Edward_R_Murrow
Arcane
So I don't totally steal Volourn's thunder, I figure I might as well gush/rant about Bioware's latest "masterpiece" in a new thread.
Anyways, I went into Mass Effect with almost no real expectations or predisposition. While I had heard quite a few bad things about it, such as features being cut, copious amounts of dumbing down and assorted consolization symptoms, I had heard a from a reliable source of some promising features, like decent use of dialogue skills, and some tough choices to make. And besides, Bioware games, while on a steady decline since Shadows of Amn, have yet to hit the level of unplayability present in other developer's games, namely our endearing friends Bethesda and Batshit Crazy Molyneux. Plus....I could get it for free. Seemed like something worth pursuing. And plus, I could share information with my fellow RPG enlightened brethren (AKA bitch like mad about it if warranted) So I went along with it, and have recently finished it.
The best way to sum up Mass Effect is as a decent action RPG that has been stricken with the cancers of both console development and the "next-gen". Throughout my experience, it seems as though those two factors contributed to most of Mass Effect's flaws. Not that it would have been a brilliant or awe-inspiring game without these albatross around it's neck, but there was a good deal of potential that was bogged down.
Seeing as it is the activity you are engaged in most is combat, it seems as though it would be logical to cover it first (well, probably not...but moving on). To put it bluntly, Mass Effect wants to be one of the cool kids on the block when in comes to combat. It wants to be like Halo 3, Gears of War, and such. Play around with it for awhile and one can see the massive influence these types of games have had on Mass Effect. Hell, it's control scheme and style of combat is so similar to the aforementioned Gears of War, that I felt a bit like I was fighting some underground dwelling insect men beside a squad steroid shooting musclemen at times while playing. Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Reinventing the wheel in terms of combat for every game is silly, and borrowing ideas from sources that excel is a great idea. It allows for progress. But too much copying, and you get stagnation.
Of course, Mass Effect throws some additional variables into it's combat system to separate it from other games. Namely, stats, abilities, and class-based advancement as well. The stats in combat though, don't seem to have nearly the impact player skill does. Sure, actually being trained in an ability helps, and keeping up with the enemies helps as well, but taking good positions, aiming well, and making good use of what you have will overall help you prevail. Of course, superior stats do serve as quite a nice crutch, but experience tells me that no amount of stats alone can win battles. You need the skill. It's not necessarily a bad thing, as this is an action-RPG which seeks to blend player skill with character skill, it's just that stats feel a bit underpowered compared to player skill.
Then are the nifty abilities the games gives you. You've got biotics, tech abilities, and miscellaneous active powers that basically amount to Dungeons and Dragon's feats. These are basically here to support the class system, make combat feel different, and add some depth. The feats are based on your weapon skill level or other training discipline level. You activate them, and receive a bonus for a limited time, whether it be the pistol's rapid fire, the shotgun's super blast, Spectre training's revive ability, assault training's power recovery, or the numerous others. As you level up the skill, the feat can go from basic, to advanced, to master. Pretty familiar feeling. Tech abilities let you typically attack you opponent and lockdown some of their attack methods with any luck. Biotics, are this game's BFG however and where most of the fun in combat comes from. Biotic users have a clear advantage over techies in terms of power moves, and generally can turn a battle very quickly. For instance, the weakest Biotic attack, warp, does damage over time exposed to as well as weakening enemy defense. And the fun just starts there for Biotic users. They also get Barrier, which lets them soak up ridiculous amounts of damage, as well as Throw and Lift, both of which incapacitate enemies and make them easy targets in addition to sometimes dealing a great deal of damage via physics. These things do a good job of separating Mass Effect from a typical shooter and making a solid combat system.
