Mass Effect has always been one of those Xbox 360 games that everyone had high expectations for, after all this is a game made by Bioware and usually they deliver when it comes to the crunch. So how does it measure up to expectations?
Before the action begins, the game requires you to create the sex, face, body and background of Commander Shepard who is the character you will be controlling throughout the game. As well as choosing the look of your character you must also choose their background and character class from the options presented to you. It is important to be aware that the decisions you make here will affect the way that others treat you within the game, so take your time and choose wisely.
Overall there are six base classes which you can choose from, these are solider (basic warrior, trained in a range of combat situations), engineer (trained to manipulate the environment), adept (can affect the world with his mind), infiltrator (tech savvy warrior), vanguard (combines to powers of the soldier and adept) and sentinel (combines the power of the engineer and adept). Each character has its strengths and weaknesses, for example the soldier can only use one biotic power but can wear any armor and can use any weapons, whereas the adept can use all the powers but is limited in what armor he can use.
One thing that has to be said is that Mass Effect is no shooter, every decision you make in the game is very important and will effect the way the game pans out, this counts from what sex or class type you choose down to how you equip your team.Before a mission and once you have assembled your squad, you will be asked to choose two members to take with you (again it is important that you have a good balance) and this is where things start to get interesting. Combat in Mass Effect can be a confusing beast at best, this is because as well as controlling Commander Shepard, you also have to ability to issue commands to your team.
You issue commands to your squad using the D-pad, pushing up commands them to move to a destination set by yourself, right sends them to a specific target, down gets them to take cover and left is for rally, there are a few issues here that we would like to mention, for one it is very difficult to get them to move to where you would like when you are in the middle of a gun fight and secondly, they both move together, so if you command one to move then the other will follow.
It has to be said that the combat in Mass Effect isn’t its strongest asset, the enemy AI can be incredibly weak at times, as can that of your teammates, most of the time taking enemies down isn’t incredibly challenging, although this may be due to your squad soaking up most of the fire.
You may be starting to think, “Why should I buy Mass Effect if there are better shooters about?” well the answer to this question is that Mass Effect isn’t a shooter, it is a RPG and in this genre, it is one of the best available.
Throughout Mass Effect you will be faced with many tough decisions, most of these decisions will have an impact immediately and sometimes they are not easy to make, there are many different scenarios depending on the choice you make and that perhaps is one of the biggest assets to the game, the fact that you could play through more than once and have an entirely different experience is a great credit to the developer.As well as having the huge main mission to work through, players can also explore the numerous side quests which are available, as you eventually become the commander of your ship, the universe really is your oyster thanks to all of the different systems there are to explore, there is perhaps even scope for further systems being made available in the future via download thanks to Xbox Live.
Once you are in control of your spaceship (The Normandy), a large part of the game will involve you exploring the galaxy around you. As you visit new systems you will find that you can’t land on every planet you discover, some you will scan for information, while others only provide you with information on the type of surface etc due to them being uninhabitable. The planets you do get to land on are generally quite empty at first, it takes a lot of looking around in your Mako buggy before you find much of interest, although it is great fun bouncing around the surface on your buggy while you are making your way around trying to find what you are looking for.
One of the most incredible experiences you will have is watching the character interaction in Mass Effect, any decision you take when talking to someone is acted out in FMV sequences, each line of dialogue is voiced to the highest quality and from the onscreen action you would be forgiven for thinking you where watching a Sci Fi program on TV such is the quality of these sequences.
It’s not only the look and sound of the game which has depth, just try talking to your ship mates now and again for example, this will result in flirting, finding out about their past and even their mistrust of other races, just like in any good RPG, it is important to talk to everyone, as you never know what you will miss otherwise.
Mass Effect is one of those games that you could talk about forever, the graphics are fantastic, some of the best seen on the Xbox 360, the FMV sequences are incredible as is the voice acting which is so-in sync with what is on the screen that you will have to look twice to see if you put the dvd player on by mistake. The depth of the game is also incredible, if you where to compare Mass Effect to anything then saying it is Oblivion in space would probably not be far off the mark. The only real downside is that the combat is quite weak on occasions, however weak combat or not, once you put this game in your disc tray just try taking it out again, we bet you can’t.
