![]() Mass Effect
Submitted Monday, March 3, 2008 - 3:15:17 PM by Klaitu
What a wonderful game!
I guess I sort of give the whole review away in that sentence, but allow me to elaborate.. Mass Effect is the sort of game that only comes around once every decade.
 Mass Effect feels like the spiritual successor to Star Control or Future Worlds 1. There's an RPG element, and also an exploration element, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
In Mass Effect, it's been 26 years since Humans discovered alien life. The aliens have already established a near-galaxtic government.. akin to Star Wars. Humans want to get in on the governmental action, but are seen as newcomers to the galactic scene.
The plot involves a group called the Spectres. It's a secret agent group that operates for the galactic government. The Spectres are given pretty much unilateral authority to do whatever they want. That's where you come in.
Throughout the game you are given options to respond in a fair manner, or a ruthless manner. Sometimes it doesn't really matter, sometimes you can avoid a fight by going one way or the other. Sometimes the result is the same, but how you get there is different.
You've got a ship called the Normandy, it's flown by Seth Green, which is pretty cool. When you're not pursuing the plotline missions, you're free to explore the galaxy. You can survey planets, track down asteroids to mine, and even land on some planets.
Turns out the universe is chock full of bad guys hiding out on backwater planets.
If you keep up on these things, you'll note that Mass Effect was recently the subject of a big "sex scandal". Yep, that's right, one of the romantic plots culminates in a sex scene. In fact, that's probably the reason the game has an M rating.
As someone who has seen the sex scene, I'm going to have to give a big thumbs down to the people making a big deal out of it. It's similar to the sex scene in Top Gun, except it lasts about 30 seconds, and it doesn't show any "parts". It's actually quite stylish.
Voice acting throughout the game is tremendous! It's got a lot of people you've heard of before.. Seth Green, Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman, Dwight Schultz.. it's even got Lance Henriksen in it. Whos Lance Henriksen? He's Bishop from Aliens. That's who!
Anyways, even the people you've never heard of before do a great job, most of the voice actors have a huge video game voiceover list. At no point did I feel the voice acting was hammy.
Mass Effect, while being a great game, does have some flaws though.
Perhaps it's just my Xbox, but the game kept freezing for me. With the game in the vertical position, it would freeze up once every 10 minutes or so. In the horizontal position it would freeze once every 6 hours. I don't know that this is a problem with the game itself, but it certainly impacted my gameplay. Consoles are supposed to be stable, and mine isn't.
The game as a whole lacks polish. I get the sense that the developers ran out of time or money, and needed to get a completed product on the shelves. They did a very good job prioritizing the stuff that "needed" doing, and the stuff that was less important. At least, that's how the game feels.
In Example: the gameplay is great. Most of your time you and your squad will be taking down aliens in a sort of Gears of War/Uncharted playstyle that works amazingly wall. However, you'll be doing this combat in one of about 6 different structures that the game has. It gets pretty repetitive when you enter a new area and automatically know the layout.
The Graphics look great, but they're not always fully loaded. Sometimes it takes a minute or two for the game to get all the detail in there. This doesn't affect the gameplay much, but you're going to notice it.
The Sounds are a mixed bag. The chosen sound effects are great picks. They sound like you would expect without going over the top. The sound balance, however, is horrible. It's sometimes impossible to hear important characters speaking because there are sound effects or music that are played over the top of them. Fortunately, you can adjust at least the music downwards so you can hear more clearly.
The soundtrack.. Well, I want to say something positive here, but quite honestly, the soundtrack is weak. There's no need for such a crap soundtrack in a game like this. It's another thing that seems like they ran out of time on.
The.. spaceflight system is certainly a major hitch in the otherwise excellent gameplay. You choose your destinations via a very well constructed holographic map. It looks pretty neat, but it's really only a fancy level select menu. In a future installment, I'd like to fly the actual ship, or barring that at least watch the ship fly to its destination. As it stands, you click, watch a loading screen, then select your party. Lots of untapped potential here.
My biggest complaint with the game is how short it is. There are 8 main plot quests and maybe a hundred side-plot quests. I completed every single one of them (except the collections quests) in under 25 hours of gameplay time. In a game about space exploration, this shouldn't happen.
Then there are the little things:
- In the entire galaxy there are maybe 10 outfits that people wear.
- All Humans wear the same clothes.
- Everyone who has hair either has it buzzed short, or it's glued to their head.
- Mass Effect is home to the world's slowest elevators. The elevator in your own spacecraft is ridiculously slow, taking nearly a full minute to go one floor.
- You spend quite a bit of time in your planetary rover, but unlike most other things in the game, it can't be customized or upgraded.
- Whoever designed the armor had some pretty atrocious color choices in mind. White and Pink? For a space marine? Come on!
Anyway, having said all that, Mass Effect is still a great game! I highly recommend it, and hopefully whenever they make Mass Effect 2 they'll be able to put more bells and whistles in.. and a soundtrack that isn't useless.
Personally I'd like to be able to scan down ships within a solar system, knock down their defenses with my ship, and then board the ship for either piracy purposes or "stopping evil cargo" purposes.
Here's looking at you, Mass Effect 2!
Overall Score: 8 of 10
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