Since my wireless router gave me the runaround for the better part of the afternoon and evening, I had a surfeit of free time to craft the monstrosity that appears below. Enjoy!

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Since the subjects of oversimplification and moral ambiguity came up during the review of Bioshock, I felt it best to share my review of Mass Effect to perhaps put some things into perspective (and to avoid further derailing that other thread.)

First things first: the game is not finished. That is to say, the main plot line has been more-or-less laid down from beginning to end, but the game smacks of cuts to content, features, and overall polish due to lack of time. Had this game been given another year in development to flesh things out more, it would have been a masterpiece. As it stands, it's still a great game, and well worth playing.

Because moral ambiguity is still strong on my mind, I'll address it in depth first. Mass Effect is a bit of a departure from most RPGs in that it does not address good and evil in the traditional sense. Your character is cast in the role of a human military officer, who, after a mission goes south, is seconded to an organization that operates under the galactic governing body. As characters in the game seem fond of mentioning, this organization takes orders from no one save the aforementioned governing body, wields same governing body's authority as their own, and has almost unlimited leeway within their mandate to complete an assigned mission. That mandate is ostensibly to promote galactic stability and peace, but the specific mission within the game is two-fold: to capture or kill a "rogue" agent of the aforementioned organization, and to prevent certain galactic catastrophe from unknown quarters. What this all boils down to is that within the game, you are basically an agent of good, but that you are free to discharge your mission as tactfully or as ruthlessly as you want. The basic premise of the game, therefore, is the question of whether or not the end justifies the means.

My first time through the game, I foreswore my traditional conciliatory ways and played as heartlessly and ruthlessly as I could. What shocked me was not how reprehensible it all seemed, but rather how easily I identified with most of it. Settling matters with harsh words, threats or even at gunpoint seemed, if not perfectly reasonable, then at least understandable under most circumstances. Even when the game takes it a bit far (rescuing an arguably innocent person, then executing her in cold blood,) most of the "ruthless" choices can be rationalized under "better safe than sorry." In the end, playing a remorseless son of a bitch was probably far more interesting than playing the diplomatic charmer.

What made this whole game really engaging was the way they handled dialogue. All dialogue is spoken and presented in cinematic fashion. The facial animation is good, if not amazing, and the voice acting is well-done. Dialogue choices are presented on a wheel, typically with agreeable/diplomatic responses toward the top, more neutral responses toward the middle, and confrontational/hostile responses toward the bottom. Responses on the right side of the wheel move the dialogue along, and responses on the left usually offer additional investigation or inquiry into specific topics. Dialogue choices present themselves a few seconds before a specific line finishes so as to give you time to select your response and keep the dialogue moving smoothly. Your choices are rarely explicitly laid out, but rather convey the gist of what your character will say or do. This all comes together in a very smooth, natural flow of dialogue. Characters will adopt a physical posture based on your choice of words, and perform natural actions such as pulling a pistol to reinforce a threat. It's all very good, and sets a new standard for what is sometimes a tedious aspect of RPGs.

Finally, there is the combat aspect to the game. There are three basic classes in the game: weapon specialist, tech specialist, and biotic specialist. These three classes can be played "pure," or as a combination of two. Weapon specialists focus on, obviously, weapons, but also on armour specialization as well as damage resistance and health/regen buffs (read: tank.) Tech specialists focus on debuffing enemies, lockpicking, squad healing, and shield buffs, among other things. Biotic specialists focus on disabling enemies through physics/matter manipulation and DoT, among other skills. Combat is almost entirely ranged, and there is a simplified Gears of War-style cover system (sans blindfire.) There are four classes of weapons: pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles. Most classes can specialize in pistols, but Infitrators (weapon/tech combo) can also specialize in sniper rifles, Vanguards (weapon/biotic combo) can also specialize in shotguns, and Soldiers (pure weapon) can specialize in all weapons, as well as being the only player class to specialize in assault rifles. Early game, combat is kind of touch-and-go, and if you stray out of cover for long, you will take a serious beating. Later on, more advanced tech and biotic skills allow you to better dictate the terms of a fight, and beefier shields (especially w/ tech-related classes) let you take more of a pounding before you retire to cover to regenerate. You have two AI squadmates to whom you can issue simple commands (move here, wait here, rally on me, etc...), and ability/weapon wheels that pause combat to let you make selections. Squadmate AI can be set to use their abilities as they see fit, to use only defensive abilitie independently, or to use no abilities outside of what you tell them to use. Overall, combat is fairly well implimented. It's a bit simplistic, though things can get hectic at times, but overall fairly satisfying. Last point I'll touch on quickly is vehicular exploration/combat. It's very basic, and exploring worlds outside the main plotline for side missions gets mind-numbing very quickly. Combat is a simple affair, as the main cannon on your APC/IFV will kill just about anything in a few hits, and almost every weapon capable of significantly damaging your vehicle is slow enough to dodge around or jumpjet over.

