Mass Effect

Oct 13, 2009 | No Comments

Mass Effect is a role-playing game released on the Xbox 360 counsel in 2007.  It was developed by Bioware (the makers of Halo), and released on Windows in 2008.

The game takes place in the year 2183 and the player takes control of the character Commander Shepard.  Commander Shepard has just been promoted to the title of Spectre, an achievement no human has ever earned before.  Your primary mission is to track down and stop a rogue Spectre named Saren.  Saren has joined sides with the Geth, a technological race thought extinct for thousands of years, and is in pursuit of an ancient relic called  the beacon.  You and your ever growing crew are on close on his tail, but will you be able to stop him in time?

Mass Effect is most notable for its seamless game play.  It takes after several of its Bioware predecessors like “Knights of the Old Republic” by allowing the player to converse with just about every character in the game and choose the outcome of the conversations.  Though this is a little more of a time consuming way to play the game, its an excellent way to immerse the player in the world that they have spent so much time in building around the story.

However, this way of world building does have its drawbacks.  The conversations usually have several options to choose from with each exchange, and they all follow a predictable pattern.  Top right/left is the path of the good, middle right/left is the path of the neutral, and the lower right/left is the path of the bad.  This makes the conversations get boring after about five minutes and I found myself rushing through the conversation in hopes of getting back to the action of the game.

The second is when information is part of a conversation, when you get to the twelve hour playtime mark, the normal game player’s patience is wearing thin, the first person shooter personality they’ve been keeping at bay since hour five is now starting to show, and the opportunity to ask characters more information about their species or galaxies is an almost laughable option.

The character builder is another great feature that is worked into the game.  You can choose your sex, race, and even get so tedious with your character building to make Commander Sheppard to look just like you.  However, be forewarned, if you are looking to play the romance story plot, remember if you are a female you will have a girl on girl love story (easy boys…remember it’s just a game).

One problem I ran into when I first purchased this game (when it first came out), was some tech problems.  I was sold a defective disc, and then that defective disc was replaced with a SECOND defective disc.  I wasn’t able to completely play the Citadel until the firmware update and Xbox Live patch was released.  Then, upon my second play through, my original Xbox’s graphics card malfunctioned.  When I transfered my hard drive to the new Xbox…I lost all information about the game.  So I was a bit apathetic about picking this game up again.  Now I am happy to let you all know that this play was smooth and excellent.

Another problem that I had with the game was lack of achievements.  There were only 15 or 16 that you could earn, normally with games I’m used to racking these achievements up for simple things like drinking water from water fountains (see Ghostbusters achievements).  My gamers score didn’t suffer from the fifteen hours I logged in playtime, but it didn’t grow too entirely much.

The battle engine took some getting used to, but it was a much easier to figure out than Final Fantasy XII.  All the battles are intense as well.  Remember, when you choose your character class you will automatically be trained in two types of weapons.  I was a specialist in the pistol and the sniper rifle.  Yes, I beat this game primarily using a pistol.  Otherwise the battles are seamlessly worked into the game.  There is an auto target feature and the ability to customize all your weapons, so even if you are stuck with a pistol, you can make it one badass pistol.

Overall this game is phenomenal.  Even though I had a few glitches getting up and running I still give this game a 9.5 our of 10, and would put it in my top 3 RPGs of all time.  Even if you don’t think RPGs are your thing, totally pick this one up, you will be hooked.  I’m very much looking forward to Mass Effect 2….and the Mass Effect MOVIE!!!!!!

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