I’ve finally decided to beat Mass Effect. “Decide?”, you may ask. Yes, decide. I almost didn’t want to complete the game because I wanted to see and do everything the game offered. I was truly, and am still quite addicted to this game universe. Bioware as done such an exemplary job at story telling, character development, and visual creation you really want the story to continue well after the main objectives have been met.

Story

Since the game will be coming to PC, eventually, I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone, but I will confirm that it is worth waiting and playing for. Everything you do in game, from talking to people, killing them, or helping them affects the story and the world around you. And Yes, there is some alien pussy to shoot for as well.

Control

On top of a great story and convincing universe there’s also the gameplay, which successfully merges a number of game styles very well. For the FPS (or in this case TPS) fan there’s guns, grenades, and a crosshair. For the strategy fans there’s a time-freezing abilities selection screen and group tactics. For the RPG fan, you can kill, loot, skill, and level your customizable character. As you play through the game the controls begin to make a frightening amount of sense. Your decision making skills will really get a boost after a couple of hectic fire-fights. Yes, you are controlling, at times, 3 characters, about 16 abilities, 4 weapons per character, and worrying about health as well as shields, but Bioware made the steps between actions as short as possible. It starts to be second nature, moving your team into position, switching their weapons out if they get overheated, or using their abilities to free up time so you can deliver the fatal blow. Top notch.

Sound and Music

The music and the action are enveloping. I played through the ending twice and each time the stirring themes and great acting gave me goosebumps. As stupid as it sounds you actually feel a sense of real accomplishment at the end. I don’t think I really felt that before in a game…maybe shenmue.

Visuals

Jaw dropping. Though at times there may have been a framerate hiccup, most of the experience was smooth and seamless. They added a film grain and motion blur effect to the environment that really blurs the line between game and live action movie. Of course, when you’ve landed on your 100th planet or so, you’ll start to see some repetition or at least similarities in the terrain and colorscale, but you’re usually too busy on a mission or looking for mineral deposits to survey. (yes, there’s mining!).

Overal Score:

9.8

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Games, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.