Unfortunately, a good combat system with loads of nifty options won't make a spectacular game. Theres needs to be a well designed challenge or opposition to utilize said combat system on as well. And herein is where Mass Effect drops the ball. First off, none of the enemies have any real character or uniqueness. They basically just shoot stuff at you with guns, and maybe throw a biotic ability or two occasionally if they have the capability. The lack of enemy diversity makes a lot of the fights feel very similar. And it doesn't help that most enemies fall exactly into the generic shooter enemy archetypes as well. And the level design is almost equally generic for the most part. You fight through linear areas that are typically corridor-like. Just like a mediocre shooter. It doesn't help that the AI is completely off the wall either. Sometimes, it can be incredibly smart, and sometimes it can be incredibly stupid. Oddly enough, both of these are displayed in the same behavior; bum rushing. The enemies just love to charge you, whether you be open to it, or deeply entrenched behind cover and buffed up the max, just waiting to empty hot plasma into them. Combat's difficulty is also a problem. Aside from a few select instances, nothing really provides a challenge. Playing on the veteran difficulty level (the highest available on your first playthrough), I rarely encountered a scenario that required any sort of tactics besides duck, cover, and take potshots while maybe mixing in a biotic ability to end things, which isn't exactly a good sign. And only a scant few of the ones that were challenging were difficult because of a well designed challenge, as most of them were due to being bum rushed by swarms of enemies in a small area with little room for movement or cover. Combat is mediocre for the most part, and good at certain points, when it seems the designers actually knew what they were doing. The good thing for Mass Effect, is that it has other things besides combat to fall back on.
One of these things, is role-playing, probably the key concern of people here. Suffice to say, it's no Fallout, Torment,or Arcanum, but it isn't all that bad...at least a first glance. Basically, it's a lot like your typical Bioware game, with a "good" option and an "evil" option, except in this case, we have "paragon" and "renegade". Paragon choices, are basically your typical lawful good type of actions, feeding the starving, being nice, obeying the law, promoting diversity, et cetera et cetera. Renegade choices, are a bit more confusing however. They seem to lack focus. For instance, extorting money from people, telling your superiors to go to hell and disconnecting from a com channel as well as brutal executions are in the same grouping as scaring an over-eager fan out of joining the military, eliminating a threatening species from the galaxy,standing up for religious freedom, and placing humanity first in important matters. Not that ambiguity in relation to morality is a bad thing, it just seems odd how the paragon side is so clear whereas the renegade side isn't.
The good news about Mass Effect's role-playing is that choices are fairly numerous in many quests, and that dialogue skills are very useful. In fact, many situations can only be resolved peacefully or successfully through a dialogue skill, which is quite different from Neverwinter Nights/KOTOR/Jade Empire's dialogue skills which were often rendered useless by another dialogue option that did the exact same thing, yet didn't require a dialogue skill. This really makes for a decent feel to some quests, and allows for multiple solutions. However, these are typically delegated to quests which lack any kind of combat whatsoever, which is rather unfortunate. Of course these are some of the better quests, such as giving an interview to a reporter, mediating disputes between two parties, reacting to political rallying, or helping an neuro-stimulator addicted negotiator. Other than that, dialogue skills can be used to demand more from rewards and gather additional information. And in the case of intimidate, go Jack Bauer in Space on some people's asses.
Speaking of dialogue, the "revolutionary dialogue system" can be quite a pain in the ass at many times. Often times, what you think you are saying mans the exact opposite or something completely different. The good news, is that as far as quests go, paragon options are on the top, and renegade options on the bottom. The bad news, is that outside of that, especially when interacting with party characters, you have next to no idea what you could say. For instance, I was chatting up Ashley, and thought I was picking pretty standard "Earth FUCK YEAH!" and "Screw the aliens!" options. Turns out...they all came out as pickup lines...even the one about religious freedom later on. This later led to Shepard being forced into having sex with her later on and making corny lines like "drop and give me 20" before and after shagging her in whatever EXTREME methods Jack Bauer in Space utilizes. The good thing though, is that all dialogue skill related choices are colored, so you know what you are doing when it matters.
