That score of 4 stars is one that I think I'll constantly think about more than other reviews. Why? Cause anything lower would undermine the quality and production values of the game yet the wide range of issues I have with it don't seem to warrant a 4. Which is why I sort of feel like that guy right now: you know..., the one guy surrounded by people who love a certain something and everyone going "man isn't it perfect and amazing?" and you put your hand up and go "well...not exactly" in a small voice. Bioware's talent and amazing track record taken into account, Mass Effect is probably the first game I've played of theirs where the flaws of the game nag me too much, rather than just become some minor; a nuisance that is either not a big deal or just nitpicking. The game still continues Bioware's tradition of meaningful dialogue, interesting plots and excellent storytelling; it's just the gameplay constantly gets on my nerves and part of me wishes they learned how to make Mass Effect 2 first, then started making the franchise.
You play as Commander Shepard, a customizable soldier tasked with investigating a distress beacon activated on the planet of Eden Prime. Arriving there, he/she finds a race of synthetics known as the geth, a mysterious beacon and a man named Saren. Upon activating the beacon, Shepard is shown a vision of an impending war and potentially the end of civilization in the galaxy and Saren's involvement with it. Since Saren's a Spectre, an elite agent who can act independently of any law or restrictions, Shepard becomes the first human Spectre and is sent across the galaxy to track down Saren and uncover the truth behind an ancient race known as the Reapers.
While I personally prefer the cast of characters of Dragon Age, Mass Effect is far from a slouch in creating its own universe with a massive history to learn about, a range of characters to learn and love and an incredibly engrossing plot with memorable moments. While there's some squad members I never became a fan of (Kaiden for one), the quality of the writing between each one succeeds at making characters I actually grew to love (like Tali...oh and props for making her a love interest in 2, Bioware, much thanks). The game was somewhat short as once I started to feel the game winding down and the sidequests becoming fewer, I was under the 20 hour mark compared to the sequel's 30 but as always, Bioware really knows how to tell a tale.
But playing the tale is a matter altogether as there's so many design decisions in this game that leave me floored nobody picked up on it or just ran out of time to properly implement it. You can choose between 6 different classes, most of which don't feel as unique as they were in Mass Effect 2. The combat is pretty basic as its a 3rd-person cover based shooter but Right Bumper controls the skill radial menu where you can select your ability you want to use, let go of RB and do the work while Left Bumper controls what your squad members equip. At times it works but it's also kind of stop/start pace since it doesn't have the button-assigned hotkeys like the sequel did so wanting to activate an ability always pauses the action but it's no big deal. One thing that I do prefer over the sequel though is the bigger role customization had since everytime you leveled up, you could allocate points to specific skills. Never going to use a certain ability? Ignore it and power the hell out of another. Should you power up one ability or unlock an improved version of another? This customizable aspect is maybe really heavy in the amount of things you can upgrade but it helped make the RPG part of the game stand out and let me create my character to my play style.
Now we come down to the one thing everyone admitted flat out sucked about Mass Effect: the Mako. This car/tank is the one thing I can look at in future playthroughs and feel like "ugh, to go back to that thing...". It controls like crap and makes dodging enemy fire frequently hit-or-miss, it feels like it doesn't have any weight in the whole thing so it's constantly bouncing and bobbing around the landscape, and even the levels themselves are kind of repetitive. Minute you land, you check your map, put waypoints on anything labeled "anomaly" or "debris", go to them, do a Simon-Says minigame, then travel to your real destination and go inside a building and shoot guys. I like the idea of visiting a bunch of planets but this was one thing that I felt was very poorly implemented.
As far as graphically, I can talk about the look of the game and the performance. In the looks department, this game does impress with some great art designs, inventive and memorable alien races and great use of direction during cutscenes. It's just too bad the engine can't handle any of it since it frequently stutters, there's either bad textures, shimmering textures (a frequent UE3 problem) or textures that load in gradually (again...another UE3 problem). It doesn't help the design of the levels tend to err on the repetitive side and more than once, I ran into the same layout in separate buildings and the "large-ness" of the areas can throw off the pacing since it feels like too much walking through big areas and the firefight at the end being shorter than the actual walk to the firefight itself. Granted, all this was fixed in the sequel and this was Bioware's first time using the Unreal Engine, first time on the Xbox 360 and made during a time where developers didn't fully tap into what the 360 was capable of but it's still a beautiful game that's constantly blemished by technical issues.
I don't want to come across as Mr. Negative who hated Mass Effect since I think it's a great RPG and even does a few select things better than what came after it (namely the customization and the actual plot itself) but despite me being a huge Bioware fan, I can't say this game is a masterpiece or comes near it but it's a way to experience a great story. But this game makes me appreciate Mass Effect 2 a lot more because they made a lot of those changes for really good reasons.
