Mass Effect Review

By Jason Nimer

Mass Effect was one of the “big three” new IP’s Microsoft has counted on, as far back as before the launch of the 360, to make their new console the clear winner this generation (I said “new,” Halo doesn’t count). The other two were Gears of War and BioShock, and look how well those turned out; both games have lea the list of awards their respective years of release. Gears took home a number of GotY wins last year, and BioShock is on the short list of games people believe have a shot a GotY 2007. Mass Effect is, at least in my mind, the third AAA promise Microsoft made to console shoppers, and now that it is out, it’s safe to say that Microsoft is three for three with their new IPs.

Mass Effect is the newest game from the revered RPG company Bioware, the people behind Jade Empire and the two Knights of The Old Republic Star Wars games for the original Xbox. While those games all hold a special place in memory as some of the more enjoyable post-16 bit RPGs, after playing Mass Effect I feel like Bioware was limited in its ability to craft the kind of RPG they wanted, simply because of the restrictions of the original Xbox hardware. With the 360’s upgrades, Bioware has created not only one of the best RPGs ever, but possibly one of the most involved, customizable and complicated games this side of World of Warcraft or EverQuest.

The game puts you in charge of a fully customizable character named… well, whatever you want. John Shepard is the default name, but I chose to name my character Vinz Clortho (anyone get the reference?). Selecting names is only the beginning; you’ll be selecting gender, a backstory, a character specialty and best of all, exactly what you want your character to look like. I was unenthused over The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion’s customization mode; all the races and faces were either completely hideous or near identical to about five others. Mass Effect uses the same ideas for character creation, except the end result doesn’t end up looking like something that lurks in an eight-year-old’s closet waiting for the light to go out.

Once you’ve got your character, get ready for the best thing to happen to space since Star Trek was cancelled. You’ll be tossed almost immediately into a burgeoning galactic war. It seems a sinfully ugly alien named Saren is after some ancient relics and has enlisted the help of a sub-human mechanical race called the Geth to help him out. Sure it sounds like, well… every single other game ever made, but trust me; what I’ve just told you is only the first half-hour of a game that could take you well over 200 hours to complete. Soon, you’ll be tossed into wars between governments and races, a love story and so many characters that you might need to take notes on who’s who.

On top of that, your decisions in the game affect everyone and everything around you. If you decide to be a jerk, your story will have a more negative, hostile streak to it. Choose to be good and you can save the entire universe. This is the first time I’ve even seen a “choices” game that isn’t a sophisticated Pick Your Own Adventure storybook. Every response, every action… everything has an impact on where the story is going and why.

I see Mass Effect the same way I see Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ or Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections;’ the stories and characters are so well-crafted, you’ll find yourself missing them long after you finish. This could possibly be the very best video game story of all time, and yes, that includes Final Fantasy VII.

The graphics and sound are another high point, though a few minor issues keep them from being as impressive as the story. All the characters and locales look magnificent. The humans could very well be actors in a TV show and in HD, you could swear they look more human than a lot of people on prime time television (I’m looking at you, Desperate Housewives and Designing Women). To understand just how detailed everything and everyone is, you’ll need to actually play the game yourself. There is just no way to describe it in writing.

The sound is almost as good, though one major hiccup keeps it from comparing the graphics and story. The music in the game is very appropriate, swelling in the heat of battle and remaining low in more laid-back portions of the game. The use of wailing guitars and heavy drumming has been done to death in video games, with pubic enemy #1 being Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Thankfully, Mass Effect’s background music sounds more like the score to a major motion picture mixed with the Metroid Prime soundtracks than a high school garage band. You probably won’t be humming any of these tunes anytime soon, but they fit in and enhance every aspect of the game.

The gameplay, like the sound, has one problem, but we’ll get to the negatives in a bit. Mass Effect plays like the action RPG offspring of Gears of War and Final Fantasy. You’ll be leveling up and gaining experience by killing enemies and completing missions like in any RPG, but the fighting is all action-based. You won’t be using any stupid menus to destroy your enemies; it is all ready, aim and fire. The Gears of War “run and hide” mechanic is almost identical in Mass Effect, though it doesn’t work as well. In Gears, you were forced to use cover, but this game’s odd cover controls make it more of a hassle than anything, especially when strafing works as good or better nearly ninety-nine percent of the time.

Running and gunning isn’t the only thing you’ll be doing in Mass Effect. You’ll be exploring literally dozens of planets, each with their own inhabitants, structures and missions. The game is the very definition of non-linear. At any time (after a certain point early in the game), you have the option of using your spacecraft, which will take you wherever and whenever you want in the universe. You won’t actually be in control of the ship, but you will get to drive the Mako, a kind of six-wheeled, quick-moving tank. Sadly, it controls about as well as a mailbox with three wheels. Imagine if Halo’s Warthog had a broken steering column and you’ll have an idea of how bad the Mako drives. It’s ok; the rest of the game is good enough to suffer through these sequences.

No game is perfect, and Mass Effect isn’t an exception to that rule. Aside from the Mako being a pain, there are a couple of other problems that keep Mass Effect from being perfect.

The main problem is that the combat often works in exactly the opposite way that Bioware had in mind. They touted the ‘run and gun’ thing for months, but in practice, it’s worthless. A few encounters jump to mind where using cover is necessary, but for the most part, you’ll find using cover more of a hassle than help. You’ve got to applaud Bioware for trying to get a shooter and an RPG together, but maybe they should have played a few more shooters before attempting one. It is obvious after just a few minutes in combat that the game was made by RPG people, not action gamers.