Mass Effect

A Review on Mass Effect developed by BioWare

Mass Effect is a science fiction action-role-playing third-person shooter developed and released by BioWare in 2007 for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC gaming platforms. Mass Effect is the first game in the series and first of a trilogy followed by Mass Effect 2 (2010) and Mass Effect 3 (2012). There is a second installment to the series called Mass Effect: Andromeda released in 2017 but this installment does not follow the same storyline as found in the original trilogy.

In Mass Effect you will play as Commander Sheperd, a soldier aboard the Normandy, in which you will travel across the Milkyway investigating various different planets with the Normandy crew and discover a variety of unique alien races including Turians, Asari, Salarians, Quarians, and Krogan among others.

After receiving a concerning report of a Prothean Beacon discovered in a human colony, Commander Shepard and the Normandy team are called in to investigate the disturbance. This is where the main antagonist, Saren (a Turian) makes his appearance and is discovered on the scene along with the infiltration of Geth (a synthetic AI created by the Quarians). In Shepard’s pursuit of Saren across the galaxy, it is revealed that Saren is nothing more than a pawn for the bidding of Sovereign – a Reaper. The Reapers are an ancient synthetic race that set out to exterminate all sentient organic life across the galaxy every 50 000 years and Saren’s purpose is to assist Sovereign with the return of the Reaper army so that the extermination can commence. As Commander Sheperd, it is your duty to prevent the Reaper invasion and stop Saren.

Commander Shepard, along with the Normandy crew, embark on a variety of quests visiting unique planets within the Milkyway allowing a large degree of free roaming to take place. When traveling on a planet’s surface you will have the disposal of the Mako (see below) which allows you to navigate the harsh environments and surfaces of some of the planets. Secondary quests are not compulsary but completeing them is recommonded to stay on track with extra’s from the main story line that often come up in the second and third games and, are also a good way to make additional credits or find cool weapons and upgrades.

The game took players by storm based on its unique narrative, storyline and player choices that affect both the progression of the story as well as the character development within the game. When you start a new game you are lead into your character creation screen allowing you to choose a unique background, personality, and class. You can then fully customize Shepard choosing either to be a female or male version of Shepard as well as choosing a unique appearance for your Shepard. Your gender does not directly impact the game but certain relationships that can be pursued with your crewmates are limited to either gender or both.

It is important to constantly converse with your crewmates, especially after the completion of a main storyline mission, to hear their thoughts and to possibly obtain sideline quests. This also allows you to access options to develop your relationship with your crew. Different dialogue options chosen will influence the outcome of the game and relationships so if you are uncertain simply save before talking to a crew member to be on the safe side. It is important to be aware that your choices made in the first game will have an impact on the following two games should you choose to import your saves.

Combat is somewhat different from normal third-person RPGs wherein you are able to select two crewmates to accompany Shepard on missions at all times. The crew that you choose can sometimes be restricted to the particular mission (only really relevant in the second and third game) but can also impact the progression of the storyline. Each crew member’s powers are categorized according to biotic-, tech-, and combat strength. When you select a crew for a mission it is important to have a balance of these aspects especially if you are playing on a higher difficulty. While in combat you can access the in-combat menu which pauses combat and allows you to assess the situation. In this menu, you can tell your crew members to attack particular targets with certain abilities or apply certain abilities in a sequence on one particular enemy. The enemies you face in the area will also greatly influence the type of team that you require. This alone proves that Mass Effect is a game that demands to be played multiple times.

Each specific class has an aptitude for different types of weaponry. This means that depending on the class that you have chosen for Shepard, certain weapons are going to be more effective than others. In Mass Effect, weapons do not operate with ammunition and instead have a single ammunition block from which the weapon shaves metal off to convert into a bullet fired by means of a powerful mass effect field. As a result, ammo is never a problem but weapons can only be fired a certain number of times before overheating. Due to this combat was not as popular in the first Mass Effect but this is changed in the second and third games.

Every time you complete a quest, kill an enemy or successfully hack a wall safe/computer/crate you will gain experience points (XP). After accumulating enough XP, Shepard will level up. These points that are gained when leveling can be used to upgrade various talents based on whatever class you have chosen. This is also where you can choose to follow the charm (paragon) or intimidate (renegade) trees. This will unlock special dialogue options for Shepard to follow through the progression of the game. Paragon is typically your good-guy approach where renegade is the more badass/hard-ass approach. Both approaches are fun due to the course change in the game – renegade particularly gives access to some funny dialogue.

During the course of the game you will interact with a variety of lovable NPCs – whether they are a part of your crew or discovered during quests or on your travels to new planets – I guarantee that you will grow close to these characters. Below you can see the entire crew that will be at your disposal during the first Mass Effect game and some will appear in the games to follow. The conversations and choices made with each crew member will be remembered if you choose to import your game.

It is difficult to choose a favourite crew member because each member has a different personality and backstory that you learn to cherish for different reasons and changes according to how you choose to play the game. I believe it will suffice to say that the storyline and character development in the game is so rich that it is not necessary to choose a favourite character because I like them all for different reasons. You will laugh and cry with them – i’m not even kidding.

For a game of its age, the graphics are actually quite good, not Crysis good, but more than satisfactory. If the graphics or combat bothers you then I can assure you that once you get into the story you will not even notice these factors. I have played the games multiple times and just typing this review makes me want to start playing it again. Each time you play the game the story can be different so I consider it to be multiple games packed into one beautifully constructed masterpiece.

The Mass Effect series holds a close place in my heart and will always remain one of my favourite game series. If you have not played this then I highly recommend that you get yourself a copy and immerse yourself into this wonderful universe. The game scores an easy five stars from me for its impeccably thought out storyline, the rich characters and dialogue options, its diversity and simply because Fem-Shep is boss – not that I’m being biased (maybe just a little) 😉