BioWare Corp. has always been a big name when it comes to role playing games for example when BioWare aided in creating Jade Empire, a Xbox title and a PC port. BioWare has also worked on RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and Neverwinter Nights, which I personally found to be insanely fun no matter how many times I played through it. One of the most renown and popular titles, a favorite of mine that BioWare has worked on is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic: Revenge of the Sith Lords.
One of BioWare’s recent outstanding accomplishments is Mass Effect, a sci-fi third person shooter with rich role play mechanics, in which you take the role of Commander John Shepard and make his every decision and action. Thus allowing you nearly full control of how every conversation and encounter ends, whether your objective is to make money and personal or self sacrifice your efforts and money to help others, and generally how the game plays out and ends. The sheer openness of game play, dialog, and decisions allow for a multitude of choices which close some options and open others to John Shepard.
One thing players will notice as they begin to initiate conversations with other characters in game is that dialog choices will be centered on a point at the bottom of the screen. The choices are a paraphrase of your action or what to say rather than having to read what you intend to say then end up hearing the exact same thing, giving a different but nice change to dialog choices in comparison with other games.
The actions you take as Commander Shepard often affect your Paragon meter which is essentially alignment. With enough Good or Bad Paragon Shepard can either intimidate and threaten people into doing what you ask or giving you what you want or smoothly persuade people to a beneficial outcome. Being able to utilize Good or Bad Paragon dialog allows players to do some things they would otherwise not be able to do whether it be to gain an item, open a door, or settle a conflict for experience players will always be motivated to move their Paragon in one direction or another.
Item customization plays a big role in Mass Effect due to the fact that just about every attachment grants a bonus to something like stability of gun fire, range, and damage, increased damage to synthetic beings or organic beings. Higher tier attachments and weapons are often available through missions, side missions, or the multiple vendors found in several of the safe havens.
Graphics and animation are superb in Mass Effect players will embark on missions which will take them to different planets, some of which have beautiful rolling grass hills and mountains others that will be a barren volcanic wasteland or sub zero temperature ice planets where not a soul is to be seen for miles. The sky above is always a constant thing to be noticed, always either a nearby planet, moon, or star cluster to be seen that is when the sky isn’t blacked out by a sand storm or blizzard which occur on some desert planets. Many details have been factored in such as the all common lighting and shading which are perfectly up to par. Reflection takes a big part (it’s the future you know, everything is suppose to be chrome and shiny... right?) and is noticed on space ship hulls or lakes and ponds.
Audio is something to be noted on considering most conversations are fully voiced and sometimes what the player makes Commander Shepard say through the dialog menu may sound different than what was to be expected. Some voice encounters can be insanely annoying when involving characters you may not stand, though that’s easily solved with a blast from your pistol if you choose such a decision, while others can be hilarious.
While there isn’t any multiplayer option to be found in Mass Effect the single player campaign more than makes up for it with many, many hours of game play. Players start off pretty simple and basic then work into more complex mechanics such as upgrades or add-ons for weapons, armor, and other devices. As players begin they will have the choice of either loading out a default John Shepard or creating a fully customizable character that doesn’t even need to be named John, not even a male gender for that matter. Facial features are the main focus in customization and they are detail from how big of a nose you’d like Commander Shepard to have to what scars you’d like him or her to have. If you’ve chosen to customize Shepard you can choose from six different classes each with their strengths and weaknesses, Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Vanguard, or Sentinel.
First play through of Mass Effect allows a level cap of fifty while completion allows a second play through, ’New Game Plus’, where you can carry your attributes and level to a new game and reach a higher level cap of sixty. This feature boosts replay value either for taking the lighter or darker path of the Paragon you may have not chosen before, doing a few side missions you didn’t bother with first time around, or gathering up some more achievements.
Possibly one of the most interesting and outstanding things Mass Effect manages to pull off that other games have simply failed at is meshing a shooting style of combat with a story line that pulls you in deep and doesn’t let go. Combat is fast paced third person shooting with options to add a little turn based effect in case you’d like more time to make decisions (ei. a party member dies and game is paused). Skills and abilities can range from increased damage and stability for Soldiers or the ability to heal and shield the party for Engineers and while using them in combat the game is paused, allowing players to make decisions accurately and tacitly. Shotguns, pistols, assault rifles, and sniper rifles can all be equipped to a character at once. But if the character is skilled in using the weapon is a different matter since if a player is not proficient in using a sniper rifle they may not be able to zoom or may not deal as much damage and be as accurate with an assault rifle as someone who is skilled.
Item creation is a handy feature since as you progress through the story as Shepard; resources will be accumulated to spend on crafting everything from healing items or better upgrades that can give you the edge in combat.
In conclusion Mass Effect offers a style of game play not easily pulled off by mixing shooting combat and role playing, throwing decision making skills with fully voiced dialog and shortening choices for conversations to avoid hearing and reading the same thing. You will encounter some cinematic sequences which may leave you in awe or make you feel as though you are in Commander Shepard’s shoes and have the weight of the universe on your shoulders, the fate of the universe in your hands. Mass Effect is expected to stretch into a trilogy which will enable players to continue Shepard’s story with previous save game information, that factor giving more reason to start at the beginning and play through a few times.
