Mass Effect

[Dennis Jameson]

It seems like my first opinions about the game were correct... Urgh, where to begin...

1. It's not an RPG. It's an action game, ala Gears of war, with a watered down statistics system that's suposed to resemble that of an RPG, but fails in a horrid way.

2. Idiotic dialogue. Idiotic... Idiotic... Dialogue... I don't know when everyone thought it'd be a good idea to replace standard text with 100% voice acting. Limited voice acting, like that of planescape torment, fallout, and baldurs gate, is all you really need. But then again, i supose the so called "duuuur next GENZ" wasn't much of an issue back then.

3. Biotics. "Look! We have physics!" is the sentence that pops into my head whenever i use one. Sure, they're fun to use, but they don't really have much of a use, other than showing off the so called physics of the game.

4. Driving the Mako... This could've been much, much better. MUCH better. Which leads us to the next point of intrest, or blandness...

5. Planetary exploration. This could also have been MUCH better, like having diffrent gravitational enviroments on the planet, thus making the whole driving thing more interesting. All the planets look the same, and there isn't enough "real" exploration. (Unless, of course, you think that pressing a survey button is exploring)

6. Characters. KoTR much? I even belive i heard good old "Carth Onasi" in the game. Is he the new pet of bioware or something? Bah... The others are just as bland and boring, the only thing that has really improved from KoTR is the fact that the ship is more fleshed out, that's about it.

7. The villain! Saren is the worst Darth Malak imitation i have ever seen. He's on a "quest" to find an EBIL artifact of great EBIL power and stuff. Ya-awn. Rip some of his cybernetics off and slap some red clothes on that sucker and you have Darth Malak. An even uglier Darth Malak with lamer powers and less intimidating henchmen, but Darth Malak none the less.

8. The "Hero". First of all... I hate Stargate Atlantis, and having to hear that stupid last name all the time just pisses me off... Seriously, what were they thinking? So much for player choise, eh? And starting off by choosing your backround and psychological profile may seem like a "neat" choise by the uninitated, but it really isn't. It limits your roleplay and doesn't allow you to make any real choises. Planescape handled it by having you build your character through general choises and dialogue choises... What's so wrong with that? I'll tell you; They can't do that in "fully voiced dialogue", proving once again how bloody useless it is.

The classes are pretty much moot, seeming how you can "unlock" certain skills for use with other classes. I like this feature, cause it allows me to imagine that my character is special, and not bland. (Note the imagine part)

Back to dialogue. I liked KoTR because it allowed me to imagine what kind of voice my character had, this game does not leave anything to imagination at all. His reactions are predictable to the point where it does not matter if you're "rude" or "super duper friendly nice", it's just an unending railroad filled with monotonous responses and reactions leading up to the point where you want to beat the living snot out of the main character for being so damn predictable. >_< GRAH!

9. Choises. There are none! You can be rude, you can be nice but it doesn't matter because didn't want the retard babies (Thank you, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw) playing on the Xbox 360 to miss any of their "BRILLIANT(!)" story. HAH, i say.

10. Mass effect is a good game (by todways standards) but it's NOT an RPG, and it doesn't deserve a place among the true RPG's such as Planescape: Torment, Baldurs Gate and Fallout. Everyone is praising Mass Effect because it's the only damn psudo-rpg out on the market today that doesn't include any of the "features" shown in Oblivion, and other crap-tacular action RPG's.... Well, except level scaling. Heh.

This has suddenly turned into a review, so i might as well give this game some scores then...

Story - KoTR clone - 5\10 Avarage\Bland

Characters - KoTR clone \ Stargate Atlantis - 4\10 Carth Onasi returns through the wonders of cloning. "Below avarage"

Villains - KoTR clone - 4\10 Seems like Malak was a Hindu, seeming how he got re-incarnated as an alien. 3\10 Poor showings, mate

Gameplay - Gears of war with more choises - 6\10 I enjoy it, but it could be more fleshed out. Above avarage.

Overall - KoTR with elements of an action game and a lesser story - 6.5\10

Bioware has degraded since the end of the 90's... It's sad that they are concidered to be the best RPG producers in the gaming market.

\Rant off.

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Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici

10/6