Mass Effect: The First

So thanks to Dragon Age, I got into Mass Effect. This review's quite overdue and I originally wanted to make one post for both games since I played one after the other but, sigh, I'm too long winded it seems. Two posts it is.



Wrex: Shepard.
Shepard: Wrex.
I did two playthroughs:
1. Normal/Soldier/Paragon
2. Hardcore/Infiltrator/Renegade (partial speedrun)

STORY 4/5
Background of your character is up to you. First run: sole survivor of a devastating mission, family was part of the military so I followed. Second: colony overrun by slavers killing everyone, found by military so I joined, plus I was strict and ruthless.

You start off being chosen as a possible candidate to be a Spectre, a person under the right hand of the "government" who isn't restricted by any rules, so they can essentially do whatever they need/want to, to get the job done. You head off to your first mission to find that one of the Spectres have gone rogue and is scheming something evil. You encounter this beacon that sends visions into your mind, visions of destruction and chaos... unable to decipher it and the government refusing to believe you, you continue on to follow the clues given by the visions and by visiting planets reporting strange activity.

The sidequests did a lot to flesh out the story and back story of the races and history. The main story is already pretty thorough as it is. You visit various on your way to chasing the rogue Spectre and it ends pretty conclusively.

CHARACTERS 3.5/5
As expected, your party members are a variety of races. The background of the characters/races are explored through private dialog during ship lounging. Regarding companionship, there isn't much choice so I went to Alenko, the other fellow human. Garrus (turian) and Wrex (krogan) were my favourites both as characters and as race... and actually, I had my eye on Nihlus as well but his screen time was cut rather short.

There weren't that many choices for a relationship partner either. You pick between human or a blue mind-reading lady.

SOUND 4/5
Voice acting was excellent. I'm actually pretty proud of FemShep over MaleShep's voice acting skills as she sounds awesomer. There weren't that many BGMs, but the ones that were noticeable were quite memorable.

GRAPHICS 3.5/5
Not amazing but not bad either... sometimes takes the game a second too late to get textures loaded. At least women actually have womanly bodies.

GAMEPLAY 4/5
I don't mind elevators disguised as loading scenes as long as something is going on while you're waiting. Dialog sometimes pops in but not often enough. Also, there's apparently a rule that you can't ride elevators with guns out (unless it bugs out, in which it has).. it's dangerous, like running with scissors.

The Mako - the terrain rover, was used for planet exploration and some story areas and can do backflips with ease. It gets seriously tedious planet exploring, especially if you're a completionist like me. On top of travel, it can also be used to shoot things, blow you up while you're inside, and/or be used as a shield/enemy obstacle. Running back into the Mako also revives dead teammates. NEAT.

The loot drops you get are automatically tossed into inventory. It gets frustrating when your inventory gets full and you have no choice but to toss something that doesn't fit, instead of maybe swapping out other equipment. New loot aren't shown stats/details either so you have no choice but to accept the piece and check it yourself later. This usually results in more of the same equipment and/or inventory that fills up quickly.

Dialog choices only play a large factor if your persuasion/threat level is high enough to make those decisions. In some cases, they can either prevent or cause certain events to happen, usually right then and there. Nothing a reload of your game file can't save if you change your mind.

OVERALL 4/5
I did another run of this game for two reasons: check out the differences being on the other side of the coin (morality and class), and some, ahem, achievements (hardcore mode, super renegade). In terms of difficulty, things just took longer to die. On my second run, I had problems trying to stay on target and not be tempted to do the side quests but I ended up doing a few anyway. Unfortunately the experience didn't change much in the second run though.

I enjoyed it but the fact that I was looking forward to the 2nd one might have mixed my feelings on this one. Being given choices to decide the fate of some "big deal" scenarios (like the fate of a race) made it all the more interesting.