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The graphics was spectacular; I was mesmerized by the scenery of the underground Archive and the Aqua Duct, leading up to The Conduit, on the planet Ilos. Then I played the blonde hair, blue eye female Commander Shepard as a vanguard, in her form hugging light armor, wielding her light side arms and awesome biotic power, and, Leaping Lizard, that was ten times as much fun.
It sets a benchmark for third person role playing games. It is as close to a DVD movie as a video game can get, because, unlike most first person games, the player can see and hear the player character as well as the non-player characters.
Mass Effect is one of the best games I ever played. I first played the male Commander Shepard as a soldier, in his heavy combat armor, lugging an arsenal of heavy weapons, and that was fun.
The dialog wheel is innovative. When used properly, it delivers a continuous dialog, without interruptions.
The story was riveting; I am surprised if a movie is not made of the game when all is said and done. I can't wait till Mass Effect II is released in 2010.
Stupid.A lot of the combat, especially the combat you engage in during the side quests, is repetitive. Individual elements from other games might be better, and there are plenty of glitches, and lame aspects of the game. There's WAY too much running around empty corridors and standing around in empty elevators. You really find yourself identifying with your character's facial expressions.By the time I got to the end, I was really engrossed in this game. The voice acting is marvelous, including the work of the famous names like Lance Henrikson, Seth Green, Marina Sirtis, etc.
Literally, there are like, 5 architectural models used over and over again.There is a maddening amount of driving around endless rocky landscapes in a stupid APC. The only reason to even go to a merchant is to unload your excess inventory. The landscapes of all the planets is practically identical. I like the fact that you can heavily manage the squad or let the AI do the work. Arrgggghh. Even though I found myself annoyed and frustrated by all the trudging around, whether on foot or in that stupid tank, and had to reload a bunch of times due to glitching and getting stuck on objects, I truly loved this game and am looking forward anxiously to the sequel. You can get through the whole game on the total overabundance of free stuff you find in all the lockers, compartments, crashed probes, etc., etc.But there are some major, major things to love here, as well. The interiors of all the various colonies, outposts, and settlements (aside from the those that feature in the main plot) are all the same.
You really become the character and get swept up into the emotions and drama of an epic space opera. I really enjoy the combination of the tactics involved with leveling up, customizing weapons, choosing the appropriate weapon for the particular fight, pausing the combat to consider the various powers and weapon choices, choosing your companions and getting to do all the same for them. That's because this game has what other games lack: an emotionally gripping story that makes you feel like the lead character in a gigantic feature film. I like that the combat is more "hands on" and visceral than in KOTOR, but that there's still a tactical element to it.
Sometimes you can drive around one of these awful landscapes, agonizingly scaling mountains with your big car, in pursuit of a mystery blip on your map, finally locate the "crashed escape pod" and uncover.a cache of some grenades you already have a zillion of. The NPC interaction with your crewmembers is a little shallow--for example, in KOTOR you had much deeper relationships with the various companions you picked up along the way. You could even coach some of them into becoming Jedi. This game is a lot better than the sum of its parts. (I wish sometimes you could leave the squad behind on the ship, though. Sometimes I just command them to wait way back while I do all the fighting myself.). I played a female, and her voice was just exceptional. The way the characters are animated, including facial expressions, is amazing.
That being said, if I were to play this through a second time, I'd be really tempted to skip most of the side quests and stick to the main plot, even though that would mean missing out on a lot of leveling up.One thought for everyone out there though: would you rather have this game, or would you just rather have had them "remaster", refresh, and update KOTOR I and II for this next gen console. But in the end you plow through all the downsides and let your imagination take flight, identifying with the character and living the story in your mind.I do have some major gripes that I hope the company resolves in future releases. Or better yet, would you rather have them re-create a Baldur's Gate game for the XB360. Many of the side quests are completely lame and stupid. Hell, back in Baldur's Gate II you could have a romance.The money system, and the buying and selling, are useless. I played through every side quest and visited/surveyed/landed on just about every planet possible. Think about it.
I've had it for over 2 weeks and i still haven't completed it yet. It is simply amazing. The story line, so far, has been riveting and I am always captured in amazement. There is only so much an RPG can pack into one disc and Mass Effect has given me everything; Great graphics, good mechanics, multiple character control, and all sorts of upgrades.
There's a question as to whether this is the best XBox game or just one of the best. That's about it. So play it, if you havent. Play it a second time if you've only played it once.