The bad news about role-playing in Mass Effect, is that there are very few consequences to your actions. For instance, Jack Bauer Shepard was accosted by an admiral demanding to inspect the Normandy, his ship. Commander Shepard told him, quite literally, to screw off, and the admiral stormed off saying "This isn't the last you've seen of me!". To the contrary....it was. Publicly endorsing a human supremacist group that wanted all alien affairs off of Earth didn't seem to matter ether. I guess Space Nazis never existed. Another time, my character, answered a news reporter with some EXTREME answers, basically nailing the Citadel Council to walls. In addition to telling the Council to go to hell, cutting them off in mid-transmission when reporting, and generally disrespecting them all the time, nothing ever happened. And funny thing is...the Citadel Council are your employers. It seemed totally ridiculous. Hell, I had done more than Saren had and they didn't kick me out. Basically, the only consequences of your actions are paragon and renegade points. And seeing as these have no real consequence either, there really are no serious consequences for the most part; they don't even influence the ending as it is decided by a choice at the end. However, there are a few decent ones. For instance, there is one occasion where if your dialogue skill(s) is not high enough, you will lose a certain party member. In addition, you also have to chose one of two select party members to save, and the other one dies. Oddly enough, these are both on the same planet and in close proximity to one another. And finally, people who max out charm or intimidate will be in for a nice surprise at the end. It won't last though unfortunately...
The story, which was praised heavily by sycophant journalists, is rather weak. It's like a movie in which the trailer pretty much gives the entire plot away. The Mass Effect site and trailers described it as Shepard trying to stop Saren and trying to stop the "kill everything once every 50 millennium" aliens. That is basically it. It is your typical chosen one stopping the great evil from being awakened. The backstory and lore isn't all that nifty either. The different races seem to just embody one or two quirks or just a typical human archetype. Something akin to Dungeons and Dragons races. The story is improved however, if you don't take it seriously, do the EXTREME pathway, and take it like a funny B-grade movie. And maybe bring along Wrex, Garrus, or Ashley, because they at least interject some satirical humor into the mix.
The characters are nothing to write home about either. There are only six party members, quite a step down from Bioware's other games. One would think that this would mean the would be more fleshed out, more in-depth. But they aren't. The amount of dialogue for each party member is slim. You can talk to them on the Normandy once after each main quest mission. That basically leads to 5 talks per character, far less than other Bioware games, which may have 15+ talks that were longer and with twice the amount of characters while being of the same quality, if not arguably better. And the severely limited amount of party banter or party interaction is a bit disappointing as well. For the hell of it, I'll go through each character and give a mini-review.
First up is Ashley, the tough military chick ho likes to but in and make sarcastic comments. I got a strong Sigourney Weaver type of vibe. Not brilliantly written, but has some decent comedy lines.
Next up is Kaiden, the next member in the long standing line of emotionally challenged pretty-boys who need counseling. Way too serious, way too dramatic, and way too damn much like Anomen and Carth. He even shares Carth's voice actor.
Third, is Garrus, the EXTREME turian cop who wants to get Saren no matter what and damn red tape and regulations. He's a simple enough character archetype, being essentially a "Dirty Harry" kind of guy, so he isn't too hard to write well, making him an enjoyable companion.
Fourth is Wrex, the next member in the very long standing line of "I like to kill stuff and am a Bioware party member oh and did I mention I like to kill stuff" club along with Montaron, Korgan, Sarevok, and Canderous. Surprisingly enough, he actually has a pretty decent justification for why he acts the way he does, and showed a lot more depth than I expected. Not great, but decent. And he also has some pretty funny one-liners too.
Fifth is Tali. She likes technology and is with you to get stuff to bring home. That's basically all there is to say.
And sixth is Liara, the blue alien chick who is constantly whining about family problems, headaches, and how she wants acceptance. Sound slightly familiar? Except Liara can't chain cleric and mage spells in a spell sequencer and unleash havoc and doesn't actually leave if you abuse her.
Exploration, which was toted as being great and revolutionary, is a bit of a letdown. Sure, there are some interesting scenarios, like dealing with a cult in which you can solve it with no violence whatsoever, a hostage situations, or defending some marines at an outpost from a bugger swarm. However, these are buried in with tons of dungeon crawls and "quests" to scour the empty landscape to find some small items for a grand fetch quest. The worst part about exploration is the genericness...every location is almost a cut and paste. Every abandoned mine has the same structure, every bunker, every science facility, and spaceship as well. Making it even worse is everyone's favorite RPG feature....leveled loot. Basically, you will always find loot scaled exactly to your level and nothing lower nor higher. And seeing as most enemies scale a bit as well, exploring everything seems kind of pointless. Bioware screwed the pooch on this one big time.
