Mass Effect - Xbox 360

Summary: Gears of War + KOTOR == Mass Effect.

[Credit due to Penny Arcade again for giving me a spoiler-free heads-up on some aspects that otherwise might have been rather irritating: 1, 2, 3].

Mass Effect kicks off with the "Western" RPG staple - character creation and customization. The system works reasonably well but only allows for facial configuration (versus something like Saints Row where one can opt to be fat or skinny, slim or muscled or Oblivion where one can choose race). Character sex can also be chosen - this affects how a few NPCs interact with the player.

Before progressing too far, mess with the graphics options. They make a big difference. I disabled "film grain" and was happier with the results. The framerate seemed a little more reliable with "motion blur" off too, but maybe I was imagining things. Anyway, I tweaked the settings to my liking and was very impressed with what I saw.

Give it time. I truly began to be wowed more than ten hours in. (Mass Effect takes an appallingly significant time investment...).

I began playing Mass Effect while I was partway through (and sometimes immediately after) Assassin's Creed. While the cut scenes in Mass Effect are often fantastic, not having camera control during them (as the player does in Ubisoft's title) made them feel very stiff at first...That feeling dissipated after Bioware's product took center stage and by turnabout Assasin's Creed facial animation and static dialog fared worse in comparison.

Combat took a little getting used to. It uses a cover system similar to that in Gears of War and can be similarly unforgiving if you run-and-gun. However when your troupe of high-tech death dealers clears a room of cannon fodder, it can feel badass. You have the option of directing almost every action taken by your teammates but I set them to "Auto" and was satisfied with the results. Some of your fellow combatants can become especially lethal with Sniper Rifles...When someone like that "got your back" it helps (and keeps them out of your line of fire). It's also refreshing to play an RPG where there is (at least some) risk in mosts confrontations - the grinding is not so painful. Having said that, the unarmed enemies introduced in the first mission are repeated too often for my liking. They feel like an easy out on many levels...The "risk" also prompted me to save obsessively.

An unexpected side effect of the combat (and the hours spent playing it) was that my already weak shooter skillz degraded dramatically. Since Mass Effect combat is pseudo stats/dice roll-based one can shoot in the general vicinity of a target and still do quite a lot of damage. Be prepared to have to re-learn how to play Halo 3 etc. after it.

The musical score is apropos solid space opera. (I replayed the opening scenes repeatedly). Unfortunately the music suffers from a broader audio balance problem. It varies from absent, to almost inaudible, to deafening. Dialog suffers even more. Some characters consistently trail off into muffled mumbles. (Kaidan, Garrus - we know you're cool but so are clear, complete sentences!!). I spent too much time trying to adjust settings and each scenario seems to have its own. e.g. I often struggled to hear my teammates' observations (possibly due to spatially sensitive sound) but the panicking (doomed) NPCs down the corridor, spouted repeated gibberish in crystal clear tones.

Unlike KOTOR, all the dialog is spoken. A recognizable cast lends it some extra weight (but I am becoming a little jaded with Keith David). I could have sworn the Codex was read by the same guy who narrated Crackdown but apparently not.

Speaking of the Codex, Bioware built a convincing universe for this title. I peeked in to clarify some confusion on a subplot point and spent about twenty minutes reading up on space combat - it's solid sci-fi. The paperback prequel may be worth considering.

[SPOILER-ish] Ground vehicle driving ranges from fun (on the rolling plains) to uber-frustrating (while trying to reach some areas surrounded by almost impassable cliffs). BTW right bumper fires the cannon! (There are few, if any control prompts in-game - the physical user manual is your best source).

Inventory is far too fiddly. No sorting at all is big omission. In a game that already consumes many hours, spending a large portion of them trying to make sense of lists is not appreciated. Note, red and/or bigger guns shoot better. ;-)

On completion of the game, one has the option to re-start using the same character, levels, skills, any leftover credits and unassigned gear. Some of the achievements also unlock skills for any new characters created using the same Xbox Live GamerTag e.g. 150 assault rifle kills means any new character has the option of using that weapon, even if their class would normally prevent it. Mass Effect must be one of the most difficult Xbox 360 games to earn all the achievements. I guesstimate it at over 100 hours of play (at least 3 times through).

