Mass Effect for Xbox 360

There's a reason why I love western RPGs. I hate being tied down to a storyline while moving to a newly accessible area one chapter of the story at a time. Just give me a ship, turn me loose, and I'll create my own adventure. Mass Effect not only gives you that freedom, but it still manages to weave a branching story while adapting to each one of your decisions. The result is a world that's so immersive that you can easily sink upwards of 100 hours into it before you know it.


Story

The story is what makes Mass Effect so great. You are Commander Sheppard, an elite soldier as part of earth's space fleet in the distant future. Your background is a troublesome one as you were the only survivor of a failed mission, which dogs you throughout the game. However, you seemed to overcome all you personal and professional obstacles and are being considered as the first human Spectre. The Spectres are a secretive military group that only answers to the galactic counsel. The result is that the ends can often justify the means should you so choose them to. The story begins as you are tasked with working with another Spectre in securing a valuable alien artifact from a distant world. However this simple mission turns out to be anything but.

The greatest aspect of Mass Effect is its story telling. Not only do many characters develop before your eyes, but they develop according to your direction. The branching storyline lends itself to many different relationship possibilities. Those relationships can be on the platonic level or even romantic depending on the character involved. Your decisions can also have subtle effects on the story, but also drive various and often dramatic plot twists as well. What's more your choices can carry over into Mass Effect 2. While not known at the time this game originally came out, this was a huge bone to throw to the fans who stuck with this game.

While the story does drive to a final unavoidable outcome in the end, getting there is very rewarding. The story is definitely one aspect of Mass Effect that drove me to complete certain pieces of the game when otherwise I might have put down my controller and started playing something else.


Gameplay

Mass Effect is a story-driven third person shooter. However it’s also a western roleplaying game, meaning your path is entirely in your hands. The bulk of the game is made up of side missions where you travel to a planet, infiltrate an enemy base and get an object or resolve a conflict. Most side missions involve heavy combat but not always. If you choose to play out the string of storyline missions, the game only takes maybe a dozen hours to complete or less, but that's western RPGs for you. The premise of this is that you'll quickly find yourself in control of the Normandy, a starship that specializes in stealth rather than battle. Therefore you can move freely throughout the galaxy investigating anomalies, tracking down fugitives, or just battling it out with whatever foes you run into along the way.

Conversations play a significant role in the gameplay. Not only do they help to tell a story, but they also shape Commander Sheppard's character and open up new missions and worlds which can be explored. Your ability to charm or intimidate your contacts is especially poignant in that you learn more about the universe you're sworn to protect as well as saving your squad mates from time to time.

The combat mechanics add quite a bit to the typical third person shooter model. Mass Effect is also a squad-based shooter too. The action involves a lot of cover, but you also have to worry about your two other squad mates. This makes for a very enjoyable combat situation where you can use yourself or your squad mates to draw fire while you flank the enemy. Some action sequences are so fast and chaotic, it's easy to lose track of enemy movements and you'll find yourself in a precarious situation. However, that's not such a big deal because the enemy AI is not very good. During one such chaotic firefight, an enemy took cover right beside me making for a very easy kill. Others will simply ignore grenades you threw choosing to move in a specific pattern along certain intervals. Ironically, your squad mates while not the brightest bulbs are a little smarter than the enemy AI. They also follow your orders really well.

There are a wide variety of weapons from shotguns to assault rifles, to sniper rifles each of which contains slots for modifications which improve damage against certain enemies or other types of advantages. There are several different weapons manufacturers in the game, but they don't quite have the same identities and reputations as they do in a game like Borderlands. That is the weapons manufacturers typically are more on the generic side and I typically do not look for a specific brand of weapon or armor. There are also several types of grenades such that choosing the right one for the right terrain can really help turn the tide of battle.

Another combat mechanic is the use of biotics and tech abilities. Biotics are very similar to certain properties of "The Force" in the Star Wars universe. That is you can telepathically move objects and people inflicting tons of damage. Tech abilities are a little more passive in that they allow you to pick security locks and terminals that much easier. In battle tech abilities tend to affect the enemies' ability to fight or defend themselves by overheating weapons, lowering shields or defenses and other abilities. When you factor in these mechanics to the overall gameplay, you can do lots of nifty things like using your biotics power to raise an enemy up into the air and have your squad mates finish him off while he's defenseless.

Mass Effect is also a roleplaying game. The more enemies you shoot, the more security barriers you unlock and the more in-depth conversations you partake in earn you experience points. At certain experience point milestones, you gain a level. This enables you to put more points in certain abilities. Depending on your specialization (soldier, biotic, tech specialist, or a combination of two of these) you'll have different abilities to put points into. Eventually these abilities are maxed out. The enemy also gains more power as you gain levels, but more powerful weapons are also at your disposal. Unlike Oblivion, as you gain levels, it's pretty easy to keep up with your competition. That is, as long as you're good about keeping your weapons and upgrades current to your level, you won't notice the level increase.

