I apologise for the size or seemingly irrelevant images. I'm still kinda new to this. Finding the right images is always an issue. 
Well, hey, all the cool kids are doing it.
For once, I?m going to get right into the review:
Mass Effect is an action-RPG. Or rather, a third-person tactical shooter, with skill points. Not that there?s a problem with that, mind, as a lot of the combat relies on squad-based tactics, and if you don?t invest the skill points into your squadmates, you?ll quickly find that they?re about as useful as a caesium cup. And about as dangerous as one, too.
One of the things that made Mass Effect a truly enjoyable game was the story. If you choose to ignore the side missions, you can get through the story pretty quickly, and enjoy the truly spectacular cutscenes that come with it. The story is interesting. It starts out as a small threat, relatively speaking of course, which turns out to be part of a much bigger threat, with so many twists and turns you could train a rat to get to the end.
I?m not sure if that?s a good thing?or a bad thing. I was insinuating that the game was like a maze, with its twists, not that you could train a rat to beat it. Because you can?t. There are certain parts of Mass Effect that are so frustrating you could hand it to a Saint, and said Saint would be all too quick to forsake their God.
The combat can get like that. You?re constantly managing your squad?s weapons and abilities. For example, the character Kaiden Alenko focuses on using pistols, and is untrained with shotguns and sniper rifles.
For some reason, he insisted on using a sniper rifle. Fortunately, ordering your squad to change their weapon pauses the game, but it can be very frustrating when you notice your squad aren?t getting any kills, and are just shooting the ceiling. Because that will happen. A lot.
The combat itself relies on a cover-and-shoot system, much like the one present in Gears of War 2, and other like games. If you set the game to its hardest difficulty, enemies are truly brutal. I distinctly remember coming up against two assassins in the early stages of the game, and being brutalised repeatedly.
One thing that can get annoying is the fact that when a team-mate dies, they remain dead until the end of combat.
Why can?t Shepard, the main character, do that? I?ve been killed countless times by a stray laser from one last enemy who was nearly dead, and actually had the nerve to die right after I did.
What is combat without the guns? In Mass Effect, it?s non-existent. There are four varieties of weapon ? Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun and Sniper Rifle. Each character carries one of each variety on their person. Shepard can use all the weapons from the start, but your squad will require points put into their weapon skills to be able to train for the varieties. Putting points into their Assault Rifle skill will eventually unlock Sniper Rifle, and if you instruct them to use their sniper before getting the skill, they will be ?Untrained?, and unable to hit the broadside of a bloated battleship.
You may be thinking that this would make investing skill points into Shepard?s weapons skills a little pointless. Allow me to assure you that this is not the case, as investing points into his weapon skills will increase accuracy and damage.
Accuracy, you?re probably yelling, is down to the player, and not the points.
In this case, accuracy refers to the size of the crosshair. When aiming, you want a small crosshair, for obvious reasons. Skill points in certain weapons will shrink the crosshair.
Another little issue revolving around squads and their weapons is the quantity of equipment. When faced with a squad, my first thoughts are to make sure they?re well-equipped. Luckily, Mass Effect?s surface is littered with many, many guns and armour. Most of it?s useless, since you?ll have already equipped the best you can find.
Weapons and armour can be upgraded, but each item can have two upgrades. Guns possess a weapon upgrade, like improved sights and faster cooling, and an ammunition upgrade, where you modify the type of ammunition you use. See, guns in Mass Effect don?t actually use ammunition. It makes things a whole lot easier, and even includes an in-fiction reason why the ammo appears infinite. I?m not going to tell you what it is, of course. If you want to find out, you can play the game.
That?s part of the beauty of Mass Effect. Its lore. I?ve always been captivated by the lore of games. I have a certain fondness for games which include bestiaries and the like. It gives the games a little more depth. Mass Effect has what?s called a Codex. Every time you examine a new object, or meet a new alien species, or encounter a new type of enemy, the Codex will spontaneously create an entry for it, detailing the subject?s origins, nature, uses, and in the case of the aliens, their entire culture.
Squads, in the game, consist of three people. The player, and two characters of their choice. At the start of the game, the squad includes Shepard, Kaiden and Ensign Ricky. I mean, Private Jenkins.
