Mass Effect Review - PC

6

Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 7
Audio: 8
Innovation: 5

For most, I'll simply have to mention the company "BioWare" and that'd be enough to make them rush out and get a copy of Mass Effect. Having gained popularity thanks to its incredibly well-received Knights of the Old Republic, it seemed like they could do no wrong. An established Dungeons and Dragons game platform with Star Wars flavouring? Instant purchase for many. Mass Effect is quite a departure from that world, stripping back the RPG elements and injecting a heck of a lot more real-time action, thanks to a third-person shooter interface. In we go!

Gameplay

So, what have we got here? We have your classic space opera theme: colonisation, alien species, war, love, et cetera. Enter Mr. (or Ms.) Shepherd, your archetypal action hero (I played as the male version, so I'll refer to my character in that frame of mind - sorry ladies!). Before you head into the game, you're required to set up your character, personalising his appearance as you see fit. After this, you're required to select some options for your characters backstory, as well as choose the type of character you'd like to be. Here's where it already starts to head down-hill: rather than allowing you to select your class when you're in-game, you're forced to close off a lot of options before the game has even started. While it's not overly noticeable at the start, you'll be somewhat punished later on as your exploration yields poor results due to the fact you lack stats in a certain class (for me, it was electronics and decryption). More on that later though. It's unfortunate that a lot of RPGs follow this particular mechanic, as it forces you to delve into the manual to explain what your character can and cannot do. This goes against my policy of "Hey, that looks good, I'll choose it". Then again, I am an idiot.

Mass Effect begins epicly enough: you're in the midsts of a planet, the sounds of violence brimming all around you. You quickly encounter enemies and proceed through the linear path to the next point of interest. You're given a quick overview of things you can do as you progress along, including your biotic powers, which give you some cool Force-esque abilities. All jim-dandy so far. Upon starting the game after character creation, you'd think you're in for a detailed RPG experience. But no: this is more of a watered down RPG, or 'Action RPG', which has made certain aspects of it highly unintuitive. The inventory system is the best example of this: it's an utter mess. You're given 150 slots, which essentially means you can carry 150 items. There is no visual representation of this limit either: it's only made aware to you when you're nearing it. If you continue to raid crates and storage containers looking for items, you'll be locked once the inventory screen opens. The game informs you that you should either remove or sell some of your items, but you can't actually quit out of (continued next page)