Mass Effect Review

Developers Bioware created the wildly popular ‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’ and ‘Jade Empire’ role playing games on the original Xbox, so expectations for their latest game ‘Mass Effect’ were high. It was number two on our Most Anticipated Games for 2007 feature earlier in the year, so we’re happy to report that it was well worth the wait. In fact if you enjoy sci-fi movies and TV shows like Star Wars, Babylon 5 or BattleStar Galactica or are even just a big Western RPG fan then Mass Effect will blow you away. Bioware have created a great action role playing game in fully fledged sci-fi world, which players can’t help but get fully immersed in. Fans of KOTOR and Jade Empire will be in hog heaven, as Christmas has come early this year.

In the far flung future, mankind has reached the stars and joined a galactic society with hundreds of alien races. But Humans aren’t the centre of the universe in Mass Effect; in fact we’re very much the new comers, an upstart race that pulled itself into the stars, not by our own boot straps, but like every other race in the galaxy by technology left behind by the mysterious Protheans. Despite the fact we’ve made it to the big time, the more established races aren’t quite ready to accept us. Humanity isn’t even on the Galactic Council that keeps the peace. We’re going to need to prove ourselves, and that’s where you come in. One of the Galactic Council’s special agents, a SPECTRE, has gone rogue and you need to be stop him before he unleashes the Geth -an army of genocidal cybernetic killers- on all organic life in the Galaxy.(Sounds like BattleStar Galactica to me- where’s Starbuck?-Ed.)

You play as Commander Shepard, a member of the Earth Alliance in command of the starship SSV Normandy, chasing the renegade across the galaxy. In the course of that pursuit you’ll become a SPECTRE yourself, fight countless pitched battles, meet tons of interesting characters and save the galaxy from far darker forces than you could ever have imagined. Mass Effect is pure space opera at its best filled with excitement, adventure and political intrigue.

All of which is backed by one of the most immersive character creation and dialogue systems we’ve ever seen in a role playing game. Mass Effect, in its best moments, does feel just like you’re playing a movie. A fantastic menagerie of aliens, robots and humans all share the screen with you, and even better, you can create your own character in the game, making them male or female, putting your own face onto Commander Shepard if you like. Amazing facial animations and some the best voice work we’ve ever seen in a videogame, give the characters a real life, helping to immerse you in Mass Effects story. All your characters lines are delivered in voice, from a selection of response with a flavour of what you mean to say. Half the fun is hearing what actually comes out of your characters mouth. The game has a ‘Paragon’ and ‘Virtue’ system, depending on how you want to play. If you want to play as a straight good guy you can choose ‘Paragon’ or good responses and mission options, but if you want to be more ruthless, you’ll take the Renegade ones. You can play as you like with a combination, but depending on which you choose, certain dialogue and story options become available. It’s a great addition that makes you want to play the game twice, just to see the path not taken.

While you’ll meet loads of characters in Mass Effect, there’s a core group of adventurers that’ll join your party. They’re an interesting bunch of humans and aliens, like the badass Krogan Battle Master Wrex and female marine Ashley Williams. Each has his or her own back story, and you develop your relationship with them according to how you play. You can even get romantic with some of them, if you play your cards right. There are six in total, two of which can be part of your active party at any one time.

As you travel across the galaxy in the Normandy, exploring planets and uncovering the plot, you’ll do a lot of fighting. The game uses third person real-time combat, and it makes Mass Effect quite different from other RPGs. You’ll control your version of Shepard from an over the shoulder perspective, both to explore planets and for combat using some pretty cool sci-fi weapons. There’s also Mass Effects version of the Force- Biotic powers that allows you to throw enemies around, affect their weapons and destroy their shields.

You’ll find you can tailor the combat abilities of your character, and your squad members to your own play style. The game has six character classes- Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Soldiers are skilled with weaponry, Engineers use tech-abilities and the Adepts are the best with biotics- the Force like powers in the game. The other three classes are combinations of the first three. Infiltrators are Soldiers and Engineers, the Sentinel combines the Engineer and Adept, and Vanguards are a combination of the Soldier and the Adept. You choose your specialization, and the members of your party each come with their own.

Combat in the game is fairly fast paced thanks to the free third person controls, and all the role playing elements are under the hood, but if you try to play the game like a bog standard third person shooter, you’ll find yourself listening to the somber ‘Game Over’ music time and time again. You’ll need to play carefully, using cover and directing your team in combat to win fights. It’s tough at first, but you get the hang of it quickly and there are some great sci-fi weapons in Mass Effect. Few things can get the blood going like hoisting a bad guy into the air with your biotics and blasting him to bits with your plasma shotgun. (Violent sod!-Ed)

While most of Mass Effect is fantastic, it isn’t perfect, and there are some graphical glitches that can become annoying, with frame rate problems and pop up that shouldn’t really be in a game of this quality. Another thing that Mass Effect doesn’t quite get right is adventuring loot- sure you’ll find lots of armour, weapons and ammo that you need, but that’s the extent of it. We’d have liked some more interesting things to find that could be sold in the games many markets, or used on our characters. The inventory system is also a little clunky and the way you change the way your characters weapons and other items could be easier to manage. There’s also the issue of the Mako, an all-terrain armored personnel carrier that you use to explore uncharted planets. The vehicle has weapons on it that you use to fight with on certain worlds, but it’s difficult to control and if bad guys are below you, you can’t hit them. It’s an annoying problem that made us sometimes wish that the Mako hadn’t been included. We much preferred the straight up third person character combat.

Sound in Mass Effect is up to the rest of the high standard of the game, with the previously mentioned quality voice work, complemented by all the right starship, weapon and alien noises that should be in a sci-fi universe. It also has a great soundtrack by game composer Jack Walsh that harkens back to sci-flicks of the 80’s, mingling grand orchestral pieces with electronica giving Mass Effect its cinematic flavour.

Mass Effect is one of those special games that only comes around once in a while, even with it's slight flaws. An exciting story, fast paced combat and a deep character development system will hook you into Mass Effect, and the good news is that it’s meant to be the first of a trilogy. We might even get additional missions between games via Xbox Live at some point which is really exciting. Getting Mass Effect for someone could very well make their Christmas. (Is that a hint?-Ed) It isn’t perfect, but the story and overall experience of Mass Effect make it one of the best RPG’s we’ve played for a long time, and certainly the best on the Xbox 360.

UKMusic.com rating: 4.0/ 5 Stars- Excellent!

Written by Sam Bandah.