By Seán O’Brien

@ATWSean96.

Hello everybody and welcome to my first review for Press X to Start. For this review I decided to take a look at one of my all time favorite game series’ Mass Effect. Having completed the trilogy again recently in preparation for Andromeda later this month. Let’s start at the beginning. This is my review of Mass Effect 1.

Plot: Mass Effect follows Commander Shepard (gender, first name and origin are left to the player) and his team, that the player must assemble themselves by travelling across the galaxy to recruit them, as Shepard faces the biggest threat to the known galaxy and all of its inhabitants a rogue Spectre agent trying to bring back the massive, world ending Reapers.

Gameplay: Gameplay is divided into three main sections – exploration, third person combat and crafting upgrades and weapons for Shepard’s ship the Normandy. This can be really fun sometimes, especially when it involves going to the surface of a new planet and discovering materials or a new side quest to keep you occupied but I was very disappointed that you couldn’t explore every planet as the majority of them you just scanned and moved on. Exploring the Normandy was really fun and interesting and I had a great time trying to figure out what area of the ship the new squad mates would hang out in. The main gameplay is a basic third person cover shooter with some extra powers and abilities depending on what class you picked for Shepard and what team mates you used on the missions. My personal favorite companions were Wrex and Liara because I liked the combination of biotic powers and Wrex’s combat skills. I also enjoyed how you could choose to end most situations without a fight depending on whether you chose the Renegade (evil) or Paragon (good) options.

Overall impressions: I loved this game and revisiting it was an absolute joy. I love the interactions with Shepard and his squadmates and the way you can end a fight by talking your way out of it. I also loved the sense of scale and incredible vastness of the game, you have entire Galaxies and solar systems to explore and each one feels unique and different. However I didn’t enjoy the restrictions in the missions, the Mako tank is a pain in the ass to drive and the scan and move on planets annoyed me. Final score: 7/10.

All that being said, I love this game as a jumping on point for the series and if you haven’t played it yet then what are you reading this for?

Thank you for reading my review, I have been Seán (@ATWSean96) this has been the Press X to Start podcast (@pressxstart) and I’ll see you in the arcades!