REVIEW: Mass Effect

Developer: BioWare | Publisher: Microsoft | For: Xbox 360

Reviewer: Cian Ginty Mass Effect, a science fiction action-RPG, has been one of the Xbox 360’s most anticipated titles, but it’s hard to distinguish fact from hype.

BioWare, better known recently for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, wanted to move away from the Star Wars universe and create their own world, but you just can't help feeling the loss of a lightsaber.

While there is an earth, and you are human, the game centres around a galactic alliance with a rogue agent who brakes off to join with an army of machines with artificial intelligence (sound familiar?). Humans have yet to prove themselves and as the galaxy is plunged into war you are made fix it.

The combat system has been tweaked and is more like a team-based third person shooter then the average role-playing game. Some of the miserable camera angles in the Old Republic are also avoided.

However, make no mistake the game is story based. For those of you who aren’t familiar with RPGs that means lots of talking between shooting.

Both the characters that join your team and those that you meet along your mission – from the cynical, to the straightforward soldiers, from the diplomats to the desperate colonists – all add to game. Detailed facial graphics and first-rate voice acting help this experience.

One graphics let down we noticed was text appearing unreadable without sitting up out of comfort. This broke the flow of gameplay – it feels as if it is caused by too many developers presuming everybody now has HD TVs.   

The developers are – for the most part – successful in creating a rich universe and story of their own, but elements feels stretched at times leaving this writer feeing that it could have been so much better. It’s still a must for anybody who’s a fan of the genre.

Comments

[Gavin F.]

I didn't have the text problem, I played on my 17" monitor {in HD}.
I loved the game, my one complaint being the imbalenced classes, and annoying save system.
Otherwise a fantastic game.

[Cian]

I've replaced 'massive widescreen' with just HD TVs - using a non-HD TV was probably the problem.

I forgot about the annoyingly placed auto-saves. And yes, otherwise it's a great game.