As you progress in your chosen class higher grades of personal equipment become available, as well as better upgrades that you can use to modify your weapons and armor with. You may also find yourself boarding derelict spacecraft in search of pirates, mercenaries or. There's nothing like driving the Mako across the landscape of a planet under the soft crimson glow of that star system's red giant primary or wandering around an abandoned scavenger's base camp while the air contains a green haze from the toxic levels of chlorine in the atmosphere, or being caught in a firefight with the Geth while there's a meteor shower going on all around you. Also, the square footage of these places isn't a whole lot, so there is no real danger of getting lost during your explorations. Mass Effect delivers up the last three helpings as a seven-course meal.
These are your character's class skills, granting proficiency in firearms, healing, electronic bypassing of security systems and biotic power (Mass Effect's version of mental powers) among others, depending on which class you choose at the onset of the game. There are no statistics as such; when you pull up your character's profile, you won't see things like Strength, Intelligence, Vigor or the like. Same goes with the ground bases. The ships that you're able to board are all based on the same 'Kowloon'-class modular cutter design, and while they might shift the furniture around on each one, it all gets a little cookie-cutter after a while. There are quite a wide range of appearances available for you to choose for either gender.You control a three-member team on your excursions, all based on a third-person perspective.
I died several times at points on the Intermediate level of difficulty that gave me no trouble whatsoever on the Casual level. These range from force field, recuperative and exoskeletal enhancements for your armor, to damage, sustained rate of fire and accuracy mods for your weapons.You have the option to either accept the pregenerated character the game provides for you, or you can customize your appearance, gender and class to suit your own preferences. That's the most relevant way I can describe this game. Also, the top developers in the company used to be doctors of one kind or another, and their technical expertise and the knowledge that they provide to this production adds a gritty sense of realism that adds to the flavor.SOUND-5 StarsI've heard it said that sound can either make or break a production. Most of the time, you find yourself breaking ground on uncharted territory. The character's movements are fluid and the facial features convey natural emotive responses according to the given dialogue.The area draw distances are pretty much line of sight. Two thumbs up.
I admit I was favorably predisposed to this game because I've played every console roleplaying game that's been released by Bioware and loved them all. There are six classes to choose from initially and during the course of your investigation, you're presented with an optional mission that, upon successful completion, allows you to choose a specialized class that grants you bonus abilities. If you get stuck up in the terrain, the Mako has a slight jump-jet capability to shake yourself loose. Instead each class has specific qualities called talents. Mass Effect is ground-based, but you're given almost twenty-five planets and moons to wander around on, with numerous other ones to survey. It also has a self-repair function if you find yourself taking a lot of damage, activated by pressing the Y button on your controller.
In their defense, the do give you a generous side mission you can download from XBOX Live to play with. Your mission, and you DO choose to accept it, is to investigate an attack on the colony's starbase by an artifically-created synthetic species called the Geth. I can't imagine what the Hardcore difficulty level is like.The mechanics of Mass Effect are class-based; your talents are specific to which type of character you want to play. You play Commander Shepard, a marine in the Human Systems Alliance military, en route to Eden Prime, an Alliance colony world. I love adventure. There are environmental hazards to worry about, such as excessive cold or heat or air pressure and you DON'T want to go wading around in any lava you run across, but the areas to explore are huge. For armor, the game takes the stance that, if you're not skilled in the heavier types, you simply can't equip them.
You can check out the odd crashed probe (or one on a timer that's been specially PLACED for you to find by a galactic crime lord; nice to have friends, huh). They don't come off as wooden or uninspired and the voices match the visual representations of the characters portrayed perfectly. The sound in Mass Effect does absolutely NO disservice to the game. I love roleplaying games. And any of these discoveries might lead you down additional paths to venture that you didn't know of before. I watched an interview with project lead Casey Hudson and he mentioned the variety of missions you could undertake and one of the examples he gave was exploring derelict space stations. If you're familiar with the way the Warthog or the tank handled in the Halo games, you should have no problem getting your way around the countryside. Just make sure YOUR reaction speed is up to par, because the difficulty levels are quite distinctive for each one you play at.
