The Art of Storytelling

Let’s make one thing clear – this review will not be objective. On the contrary, it will be more subjective than Christians during the crusades. This comes from the simple fact that I fell in love with Mass Effect and the universe created by BioWare, and love is blind.
This game is by no means perfect. It has more flaws that I would tolerate in most games, but it has this “something” that let it occupy a place in my personal top ten games.
But to quote Takayoshi Sato – “You know, if always she's perfect, I guess ah, you won’t love her.”

Let me deal with a few problems Mass Effect has first. Most annoying thing for me was the fact that most of the side quests are very schematic. What’s more they are all made using only four location types. Same problem exists with the planets that you’ll explore – they may look a bit different, but they feel exactly the same – they are mostly just barren hills and valleys.
Second thing is the loading times that are too frequent and too long. ME is build on the third unreal engine and it shows – both in a good and in a bad way. While you get excellent lighting and special effects, you’ll also get preposterous texture pop-in that can even take several seconds, and while it’s no big deal when you transit from one location to another when it happens during cut scenes it looks like somebody spit into your eye and everything is blurry and ugly from the mucus. Developers call it engine limitations, I call it sloppy coding.
But to be honest, all those problems mean nothing in the long run, because the rest of the game is friggin’ brilliant.


Let me tell you why I like this game so much.
I’m a big fan of Science Fiction. I like aliens, artificial intelligence, space ships and all that stuff. Mass Effect has it all and more. The most impressive thing with this game is how much effort BioWare put in creating the universe. It’s not like in most Sci-Fi games or flicks, where you have all the incredible technology and alien races but nothing is really explained. You just take everything for granted – it’s just there. In Mass Effect pretty much everything is described in detail – the history and even biology of the aliens, the theory behind the technology. Damn, they even explain how come you have unlimited ammo in your guns – it’s all believable.
And the background behind the game’s story isn’t just we-were-attcked-by-mutant-squirrels-from-outer-space-so-we-fight-back nonsense. There’s politics, economy, armed conflicts, law and history. You will learn that even the distant future isn’t that much different than our presence – the bureaucracy is still more important that welfare of an individual and even if the governmental organism is called a Council and is consists of members of three different races it doesn’t mean that everyone in the interstellar community is treated as equal. And yet BioWare manages to sew into this a mystery about races that existed before the known times, creatures that constructed the great mass relays – portals to different solar systems, a mystery about their disappearance and the grim menace from the deepest parts of the galaxy.
This is all happening around you – the main character Shepard and you feel that he or she, whoever you choose, is a part of it even if insignificant.

This is a role plying game at its very core and I mean a Role Playing game, where it’s actually up to you who your character will be and what will be his or her personality. You can choose to be the Councils lapdog or a self-righteous, cocky bastard that won’t hesitate to kill to get what he wants. It’s unlike most RPGs where you are restrained by the confines of the plotline and must act accordingly.
This game is dialog-heavy and that is the main reason why some of the dumber-than-a-cart-of-coal gamers have been bashing the game for being too slow. If they wanted a shooter they should have bought something else. This game is more about the plot than anything else. Of course the action is there and it’s good. The combat is solid and the presence of biotic and tech powers makes it more than fun.
But anyway, this game is about role playing and as such gives the player a lot of freedom. It goes for everything – from the class creation where no class is at a disadvantage because your party member can make up for anything that your character misses, through the choices that influence the outcome of your actions up to the weapon and armor modifications. You will be the one to choose where and when to go, what missions to undertake and what people to kill. You will also have the ability to develop your character skills as you please.
To help you immerse yourself you get great graphics and phenomenally modeled characters with life-like faces and excellent mimics. You get top-notch voice acting and a musical score that perfectly fits the nature of the game. The icing is the usage of cinematic special effects like noise filter, motion blur and beautiful lens flares and the cherry on top are the skillfully directed cut-scenes.

I could tell you a lot about the whole plot, the controls and all the gameplay elements, but I really wouldn’t want to spoil too much like most reviews do.
This is a game that should be experienced by everyone individually without preparing too much beforehand. Let yourselves devour the content and don’t haste to the finish. Just play it.