After the first mission, Ashley Williams is added to the character roster, to fill the gap left by the deceased Jenkins. Garrus Vakarian, a ?turian? is the next character to join. Turians are one of the many species of alien in the game. And one thing I love about them is their voice. It?s slightly edited, which gives it an interesting tone?which I find hard to describe. But turians are just so evil-looking. Their legs are build outwards at the knee, giving them a stalking gait, with what could easily be mistaken for blades protruding from them, and their faces are so often covered in a tribal paint. But the important point is, the turian are the good guys. Well. For the most part. See, one of the things that makes Mass Effect different from most science fantasy is the idea that there are no ?evil races?. Well, no organic ones, at any rate. You have the good members of a race, and the evil members. It?s simple.
There are three other characters that can join the player?s team, but I fear if I write about them, I will have written too much. Each race in the Mass Effect universe has its own depth, each has their own wars, their own history, their own culture. And the best part? The player has no part in them. It gives the feel that there is more going on than just the events you see. That everything lives and breathes in its own way.
I feel I had better hurry.
Like most modern RPGs, I?ve noticed, Mass Effect?s dialogue is optional. Usually, you will get three options to choose from. Option 1 is usually the overly nice one, where Shepard will try to make everyone happy. Option 2 has him sitting there being completely neutral, and Option 3, my favourite, has him being a total arse.
As an example situation, I?ll use one that features in the game:
A security guard is trying to convince a hanar, an almost ethereal creature, that he?s not allowed to preach in the hall without a permit.
Enter Shepard:
Option 1: Ignore that he hasn?t got a permit. Just let him preach.
Option 2: Let?s get him a permit.
Option 3: It?s a big stupid jellyfish!
(The Big Stupid Jellyfish)
In certain situations, there will be an additional two options, one coloured in blue, and the other in red. These are the Charm and Intimidate options, respectively. Charm options can only be unlocked by investing points into the Charm skill on Shepard?s skills page. The same goes for Intimidate. As you can probably guess, Charm and Intimidate are just more effective versions of their regular equivalents, and can be used to resolve ?Impossible Situations?, of which there are two. Unfortunately both are spoilers, so I can?t give examples.
The next part appears to be Mass Effect?s main focus point. Side missions. There are many ? perhaps too many. And they?re all the same. Go here. Shoot this guy. Get back on ship.
You can visit many planets, and the ones you can?t visit you can often scan. There are many treasures littered throughout the universe, and it?s a side-mission in itself to find them all. There are alien artefacts from each of the three main alien races, mineral deposits, so on and so forth. Also on these planets are all manner of crashed probes and things. Approaching a crashed probe, or a locked box, and pressing the activate button will trigger a mini-game, where the player has to press the right buttons in the right sequence. I fear I over-complicated it when I wrote that. Simply press the button that lights up. It?s that easy. And if you manage to fail at that, you can run out of attempts, which means you can either leave the box be, or use Omni-Gel. Omni-Gel is like Wal-Mart. You can?t figure out a use for at first, but there?s just so much of it, so you end up using it for everything. Items such as weapons and armour can either be sold for credits, which you can only have up to 999,999. Yes. I worked that out. Well, maybe 999,999,999. I couldn?t count the nines. But that?s the point. You rarely have to buy anything, since all the good stuff is in boxes out on Planet X.
As well as using this Omni-Gel for opening boxes, you can use it to repair the Mako. The Mako is like a tank crossed with the Mars Rover. You use it to traverse the many landscapes of the universe. All of which look the same, mind, and have mountains that drive me insane, and are completely barren. The most entertaining use I found for the Mako was to run enemies down. It?s just so damn fun.
One point, though. Don?t try to be clever and use the Mako as cover during a firefight. I discovered that the Mako can still be damaged while you?re not in it, and that will result in you being trapped on a planet. Honestly. You can?t return to your ship if you?re not in the Mako. And if you enter the Mako after it takes too much damage, you?ll get in and mysteriously die. Which seems a little suspicious to me.
The last point ? DLC. As far as I know, only one item has been released for Mass Effect, which is the mission Bring Down The Sky. Throughout the game, you hear things about the Batarians, and they?re made out to be truly fearsome. Disappointingly, you never actually meet one, until this DLC. They?re flying an asteroid at a planet. And you have to stop them. It?s a brilliant mission, and definitely worth the Microsoft points. I decided the Batarians were too tough to fight, and merely convinced them to leave the planet alone.
Go me.
Now, I?d better conclude. I?m tired. Mass Effect is a truly brilliant game. While it has its flaws, it more than makes up for them by being both a movie and a game in one. The graphics are truly amazing, and glitches are few and far between?if they exist. Well, I had one encounter when I got stuck between two plants. That was embarrassing.
