Hype is a natural consequence of capitalism. When a new game hits E3 or wherever, everyone's into it - especially if it's from a company, like BioWare, known for dropping it if, and only if, it's hot.
And games never live up to their hype, period, even if they're from BioWare, Blizzard or Valve. Bits and pieces may come close, but games practically never "revolutionize the genre," "transform the industry" or perform any other really massive verbs. Generally, the good ones are fun, and that's all you can expect from them.
"Mass Effect" was very, very hyped. And it's very, very fun. Is it "the best sci-fi story told since 'Star Wars'"? Does it "signify a shift in the role-playing paradigm"? Probably not. But it hits right in the soft spots that RPG gamers love - goofy space operatics, tons of loot-tastic side quests, and lots of meaty backstory.
The world of "Mass Effect" puts you at a slightly different vantage point from the default Galactic Empire shenanigans. The major races of the Galaxy have their own political systems, complete with the cosmopolitan capital of the Citadel. To these bug-eyed big shots, humanity is a rascally, unblooded race, yet to prove themselves as a legit galactic power player. Humanity, therefore, plays a relatively minor role in star politics.
You play the role of Commander [Insert Name Here] Shepard, the first of humankind to be inducted into the special ops group known as the Spectres. This means you end up an interstellar gopher, and to some extent, the ambassador of humanity.
Shepard herself (or himself - this reviewer rolled as a snarky red-headed lass but you're free to be a heavily scarred dude with a shadowy past if you'd like) is one of the greatest parts of the game. There's plenty of customization available in the character creation screen, though you have the option of using the default Shepard from the promotional material. Do yourself a favor and spend some time with this process, because the character you create will very much become a character in the true sense of the word. "Mass Effect" is the first game that's felt this way: your character isn't just an interface through which you punch aliens and loot the bodies. It's a dude or a lady in the same way we're all dudes or ladies, except better looking and with a shotgun.
Two elements really contribute to this verisimilitude: snappy writing and a cinematic flavor. BioWare is known for high quality writing in the games world, and "Mass Effect" is perhaps its strongest output yet. The dialogue, which uses an elegant selection wheel, is believable and flowing, especially if you make your choices at a rapid pace. Conversations are less about getting the location of the evil robot base (or whatever) and more about watching Shepard interact with the world around her.
The cinematic nature of the game is striking. Camera angles during conversations, realistic facial animations and top-notch voice acting combine to make the game a pleasure to watch even during ho-hum conversations with your navigator.
The story itself isn't groundbreaking, but it's absolutely serviceable. Betrayal, prejudice, love, tough moral decisions, you know. It's good. Sure, character arcs are restrained by the nature of the medium - relationships can't really build in the same fleshy way that they might in a linear narrative. But, as far as video games go, "Mass Effect" is leading the pack in terms of story and writing.
How the game plays almost seems irrelevant in the face of the superb production values. Fortunately, most areas of gameplay are at least solid, and verge on crazily addicting at times.
Combat, which you'll be doing a lot of, is strange initially. It feels like "Gears of War" at first, with energy blasts whirring by your head and tons of rocky outcrops to dive behind, but if you play it like "Gears," running around and pumping ammo into every jerk in sight, you'll find yourself jumping back to autosaves frequently (Also note that the autosave sucks. Remind yourself to save early and often). In fact, nowhere is a proper explanation of how everything really works given. Sure, some basic controls are laid out in a bare-bones tutorial, but it's difficult to understand exactly how all these disparate abilities you have work together. Once you figure out the game's unique pacing and get a firm handle on the use of your squadmates, combat stops being frustrating and starts being pretty fun.
Note that we're talking foot combat specifically, here. Whenever your team lands on a minor planet (and during some specific story sections), you're forced to drive around in an eight-wheeled terror called the Mako.
Now, there's some cranky guy named Saren who is ostensibly the boss villain in the story, all flying around in Space Dreadnoughts and sweeping whole systems away with his iron fist. This is not actually correct. The Mako is the most vile beast you'll ever encounter throughout the game. It's impossible to back up properly, it gets stuck on hills, it floats off in directions you don't want to go and it handles like a drunken brick.
These problems are magnified tenfold during any vehicular combat. You'll often find yourself leaving planets in disgust, quests unfinished, after dying seven times in a row because you couldn't turn the stupid car around to escape. The turret-mounted machine gun doesn't actually do anything to anybody, and some of the larger enemies seem to regenerate shields faster than you can drop them. You'll probably end up resorting to using the car like a big club, repeatedly backing over your enemies in a futile attempt to get to an interesting part of the game. The Mako has a grenade launcher as well, but "Mass Effect" does an awesome job of never telling you about it. Here's a hint - right bumper. Use the right bumper.
You aren't in the Mako for the majority of the game, but it's a pretty chunky percentage and driving the thing is easily "Mass Effect's" worst aspect. There are a couple other quibbles too - menus are a little elaborate to navigate, and you'll find yourself spending far too long manually sorting through the volume of useless stuff in your inventory that you were too lazy to delete hours ago.
However, when you finish "Mass Effect," you won't be annoyed with the Mako or the menus. You don't play this game for the individual moments of blasting and scooting about, but rather the vast topography of the fictional world BioWare has created. There are tons of interesting characters, and they all have fascinating micro-stories to tell. There are dozens of visitable worlds. There are crunchy skill upgrades. There's a staggeringly huge Codex of background info that answers every question you never bothered to think about. You can launch a man across a spacious plaza with the power of your mind and watch as he lands in a plant.
It's all great fun and "Mass Effect" ends up being one of the most addictive games dropping this season. There are plenty of huge titles begging for your dollar's supplication this time of year - "Assassin's Creed," "Call of Duty 4," "Mario Galaxy," to name a tiny percentage - but for what it's worth, "Mass Effect" will probably net you the most pure fun time, as a full play-through clocks in around 35 to 40 hours.
Buy it, but wait until after finals week, because you can't get a degree in assault training.
Contact John Bailey at
John.C.Bailey@UConn.edu.
Be the first to comment on this article!