Joriarty's Profile

Mass Effect

Published: Sat 15 Dec, 2007 | On:

Mass Effect: the game that made me by my Xbox 360 when I saw a video of it about a year ago. I had been excited for it ever since, but have walked away slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, Mass Effect is an amazing game that everyone should buy immediately. It's just not what it could have been.

My initial playthrough of the game took almost 15 hours, and that was just going through the main storyline, ignoring sidequests. The storyline is the best I have ever seen in a game - it starts off good, but just keeps getting better until the final hour where it is just... awesome. I won't spoil anything, but there are several very hard-to-make decisions along the way. One time I felt so guilty about something I had to reload a previous save and make a different choice! It's a very emotional game, and the superb voice acting definitely helps here (I recommend playing as a female character though, she is a better voice actress than the male).

The game's intuitive dialogue system is a definite plus. Your character actually talks, unlike in most other games! Also, you are given a selection of choices of what to say next, but are only shown the general "gut feeling" of the response. This makes conversations feel very natural and cinematic, although often you can choose from multiple responses, but in the end the result of the conversation will be the same. But you will only ever notice this on your second or even third playthrough, the first playthrough of the game you won't notice this.

The game definitely has replay value though. You could play through the main story a few times easily, what with the varied character classes you can choose, and there is a lot of exploration to do that can further add to the replay value. All told, you could spend 50-100 hours in this game before you get sick of it, depending on how much you love it.

Graphically, Mass Effect is a mixed bag. The framerate often struggles, but the facial detail and animations in conversations is excellent. There is also some texture pop-in, a side effect of the practically absent loading screens (and most are disguised by elevators and stuff). The voice acting is top quality, sound effects are great, and the game's controls seem natural.

Mass Effect may not quite have met my expectations: the main story is shorter than I had hoped (although, I admit, the storyline is better than I expected), technical issues mar the game's excellent graphics, and the side-quests are not as varied and interesting as I had hoped. And the game's interfaces can feel clunky at times.

But there is downloadable content on the way for this game, and there is room for improvement for the next two parts in this trilogy. Although this game may not be perfect, it is definitely good enough to warrant an immediate purchase.