XBOX 360 Wire

Mass Effect Review

I heart my Krogan Battlemaster. Reminds me of Mr. Snuffalufagus from Sesame Street, only less imaginary friend and more axe-murderer acquaintance. The wife surprised me with an early christmas present, and Bioware surprised me with a timewasting apparatus of epic proportions!

For the record, I thought KOTOR was poop. Sorry, but I never got past the part with the little robot guy at the beginning. I’m sure it was a great story and everything (I’m strong with the force, no doubt), but with very little combat involved it’s been “forced” to collect dust in the cabinet next to Kameo and the Burger King game. Mass Effect is much more hands on, and has had me glued to the couch for quite a while.

Can’t say I was surprised by the depth of the game, Bioware is deep like me in **expletive removed**, and this game is no slouch on story. I won’t spoil any of the fun, but lets just say top-notch voice talent (Seth Green, Keith David) and some great writing make for a sci-fi epic rivaling any of the current offerings from George Lucas or any of the big movie studios.

Bioware delivers a breathtaking experience and manages to keep replay values high, with a number of different outcomes reminiscent of the oldschool “choose your own adventure books”. Different actions affect your alignment, good or bad, and affect how people react to you during conversation. If your a nicey nice push over, some characters won’t give you the time of day. On the other hand, kill off a few NPCs and you tend to earn respect, opening up dialog choices that aren’t options for the weaklings. Character classes offer more reasons to play the story over when your done, as your class can completley change your style of play. Most classes focus on specific weapons or abilities, locking out others for another day. While my Vanguard may be a mix of the Soldier and magic user (Biotic) roles, I’m still kindof locked in with pistols and shotguns. Next time I may want to go full out Rambo Commando with the assault rifles, or forget weapons altogether and go a Tech/Magic route.

A solid 3rd person shooter lies under the hood, squad control and weapons customization, plenty of exploration(try an entire galaxy), and a side of vehicular manslaughter round out the gameplay elements. Things stay fresh with such a large menu, and the visual complaints from other review sites are MERE QUIBBLES. Framerate isn’t what I’d call spectacular but it certainly wasn’t anything I outright noticed or cared about. And textures take a sec to load, but if you looked this good you’d show up late to the party too.

Overall I spent almost 10 hours playing the game so far, and nothing but big smiles and two thumbs up. Solid 9.5, like rock solid, go buy it

Posted by Erick - December 10th, 2007 -