On Mass Effect

I'm admittedly a geek for any game that has a strong story. The more the game world feels like there's some interesting bit of story or history around every corner the more I want to sit down and explore the world. The back story bits especially, make the game world feel old, feel like it has a deep history to explore and learn about. Halo was successful at making the game world feel like it had a rich history to explore, as did Bioshock, Asheron's Call and even World of Warcraft.

I'm 4 hours into the game so far spanned across only two play sessions. I still haven't left the citadel but that's okay because I feel like I've barely started to explore it. Mass Effect is easily the kind of game I could lose myself for hours as a time in. There's always one more codex to read and one more person to talk to.

I knew that going in though, that's why I waited at long as possible to buy the game. It was a calculated gamble, the longer I wait to buy the game the greater the risk I'll have it spoiled on one of the podcasts, news feeds or forums I browse, but November was a real bad time for that kind of game to ship. But now my son is old enough to sleep mostly through the night, so I can actually devote 2 or 3 hours on a Friday night to playing a single player game.

I have the feeling though that I'll be playing Mass Effect until at least when the sequel ships, especially if Bioware keeps doling out downloadable content in bite sized chucks.

As good as the story and atmosphere of the game are, I am a little disappointed in the combat portions. I'm too used to the gun play in Halo and Gears of War I guess, so at least at the onset of the game I find the gun play and cover system not quite up to par. Still this game takes the characters skill into account, so I'm optimistic that combat will improve some what.

Combat is not the focus of the game anyway, the characters and story are. Which makes the game much more relaxing to play. Mass Effect feels like a game I CAN take my time with. Most other story driven games I've played maintain a more frenetic pace throughout, while Mass Effect only seems to take it's time, even with combat.

Mass Effect is not fatherhood friendly, in that it is not something you pick up and play for a few minutes while the children are sleeping or busy playing by themselves. Still as a sci-fi fan and recovering RPG addict I do highly recommend it.