It would've been nice to explore a real HUGE space station from time to time, maybe running the risk of waking something up from hibernation that doesn't have anything to do with the main theme of the game (but could ADD to it later on) to enhance the sense of the unknown. other things. Warning: this function only works if you have enough omni-gel (if you already have enough money to buy what you need, you might consider converting any extraneous equipment in your inventory into omni-gel to build up your supply) to use on the repairs and during the process of repair, you're helpless. You can see all the way to the horizon and the lighting and shading effects put you THERE, where your character is. I'm currently on my fifth play-through.GAMEPLAY-5 StarsThe scale of Mass Effect is unbeaten when compared to any other science fiction game on a console.
In the future (present year in Mass Effect is 2183 AD by human reckoning), mankind has spent two decades rubbing shoulders among the other cultures of the stellar community. The music score matches the science fiction setting perfectly, measuring just the right balance between orchestral and techno-electronic, and it adapts to a more hectic tempo if you find yourself in a tight situation, such as a firefight.The voice acting is superb. Even though you can use any weapon type, even if it's not part of your particular skill set, you just won't be able to use that weapon as effectively as the team members who ARE trained with it. They contracted out with both actors Lance Henriksen and Keith David for a couple of prominent characters. You might also find some ancient alien debris that wasn't previously listed in the ship's system archives. Here, in your travels, if you have the patience, you might happen upon a mineral deposit to stake a claim on for any future Human Systems Alliance operations. If a company has a good track record, that speaks volumes. It all goes toward the question: how much do you WANT to do here.The controls in-game are fairly intuitive and quite easy to learn, and they are responsive enough that you don't find yourself jammed up in a tight situation.
Granted, all the dialogue is given with North American accents, but you can only get so 'alien' with a character and its motivations before you lose the ability to connect with him or her (or 'it', as the case may be in a science fiction setting) in any kind of emotional capacity, especially in a game.GRAPHICS-4 StarsThe visuals in Mass Effect are near photo-realistic. In some sci-fi games, that's what you're limited to doing: being stuck in a cockpit. You can't move or shoot at enemies, so make sure you've gotten to a safe place before you decide to lick your wounds, ESPECIALLY if you're squaring off against a Thresher Maw. There IS more variety in the main adventure missions and that just lends to the feeling that everything else is incidental, put in just for make-work to give you something to do. It's a little more subtle in Mass Effect, but the result is no less profound. You control each member's actions through a decision wheel activated by pressing either the left or right bumper.
And you don't just run around killing everything you run across. The thrill of exploration is there and it's never let me get bored throughout each of the playthroughs I've had.The reason I give this section 4 stars is the lack of variety in the architecture. Most give you one planet to explore, plus a few sections where you fly a plane or spaceship around to shoot down enemies. The rest of the voice actors do excellent jobs. The left bumper dictates the weapon that team member uses during the firefights and the right bumper controls the skill the member will use primarily. I, right now, have about 450 hours invested in this game and I've loved every minute of it.OVERALL-5 StarsThere's a phrase that comes to mind from back in the day when I used to listen to the commentators while watching pro-wrestling (before mixed martial arts made its appearance): 'Excellence of Execution'. Simply put, it's awesome. I'm happy to say, Mass Effect follows true to form.
I would've preferred longer load times to make sure everything was all set up from the start.REPLAY-5 StarsThis game gives you enough variety, both in the missions, areas to explore and with the choice of how you, as a human, make our first impression on the rest of the universe, to give you several hundred hours worth of escapism and enjoyment. Also, while the load times are relatively short, it takes the detailed texture mapping a couple of seconds to catch up to the character models. You still at least go "Hunh." when the light bulb goes on. I love my wife. You ultimately discover something far more sinister that's behind the attack and everything is quickly coming to a head, threatening to repeat a fifty-thousand year cycle of galactic genocide.Bioware is famous for putting a twist into the plot of their games that hits you between the eyes right when you're not expecting it, sometimes causing you to blurt out "Holy $h/t.". Part of the thrill of science fiction is exploration.
I love science fiction. You can also order that person to advance, seek cover and guard you (as Shepard).You're also given a vehicle, the Mako, a six-wheeled armed ATV for your travels planetside. Their acid spittle attacks bypass the Mako's shields entirely.STORY-5 StarsIt's a topic that's been addressed many times before (in 'The Terminator', 'The Matrix', 'Battlestar Galactica', among other examples), but Bioware puts a fresh spin on it. I have a feeling that the designers did it that way to KEEP the delays between areas down, but it kind of screws with your suspension of disbelief to have the graphics try to play catch-up to the gameplay. Honestly, if they don't make a feature film out of this at some point, I'll be very surprised.
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