Review: Mass Effect

Gameplay: 7
Sound: 9
Graphics: 8
Value: 9
Overall: 9.1

The Good:
· Fantastic character design.
· Amazing story that doesn’t feel too cliché.
· Loads to explore, grand scope.

The Bad:
· Heavy loading.
· Average cover mechanics.
· Huge amounts of texture popping and frame-rate lapses.

Mass Effect is a game developed by Bioware who should be recognised for their work with the Knights of the old Republic series. Back on the original Xbox, KOTOR was a great action RPG set in the Star Wars universe, allowing you to make difficult decisions that would affect your character. The folks at Bioware have taken this further this time around in Mass Effect, and the decisions that you make will affect not only your character, but your relationships with other non-playable characters and the fate of the Universe.

Like all good RPG’s, Mass Effect opens with a character creation screen, allowing the player to apply a face and a gender to their character. Unfortunately, it’s nothing in comparison with some of the character creation options in other games to hit the market in the past couple of years like the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but just to have some kind of customisation is pleasant and is most appreciated. Besides, if you were able to be a different race it would mess up the whole story line...Enough said.

The basic premise in Mass Effect is similar to all of the other space Operas any self- respecting sci-fi geek can reel off. You play as a human Alliance by the name of Captain Shepherd. At the beginning of the game you are under the command of Captain Anderson, but events in the game mean that you fall into his position and take owner of his ship, the Normandy. One of the best things about Mass Effect is the amount of freedom you have as a player to choose what to do next. If you don’t feel like taking on your next mission, you can opt to stay on board for a while and talk with your crew. At the beginning of the game you’ll start with a human comprised team who you’ll be able to select from up to two people who will accompany you on your missions. This is quite a nice addition to the gameplay because each character can be unique in different abilities. For example, some characters are great soldiers, where as others might be weaker on the fighting but better at mechanics.

As you progress through the game you’ll come across new characters from alien races. It’s really interesting to see how the different species react to certain things that commander shepherd says and does. This is helped along by the excellent dialogue tree system. The best thing about Mass Effect is the script and the voice acting. Bioware set out to make a game that would allow the player to make “hard and meaningful choices”; they really have! Nearly every time somebody asks Shepherd something you’ll be faced with four or five choices that could have repercussions on your surroundings in totally major ways. The script itself is a testament to how much effort the guys in the writing team at Bioware have put into it. Without sounding too cliché, it manages to keep to a typical sensationalistic and over the top story line, which is almost unheard of in any kind of media. This is probably helped along by the amazing dialogue system, which keeps the player routed in the experience. The voice acting in the game is also top notch. It’s rate to find voice actors who collocate with their virtual characters, but in Mass Effect, that doesn’t appear to be a problem. The casting is really super, with a special appearance from Seth Green of Austin Powers, voice work just doesn’t get much better than this. Lip syncing is also up there with the best, which helps to get a level of realism into the characters, making the Alien races all the more believable.

As well as sporting some of the best voice-work in a game in recent times, it also boasts some impressive graphics. The most impressive aspect of the graphical stature of mass Effect are the character models; especially the alien ones. The best looking character on the game is Urdnot Wrex, one of the last krogan Battle Masters that joins your crew early on in the game. It’s really obvious that the artists had a hell of a field day coming up with a suitable image and colour scheme and as you can see, he’s one mean dude.

The image doesn’t do the graphics enough favours. The textures are really fantastic, especially on the characters, and you feel as though you could just reach out and touch everything around you. Unfortunately, at regular intervals throughout the game you’ll encounter quite a large amount of texture popping which can get quite irritating in the later stages of the game. As can the sometimes quite worrying frame rate slow-downs that occur whenever you get into a combat sequence. Apart from these two issues though, Mass Effect’s graphics are pretty top notch.

Speaking of combat sequences, the shooting in Mass Effect is good. It’s not great, but it’s good. The guns pack a significant amount of punch when you pull the trigger and you can add a significant amount of modifications to your weapons to make them interesting. The game also uses a basic cover system similar to...all of the other third-person shooters. It works for the most part and you can actually direct your teammates to get into cover as well. Mass Effect plays like a third person shooter you say? Then how is it an RPG? It’s a good question because it does play a lot like Gears of War or resident Evil 4. The difference here is the character progression, because just like in many other RPG’s you gain experience points for finding items and killing people and you can apply them to separate criteria like healing and mech. Depending on your individual play style you can customise not only Shepherd, but his companions, so you can make a balanced team, if that’s how you role.

As well as foot combat, there’s vehicular combat. When you choose your destination planet, you are ejected from your ship, the Normandy, in a large tank on wheels that can jump called the Mako. The Mako makes good for getting around in due to its reasonable speed and its ability to jump over small obstacles but it does have its’ problems. The turret that is mounted on the top of the Mako can only shoot on a horizontal plane. In other words, it you want to shoot something that’s higher or lower than you...well you can’t. It’s impossible. The other problem that it has is that you can’t be within a couple of metres of your target because the gun shots will pass straight over the heads of your foes, which can be terribly frustrating.

Despite these problems, Mass Effect is a very good Action - RPG with almost perfect production values. With a sensational story, a great original score that sounds like it’s been lifted straight out of an 80’s space opera and some good combat, Mass Effect is well worth the time of any fan of Action or role-playing games.

--Tom Rhodes 360Stage Editor--