I picked up a copy of Mass Effect for the Xbox 360 a few weeks ago when GameStop was having their buy two get one free sale on used games. Mass Effect came out in 2007 and was one of the top rated games that year so I wanted to give it a shot to see if it lived up to the hype.
Rating: 4/10
Drive-by Game Summary: You play as Commander Shepard and you work with members of the human race as well as other alien races to investigate and fight against an evil plot that threatens the universe. The style of gameplay is a bit of a mix of adventure and shooter. There are lots of player customizations, lots of alien races to be familiar with, and generally lots of time to fully experience the game is necessary.
Save Game Convenience: 9 out of 10
You can save the game pretty much anytime as long as you are not in the midst of a battle.
Story Complexity: 2 out of 10
Tons of alien races to keep up with, lots of background historical information you have to read through to keep up with all the story elements, and very long periods of cut scenes and dialog.
Control Scheme: 5 out of 10
You can get by with using basic controls for switching weapons, movement, crouching, etc. but there are several nuances that make playing the game much better and therefore require you to either remember them or look them up each time you pick the game back up.
Character Customization: 3 out of 10
You’ve got to make some choices up front about what kind of player you will use, attitude of the player etc. You then will customize throughout the game but it does at least offer an automatic level up option where it assigns your traits for you automatically.
Squad Usage: 1 out of 10
This was pretty much the final straw for a busy gamer. After completing each section of the game you have to make choices as to what squad members to take with you on the next mission, what their skills and weapon equipped will be, etc., etc. You have to make use of the squad sometimes during the games but all of this customizing and choosing who to take with you each time pretty much adds too much time to the gameplay experience for somebody who wants to pick up and play periodically.
Complete Game Review
Much of Mass Effect is like watching a science fiction movie. The graphics are superb and the cut scenes definitely get you involved in the story right away. The problem for somebody with limited time is that there is really too much time dedicated to the story, cut scenes, and dialog situations. You find yourself just holding the controller waiting on these cinematic sequences to finish so you can actually play the game.
Besides the story sequences, another interesting feature of Mass Effect is that you can choose the attitude of your character and also the types of responses you give to certain characters as you interact with them during the game. At first glance this seems like it would create an interesting “open world” type environment where the game goes down whatever path you choose based on your responses to other characters in the game. Unfortunately as I was playing it I noticed that for the most part no matter what my responses were the game was still pretty much driving you down a specific path for the missions.
For example, I chose to make my character a guy who just focuses on getting the task done and not let any outside circumstances get in the way of completing my task. As I was working through the game I ran into a man in the Citadel (the central space station in the game) who asked me to help him recover his wife’s body from another planet where they were not cooperating with him to return her remains. Gee I’d love to help, but that really isn’t part of my main mission in the game so I told him no. Unfortunately the game still puts his request in as one of your missions to complete so it seems your response was little more than window dressing. There were a few other examples of this as I played through the game which made the “Choose Your Own Adventure” concept not really accurate at least for me.
There are a couple red flags right away for someone who is only able to occasionally pick up and play a game should look for in any game they are considering. First, if the game has a “command a squad” type element it is probably going to be a major time consumer. Your squads are made up of AI players that tend to be useless in almost any game I’ve ever played where you have to depend on computer AI squad members. You’ll spend a ton of time managing the squad members and telling them where to go and what to do. This might be cool in certain circumstances, but if you are generally short on your gaming time you don’t want to be spending it commanding a computer controlled squad member to do things. You want to be in the action.
The final element and the second of the red flags that any short on time gamer should be on the lookout for is massive customization of your player as well as the squad members, and loads of “level up or power up” choices. I am sure that there is a large percentage of gamers who love to be able to go into great detail in deciding what powers to add to their character, what weapons to equip, which AI squadmates to take on each mission, etc. If you are short on time though, this just becomes one more hassle and one more thing to remember when you go back to the game after not playing it for a week or two. The game does offer an option to automatically level up both your character and your squadmates, or you can do the customizations yourself. The endgame for me though was having to pick who to take with me on each mission after adding a couple new friends to your merry band of squad members. I decided I simply wasn’t getting enough actual gameplay to make it a worthwhile experience for me.
I wouldn’t recommend Mass Effect for somebody who is short on time, but the game certainly showed merit for somebody who wants to invest the time to fully immerse in its many details.