The last level(s) and ending are pretty solid.

I'm grateful that Bioware release "only" one title every couple of years - more often than that, and I would have no life outside the virtual ones they give me.


PS Zero Punctuation shares thoughts (and spoilers).

Beowulf - movie

After catching glimpses of the standard definition TV commercials, I didn't realize Beowulf was a CG movie. It was a lot more obvious in IMAX 3D...The characters look like Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich and co. but they are not. Beowulf breaks new ground in the Uncanny Valley and boasts some truly awful horseback sequences. Ever dreamed of seeing norsemen riding Shrek's Donkey? - your fantasy has been realized.

Beowulf attempts to capitalize on the western, homo-erotic, macho violence market - it is successful to a point but 300 does a better job (at least in this author's opinion)...The film storyline runs fairly true to the source material which is to say it still falls down badly near the end. :P Having said that, the movie twist on traditional events and motives actually works quite well.

The martial score for the opening credits gets the blood flowing, ready to be spilled, and the theme is repeated at intervals. Unfortunately the credits close with a drippy, sappy, soppy, saccharine vocal track (Robin Wright Penn's minimalist version is not bad), searing an unpleasant aftertaste into an already confused palate.

Enchanted Arms (last of the dull RPGs?)

Being a launch title for a new console is not an enviable task. Such games rarely stand the light of day, let alone review in retrospect. (Critic-developer-publisher-consoleVendor circle-jerking frequently clouds collective judgment initially).

Enchanted Arms is a by-the-numbers Japanese turn-based-battle RPG. That, in itself, is not a bad thing. Unfortunately it fails to deliver on most levels.

The "characters" are all irritating. In fact, sometimes they seem to vie to be the *most* irritating. The dialog is terrible. ("..." alone is not a sentence. Using it in every interaction does not make it more enlightening). While the English voice acting is entertainingly bad at first, the more characters are introduced, the more grating it all becomes. (It seemed to drive most critics crazy too). There's a slightly more tolerable original-spoken-Japanese option but even that cannot prevent the high pitched screeching of many of the characters...

The storyline is predictable and uninteresting. I've been waiting many hours (more than I'd like to admit) for the hook that will make me give a s**t about what's going on. I have yet to find one.

Enchanted Arms does try something a little different in its grid-based, turn-based battle system. Unfortunately battles soon begin to feel more like repetitive time-filling chores than fun.

I am officially over the standard fare from the Japanese turn-based battle RPG genre.

I'm not interested unless

1. I can customize my character appearance
2. my actions make an appreciable difference to battle outcome(s)
3. those battles are fun and not just filler/the necessary means to increase stats
4. I have some *role* in the decisions my character makes
5. those decisions make a noticeable difference to the story outcome.

or give me compelling characters and an engrossing storyline in lieu of #1, #4 and #5 e.g. Kingdom Hearts series on PS2 from Square Enix.

For some time I've considered the approach taken by most Eastern RPGs to be a (poor) excuse that was permissible only because of the limitations of the last console set i.e. PS2. With the advent of the Xbox 360 (and PS3) those excuses are no longer good enough. Strictly turn-based battles, "random" encounters with invisible enemies, party members becoming invisible while navigating dull environments and being "rewarded" for exploring every dead-end in said environments, need to become part of gaming history.

Fortunately games such as Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata do away with some of these jaded traditions and I hope spell the end of their use in the genre. Both games allow you to see the enemies you encounter and avoid them if you choose. Also, Eternal Sonata's battles, while still turn-based, have a countdown that begins as soon as a character moves, leaving you seconds to decide what action to take - this makes them refreshingly engrossing and exciting.

Roll on Two Worlds, BioShock, Mass Effect, Too Human and Fable 2...(unfortunately several of those titles risk being trapped in Uncanny Valley...but that's a topic for another day...).