Mass Effect is a game I have been waiting for a long time now, but it was all worth it! From the moment I got my copy, I couldn’t let go the controller. Mass Effect looks, feels and plays like it’s supposed to and I’m going to tell you why.

First off, Mass Effect is a RPG with shooter elements , and not the other way around. The game is based a lot on dialogues between characters, with other NPCs, discovering new areas, recovering ancient artifacts, meeting new races and so on. One thing in particularly is the Codex, it’s like a game library, where every aspect of the game is explained in detail. The alien races, their habits, ships, planets and politics… it’s “Huuuge” (to quote the late Steve Irwin). Bioware has even gone that far to implement a voice that reads all these information… for lazy readers I guess.

Now let’s talk about the game as it is. You play as Commander Shepard. You can customize you own character or select the predefined one. In customization you will spend quite some time if you stop to read everything about the character’s pre-service history, psychological profile, military specialization and every other aspect of customization. Depending on your choices you get some funny faces or some good looking men or women.

The whole game is based on your actions and effect, ethical decisions, developing your character on the good side or become a rebel. You can guess where the game gets its name from.

So, you can choose what type of military specialization you want to have. There are 6 types:

• Soldier: Combat specialist. Can use any type of weapon, wear medium armor and can specialize in heavy armor.

• Engineer: Tech specialist. Can use only pistols and wear light armor. Can heal your squad, disrupt enemies’ weapons or shields, decrypt security systems and repair or modify technical equipment.

• Adept: Biotic specialist. Can use only pistols and wear light armor. Through upgradable implants, they can use biotic powers to lift or throw objects, shield the squad and disable or destroy enemies.

• Infiltrator: Combat/Tech specialist. Infiltrators are trained to use omni-tools, focusing on decryption and offensive abilities. They can use pistols or sniper rifles and wear medium armor.

• Sentinel: Biotic/Tech specialist. They use biotic abilities and advanced healing skills to defend allies, though they can also disrupt opponents with biotic or tech attacks. They are more efficient with tech and biotic than any other class, but at the expense of combat. Sentinels can only use light armor and receive no advanced weapon training.

• Vanguard: Biotic specialist. They combine biotic and weapons to take down enemies, and are especially deadly at short range. They use pistols and shotguns and can specialize in medium armor.

Personally I picked an Adept, because I’m always a mage in games so this was the class for me :D

To heaven or to hell

In Mass Effect there aren’t good or bad choices. Just the ones you think they’re right. Depending on how you interact with the outside world and your speech skills, you can shape the outcome of the game and the entire galaxy. If you choose to speak nice to people and help them you will become a Paragon (a good guy) or you can be rude, care only about yourself, don’t want to help people in need than you will surely become a Renegade .

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Humanity’s first contact with an alien race occurred in 2157. By the year 2183, mankind has mastered the ability to travel throughout the galaxy at faster-than-light speeds, bringing them in contact with lots of alien races. Since then, humanity is struggling to find its place in the galaxy and at the same time be accepted by other races.

As I said, you play as Commander Shepard, who travels with his ship Normandy around the galaxy for the greater good of galaxy and humanity itself. Shepard is promoted to the rank of Spectre (special agents that can go everywhere and do everything, kill everyone they please – they have no limitation in fulfilling their mission) and is now after another Spectre gone rogue. The rogue Specter’s name is Saren and he might be the one who will summon an ancient civilization of robots that are about to wipe out the entire universe. But you are not alone in this mission. Another 6 teammates are with you in this, each with his own special abilities, unique character and race. There are 3 women in your party that you can chat with, making them falling in love with you; but that’s all I’m going to divulge.

Completing quest will earn you money, items, influence and of course experience. Each time you get enough experience points you will get a new level and talent points to spend on your skills. A dozen skills (talents) are available to you and your teammates which will increase their level every time you will. If you don’t want to spend time choosing what talents you think are best to upgrade, an Auto-Upgrade button will do this for you and your allies. For example, Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, a member of your team is a Quarian Machinist and it would be wise to increase her Electronics or Decryption talents, (that will help you a lot in the beginning of the game) instead of First Aid or… I dunno, make use of Shotguns.

While exploring and traveling all over the place, you will find lots of crates, lockers, containers and so on, filled with guns, upgrades, armor or artifacts. More and more sophisticated items will come as you progress in the game, the outdated ones can be sold or transformed into Omni-gel (used for bypassing encrypted data). Every weapon can support up to three upgrades (like more accuracy, more damage, heat absorption, weapon stability, detect invisible enemies and more) while the armor can support only two upgrades (for shield recovery, hardening, resist to one type of damage, cooldown reduction and so on).

Traveling in Mass Effect universe is possible using Mass Relays, technology invented by an ancient race. These Mass Relays are capable of transporting a ship between entire systems, star clusters found at hundreds of light years away. The system is composed by several planets, some can be surveyed, and some are just part of the system while others can be explored if landed on. On the surface of the planet, you can travel by feet or using a 6 wheels vehicle that can climb through mountains or any type of terrain with ease. The name of vehicle is Mako and it is also equipped with a turret for combat situations. Pressing the Left Trigger can zoom in the target while Right Trigger and Right Bumper will shoot bullets respectively heavy projectiles. After an intense fight, you vehicle might be damaged. In this case, Omni-gel would do the trick so try to have some to spare anytime. If you happen to get stuck, Mako can use boosters to lift the vehicle several feet of the ground.

Conclusion

Mass Effect delivers lots of gameplay, every decision being critical in the future story of the game. With great graphics, characters emotions and storyline as well as being a good guy or bad guy, lets you speculate about the fate of the universe that can be shaped in many, many ways. This game is a masterpiece and Bioware has overdone themselves, all in all Mass Effect is a must have.

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Gameplay: 98

Discovering new worlds, exploring new planets and running trough huge cities is done with a remarkable attention to detail. Also, mixing the RPG genre with shooting genre is something that will attract as many gamers as possible. You can choose from lots of answers, developing your morality to be a Paragon or Renegade. Controlling Mako is so much fun, I might say, even more fun that playing some of the recent racing games. AI isn’t very demanding; the game seemed easy even on normal difficulty. The intelligence of your companions isn’t that high in a battle either but they do the job.

Graphics: 95

Despite the delayed loading time of the textures, everything is astonishing. The large cities and their ambiance, the monsters are uniquely designed and each character has its own style. Every NPC is designed in such a way so that you can easily tell what race they are from. Each planet has different colors, and the view is simply beautiful. Clearly, Bioware put a lot of effort into this, that’s why, with no remorse; I can say that Mass Effect is one of the best looking games out there.

Sound: 94

The music won’t bother at all and will come in a fast pace if you’re in a combat. The sound effects are also remarkable. Not to mention the voice acting which is very emotional and help the game’s characters grow on you.

Multiplayer: N/A

Hardware: 90

The game runs smoothly, I had a few problems only when large groups of enemies were in sight. The texture loading is a bit slow, probably to compensate the low loading time of areas which by the way is great (no wonder is in the top loading screens of all games).