Mass Effect: Needs More Substance

I picked up my copy of Mass Effect last week. Got home, popped it in ye ole ‘360, and spent the weekend amassing as much game time on it as I could. The Verdict?

Need more Mass Effect.

The game is well done, fairly polished, and damn addictive. Once you pick it up, you don’t want to quit. This is why there is a large gap in between this post and the last post. The game stands up to other games of the genre, like the KOTOR series, quite well.

The game UI screens are fairly intuitive, and pretty to look at. The Character Creation screen is a little limited, but this is not oblivion, so I don’t expect that from it. It gives you a nice range, and variable customization options. I have an issue with the navigation UI, and find myself continually swearing at it. The ‘B’ button is exit, and ‘X’ is zoom out. And I press exit every single time I want to zoom out. Every single time.

The main problem with mass effect is near total lack of unique content outside the main mission. Every cluster has only one or two systems, and a system has only one, small square of a barren, desolate world. Every pirate base has the exact same layout, every bunker follows the same exact blueprint. The sky on every nearly identical planetary may is either filled with another looming planet, volcanic ash, or thunderclouds. Mines, for some reason, all follow the same schematic as well.

Every assault rifle looks the same, as well as every shotguns, pistol, and sniper rifle, the only difference between weapons of the same class being stats, and occasionally, a paintjob done by a 4-year old epileptic.

The main campaign, however, make up for the lack of well, anything else, in the game. The rich, interesting worlds of the main quest (there are five), show the potential of what mass effect could have been. The fact that these finally polished worlds are present in the game puts the emptiness of the rest of the world in stark contrast. The multiple ending are all pleasing, and really gets you hooked on the story.

I won’t go into the story, because, well, I don’t want to ruin it, but suffice it to say, there are lots of choices to be made, none of them easy. The only downside to the story bit is the lack of real character interaction. Okay, lack of interaction besides the people you get to fuck.


Overall, I’d give it a 7/10. It lost a mark for reusing the same three pieces of building geometry on every single non-story worlds, a mark for lack of character interaction, and another one for that goddamn B button.