The E3 showing of Mass Effect 2 pushed me to (finally) borrow a 360 and finish the first game of which I always heard it was this incredible masterpiece.
First of all let me tell you I'm a Science Fiction fan, and by that I mean I read books and watch tons of SF movies, even SF anime. Mass Effect was very appealing to me, more so than games from the KOTOR series (since I don't like anything Star Wars aside from the original trilogy, go figure...), and I also enjoy shooters and RPGs so I'm surely in the right demographic the game is aimed at.
I don't want to make this too long so I'll try to be concise. The atmosphere of the game is very well done, the universe seems huge and, although empty for the most part, all the background story and data the creators have provided really draw you in a very immersive way. The main plot was bland and lineal, as it had few to none dramatic twists, and with such a good background story and universe I couldn't help feeling disappointed it wasn't more developed. The only instance I really felt the plot was picking up for me was near the end when your group reaches Vigil. Sadly the only good parts of the plot (except for Capt. Anderson knocking the shit out of Udina) were all presented in form of conversations with characters standing still.
The Paragon/Renegade decisions were a nice, but not unlike many other things in the game it lacked polish and development. Almost all the time it really doesn't matter what you choose to say, the outcome is the same, or even if changes it adds just as little to the plot. One thing I won't complain about is that it made the interaction with NPCs more dynamic. Mass Effect has the best animated NPC interaction of any RPG I’ve played. The conversations feel natural and fluent and while it’s true most of the interaction was just smoke and mirrors to make you feel you were in real control of the conversation, I have to admit it did work. It was nice to control a protagonist who does more than stand still listening to what every NPC has to say and never gets the player involved.
Unfortunately, that’s as much praise I can grant to Mass Effect. In the end, the whole experience seems so incomplete. RPGs like Elder Scrolls have made me realize I can’t expect too much of the main story, but why is that? I’ll find many sub-missions that will flesh out the personalities of the members of my squad, but most of them are full of stuff that is nothing but chores to earn money (many times irrelevant sums of it) or collect items (which are not cool at all, nor needed to finish the game). When I have a whole cool universe at my disposal I want to be able to do cool stuff in it.
That’s where the action part comes in. The action is so boring and…primitive. Yeah, you have techs, but the same shooting you do the first 10 minutes into the game is the same shooting you’ll be doing through the whole game. Nothing changes, there’s never anything spectacular about the weapons or the techs you gain. Different ammo, different upgrades (tons and tons of it) and you really don’t notice what so many stuff is good for. I hate that in just about any genre, when a game keeps giving you tons of shit to tinker with in the end it’s all shit. Same goes for the enemies, of course, if your arsenal is crappy, don’t get me talking about the enemies which are far worse. Your AI partners do many stupid things too, they never get intrusive as say walking around with two “Shevas” (from Resident Evil 5 = annoying AI), but they do lots of stupid things like getting stuck somewhere in the stage, ignoring your commands (taking cover) and other glitch-related nuisances (like disappearing from the action scene. Yes, it happened to me more than once.) Overall the combat is not helped by the graphical problems of the game, pedestrian framerate (this is just everywhere and anytime in this game), poor drawing distance, massive (no pun intended) texture pop-in and collision detection faults. Bioware didn’t make good shooting action, and the RPG scheme which ties in the action is vague and uninspired, that doesn’t make for good or compelling gameplay.
I think I’ll cut short the rant right here and quickly say I’d wish they had more story development since that would’ve been a lot more preferable to make up for the weak action sequences (this is an RPG after all). That development would’ve definitely help the game if it had centered more on the characters, the villains and heroes, punctuating and dramatic twists accompanied with better cinematic presentations too. Overall it’s still a good game, very nice graphics and detail-rich environments, glitches and programming shortcomings notwithstanding. I truly can’t begin to understand why I game with so many flaws can be reviewed by so many so-called professionals and be awarded perfect to almost perfect scores. The game is solid and I must say I’m still excited about the second one, but honestly I’ll have to wait and see if Bioware has really put in the work the vision they provided with the first game demands and deserves. Mass Effect is not a must-have or must play unless you really enjoy science fiction and can put up with the so many and often irritating technical (and to some extent design) flaws of the game. It’s a little surprising Bioware had such a weak outing for a first game of an original series like this considering their past efforts for the strong Star Wars franchise. At least I’m pleased they’re doing something different. 7.5/10