Of course, it's easy to see exactly why they screwed up in so many areas....the graphics. Heck, I don't even need to look to know how demanding the graphics are; the noise my 360 makes is more than enough. Other things are ruined by consolization as well. The controls seem a little clunky, and it's not surprising, seeing as they really pushed control mapping to the max. Simply put, certain features seem like they were cut due to lack of button real estate. For instance, jumping and rolling, or perhaps an ability quick key would have fit right in. The consolization also contributes with the terrible inventory, and the addition of level scaling. And it also hits in more subtle ways as well. For instance, you can't play on the two hardest difficulty settings at first; you need to unlock them. This reeks of console mentality. Perhaps the worst casualty is the endgame and its involvement with dialogue skills. It could have been great, but the console mentality demanded something that shouldn't have been there and that really stole all the thunder from the nice use of dialogue skills.
Mass Effect surely has it's share of flaws, but all in all, it isn't terrible. It has a good combat system, even if what you are combating is none too exciting, some decent choice ability, even if there are few consequences, and a fun enough romp of a story, provided you take it as seriously as the Rocky Horror Picture Show or Army of Darkness. Perhaps the fact that it is a trilogy could hold some hope, that the next one, with less graphical bullshit to worry about, will actually focus on design first and maybe break the boundaries set by the console frame of mind.
I'll post some more fast facts later as well as any comparisons to other games people might request.
Fast Facts/Points
-Excellent soundtrack. It seems like a cross between Blade Runner and System Shock 2 with some ambient synth as well as slightly more bombastic stuff. Although, it does get "epic" in a few moments, but does so tastefully.
-The Mako isn't all that bad to drive around, however, it gets boring real fast on the uncharted worlds. It's better on the main mission planets and serves as a good way to mix things up. It isn't as good as, say, Mercenaries, Halo, or Grand Theft Auto by a long shot, but it beats Jade Empires awful flying minigame and the damned KOTOR racing thing.
-Character system seems good in some classes, allowing for variation. As a Vanguard I could be a Barrier kind of guy who soaks damage whilst charging with a shotgun or perhaps lift enemies and then nail them with my Marksman aided pistol.
Anyways, I went into Mass Effect with almost no real expectations or predisposition. While I had heard quite a few bad things about it, such as features being cut, copious amounts of dumbing down and assorted consolization symptoms, I had heard a from a reliable source of some promising features, like decent use of dialogue skills, and some tough choices to make. And besides, Bioware games, while on a steady decline since Shadows of Amn, have yet to hit the level of unplayability present in other developer's games, namely our endearing friends Bethesda and Batshit Crazy Molyneux. Plus....I could get it for free. Seemed like something worth pursuing. And plus, I could share information with my fellow RPG enlightened brethren (AKA bitch like mad about it if warranted) So I went along with it, and have recently finished it.
The best way to sum up Mass Effect is as a decent action RPG that has been stricken with the cancers of both console development and the "next-gen". Throughout my experience, it seems as though those two factors contributed to most of Mass Effect's flaws. Not that it would have been a brilliant or awe-inspiring game without these albatross around it's neck, but there was a good deal of potential that was bogged down.
Seeing as it is the activity you are engaged in most is combat, it seems as though it would be logical to cover it first (well, probably not...but moving on). To put it bluntly, Mass Effect wants to be one of the cool kids on the block when in comes to combat. It wants to be like Halo 3, Gears of War, and such. Play around with it for awhile and one can see the massive influence these types of games have had on Mass Effect. Hell, it's control scheme and style of combat is so similar to the aforementioned Gears of War, that I felt a bit like I was fighting some underground dwelling insect men beside a squad steroid shooting musclemen at times while playing. Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Reinventing the wheel in terms of combat for every game is silly, and borrowing ideas from sources that excel is a great idea. It allows for progress. But too much copying, and you get stagnation.
Of course, Mass Effect throws some additional variables into it's combat system to separate it from other games. Namely, stats, abilities, and class-based advancement as well. The stats in combat though, don't seem to have nearly the impact player skill does. Sure, actually being trained in an ability helps, and keeping up with the enemies helps as well, but taking good positions, aiming well, and making good use of what you have will overall help you prevail. Of course, superior stats do serve as quite a nice crutch, but experience tells me that no amount of stats alone can win battles. You need the skill. It's not necessarily a bad thing, as this is an action-RPG which seeks to blend player skill with character skill, it's just that stats feel a bit underpowered compared to player skill.
