Riveting storytelling, interesting characters, great action, strategy, this game has it all. While there are a few technical bumps along the way, including longish load times, textures that seem to pop up out of nowhere and some faulty AI, these glitches are not enough to come close to taking the fun out of gaming.
The Details
The Universe and Story
The world of Mass Effect is a fully realized universe. Each character you meet has a backstory, each world has character, every race has a long and storied culture which does more than provide us with stereotypes. As the story unfolds, you come to understand the motivation of the various people and aliens around you. I am coming to appreciate this more the second time through.
Right from the get go I was impressed with the voice acting, and the overall design of the characters. The simple things speak volumes. At the very beginning of the story, you meet a Marine who has just fallen upon difficult times. As she's explaining what happened, she says "Oh, man...". In that one throw away line, you hear how scared she is. As she continues to debrief Commander Shepard, you hear the "soldier" part of her take over, as she gives details of the attack. It is the little things, like realistic dialogue that give this story texture.
Another thing that I enjoyed was that as a female Commander Shepard, you have the exact same skills as a male Shepard. The dialogue changes as necessary, but she is just as much a soldier and "kicker of asses" as her male counterpart. As a female gamer, I was quite relieved.
The overall story is intriguing. Commander Shepard has to save humanity. This is the objective of almost all RPGs, but in Mass Effect, the story moves away from simplicity. There are twists and turns, Shepard must make use of different skills, do different things other than "go here, shoot enemies, go there, shoot more enemies.". It is hard to tell more of the story without spoiling it, so I will say this: the story will capture you, and make you care for the people around you.
The side quests are legion, some of them silly, most of them are fairly believable; Shepard would be called upon to do these things. Some of them involve the opposite sex (and one of them the same sex: lesbian scenes... oh my!). You gain control of a spacecraft and are able to visit numerous planets and systems. You can survey, and land on some of them. When you do, take a look around, the scenery is amazing, even when it's a dusty moon!
Decisions, Decisions...
Mass Effect is first and foremost an RPG, emphasis is placed on the decisions you make and how you play and design your character. Be warned: these decisions that you make throughout the game have real consequences along your journey. And I don't mean that by playing one way you will get a different ending cutscene. There is not a "good, better and best" ending to this game. The decisions you make actually change the gameplay. For example, I own the walkthrough (I heart walkthrough books!) and I deviated from this "official" walkthrough. The result? I had completely different conversations, and a battle in a different area. I will not spoil the story, but some of the decisions have far reaching effects. Trust me when I say that the decisions are not frivolous. Note that a diplomatic solution will net you the same experience points as a combat situation. This adds yet another layer to the types of decisions you make.
Much has been written about the Renegade/Paragon system. How you answer questions during the game, and more importantly the actions you take earn you Paragon or Renegade points. Do you believe that a leader should be loved: play the paragon and listen to your people, make them feel good about the hard decisions that they have made. Leaders should be feared? Play the renegade and shoot people in the back! You can customize your character by giving them charm or intimidate points, making Commander Shepard a more efficient paragon or renegade respectively.
Speaking of customization, let's look at the beginning, shall we?
Customization
Your character is Commander Shepard, a soldier through and through. At the beginning of the game, you have the option of creating a male or female version of your hero. You choose your background, psychological profile and your class. The background and profile adds either Renegade or Paragon points, and changes how you are perceived by other characters. The main part of the customization has to do with your class, your "job" as you will.
There are three main classes of characters: Soldier (combat specialist), Adept (Biotic Specialist) and Engineer (Tech specialist). There are also combinations of any two of these classes: Vanguards, Infiltrators and Sentinels. Once you pick one class, skill sets open, but others close. A soldier will never learn to sabotage a mechanical enemy, an Engineer will never lift and throw an enemy with his or her mind, an Adept will never become proficient with a shot gun and so on. This is refreshing. Too often in RPGs, all skills are wide open. By closing some skills, it forces you to live with the character you have chosen.
