I know, I know; some of you… many of you… have played Mass Effect. It sold well. It got great reviews. It was released ages ago. But, there are some people out there like me… who don’t get to play every game when it’s new… and who enjoy the occasional bargain gaming experience.
Mass Effect, released for the Xbox 360 in the autumn of 2007, is widely regarded as a triumph for developer BioWare. It offers a long, non-linear, action RPG campaign full of quirky if familiar characters, unusual environments (sci-fi tropical?) and a serviceable space-opera plotline. The game features a unique interpretation of the now common RPG morality mechanic. Character alignment ranges not from good to evil but from paragon to renegade. More importantly, player decisions form an aggregate alignment that ensures no decision is negated. In other words, if you perform a renegade act it stays on your permanent record. Mass Effect also offers a customizable protagonist (though always some version of human Commander Shepard), several specialized combat classes, and the possibility of romance… well, sex anyway
Mass Effect takes for-Han Soloing-ever to finally get started. After a short introductory action sequence, you wander for hours around the most boring city environment since Shenmue (Did you see what happened that day? Ugh.), while receiving instruction on the Mass Effect universe, which is both Star Wars quality and quantity… be prepared to do a lot of reading your first time through.
Eventually you will navigate through the preamble and get to the heart of the game. Your character is given command of a starship and is granted a level of autonomy that allows you to explore the galaxy at leisure. You can sprint straight through the core missions if you like, but I suggest you ignore them, at least for a while. It really is a Star Wars quality universe (no surprise from longtime LucasArts partner BioWare) and if you get hung up on the plot you’ll miss a lot of it.
Combat can be challenging, particularly if you choose the wrong party members for the mission. That won’t happen often though. It won’t take long before you are relying on two or three complimentary party members to keep you healthy.
My only other complaint is about the car. Planet exploration in the combat truckster can be tedious. Why create extraordinarily difficult terrain and then give the player a tank that can, and will, cross it if the player simply pushes the thumb stick forward long enough? Flying over the terrain in a helicopter type vehicle, finding a place to land near a map marker, and then exploring smaller areas of terrain on foot might have been more fun. The other use for the vee-hickle, navigating through gauntlets of cannon fodder, is more entertaining. By the way… the car doesn’t float… at all. Stick one inch of tread in dark blue water and sleep with the fishes you will.
Oh… the best thing about Mass Effect… I paid less than fifteen bucks for it used at GameStop. If you haven’t played it, go get it. Or, go get it once you burn out on Modern Warfare 2 with three weeks to go until you pull Assassin’s Creed 2 out from under the tree. When you’re done backstabbing Italian Renaissance power brokers as Ezio, Mass Effect 2, which I imagine will be less UMass-Effect-centric, arrives January, 2010.
Jack Bronn was born in Illinois, raised in Florida, misses his home in New Hampshire, dreams of living in New York, and resides with his wife and son in North Carolina. He writes.