Despite its flaws, Mass Effect is a great game for anyone who likes RPGs. Sadly, it's 360-only at this point, but there are rumblings that it may be ported to PS3, and I imagine it will also come out for PC at some point as well.

That's pretty much in line with everything I've heard about the game so far. Bioware is the only company really putting out games I look forward to anymore, with Mass Effect, and the upcoming Dragon Age, which also promises to be quite good. It really, really irks me that they decided to go with the 360 instead of the PS3, since I may actually purchase the latter when it comes down in price to somewhere in the region of a third world country. Say, Cuba. Oh well.

I'll let Yahtzee Croshaw do my review, again:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... ass-Effect

I dun really do single-player games. This looks like a hybrid that didn't quite make it, but it's nice to see them still trying.
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"I shouldnt tell black jokes because I have a black man in my family tree... He's been hanging there for years." - Cynthia Rivera
Thothie

Hah! While highly amusing, his review is self-admittedly an ignorant hate-speech. He loathes RPGs in all their forms.

It has it's fair share of flaws, no doubt, and some of them sound pretty significant, but I've spent the vast majority of my gaming career devoted to RPGs. I can happily overlook most any gameplay flaws so long as the story is worth it. Honestly, I consider the actual underlying game to be an obstruction to my enjoyment in nearly all cases, as they almost always just break down to mashing the attack button. Thank you gambit system in FF12, for sparing my poor old hands the pain. Given a choice, I'd happily cheat my way straight through the damn things.

Ugh, I saw that review as well. I think he hit the nail on the head when he said that if you don't like RPGs, then Mass Effect won't change your mind. If you do like RPGs (and things like storyline, aforementioned moral ambiguity, etc...) then you probably will like Mass Effect, flaws and all.

Damnit all. I wanted to post that

ROFL


Oh my god, why didn't I look at this sooner, this guy is hilarious.

Yes, he's "all the rage" in the gaming world these days. Even g4 has sunk their claws into his weekly game review (which now seems to be consistently released on wednesdays).

They'll find a way to make him suck.

Bleh, they already have, really... Saw his opening for the 2007 game developer rewards, and it sucked. Had to censor him to hell for starters, but the lack of enthusiasm took all the fire out of the poor guy. Bastards.
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[i]“G4 – yes, we can make even x-play suck!â€

[quote="Saint Thoth"]They'll find a way to make him suck.

Bleh, they already have, really... Saw his opening for the 2007 game developer rewards, and it sucked. Had to censor him to hell for starters, but the lack of enthusiasm took all the fire out of the poor guy. Bastards.
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[i]“G4 – yes, we can make even x-play suck!â€

I thought it was fun game. Played it on 360, then got it for my comp. First played as the nice guy, beat it, then continued on with the same character and did the bad guy, which was even more fun. The game has unlockables the max level you can get your character i believe is 50. When you beat the game the first time, you are around lvl 40ish. Also once completing the medals/achievement/challenges for the weapons, it unlocks them for other classes that wouldn't have them such as a sniper being able to use an assault rifle or a vanguard being able to use an assault rifle. I though it had a great story line, I spent the whole game going around and completed all the side missions to get the whole story. It was tedious but was worth it.