Mass Effect

Good

* story. engaging from start to finish with thoroughly convincing characters. absolutely superb.
* real tangible ramifications with decisions made mean multiple endings and outcomes. a breath of fresh air.
* impressive scope and freedom.
* good balance between combat and story.
* excellent replay value and longevity. First run through took me 24hrs.

Bad
* occasional glitches. my character got stuck in the environment several times meaning i had to reload and it also froze once.
* loads and redraw are a constant reminder that this is just a game.
* you cant go back and explore the universe/ complete side quests post completion a'la GTA so you better see all there is to see pre Ilos mission. shame.

I noticed with Mass Effect that while it was a Bioware party based RPG (and we've seen that all before by now) it does things in a different way - from the graphics to the controls.

Firstly, the menu options for conversation replies is different, with you having to move the menu selector in a radial fashion around the replies set about it. This feels a little strange when you find you have to do it in the pause menu as well. You'll often find yourself being able to fall into loops, trapped in the same conversation you just had, which seems to crop up a lot more than the other RPGs by this developer.

Another unusual feature was the "film grain" effect that comes on by default. I found it a little concerning at first, thinking it was the first signs of my Xbox overheating until I looked in the menu and found it as an option. If you switch this effect off, it looks smooth and gleaming like any other Bioware RPG. Oddly I found myself missing this new visual presentation and I switched it back on. It serves especially well on planet surfaces with ravaging conditions battering against you, giving the gameplay a grim otherworldly aesthetic.

Already the game was feeling alien to me and not just because I had aliens around me, but this was refreshing.

The story has a serious sci-fi feeling about it, in the presentation, mood and tone of characters and elements. While not stellar class, the acting is of a reasonable standard with some well known names in the character cast. Seth Green anyone?

The rest of the actual storyline is quite enthralling, with you finding yourself getting sucked in as the plot progresses. I won't say much about that, because as always, my reviews are spoiler free. I will simply state that you and a ship full of crew end up in pursuit of somebody as a mission to stop them bringing about a war upon the galaxy, channelling an old threat that had lain dormant for so long.

There are a number of planets to land on, to press the storyline on. Most of the other land option planets in the galaxy are just there for you to earn some experience out of with no great feeling of plot driven existence and unfortunately some noticeable degree of repetitiveness. You'll drive around, see a pod you aren't skilled high enough to open and leave it behind, drive and find another, find a building with pirates inside. You'll kill the pirates and there will be some sort of item which proves a person inside is dead. You'll then be tasked to take that item back to the person they know at the Citadel. Unfortunately, that pretty much sums up the majority of away missions, aside from the occasional "thresher maw" attack or Geth ambush. It is wonderful however that items you do manage to unlock and conversations in which you discover new information grant you experience too.

I chose to play as a soldier. I typically don't like to do this with Bioware's RPG games as I find the experience a little two dimensional in combats, preferring a mage in for example DAO - however, the combat system here is more a cross between that old way and a straight up honest to goodness third person shooter.

Although the combat never truly gives you the feel of playing a dedicated shooter, for me Soldier was an obvious choice based on the aim to shoot game system. The Biotic I suppose is most like the aforementioned "mage" class, but it appeared more limited than a magic user of any other RPG and the techie types did nothing to persuade me either.

I mentioned above that you never truly get the feel of this being a shooter. That can be felt in certain aiming situations where you're sure you have a target but you're scoring no hits. This is especially pronounced in the Mako - the vehicle you drive around the various planets in the game- which has two very nice gunfire options, but neither seem to work well at enemies in the great distance (in certain situations). Sometimes you can fire your own missiles at the estimated enemy position and score a hit on them, but other times you get the feeling that neither gun will do anything unless you get very close to multiple incoming fire points at once...This is made all the more frustrating when the enemy can fire at you from as far away as they like. If you find yourself just starting to drive down a hill or a ramp out of a tunnel, beware. There's every chance that 0% of your shots will hit, with your vehicle's powerful secondary fire going way off course up into the sky for some reason, even though you've physically aligned the vehicle and you can see the turret isn't pointing up like that. The game is pretty much telling you, "sorry, you need to get in the enemy's faces and put yourself on the line a whole lot more". This may be intentional, I don't know, but I do keep experiencing it. Luckily, this won't happen too much of the time.

