On the Subject of Mass Effect

Bar Rafaeli

Mass Effect is an odd game in hindsight. I really enjoyed playing it, but now that I'm looking back on it I find it hard to pinpoint what exactly made it compelling. The combat is awkward, with it's over-the-shoulder 3rd person view, team orders that I rarely used and which were pretty frustrating when I did and character skills which I hardly ever bothered with. Graphically the game veers between impressive and fairly lame. The characters are done well, some of the environments are good, but then you get dumped onto a planet in the little tank thing and suddenly it's like playing something out of the 90s.

Really, it comes down to the storytelling. The story itself may be fairly standard sci-fi wank involving ever-popular robotic species and ancient civilisations, but it's told in a very engaging, and very polished style. The voice acting in particular is first-rate, probably the best I've encountered (which isn't really saying much). If you don't stray from the primary missions then it has a great deal of page-turning appeal.

It's not perfect, and some of the supporting characters veer from bland to annoying. Eventually I was longing for a dialogue option that would let me shoot the human woman who you pick up at the start of the game in the head. Also you know, deep down, that the game isn't going to allow you to do the "wrong" thing, so while it can be fun to act like a bastard and crank up your "renegade" status, it doesn't really change anything. I'm not even sure what the point of the paragon and renegade tracks was, I think I've read you get some special ability that's activated by them or something, but I ended the game at about 50% on both, with no obvious impact on my character.

Another aspect of the game which could use some serious work is the side missions. They're useful for bumping up your level and for kitting out yourself and your team-mates, but there are only about 3 models of "dungeon" in the whole game; a "mine" dungeon, a "research" dungeon and a "warehouse" dungeon. Oh and I suppose there's a "spaceship" dungeon for the relatively rare boarding missions. But in each case the layout is identical each time that location appears. And they're very small, taking all of 5 minutes to clear.
Fortunately there's more variety in the locations visited in the primary missions.

The character design interface could do with some work, too. Assuming you bother to customise your character, it has an irritating habit of producing faces which look fine in the close-up view within the design interface, but which go on to look fucking awful in the actual game. Mostly it's the camera's short focal length, which gives the image a slightly fish-eye effect which isn't present in cutscenes. So you end up having to put the eyes artificially far apart to make them look right in the game. Also I found it virtually impossible to make a decent-looking female character. Someone needs to put some R&D into proper hair systems for games, because the sculpted plastic look that's so common in RPGs is overdue for a next-gen update.

The fact that there's a lot (and I mean a lot) of dialogue to plough through might seem like a bad thing, but I found myself exploring all of the branches wherever possible. The downside is that it hurts the game's replay potential. There may be a fair variety of classes to choose from, but the thought of having to sit through all the interminable chat again really puts me off. It was fun the first time, but now I know what everyone's got to say, what's in it for me?

Perhaps that's why I find the game slightly difficult to classify now. I was keen to get back into it at every possible opportunity to find out what happens next, but now that I know what happens next, I really have little motivation to do it again. Maybe I'll wait a while, and then choose a class that's significantly different from the tank I played this time. I ended up fairly overpowered really and my team-mates contributed very little to the success of the missions, which is perhaps why I didn't need to bother with the team controls. There were occasions where both my team-mates were dead (never permanently) and I'd go on to clear the area single-handed before returning to resurrect them. I might as well have not had team-mates, except that they're often necessary for cutscenes.

So overall, a polished, fun game. Might be one to pick up cheap given it's limited replay value but still definitely worth a first run.