Well, hey, all the cool kids are doing it.
For once, I?m going to get right into the review:
Mass Effect is an action-RPG. Or rather, a third-person tactical shooter, with skill points. Not that there?s a problem with that, mind, as a lot of the combat relies on squad-based tactics, and if you don?t invest the skill points into your squadmates, you?ll quickly find that they?re about as useful as a caesium cup. And about as dangerous as one, too.
One of the things that made Mass Effect a truly enjoyable game was the story. If you choose to ignore the side missions, you can get through the story pretty quickly, and enjoy the truly spectacular cutscenes that come with it. The story is interesting. It starts out as a small threat, relatively speaking of course, which turns out to be part of a much bigger threat, with so many twists and turns you could train a rat to get to the end.
I?m not sure if that?s a good thing?or a bad thing. I was insinuating that the game was like a maze, with its twists, not that you could train a rat to beat it. Because you can?t. There are certain parts of Mass Effect that are so frustrating you could hand it to a Saint, and said Saint would be all too quick to forsake their God.
The combat can get like that. You?re constantly managing your squad?s weapons and abilities. For example, the character Kaiden Alenko focuses on using pistols, and is untrained with shotguns and sniper rifles.
For some reason, he insisted on using a sniper rifle. Fortunately, ordering your squad to change their weapon pauses the game, but it can be very frustrating when you notice your squad aren?t getting any kills, and are just shooting the ceiling. Because that will happen. A lot.
The combat itself relies on a cover-and-shoot system, much like the one present in Gears of War 2, and other like games. If you set the game to its hardest difficulty, enemies are truly brutal. I distinctly remember coming up against two assassins in the early stages of the game, and being brutalised repeatedly.
One thing that can get annoying is the fact that when a team-mate dies, they remain dead until the end of combat.
Why can?t Shepard, the main character, do that? I?ve been killed countless times by a stray laser from one last enemy who was nearly dead, and actually had the nerve to die right after I did.
What is combat without the guns? In Mass Effect, it?s non-existent. There are four varieties of weapon ? Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun and Sniper Rifle. Each character carries one of each variety on their person. Shepard can use all the weapons from the start, but your squad will require points put into their weapon skills to be able to train for the varieties. Putting points into their Assault Rifle skill will eventually unlock Sniper Rifle, and if you instruct them to use their sniper before getting the skill, they will be ?Untrained?, and unable to hit the broadside of a bloated battleship.
You may be thinking that this would make investing skill points into Shepard?s weapons skills a little pointless. Allow me to assure you that this is not the case, as investing points into his weapon skills will increase accuracy and damage.
Accuracy, you?re probably yelling, is down to the player, and not the points.
In this case, accuracy refers to the size of the crosshair. When aiming, you want a small crosshair, for obvious reasons. Skill points in certain weapons will shrink the crosshair.
Another little issue revolving around squads and their weapons is the quantity of equipment. When faced with a squad, my first thoughts are to make sure they?re well-equipped. Luckily, Mass Effect?s surface is littered with many, many guns and armour. Most of it?s useless, since you?ll have already equipped the best you can find.
Weapons and armour can be upgraded, but each item can have two upgrades. Guns possess a weapon upgrade, like improved sights and faster cooling, and an ammunition upgrade, where you modify the type of ammunition you use. See, guns in Mass Effect don?t actually use ammunition. It makes things a whole lot easier, and even includes an in-fiction reason why the ammo appears infinite. I?m not going to tell you what it is, of course. If you want to find out, you can play the game.
That?s part of the beauty of Mass Effect. Its lore. I?ve always been captivated by the lore of games. I have a certain fondness for games which include bestiaries and the like. It gives the games a little more depth. Mass Effect has what?s called a Codex. Every time you examine a new object, or meet a new alien species, or encounter a new type of enemy, the Codex will spontaneously create an entry for it, detailing the subject?s origins, nature, uses, and in the case of the aliens, their entire culture.
Squads, in the game, consist of three people. The player, and two characters of their choice. At the start of the game, the squad includes Shepard, Kaiden and Ensign Ricky. I mean, Private Jenkins.