I must admit, I did like the way that your personal skill choices from level ups improve your combat effectiveness in tangible ways. Things like the sniper rifle not moving around so much when zoomed if you invest more points into your sniper rifles skill. This true upgrade element reminds me of Deus Ex. That can only be a good thing. As the skills go further into this combat effectiveness, it does then become more and more like a proper shooter, even if it never quite crosses the finish line.

The graphics are nice enough although they do regularly suffer from texture loading issues, the like of which I haven't seen in such severity since `Halo 2' on the original Xbox. It will very often take the character textures a few moments longer during a cut scene to even load up. This is even seen in real time play, when you reload in after a death or a quick cut to you situation.

This is only scratching the surface however for performance issues, with Mass Effect struggling to keep the frame rate going. And by "going" I mean 0 FPS. I figured out what the "mass effect" actually is: It's lag.

The game is riddled with lags that will perhaps only annoy experienced gamers who've come to expect better from Bioware's titles. I experienced at least one crash using one of the quick transport systems in the game (it froze on the loading screen) and other incidents that felt like they were about to be crashes but were proven to not be - lucky I waited, eh? Other than that, there's the constant section loading which the game takes longer than is standard in other RPG's, sometimes leaving you rooted to the spot, mid stride. These begin to add up and get a little annoying, which is not the sort of feeling you want growing in you when you're trying to enjoy a game.

We'll even see evidence of these lags in little places like start menu operations, when choosing a save file to overwrite or such - nothing performs instantly to the touch. Essentially, the input feedback is less than it could be.

I believe the real culprit for this performance speed issue is the way the console handles the software. The longer you play, the more memory is stored up without dumping. Although the developer knew they were running this on a 360, so this should be known to them. You would also think that installing would allow the HDD to share that build up. It's not like I have an anywhere near a full hard drive, so it could be a bit more resourceful, surely.

I did install the game to my hard drive to see if this would help matters at all but it didn't. There were no noticeable improvements in any way, except for saving my disc from having to spin all the time in the drive...The game had the opportunity to under perform, reading from my hardware instead.

This being a Bioware RPG, you'd be right in guessing that there's a great opportunity for responses when in conversations. This brings me on to yet another fault I found in Mass Effect. The responses you see on screen so very often don't fit the theme of what the character actually says (because yes, your character speaks out loud). This can be so far off base that you will sometimes find yourself thinking "no don't say that" when you're the one who chose it! Dialogue response choices often seem pointless anyway, as if any of your replies would have said the same thing, or very close to at least.

Again, the usual Bioware charm for part RPG part conversation sim is somehow diminished here.

I've had characters becoming stuck on scenery, although they do seem to teleport to you eventually. However, I do have to point out the one time when a character became stuck on nothing at all (open ground) and simply couldn't move on.

Another issue I've found with the friendly A.I. is it not listening to commands you give it. You may tell your characters to hold position at a doorway for cover. Then before you know it, one of them might be knelt out in the open getting their shields stripped down to nothing. There's other times when a hold command is broken, with the on screen "hold" indicators no longer present, even though I haven't moved far away from them.

On the subject of combat, there's also the annoying sound clips that play over and over. With cries of "Hold the line" and "Enemy is everywhere" chirping up at every five second intervals, your suspension of belief required to enjoy the game wears rather thin indeed...

If you just stand there and wait behind cover, you can let them carry on saying those two phrases over and over again.

If you attempt to have a long range fight with sniper rifles or the mako and you shoot someone dead, you team mates will say something along the lines of "That's the last of them", even though the camp below is full of enemies still aware of my presence and taking shots at us. This gets annoying when you snipe a camp full of foes only to hear that phrase after every kill... Read more ›

Mass Effect is a terrific game. It balances RPG and action/shooter elements with a gripping and intelligent story, strong characterisation and a beautifully conceived universe. Whether undertaking the main story missions or the many side quests, Mass Effect provides hours of gameplay. I've just completed it (having done all of the side missions) in 33 hours. And the replay value is good too - new modes unlock first time through and, because of the paragon/renegade paradigm of developing your character, a whole new way through the story is possible.

The only negative is the capacity for the game to freeze, requiring a reboot. This happened maybe a half dozen times, but as long as you save frequently, it isn't too much of an issue. Other than that, the control system is good and intuitive, the dialogue engine is remarkably sophisticated and the whole experience is deeply satisfying. I'm already looking forward to Mass Effect 2.