amazing RPG that not only captivates but involves (Mass Effect (PC))

Member Name: Reviah

Product:	Mass Effect (PC)
Date:	13/08/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: beautiful to look at, great sound and level design, emotionally engaging storyline and charasmatic

Disadvantages: occasional graphical glitches, some repetative locations on sub-plot planets

Bioware have been known for their award-winning RPG games, Knights Of The Old Republic, Neverwind Nights and Jade Empire to name but a few, however their latest outing into the RPG genre marks something of a major maturity.

Originally released on the Xbox 360 platform in 2007 as an exclusive microsoft title, the PC version eventually appeared in 2008. For me, who doesn't own an Xbox 360 it was an agonising wait, but the wait was worth it.

Mass Effect is set primarily in the sci-fi genre, with hints of magic and mythology, suspense, conspiracy and action thriller. The player gets to live the story through the eyes of Commander Shepard who, cleverly thanks to the love and attention Bioware give their games, can be either a woman or a man. This leads to very interesting and different story arcs but more on that later.

The game starts off with you customising your character, setting gender, appearance and also their specialities from various classes such as Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Yet what makes it compelling from the start, is that you can select your military background. Did you save thousands of people in a battle? Were you the sole survivor? These and many other options are available and have an immediate impact on the storyline.

It's hard to talk about Mass Effect without discussing the amazing story line, which if you have ever played the 'Game Of The Year 2003*' Knights Of The Old Republic, you will be well aware of Bioware's talent for creating immersive, compelling and brilliant story lines.

I would go as far as to say, this is probably in my 28 years of computer game experience, the closest I have found a game to play like a well written movie. The characters have depth, you become emotionally attached to them, and they all have their perks and back stories. Each persona in the game offers something different. Plus, Bioware being Bioware, like to throw plot twists in to really tug at the heartstrings!

I really don't want to discuss the story itself in this review, as I feel you should experience it first hand without any spoilers, let's just say if this was made into a film it would be a blockbuster success such as Star Wars, Serenity or Blade Runner, as long as they did it scene for scene and didn't 'interpret' it into a water down version like the atrocity that was Max Payne.

The game is absolutely stunning to look at, with each area beautifully rendered and created, visually I would say there are hints of Blade Runner, Star Wars and Star Trek, yet still in it's own unique feel and flavour. Surprisingly, the game runs at a steady frame-rate even with all this sci-fi eye-candy, with only a few minor bugs (occasional pop-up / texture loading speed etc).

The interface is easy to use, if a little confusing at first, in its defense it was designed for an Xbox 360 control system and tweaked for the keyboard and mouse interface of the PC. Using the sub menus, you can modify both your skills and perks with experience points that you gain as you play the game, whether it was for solving a mission/sub mission or for killing a certain amount of bad guys.

Depending on your class, you can assign to upgrade weapons with different parts and ammunition that you find throughout the game, or implement biotic implants to raise your skills in that particular area.

Controlling Shepard is straight forward, using the standard W,A,S,D, keys and the mouse for looking around, aiming and shooting. The combat can be either all out guns blazing or squad based tactics, or perhaps you prefer the stealth route, there are multiple ways of doing many of the hundreds of side-quests and story quests. The Third Person perspective works well allowing you to see not only your team but your character as well, which adds to the realism as unlike some first-person perspective games like Half-Life where the character is mute and allows the player to form their own thoughts for what they would say, the camera in the third person allows for cinematic sweeps and establshing shots for various cut-scenes and interactive conversational parts, which I will now discuss.

The conversation system is similiar to those of Knights Of The Old Republic, Oblivion, Fallout 3 etc where you have multiple choices of responses or questions when interacting, but the thing that makes Mass Effect's speech unique is that the choices on offer are 'suggested tones' rather than what Commander Shepard is actually going to say. For instance

Choice A. I'd Really Like To Help - Choice B. What's In It For Me? - Choice C. Forget it, I don't have time for this - Choice D. Give me your credits before I blast you.

This for me, made it all the more interesting rather than just quickly scanning the text and pressing the button to skip through the dialogue which becomes second nature in some RPG's. The other point to add to the choices and personality is the way you can play the game. Although this is not new in the RPG genre it still has a very impacting effect on the game through out. You can choose to be the savior, the sinner or the person in the middle of the karma scale. What choices you make in the game have a clear and noted effect on the story line. What will make the Mass Effect Trilogy (it has been confirmed that there will be a trilogy of games), so compelling and unique in the RPG genre is the announcement by Bioware that your save games from the first game will be carried over to the next game, so what choices you make in Mass Effect will have an effect on the storyline of Mass Effect 2.

The music is both cinematic and futuristic, and fits the moods perfectly, it really adds to the air of suspense with it minimal undercurrents during the quiet exploring parts and blends seamlessly as a battle ensues. The sound design and effects was also very well done, although I would have liked to have heard a few more variations in the NPC alien characters (some seem to have not only the same accent but the same pitch and nuances).

The game has literally hundreds of side-quests dotted around the Mass Effect universe, with planetary exploration included. Each adds to the storyline and improves it already impressive game time. Travelling provided by your trust ship and a selection of galaxys at the ships galaxy map.

So is there anything bad to be said for Mass Effect? In my opinion hardly anything, there are technical issues, pop up, loading texture speeds, repetitive stations on some planets in the sub-quest areas (some even have the exact same textures and layout), but other than that, no, I cannot fault the game.

If you have a mid range (2009 rating) PC with a decent graphics card, processor and memory you should have absolutely no problem playing this game, if you're computer is an aging Pentium 4 with 1Gb of RAM i'd recommend testing it first.

The varied story arcs, choices and classes each giving a different experience every time, brings me back time and time again to replay Mass Effect to experience something new each time and still captivate me. Now that is a rarity in a game for me.

So in summary, an amazing RPG experience that can be enjoyed on both the Xbox 360 and PC and looks to get even better with the release of Mass Effect 2 next year.

Summary: an amazing RPG experience that looks to get even better