MASS EFFECT: A Game with Two Minds
Those of you who know me know that I've been waiting on this game more than any other for two years now. I mean, it's a BioWare game that allows you to travel thoughout a sparsely-populated Milky Way Galaxy.
Well, it's been worth the wait. The game has some rare framerate issues that will bring the game to a temporary halt, but that is the only real complaint I can find with it.
The story is solid. The voice acting is superb. And the dialog ring interface is a quantum leap for adventure-style gaming.
As long as you stay on the main quest, the game has the deep, immersive feel of any other BioWare title. You go into a city or facility; talk to LOTS of people; solve puzzles; make moral decisions and engage in battles. This part of the game is extremely well-crafted. If the tasks seem trivial at times, the dialog associated with the task makes up for it.
Off the main quest, though, things are different -- which may put BioWare fans off at first until they understand that the exploration side-missions are meant to provide more of a sandbox experience. You can freely explore any planet in the system that allows you to land on it. There you will find a number of points of interest that you can drive your rover to and others that you can discover by just driving around and watching your radar. This is much more of an action experience. You engage in numerous battles, collect items and push portions of the story further, but there is very little exposition or dialog.
This let's you play Mass Effect according to your mood: when you are looking for the full-blown RPG experience, you play the main story line, where each city can have you engaged for 2-6 hours. When you just want to get into some action, you can either investigate a secondary mission or just pick a solar system at random and start exploring.
One caution that all adventure games should know, but still applies here in spades: SAVE YOUR GAME BEFORE AND AFTER EVERY BATTLE OR MAJOR MORAL DECISION. The game does auto-save, but it's rare, and usually means replaying over an hour of the story when you've bungled it. Going into a structure will usually provide an autosave, but an hour of wandering a landscape only to be gobbled up by a Maw will send you back in time to where you first landed on the planet if you haven't saved your game.
This is definitely a five-star title. The framerate problems are annoying but rare, and can almost be dropped from consideration.Be aware, though, I've seen the screen go still for up to five seconds and recover. So don't assume you have a lockup whenever the framerate goes to a standstill. I've put over 20 hours into this game and have not had it lock up on me yet.
Buy, buy, buy. This is the kind of title that requires you vote with your pocketbook so that publishers will keep coming out with this kind of expansive, high-quality title.
Well, it's been worth the wait. The game has some rare framerate issues that will bring the game to a temporary halt, but that is the only real complaint I can find with it.
The story is solid. The voice acting is superb. And the dialog ring interface is a quantum leap for adventure-style gaming.
As long as you stay on the main quest, the game has the deep, immersive feel of any other BioWare title. You go into a city or facility; talk to LOTS of people; solve puzzles; make moral decisions and engage in battles. This part of the game is extremely well-crafted. If the tasks seem trivial at times, the dialog associated with the task makes up for it.
Off the main quest, though, things are different -- which may put BioWare fans off at first until they understand that the exploration side-missions are meant to provide more of a sandbox experience. You can freely explore any planet in the system that allows you to land on it. There you will find a number of points of interest that you can drive your rover to and others that you can discover by just driving around and watching your radar. This is much more of an action experience. You engage in numerous battles, collect items and push portions of the story further, but there is very little exposition or dialog.
This let's you play Mass Effect according to your mood: when you are looking for the full-blown RPG experience, you play the main story line, where each city can have you engaged for 2-6 hours. When you just want to get into some action, you can either investigate a secondary mission or just pick a solar system at random and start exploring.
One caution that all adventure games should know, but still applies here in spades: SAVE YOUR GAME BEFORE AND AFTER EVERY BATTLE OR MAJOR MORAL DECISION. The game does auto-save, but it's rare, and usually means replaying over an hour of the story when you've bungled it. Going into a structure will usually provide an autosave, but an hour of wandering a landscape only to be gobbled up by a Maw will send you back in time to where you first landed on the planet if you haven't saved your game.
This is definitely a five-star title. The framerate problems are annoying but rare, and can almost be dropped from consideration.Be aware, though, I've seen the screen go still for up to five seconds and recover. So don't assume you have a lockup whenever the framerate goes to a standstill. I've put over 20 hours into this game and have not had it lock up on me yet.
Buy, buy, buy. This is the kind of title that requires you vote with your pocketbook so that publishers will keep coming out with this kind of expansive, high-quality title.
Labels: Mass Effect, review, video games, Xbox 360
posted by Cold Justice at
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