Mass Effect: The Good, Bad And The So-So

[Aaron]

Having recently completed my fifth run through of Mass Effect (360), I thought I'd throw up some err...thoughts.

The Bad:

Terrain

Seriously Bioware. You spent how many years developing this game and we get terrain that looks like it was painted on by a drunken five year old?

Pop-in Graphics

Again, years in development and after the loading screen finishes in yet another identical mine/research/science facility, the walls and floor details pop in a couple seconds later.

The So-So

Identical Structures

I tried to rationalise this as the Alliance using pre-fab structures until I noticed on my 30th dungeon crawl that there are only 3-4 different internal layouts! So all the pirates and colonists use the same system to organise their boxes?

Mako Coax

A RL AFV coax is extremely accurate. The Mako's was like watching a drunk try to write his name in the snow.

Mods

I love weapon and armor customization as much as the next geek but half this crap gives little benefit. At best its an easy source of cash.

The Good

Combat

Combat in the game is excellent. Kudos to Bioware for coming up with a cover system that doesn't require me to hit a button.

Wrex

Best RPG sidekick ever. Great attitude, funny and actually useful once you get his psyker...err biotic powers up to snuff.

Backstory

Finally a sci-fi RPG with an interesting and fleshed out backstory. Reading through the codex gives plenty of interesting answers to what would be glaring plot holes (like how the Krogan got into space with no scienctiits).

[Tyyr]

Well, I finished up Mass Effect on Sunday night. I have to say that it's right up there with KotOR... strike that. It's better than KotOR. KotOR's story is better to me, the reveal that you're actually the bad guy you've been dreading all along was great but that's about it. They're both still fairly standard save the galaxy type plots. Where Mass Effect ran away with it was the combat system, going full on FPS instead of a turn based system.

1) Story - As I said this is a pretty bog standard "Save the Large Group X" type story. Nothing really ground breaking there. However, in my opinion, everything around this pretty standard plot was very well done. I was actually interested in much of what was going on. The history of the council and the Citadel was interesting, humanities expansion, the plight of the Krogan and the Rachni, it was all interesting. This is a case of not doing anything really new but doing it incredibly well. I've saved the galaxy a lot of times in a lot of games, but this is one of the few where I actually gave a shit about it.

2) Paragon vs. Renegade - One of the big downfalls to me of KotOR was a total lack of shades of gray. Light side was Mother Teresa, dark side was Hitler. There was no middle ground or degrees of reaction. You either gave the poor guy every credit you had or you gutted him like a pig just to hear him squeal. Decoupling Paragon from Renegade was a smart move, especially since the two rankings are linked to your ability to charm/intimidate. However its still a Bioware game so your options are Paragon, Neutral, or Renegade with each conversation. Unfortunately they didn't get away from the Bioware bias that if you're not a super nice guy you're obviously a total shithead and an idiot to boot. Most of the Renegade options are counter-productive to getting things done. For instance Renegade options when talking to your crew almost always come down to, "Shut up with the fucking whining and do as you're told you little bitch." The best examples of the problems with their Paragon vs. Renegade set up are Garrus and Wrex. With Garrus if you follow his story line to its end you see what Renegade really should have been. You steer Garrus away from his former cop persona and into a more vigilante mindset. At no point are you an asshole, at no point are you just being stupid, its presented as an alternate view and a different way to get things done. By the end of the game he's fully transformed into a vigilante and it flowed. Wrex on the other hand is a disaster. At the peak of your Wrex relationship you find yourself pointing guns at each other. Your paragon options try to convince him that Saren is the real enemy and even if he's cured the genophage the price is too high. Eventually Wrex relents and accepts that this cure must die with Saren, that this is too dangerous. The renegade options... well you tell him to shut up and fall in line and when he doens't you blow his face off with a shotgun. No option to lie to him to get him to come along, no chance to promise him to save the cure inspite of the council's wishes, nothing. Get in line, BLAM. It's not Paragon vs. Renegade as alternate ways of getting things done. It's Smart vs. Stupid, Right vs. Wrong. Garrus proves that renegade could have been done well, but wasn't.

3) Intimidate vs. Charm - This mostly just flows off the previous issue. Your ability to Charm or Intimidate was linked not only to your skill level but also to your Paragon/Renegade scores. The problem is that you've got to have your Charm and Intimidate skills nearly maxed out and your Paragon/Renegade scores very high to boot. I always kept my Charm/Intimidate skills within 80% or 90% of maxed out and yet more than half the opportunities to charm or intimidate someone were grayed out and unavailable and almost always it was the important stuff. I could bully a shop keeper but that was about it. I put a lot of points in those skills but they were largely wasted. This next play through I'm seriously thinking of not bothering with those skills and focus entirely on the martial aspects. I pumped a good 30 skill points into Intimidate and Charm and got nothing of any real use out of it.

