 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | BioWare |
| Publisher: | Microsoft | |
| Genre: | RPG | |
| ESRB: | Mature | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | HDTV 720p | |
| Buy Now: |   |
Mass Effect’s combat is where you’re going to find the split begin amongst gamers and critics. During the buildup for the game, many people read “tactical shooter” and envisioned a game similar to Rainbow Six. The reality is that Mass Effect’s combat plays like a tame version of Gears of War. Combat is basic once you get used to it. The game walks you through a basic control rundown in the first mission, but it doesn’t really explain the Action Wheel during this tutorial. The Action Wheel is brought up by pulling and holding either bumper. One wheel controls which weapon each character is using (choose from pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles) while the other controls special abilities. While I set my AI partners to use their abilities at will, using the wheel to select powers for them often gives you better results. While you have the wheels up, combat is paused. In a sense, it operates as a smoother version of Knights of the Old Republic’s pause-to-issue-commands method. There are no swords in this game, so all of the combat is done with firearms. The game takes place in third person view, so it plays like a stripped down version of Gears of War. The cover system is still present, and dashing at an enemy results in a heavy melee attack. For the most part though, you simply hide behind a wall and shoot enemies.
Loot is collected automatically, so you don’t have to search around looking for unlooted corpses. This system keeps the game flowing, although it can make inventory management hectic. You have 150 available inventory spots, and this can fill up rather quickly if you perform a streak of missions without stopping at a store. You can melt down items into Omnigel, which is used to bypass locks or repair the Mako. Items range in appearance and strength based on their manufacturing company. Each model from a manufacturer has multiple series numbers. A higher series number indicates a better product, though some manufacturing lines are better than others.
The story development is the most impressive part of Mass Effect. Dialog is well-crafted and implemented perfectly. Every line is spoken by a voice actor, and most of them do a great job in creating believable interactions between the characters. Players control dialog through a wheel at the bottom of the screen. There are several responses, ranging from nice to sarcastic to sadistic. The listed responses aren’t what your character will say, but a general feeling and tone of the response. If the selection has two words on it, your character will wrap the overall meaning of those two words through a few sentences. The delivery of the dialog is superb, especially for a video game. You actually feel like you’re watching a movie and it is interesting to see how characters react to your dialog choices and actions via dialog (threats, persuasion, actions). Your character can spark romances through dialog, or he can essentially tell everyone in the game to go to hell. Your choices have some repercussions, though not nearly as many as I would have liked to see (and I won’t dive into this because of spoiler issues). The system is overall a standard RPG dialog tree, though the wheel approach to listing your dialog choices presents your options in a clear and concise manner.
The musical score to the game is epic. It would fit a sci-fi movie, and perfectly meshes with the game’s feel. As previously noted, the voice acting is great and a shining example of how to implement it into a game. Sound effects are your typical action/sci-fi fare, as lasers, bullets, explosions, and ship noises all sound great.
Despite the praise, there are a few nitpicks I have with Mass Effect. The game does have an issue of textures briefly not appearing on models when cinematic scenes start (much like Halo 2). I often found myself ignoring this, as it didn’t happen that much through my first run through the game. The game also disguises loading in certain areas by using elevators. These elevators move very slowly, but I’d rather have that then cut to a loading screen every time I go to a new level. The biggest problem I found though was that the game periodically pauses action in order to load data from the DVD. You don’t see this while in combat, and you really only see it when you’re walking in safe areas. It is, however, an annoyance firmly grounded in the Xbox 360’s hardware and makes the case for at least using the HDD in some capacity to take some load off of the DVD. Really these issues are minor, and they don’t distract from an otherwise extremely well—crafted game, but they’re still noteworthy.
Bottom Line:
While my review is admittedly scarce on plot details to spare you spoilers, Mass Effect has managed to take everything great about the prior RPG games BioWare has created and set the bar even higher. I haven’t felt this compelled to play an RPG in years. This is primarily due to the fresh feel of the universe and BioWare’s stellar job of writing the dialog, and getting the voice actors to properly convey it. I’ve already finished the game once, and I’m getting ready to go through it again in order to take a different route here and there. While there are minor nitpicks on the technical side, my score doesn’t detract for them because they weren’t critical failures and they are overshadowed by the simply amazing game BioWare has created.
The 10 rating is one that often causes controversy. I’ve given one out (to Gears of War) already, and I’ll probably catch flack for giving it out again. The way I look at it is simply this: to me a 10 score on any title I review means that it’s so good that there will only be a few others that even come close to it in a generation. Because BioWare obliterated the bar it had helped set for RPGs and has created in my opinion the Game of the Year for 2007, Mass Effect is a solid 10 with no regrets.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 10.0 |
Posted: 2007-11-19 18:43:14 PST