InsomniaReview: Mass Effect

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year, you've probably heard SOMETHING about Microsoft's Scifi epic, Halo 3. Sharing the same release month as that uber blockbuster, however, is BioWare's Mass Effect. If you own an Xbox, you probably remember BioWare from the KOTOR series, or Jade Empire. If you own an Xbox and haven't at least tried those games, you should probably just go kill yourself. Just sayin'.

Mass Effect takes the formula from the KOTOR games, and improves on it. You are Commander Shepard, a human soldier who finds himself smack dab in the middle of a plot of galactic proportions. You are appointed as the first human Specter, (which is sort of a cross between SWAT and Jedi) an organization that serves the interest of the Citadel, a conglomeration of various alien races. One of your fellow Specters, Saren, has gone off the deep end, and teamed up with a sentient race of machines called the Geth, with the intent of killing/conquering the galaxy. That's about as far as I'm prepared to walk you through to plot. Any more explanation than that would make me sound like a crazy homeless person rambling under a bridge (more so than usual), but suffice to say, it's pretty good. The amount of backstory and subplots built into Mass Effect are the sort of thing you'd expect from a science fiction story that had been around 20 years, like Star Wars or Star Trek. It's got that same feel to it, but it's all brand new, from scratch. If you ask me, that's quite an achievement from the writing staff at BioWare, and they should be proud of the work they did here.

The game does a great job of only giving you as much story as you want. Your primary storyline objectives and side quests are easy to tell apart in the Journal screen, so you always know where to go to move the story forward, and where to go to just screw around. And there's a LOT to do while just screwing around. The game features hundreds of planets, asteroids, and ships floating free in space, and many of them are explorable, but only a handful are relevant to the main quest. But, if you're the type of player who's only interest in a game is your body count at the end, well, Mass Effect can accommodate you, and you can bypass all the side quests without difficulty (but you should probably stick to Counterstrike).

The gameplay is solid, but could have been more refined. The cover mechanic is passable at best, and at worst frustrating. Your teammate's AI shifts between "okay, that was somewhat helpful" to "For god sake, don't walk in front of my gun while I'm firing!" with disturbing frequency, but for the most part they do more good than harm. The bumper buttons bring up a hot menu of weapons or abilities you can activate, both for yourself and your teammates, but you can only map one ability to a button, despite the fact the y button isn't used in combat. My other frustration is that you have the ability to 'talk' to your teammates by pressing A while on a planet, but doing so in combat just has them chastise you for trying to speak during a firefight. One has to wonder why that's even there, at all.

The lack of context in the controls shows up the worst in the driving sequences, where your weird, tank/moon buggy's controls are based on which direction the CAMERA is facing, not the buggy. It can make trying to maneuver around enemy fire extremely difficult until you get the hang of it.

Then there's the much lamented inventory system. I've heard all sorts of complaints about it, but while it's not a GREAT inventory system, I don't think it spoils the game. Specifically, I've heard people say there was no way to tell if an item has upgrades installed on it without looking at the individual item, but that's only true at the Sell screen. (which, to be fair, is an oversight.) My main complaint with the invo system is the lack on an ability to scroll quickly down to the bottom of a page of items. For that matter, reducing the icons for each item to the size of a line or so of text would help... there's no reason you should only be able to see 4 things at a time.

But, by far the biggest complaint I have is the absurd amount of load times. Now, I have to qualify this complain: My 360's DVD drive is dying a slow death, so I'm probably experiencing more of this than is usual. Even so, the game is loading stuff CONSTANTLY. Texture pop in is worse than a Halo 2 cut scene. The designers obviously knew this, and placed a few elevators here and there to break up the monotony, and give the illusion of a continuous environment. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. The elevator in the heart of the Normany (your ship), for example, takes about a minute to deposit you one floor down. It's the most absurd thing I've ever seen.

And yet, despite this problems, Mass Effect is a fantastic game. BioWare took the old KOTOR good/evil scale, and threw it away, in favor of a new Paragon/Renegade scale. The two sides on this scale aren't quite opposite to each other, meaning you don't see-saw back and forth between them. You accumulate points in one scale or the other, based on how you play the game. Earning higher levels of either unlocks more conversation options, side quests, and goodies. The conversation system itself is fantastic, and combined with the full voice acting for ALL characters, gives the game a much more cinematic feel than KOTOR. It certainly keeps my interest better than it's ancestor did.

The RPG system is pretty good as well, making Mass Effect one of the only action-RPGs I've ever been able to enjoy. There are three main specialties a character can have, combat, tech, and biotic (magic, kinda). The classes you choose in the game either specialize entirely in one field, or spread out between two. Based on your class, some abilities will be available to you, and others will not... you can use heavy weapons and armor, but not biotics or tech. You can use tech AND biotics, but not as well as if you specialized, and no spiffy guns for you. This choice is made at the start of the game, and it's locked in afterwards.

BUT! After unlocking several achievements, on your next play through, your character will start with skills from your first class, regardless of what you pick for your new one. In other words, you can play through as a soldier your first time, and the second time, play as a biotic who can also wield heavy weapons. Since Mass Effect has so many secondary quests (not to mention the Paragon/Renegade specific stuff) that you're likely to want to make a second play through. I know I am.

Despite some rather annoying bugs, and a few sloppy design choices, Mass Effect is an amazing game. If you own a 360, and have a even a passing interest in RPGs, games with plots, or the Sci-Fi genre, you should pick this one up. It's well worth the money.

Alas, this title is 360 exclusive, which is a shame, since it's the first title I ever looked at and said to myself, "Man I wish this was on PS3." Rumors persist of a PS3 release in 2008, so maybe that version won't suffer from texture pop-in and numerous load screens. We can hope, anyway.

VERDICT: BUY. THIS. GAME. If you like Science Fiction. If you like RPGs. And, possibly, if you like shooters. And especially if you like games with a god damn plot.