4) Teammates - I think this game did a fairly good job turning your teammates into interesting characters. Everyone had something going on in the game unlike in KotOR where several of your teammates just took up space and had no use beyond what they could do in mission, some weren't even that useful (looking at you Carth). Probably the only complaint was that you could run them out of things to say very early. Garrus for instance. Once you kill Saleon his developement is largely over. Tali's conversation options can be exhausted long before you ever get to the midgame, etc. So while the characters were interesting and varied unless they're your love interest there's just not enough of them. In combat they did pretty well but I found that the pure support characters, Tali and Liara, were by far the most useful. Pure combat characters like Ashley, or mixed characters like Wrex, just didn't bring much to the table at least not compared to Liara and Tali. It also irked me that you assemble this team of six highly capable people... and then only ever take two with you. Why not break it up into teams. You pick two or three to accompany you while delegating other tasks to the remainder? The only thing Wrex ever did in this game is ride in the cargo hold and bitch at me on the beach. That's it.

5) Combat - Personally I loved the combat system in this game. Going to a full FPS style as opposed to turn based was a huge benefit. I loved getting to use guns rather than swords or something. Being able to actually make use of cover, and see your enemies do it as well was great. However it was easy to get messed up if in combat you strayed too close to a structure and it put you in cover like it or not. Grenades were also iffy as it was hard to judge just how far your hockey puck had flown and when to detonate it. Also, the sniper rifle is absolutely useless until you invest four or five skill points in it which means for a while into the game it's just taking up inventory space. That said, its still wildly fun to be in the midst of a tactical fire fight in the middle of an RPG.

6) Mako - I wanted to like it, I really did. The times when you were on relatively smooth terrain it was great. The problem is that you were rarely on smooth terrain. The almost always insisted on putting the freaking Andes mountains in your path so your options are either to drive across the map and back to get to the one little relatively smooth pass through the fucking Himalayas or you can drive up a 80 degree slope. On top of that any little bump would send the thing airborne and spinning with no clue how you'd land. It was a great idea and a good mechanic fucked up by truly awful map design.

7) Locales - The Citadel, Noveria, Feros, Ilos, any big important plot location had amazing architecture, detailed design and a real feeling of being a real place. Everywhere else was either the same prefab containers, four room bunker, or four hold cave. Every. Fucking. One. Oh, sorry, forgot that you occasionally run across a space ship. The same one every time though. Would it have killed them to spend a bit of time to create a few more variation? Just a couple? Even use the same template for caves and bunkers but just mix the rooms up? Again, the Citadel, Noveria, Feros, etc are all gorgeous and fun to explore but everything else sorta sucks.

8) Love Story - It's, well its a Bioware game, which means the love story is tied to the plot, irrevocably. You will reach points where you cannot go anything further talking to characters until you complete the next plot point. Makes it less of a romance and more of a side quest honestly.

9) Character creation. Your ability to create the character you want to play is pretty impressive, only works for the face though. No body options.

10) Gear - Bioware games so you get two models for each gun class with 2 or 3 recolors, one armor model with recolors, and that's it. Also, the inventory system is a mess. There's no system, just a great big pile of crap in a big list. I did really enjoy the ability to customize your guns a great deal.

On the whole it was a great game, 9 of 10 easily. The nits I picked are just that, nits, little things in an amazing game. Mass Effect really did reconstruct the Space Opera.

On to ME2

[Reliant121]

Please excuse if my colour choices are crap, I can't see the buggers

Good

- Atmosphere: The music, the key location scenery, the voice acting; all of it worked together to create the best atmosphere of any game I have played so far.

- Combat system: The cover systems integration, the weaponry uses...all the little details work together to make a simple, robust but effective (and above all enjoyable) FPS.

- Some characters: some of the characters, and their acting, were top notch.

-Back story and plot: It was fairly recycled with the overall "good guy kills bad" but the alliance and citadel info etc. all made me very intrigued. even made me feel connected to it.
Average

-Other characters: other ones are pretty boring or mediocre. Liara and Ashley in particular struck this with me.

-Driving: How many frigging times did i drive that damn Mako into the lava on the dig sight. By god, it was shocking. Not only that, the constant rocking and shocking either gave me headaches or made me seasick.

-Reused models: To often did the same textures and settings appear, with identical layouts. There was little variation between the races technology, little variation in anything outside the core planets (each of which was beautifully designed).

Glitching: Occasional glitches left characters stranded, the graphics failing to load properly. small annoyances but important none the less.
Bad

Abilities: I've played through 3 games now where I never even used them. Half of them confer little bonus, and the interface system for using them is a little clumsy.

Terrain: So dull on other worlds not that standard.

Sprint mechanic: This basically never worked for me, which I found curious. I could never work out why I couldn't sprint, but I virtually never had the ability to do so.

[colmquinn]

I'm going to have to agree with pretty much all your comments there guys - now go out and buy ME2 to continue the story of saving the galaxy. It has some nice refinements (no mako for starters).

[Aaron]

Yeah, I've played through ME2 a number of times. I'm just waiting for the Hammerhead DLC.

[Tyyr]

I don't have a problem with the Mako, just the maps they made you use it on.

[Atekimogus]

The Good:

Obviously the Story was rather original for a change!
Combat system!


The Bad:

Weak sidequests!

I just wish bioware would finally make a Star Trek rpg.