After the first mission, Ashley Williams is added to the character roster, to fill the gap left by the deceased Jenkins. Garrus Vakarian, a ?turian? is the next character to join. Turians are one of the many species of alien in the game. And one thing I love about them is their voice. It?s slightly edited, which gives it an interesting tone?which I find hard to describe. But turians are just so evil-looking. Their legs are build outwards at the knee, giving them a stalking gait, with what could easily be mistaken for blades protruding from them, and their faces are so often covered in a tribal paint. But the important point is, the turian are the good guys. Well. For the most part. See, one of the things that makes Mass Effect different from most science fantasy is the idea that there are no ?evil races?. Well, no organic ones, at any rate. You have the good members of a race, and the evil members. It?s simple.
There are three other characters that can join the player?s team, but I fear if I write about them, I will have written too much. Each race in the Mass Effect universe has its own depth, each has their own wars, their own history, their own culture. And the best part? The player has no part in them. It gives the feel that there is more going on than just the events you see. That everything lives and breathes in its own way.
I feel I had better hurry.
Like most modern RPGs, I?ve noticed, Mass Effect?s dialogue is optional. Usually, you will get three options to choose from. Option 1 is usually the overly nice one, where Shepard will try to make everyone happy. Option 2 has him sitting there being completely neutral, and Option 3, my favourite, has him being a total arse.
As an example situation, I?ll use one that features in the game:
A security guard is trying to convince a hanar, an almost ethereal creature, that he?s not allowed to preach in the hall without a permit.
Enter Shepard:
Option 1: Ignore that he hasn?t got a permit. Just let him preach.
Option 2: Let?s get him a permit.
Option 3: It?s a big stupid jellyfish!
(The Big Stupid Jellyfish)
In certain situations, there will be an additional two options, one coloured in blue, and the other in red. These are the Charm and Intimidate options, respectively. Charm options can only be unlocked by investing points into the Charm skill on Shepard?s skills page. The same goes for Intimidate. As you can probably guess, Charm and Intimidate are just more effective versions of their regular equivalents, and can be used to resolve ?Impossible Situations?, of which there are two. Unfortunately both are spoilers, so I can?t give examples.
The next part appears to be Mass Effect?s main focus point. Side missions. There are many ? perhaps too many. And they?re all the same. Go here. Shoot this guy. Get back on ship.
You can visit many planets, and the ones you can?t visit you can often scan. There are many treasures littered throughout the universe, and it?s a side-mission in itself to find them all. There are alien artefacts from each of the three main alien races, mineral deposits, so on and so forth. Also on these planets are all manner of crashed probes and things. Approaching a crashed probe, or a locked box, and pressing the activate button will trigger a mini-game, where the player has to press the right buttons in the right sequence. I fear I over-complicated it when I wrote that. Simply press the button that lights up. It?s that easy. And if you manage to fail at that, you can run out of attempts, which means you can either leave the box be, or use Omni-Gel. Omni-Gel is like Wal-Mart. You can?t figure out a use for at first, but there?s just so much of it, so you end up using it for everything. Items such as weapons and armour can either be sold for credits, which you can only have up to 999,999. Yes. I worked that out. Well, maybe 999,999,999. I couldn?t count the nines. But that?s the point. You rarely have to buy anything, since all the good stuff is in boxes out on Planet X.
As well as using this Omni-Gel for opening boxes, you can use it to repair the Mako. The Mako is like a tank crossed with the Mars Rover. You use it to traverse the many landscapes of the universe. All of which look the same, mind, and have mountains that drive me insane, and are completely barren. The most entertaining use I found for the Mako was to run enemies down. It?s just so damn fun.
One point, though. Don?t try to be clever and use the Mako as cover during a firefight. I discovered that the Mako can still be damaged while you?re not in it, and that will result in you being trapped on a planet. Honestly. You can?t return to your ship if you?re not in the Mako. And if you enter the Mako after it takes too much damage, you?ll get in and mysteriously die. Which seems a little suspicious to me.
The last point ? DLC. As far as I know, only one item has been released for Mass Effect, which is the mission Bring Down The Sky. Throughout the game, you hear things about the Batarians, and they?re made out to be truly fearsome. Disappointingly, you never actually meet one, until this DLC. They?re flying an asteroid at a planet. And you have to stop them. It?s a brilliant mission, and definitely worth the Microsoft points. I decided the Batarians were too tough to fight, and merely convinced them to leave the planet alone.
Go me.
Now, I?d better conclude. I?m tired. Mass Effect is a truly brilliant game. While it has its flaws, it more than makes up for them by being both a movie and a game in one. The graphics are truly amazing, and glitches are few and far between?if they exist. Well, I had one encounter when I got stuck between two plants. That was embarrassing.