Then are the nifty abilities the games gives you. You've got biotics, tech abilities, and miscellaneous active powers that basically amount to Dungeons and Dragon's feats. These are basically here to support the class system, make combat feel different, and add some depth. The feats are based on your weapon skill level or other training discipline level. You activate them, and receive a bonus for a limited time, whether it be the pistol's rapid fire, the shotgun's super blast, Spectre training's revive ability, assault training's power recovery, or the numerous others. As you level up the skill, the feat can go from basic, to advanced, to master. Pretty familiar feeling. Tech abilities let you typically attack you opponent and lockdown some of their attack methods with any luck. Biotics, are this game's BFG however and where most of the fun in combat comes from. Biotic users have a clear advantage over techies in terms of power moves, and generally can turn a battle very quickly. For instance, the weakest Biotic attack, warp, does damage over time exposed to as well as weakening enemy defense. And the fun just starts there for Biotic users. They also get Barrier, which lets them soak up ridiculous amounts of damage, as well as Throw and Lift, both of which incapacitate enemies and make them easy targets in addition to sometimes dealing a great deal of damage via physics. These things do a good job of separating Mass Effect from a typical shooter and making a solid combat system.
Unfortunately, a good combat system with loads of nifty options won't make a spectacular game. Theres needs to be a well designed challenge or opposition to utilize said combat system on as well. And herein is where Mass Effect drops the ball. First off, none of the enemies have any real character or uniqueness. They basically just shoot stuff at you with guns, and maybe throw a biotic ability or two occasionally if they have the capability. The lack of enemy diversity makes a lot of the fights feel very similar. And it doesn't help that most enemies fall exactly into the generic shooter enemy archetypes as well. And the level design is almost equally generic for the most part. You fight through linear areas that are typically corridor-like. Just like a mediocre shooter. It doesn't help that the AI is completely off the wall either. Sometimes, it can be incredibly smart, and sometimes it can be incredibly stupid. Oddly enough, both of these are displayed in the same behavior; bum rushing. The enemies just love to charge you, whether you be open to it, or deeply entrenched behind cover and buffed up the max, just waiting to empty hot plasma into them. Combat's difficulty is also a problem. Aside from a few select instances, nothing really provides a challenge. Playing on the veteran difficulty level (the highest available on your first playthrough), I rarely encountered a scenario that required any sort of tactics besides duck, cover, and take potshots while maybe mixing in a biotic ability to end things, which isn't exactly a good sign. And only a scant few of the ones that were challenging were difficult because of a well designed challenge, as most of them were due to being bum rushed by swarms of enemies in a small area with little room for movement or cover. Combat is mediocre for the most part, and good at certain points, when it seems the designers actually knew what they were doing. The good thing for Mass Effect, is that it has other things besides combat to fall back on.
One of these things, is role-playing, probably the key concern of people here. Suffice to say, it's no Fallout, Torment,or Arcanum, but it isn't all that bad...at least a first glance. Basically, it's a lot like your typical Bioware game, with a "good" option and an "evil" option, except in this case, we have "paragon" and "renegade". Paragon choices, are basically your typical lawful good type of actions, feeding the starving, being nice, obeying the law, promoting diversity, et cetera et cetera. Renegade choices, are a bit more confusing however. They seem to lack focus. For instance, extorting money from people, telling your superiors to go to hell and disconnecting from a com channel as well as brutal executions are in the same grouping as scaring an over-eager fan out of joining the military, eliminating a threatening species from the galaxy,standing up for religious freedom, and placing humanity first in important matters. Not that ambiguity in relation to morality is a bad thing, it just seems odd how the paragon side is so clear whereas the renegade side isn't.