If there's one thing that takes away from the engrossing gameplay it's the loading times. These are represented by quirky elevators placed throughout the game. From an immersion standpoint, it's funny that such a technological marvel has such slow moving elevators. But despite that there are some good dialog and information conveyed during your time in the elevator. The bad part is you'll be spending so much time riding them that these conversations quickly start repeating themselves.


Controls

The controls are a standard dual stick shooter layout. The left analog stick moves your character laterally along the horizontal plane. The right analog stick controls the look movement all around you. The face buttons control most utility functions such as interacting with people, holstering your weapon, or applying first aid medigel. The right trigger fires your weapon while the left trigger zooms for an aiming mode. The bumpers allow you to select your abilities or weapons on the fly. The dpad controls your squad movements in a general way. Overall I had a lot of fun playing this game with the default on-foot controls.

The vehicle controls are a whole other beast. Controlling the Mako vehicle on land is tough to say the least. Moving the Mako is handled exclusively by the left analog stick. This is very problematic when it comes to turning and movement. What really takes a while to adapt to is that the turret aiming is handled via the right analog stick and in other games it controls the steering. To make matters worse, the controls are really sluggish and overall it makes traversing a planet's surface a chore. It gets even more frustrating when you're forced into combat while in the vehicle. Combat in the Mako is easily one of the worst aspects of Mass Effect and it's primarily due to the control scheme.


Graphics

The graphics in Mass Effect are one of the stronger points to the game. Cutscenes look absolutely fantastic as facial expressions detail emotion and movements seem fluid and realistic. The more action oriented cutscenes provide a realistic feel for the action taking place in the story and even during a particular scene. When controlling the action, the environments are visually stunning. Even more so are the visual backdrops. From lush tropical worlds, to urban landscapes ravaged by war, Mass Effect throws many diverse environments at you while representing them with visual backdrops you just want to pause the game and break out your canvas and easel for.

The only area the graphics fail at is in the immersion department during battle. Visually I just never could tell when I'm getting hit or if the action was directed at me or a squad mate. The lack of visible damage or even projectiles in battle leads to many needless deaths. I just couldn't tell whether I was getting hit or not from small arms fire without looking at my health meter. Part of this issue is the framerate. While the framerate is acceptable during normal movements, during battle it seems to decrease significantly. How this game can get so choppy during battle just emphasizes how much more time needed to be spent on this area of the graphics.


Sound

It's clear that a lot of time and effort was put into the sound effects. On a high level the sound effects add greatly to the immersion into the environment. Fire fights seem very realistic and chaotic because of the sound effects. Weapons fire sounds different depending on the environment and where you’re shot lands. I've even used different surfaces to clue me in on where enemies are approaching on foot because their footsteps made noise.

Mass Effect has a full voice acting script. The acting is marvelous in the way it hinges cutscenes and dialog scenes. The temptation when the player is in control of the responses is to overact, but rather most characters are surprisingly measured in their responses for both good and evil such that outbursts of emotion do not occur at the drop of a hat. That's not to say that Mass Effect isn't drama-free, however the actors clearly handle their characters well in making them seem realistic. So if you're a fan of wild mood swings, stick with watching Jersey Shore.

The music was a dull spot in what is a great Mass Effect game. Much of the hype of the Mass Effect was due to the musical score going so far as to release a separate sound track, but I didn’t quite get it. While there's ambient environment generated music such as in the clubs, there's also background music. The ambient music is much better because the background music just gets old. This is especially true when traversing the surface of a planet. The music is upbeat and catchy at first. But ultimately it's forgettable and borderline annoying. The only songs I recall clearly months after playing the game are the annoying ones. This is not the kind of impression you want to make with your musical score.


Replay

The replay value is strong but limited when you dive deep down. On the good side there are plenty of missions and when you play certain missions with different characters, you get different dialog. This keeps the game fresh and gives you plenty of incentive to play the game over again from the beginning. However, unlike the sequel, the story doesn't branch out that much. There are a few decisions which impact the rest of the game. In that sense, it almost seems better to create different saves and replay missions over and over with different party combinations, which defeats the whole purpose of replayability. There's also some downloadable content, which was surprisingly dull and not worth the price. If there's a sale on the content, then it might be worth a try, but you're paying lots of money for only a few hours of additional gameplay time.

The gameplay does lend itself to some great renewable value. However the lack of diverse environments for side missions really makes for a dull experience after a while. The main story missions are the only quests which seem to have unique structures and environments. While the outer worlds are much more diverse, the internal installations are mostly the same set of 3 or so layouts. This is disappointing and really cuts into the replay value. It would have been nice if there was a random installation generator or at least a diverse underworld mappings as seen in other western RPGs like Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Overall, Mass Effect is a very good game. It tells a compelling story which plays out several different ways. The game is still relevant today as it fits in well with its sequel. Some of the game's finer details leave a little to be desired and combat is a little detached, but I had an overwhelmingly fun experience playing through the game from start to finish. If you have an Xbox 360 this is one of the few must-have games for the console.