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).