The good news about Mass Effect's role-playing is that choices are fairly numerous in many quests, and that dialogue skills are very useful. In fact, many situations can only be resolved peacefully or successfully through a dialogue skill, which is quite different from Neverwinter Nights/KOTOR/Jade Empire's dialogue skills which were often rendered useless by another dialogue option that did the exact same thing, yet didn't require a dialogue skill. This really makes for a decent feel to some quests, and allows for multiple solutions. However, these are typically delegated to quests which lack any kind of combat whatsoever, which is rather unfortunate. Of course these are some of the better quests, such as giving an interview to a reporter, mediating disputes between two parties, reacting to political rallying, or helping an neuro-stimulator addicted negotiator. Other than that, dialogue skills can be used to demand more from rewards and gather additional information. And in the case of intimidate, go Jack Bauer in Space on some people's asses.
Speaking of dialogue, the "revolutionary dialogue system" can be quite a pain in the ass at many times. Often times, what you think you are saying mans the exact opposite or something completely different. The good news, is that as far as quests go, paragon options are on the top, and renegade options on the bottom. The bad news, is that outside of that, especially when interacting with party characters, you have next to no idea what you could say. For instance, I was chatting up Ashley, and thought I was picking pretty standard "Earth FUCK YEAH!" and "Screw the aliens!" options. Turns out...they all came out as pickup lines...even the one about religious freedom later on. This later led to Shepard being forced into having sex with her later on and making corny lines like "drop and give me 20" before and after shagging her in whatever EXTREME methods Jack Bauer in Space utilizes. The good thing though, is that all dialogue skill related choices are colored, so you know what you are doing when it matters.
The bad news about role-playing in Mass Effect, is that there are very few consequences to your actions. For instance, Jack Bauer Shepard was accosted by an admiral demanding to inspect the Normandy, his ship. Commander Shepard told him, quite literally, to screw off, and the admiral stormed off saying "This isn't the last you've seen of me!". To the contrary....it was. Publicly endorsing a human supremacist group that wanted all alien affairs off of Earth didn't seem to matter ether. I guess Space Nazis never existed. Another time, my character, answered a news reporter with some EXTREME answers, basically nailing the Citadel Council to walls. In addition to telling the Council to go to hell, cutting them off in mid-transmission when reporting, and generally disrespecting them all the time, nothing ever happened. And funny thing is...the Citadel Council are your employers. It seemed totally ridiculous. Hell, I had done more than Saren had and they didn't kick me out. Basically, the only consequences of your actions are paragon and renegade points. And seeing as these have no real consequence either, there really are no serious consequences for the most part; they don't even influence the ending as it is decided by a choice at the end. However, there are a few decent ones. For instance, there is one occasion where if your dialogue skill(s) is not high enough, you will lose a certain party member. In addition, you also have to chose one of two select party members to save, and the other one dies. Oddly enough, these are both on the same planet and in close proximity to one another. And finally, people who max out charm or intimidate will be in for a nice surprise at the end. It won't last though unfortunately...
The story, which was praised heavily by sycophant journalists, is rather weak. It's like a movie in which the trailer pretty much gives the entire plot away. The Mass Effect site and trailers described it as Shepard trying to stop Saren and trying to stop the "kill everything once every 50 millennium" aliens. That is basically it. It is your typical chosen one stopping the great evil from being awakened. The backstory and lore isn't all that nifty either. The different races seem to just embody one or two quirks or just a typical human archetype. Something akin to Dungeons and Dragons races. The story is improved however, if you don't take it seriously, do the EXTREME pathway, and take it like a funny B-grade movie. And maybe bring along Wrex, Garrus, or Ashley, because they at least interject some satirical humor into the mix.
The characters are nothing to write home about either. There are only six party members, quite a step down from Bioware's other games. One would think that this would mean the would be more fleshed out, more in-depth. But they aren't. The amount of dialogue for each party member is slim. You can talk to them on the Normandy once after each main quest mission. That basically leads to 5 talks per character, far less than other Bioware games, which may have 15+ talks that were longer and with twice the amount of characters while being of the same quality, if not arguably better. And the severely limited amount of party banter or party interaction is a bit disappointing as well. For the hell of it, I'll go through each character and give a mini-review.
First up is Ashley, the tough military chick ho likes to but in and make sarcastic comments. I got a strong Sigourney Weaver type of vibe. Not brilliantly written, but has some decent comedy lines.