The creators of this game have balanced the characters such that no matter how you enjoy playing, you will find a class that you will have fun using. I like to hang back and beat down from far away: my infiltrator character was so good with a sniper rifle, I could take down the largest, biggest, baddest of the baddies towards the end!
There are a myriad of different ways to customize the facial features of your Shepard, although I have two beefs. One is mine, another is a clan mate's. Mine: you can only turn Shepard's head so far when you are making him or her. I got a freaky little nose on my male Shepard and my female Shepard had cheekbones that were WAY too prominent on someone who isn't a model, because I couldn't see the right angle. My clanmate is right on with this next one: why doesn't a female Shepard change her hairstyle from day to day? Wouldn't she just do like all of us do on a busy day and stick it in a pony tail, instead o the elaborate bun? Or maybe leave it down another day? With all the technology that is out there, you would think this would be easy. There is a ponytail option, but it just looked like sticks of straw. Do better!
I do like the fact that Shepard can have a scar. My male Shepard has a nasty one right down his cheek. Three words: chicks dig scars.
You weapons and armor are all upgradable with different ammo and effects. You can buy new equipment from various shopkeepers, and you can buy licences so that your own requisitions officer can get the fancy stuff. It is important to continually check your weapons, new and better stuff comes around all the time. Change your ammo on the fly during combat, optimize everything.
Combat
But enough about the pleasantries: let's talk about the combat. It's fun... once you get the hang of it. It's true that this game does throw you into things without much help. Save often is a good mantra. If you enjoy run 'n' gun FPS, be warned that this is not that type of game. Shepard has two other squad mates that enter into combat with you. You cannot directly control each character, but it is possible to give some direction. Holding the RB button on your controller, a list of abilities pops up. At that point you can "tell" each squad mate what ability to use. The LB button equips different weapons of each squadmate. The directional pad will give various commands to the squad: go there, come back, take cover/hold ground and attack what I'm attacking. There are some problems with the AI. I read somewhere that the name Shepard might be a bit of a joke, since you are continually shepherding your squadmates. I didn't find it that bad, but sometimes your squad won't take cover, they'll get overzealous, or they will equip a stupid weapon. Overall I didn't have too much difficulty with them, in fact I found the game went much better when I gave the squad's AI full use of their own abilities, instead of defensive abilities only.
As I said, this is not a Run 'n' Gun. Running into combat will get you killed. It's best to think, equip the proper weapons, the proper upgrades, go slowly, take cover. The combat is never stale, even at the end of my first runthrough, I got killed in some of the more difficult areas. This is a good thing. The game should never be ho-hum easy, and it isn't. Although it wasn't easy, I never felt like it was impossible, like I was screwed. You just have to rethink your strategy going in.
There are three main classes. Soldier (combat), Engineer (tech) and Adept (Biotic). All 3 types of combat are useful in various situations. My first time through I was surprised at how much I used the engineer in my squad. Take note: most of your enemies are technological, an engineer can destroy them as easily (easier?) than a combat specialist. I encourage you to play through using whichever type of character you will have fun playing, because I am convinced you can beat the game with any character type.
The Downsides
I've mentioned some of the problems I found with the game, the AI problems and the customization beefs. There is lag, the load times are long in places. I think it's more frustrating because it takes you out of the story. The long elevator rides cover up for some of these load times, but they only got me more frustrated.
I did run into one major glitch. One of my squad mates "lost" his armor. It was just gone! When I tried to equip him with something, the game froze. Luckily I didn't use that character too much, but there was nothing I can do. I have been told by a clanmate that this was just a save error and is extremely rare. Just remember your mantra (save often, save often...)
The Summary
How can you measure the greatness of a game? Simple. I am as excited to play this game through a second time as I was the first time. I finished it as a female paragon infiltrator, this time I'm playing as a male renegade Vanguard. Maybe the time after that will be as an Adept! But what am I doing here typing? Its time to go shoot the unwilling in the back!
