Mufasa reviews: Mass Effect

Mass Effect: Review

Gameplay: To be perfectly honest, there’s not much to say about the gameplay. Combat is pretty much point and shoot, some strategy is involved with taking cover or using techs, but it’s nothing that would make your brain hurt, and most of the time they’re mostly unnecessary anyway. Depending on the type of character you play as. I played as a Vanguard, who specializes half in bio-tech and half in basic combat. There’s also mechanical which helps against the endless machine enemies along with breaking into shit for weapons and stuff, but you can cover that just by taking Tali along, since she specializes specifically in Mechanics.

The Mako was a pain in the ass to learn. I remember the first time I used it I stumbled into a Thresher Maw. That was probably the only event that made me die more than once. And it made me die like 20 times. It seemed unfair to me that I had to man both turrets, drive around, and repair the ship all on my own while Tali and Wrex sat in the back seat making fun of me every time the shields went down. Even that I eventually got the hang of it.

This isn’t to say that the gameplay is BAD, it’s just simple. And that’s not a bad thing. Mass Effect’s selling point isn’t the combat anyway, it’s the story. The combat is functional and that’s all you can ask of it.

Story: This is where Mass Effect shines. It’s not so much that the main story is amazing, but you the player get to affect so much of it. If you work at it, you can even avoid one of the final battles by making the main villian kill himself. I don’t know about you, but I find that fucking awesome. Speaking of which, the final mission creates this mood that’s so epic. You end up finding out wild shit, and have to fight your way through hordes of enemies, looking at the giant enemy ship and all it’s tentacles, while explosions happen all around you, and the soundtrack is almost made of tension and adrenaline. It’s epic, and everything that happens in the game helps to ingrain the idea that you ARE the character, so it really feels like YOU are fighting your way through all of this. You get various choices to do various things throughout the entire game, you’re never really evil, but you can be a jackass. But everything effects everything else. It’s a very fresh concept that the story is great in Mass Effect, because previous games I’ve played recently: L4D, Prototype, RE4, and Madworld have been respectively, Absent, stupid, ridiculous, and ridiculously stupid.

Graphics: The aliens are all well designed, though each species has about 1-3 voice actors for them. 5 at the most. But they are all well designed and varried. It was also a breath-taking experience when I saw the Earth from the moon. It almost brought tears to my eyes before I remembered that I wasn’t a pussy. This is also the first game I’ve played on the 360 with the new HD components hooked up. So it looks even better than it did before. Thus, I felt the graphics were great. No disappearing foreheads like in Mothership Zeta.

Characters: There are 6 important characters that you can use in Mass Effect, and I’ll give a rundown of them here:

Urdnot Wrex - Well, it’s not a well-known rule, but nonetheless, anyone who’s name starts with a ‘U’ and has a ‘d’ and a ‘n’ in it, has to be badass in some way. And Wrex fulfills this rule in all ways. He’s literally and figuratively a monster. He’s got a very strong character to match his battle prowess, and is one of two of my favorite characters in the game. Wrex is a fucking tank man. And he’ll beat the shit out of anyone.

Tali - That’s not her full name, but I forget her full name, and you never hear it said anyway. Tali is a quarian, the people who built the Geth, who are your main enemies. Despite that, if there was a romance path with Tali, I’d take it every single time. She rocks. Combining her and Wrex makes for an incredible team. Of course who you pick as a character helps to adjust, but in the DLC Pinnacle Station or whatever, on the hardest challenge I hid behind a small wall while Tali and Wrex killed everything that got near us for five whole minutes, neither of them died once. Tali is good with Shotguns and pistols, so she’ll be using shotguns for most of the game unless you like to have people ‘pew pew pew’ their way through battle. In which case; Hello Bizz!

Garrus Vakarian - I’ve only played with Garrus for a little while, and though he’s not terrible, I had higher expectations for him. I’m pretty sure he’s the only one that can use Snipers, except for Ashley who doesn’t count cause she’s rubbish. Garrus isn’t bad, and he’s a nice guy, if he is a closet bloodthirsty maniac, but he’s not stellar. Perhaps it’s cause I partnered him up with Ashley, but still. If you like Garrus, and you have something against either Tali or Wrex, Garrus is probably your best choice.

Liara T’soni - As a character, she’s kinda uninteresting and bland. As a battler, she’s not strong, and can’t use many weapons, but she can use a lot of bio-tech abilities, and she’s pretty good with it. She’s nothing as amazing as Tali, or Wrex, but you could do worse. The bad news is, you have to put up with her talking when you take her around.

Kaiden Alenko - I haven’t used him that much. Frankly I’m not too upset about it either. He seems like if you gave Ken from Barbie a personality. He can only use pistols, but he can use plenty of Bio-tech abilities, so who knows? Maybe he’s pretty good. I couldn’t say. As a person, he’s kinda lame.

Ashley Williams - Like I said when I talked about Garrus, she’s pretty shit. Unlike the other companions, she can’t use many bio-tech abilities, so she has no shielding buffers. And she has fairly low health, so she’ll die fairly quickly in tough fights. She can use any weapons, but she still dies. She gives the illusion of being a tank, but certainly is not. Wrex is a better choice for a tank. So is Garrus. And Tali. And a brick wall.

Overall:
I liked Mass Effect. For one I’m sorry I didn’t get it sooner, cause it’s a great game, but on the other hand, I only have to wait two months for the sequel to come out. If you like Fallout, you’ll like Mass Effect. Even if you don’t like Fallout, you might like Mass Effect. I give it a 9/10.