Next up is Kaiden, the next member in the long standing line of emotionally challenged pretty-boys who need counseling. Way too serious, way too dramatic, and way too damn much like Anomen and Carth. He even shares Carth's voice actor.
Third, is Garrus, the EXTREME turian cop who wants to get Saren no matter what and damn red tape and regulations. He's a simple enough character archetype, being essentially a "Dirty Harry" kind of guy, so he isn't too hard to write well, making him an enjoyable companion.
Fourth is Wrex, the next member in the very long standing line of "I like to kill stuff and am a Bioware party member oh and did I mention I like to kill stuff" club along with Montaron, Korgan, Sarevok, and Canderous. Surprisingly enough, he actually has a pretty decent justification for why he acts the way he does, and showed a lot more depth than I expected. Not great, but decent. And he also has some pretty funny one-liners too.
Fifth is Tali. She likes technology and is with you to get stuff to bring home. That's basically all there is to say.
And sixth is Liara, the blue alien chick who is constantly whining about family problems, headaches, and how she wants acceptance. Sound slightly familiar? Except Liara can't chain cleric and mage spells in a spell sequencer and unleash havoc and doesn't actually leave if you abuse her.
Exploration, which was toted as being great and revolutionary, is a bit of a letdown. Sure, there are some interesting scenarios, like dealing with a cult in which you can solve it with no violence whatsoever, a hostage situations, or defending some marines at an outpost from a bugger swarm. However, these are buried in with tons of dungeon crawls and "quests" to scour the empty landscape to find some small items for a grand fetch quest. The worst part about exploration is the genericness...every location is almost a cut and paste. Every abandoned mine has the same structure, every bunker, every science facility, and spaceship as well. Making it even worse is everyone's favorite RPG feature....leveled loot. Basically, you will always find loot scaled exactly to your level and nothing lower nor higher. And seeing as most enemies scale a bit as well, exploring everything seems kind of pointless. Bioware screwed the pooch on this one big time.
Of course, it's easy to see exactly why they screwed up in so many areas....the graphics. Heck, I don't even need to look to know how demanding the graphics are; the noise my 360 makes is more than enough. Other things are ruined by consolization as well. The controls seem a little clunky, and it's not surprising, seeing as they really pushed control mapping to the max. Simply put, certain features seem like they were cut due to lack of button real estate. For instance, jumping and rolling, or perhaps an ability quick key would have fit right in. The consolization also contributes with the terrible inventory, and the addition of level scaling. And it also hits in more subtle ways as well. For instance, you can't play on the two hardest difficulty settings at first; you need to unlock them. This reeks of console mentality. Perhaps the worst casualty is the endgame and its involvement with dialogue skills. It could have been great, but the console mentality demanded something that shouldn't have been there and that really stole all the thunder from the nice use of dialogue skills.
Mass Effect surely has it's share of flaws, but all in all, it isn't terrible. It has a good combat system, even if what you are combating is none too exciting, some decent choice ability, even if there are few consequences, and a fun enough romp of a story, provided you take it as seriously as the Rocky Horror Picture Show or Army of Darkness. Perhaps the fact that it is a trilogy could hold some hope, that the next one, with less graphical bullshit to worry about, will actually focus on design first and maybe break the boundaries set by the console frame of mind.
I'll post some more fast facts later as well as any comparisons to other games people might request.
Fast Facts/Points
-Excellent soundtrack. It seems like a cross between Blade Runner and System Shock 2 with some ambient synth as well as slightly more bombastic stuff. Although, it does get "epic" in a few moments, but does so tastefully.
-The Mako isn't all that bad to drive around, however, it gets boring real fast on the uncharted worlds. It's better on the main mission planets and serves as a good way to mix things up. It isn't as good as, say, Mercenaries, Halo, or Grand Theft Auto by a long shot, but it beats Jade Empires awful flying minigame and the damned KOTOR racing thing.
-Character system seems good in some classes, allowing for variation. As a Vanguard I could be a Barrier kind of guy who soaks damage whilst charging with a shotgun or perhaps lift enemies and then nail them with my Marksman aided pistol.
? Ah Freespace 1 and 2, how I miss thee! Shame that FS3 will never be created.
Only two things are common here: space and aliens with a grudge.
