampling, as to not prevaricate.

As impressive as they were, some planets were arduously redundant, not only in graphics but in the whole aspect of things (more on this later). Overall, the graphics were pleasing to the eye, albeit a few small technical issues. More could have been done, but it was a generally acceptable experience in this relation. The Verdict: 9/10.

Gameplay

I think BioWare had it in them to create a story and presentation driven game this time around – as with many of their games. Something about Mass Effect though, didn’t seem to live up to many of their other amazing titles in terms of gameplay. It presented a lackluster third person shooter, with extremely repetitive loot drops and easy combat. The gameplay was enough to make you want to skip it altogether in hope of reaching the next bit of revealing story. The cover system seems to work, but its held down by a simple and buggy “auto cover” system which prevents it from reaching its full potential.

There are six classes in Mass Effect. Each of them differ only slightly, incorporating either weapons, biotics (think the force in Star Wars), or tech (almost a physical version of biotics). The differences between all the classes make it awkward to choose – in one situation I was presented with being either an adept (strictly biotic) or vanguard (mixture of biotics and weapons). I went with vanguard. Why? The thing tugging me towards vanguard was the ability to use weapons and still have quite a few biotic abilities, something I passed over in previous playthroughs (this was my seventh). The one ability that gave adepts an advantage was my favorite – singularity. The name speaks for itself.

You are also in control of a squad of two other members – those of which you have the ability to select prior to entering a scenario. You cannot change mid game unless the option is presented (rare). Depending on the difficulty you select, your squad will be more or less a huge factor in surviving. You can command them, with some settings applicable in the menu to base them towards defense, offense, or both. Depending on the character, they will use skills themselves, but it is more essential that you pause the game using spacebar (or left bumper) and choose their tactics yourself.

On the PC version of Mass Effect though, is the much richer gameplay experience. As shown in the above photo, there is a quick slot feature, allowing for quick micro management during a battle so that you need not pause the action. Even if you were to pause the action, though, there is a much more duty free version of the rugged power wheel on the 360 version. Not only that, but the Mako – your vehicle for traveling grand terrain – is a vehicle not painstaking to drive. A multitude of other features are improved in the PC version as well, I not being able to list all of them as it is easily accomplished with a google search. If an option is available, do yourself a favor and purchase the PC version. I own both versions and this one is much better. This all came at a cost of a much later release date (although not the same issue with Mass Effect 2). The Verdict: 8/10.

Story

This is, without a doubt, the strong point of the game. Boasting a 30+ hour game (provided you complete all sidequests) in one playthrough, the anticipation to piece together the puzzle of Saren and his heresy is just the beginning of the trilogy. You recruit your squadmates fairly quickly. While a large focus of the game is morality, you sadly cannot dispose of your squadmates. It may just be that they are too persistent. Either way, they come in handy, and are necessary to defeat the threat looming over the universe.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

The game begins with you on a mission that turns out to be more than a simple “shakedown run” – you and your team are cautious of the Spectre on the team (who evaluates you for the mission). Spectres are hired by the council (the head decision makers of the galaxy) and have rights and privileges to do anything that sustains intergalactic peace. In the mission, you suffer the death of a teammate (which isn’t emotionally scarring in the least), and recruit a new one, who is a possible romance option. This once beautiful planet you land on was recently charred by the geth, a synthetic robotic race of beings who follow the reapers (more on this later). Turns out Nihlus, the Spectre who was to evaluate you, is killed by a once old friend who is also a Spectre, Saren. You eventually uncover a beacon on this planet which begins a toil of events that present the lawlessness and betrayal of Saren to the council. The council only seems to wish to thwart your attempts, but they become sane throughout the plot. Shepard (your character) becomes a Spectre, Saren is demoted of his Spectre status, and you start on a mission looking for the ‘Conduit’ – still a foggy figment of Shepard’s imagination, turns out to be the backdoor for the Reapers, a hyperadvanced machine race, to destroy everything once again.

After a huge turn of events you end up on Virmire – a gorgeous planet (somewhat shown in the picture above) and you attempt to thwart Saren’s operations. After what seems to be a failed attempt, you fly past the safe reaches of the galaxy onto Ilos, a deserted planet which was once a thriving place for Protheans (the last race that was killed by the Reapers). Here, Saren’s plans and the whole story unfolds in a magical way. You warp to the Citadel, and save humanity.

There is a lot of content I had to skip over for this section, while still riddled with spoilers. I recommend beating the game yourself, as it is truly an amazing story, which I’m sure only advances in the sequel. The Verdict: 9.5/10.

Overall

Mass Effect is a game you must play in this life. It blends worthy graphics and gameplay into a masterfully crafted story which leaves you begging for more (now available in Mass Effect 2!) While having its faults, they are not something to simply pass the game over for. If you’re a fan of third person shooters, and even RPG’s, you’re going to love this. There is a lot to say for this awesome title, much of which I couldn’t get to in a simple blog post with the time I have today.

The Overall Verdict: 8.8

Go purchase this now. Whether it be on Xbox Live’s Games on Demand or Steam, or at your local game store, it’s fairly cheap and worth every minute. Some completionists may be disappointed in the route of redundancy BioWare took, but it was just mere preparation for the fantastic offering of the sequel.

Mass Effect – buy it today!