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Eaubay's Mass Effect (360)
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| [January 14, 2008 02:07:52 PM]
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Gameplay entry #2
GAMEPLAY
It's safe to say I'm in love with this game. Typical RPG's offer a great deal of customization in weapons, armor, skills, and if you're lucky appearance. Mass Effect doesn't just take it to the next level, it knocks these expectations out of the freaking park. Not only can I change my weapons and armor, adding upgrades and changing the ammo, but I can mold my very personality. Mass Effect is the spiritual successor to Star Wars: Knights of the Republic, and so it includes what could be considered light side and dark side points, called paragon and renegade respectively. I found out pretty quickly that renegade was quite a bit more fun. For example, one of the members of my party who had been with me since the beginning of the game stepped out of line, so I chose the more aggressive option in the dialogue and it turned into a heated argument. It escalated to me pulling out my shotgun and shooting him in the face three times! Whereas a lot of games today boast to be open ended, in Mass Effect if someone in your party disagrees with you, no matter how integral to the story they are you can literally just end their life. After that no one on board the ship questioned my judgement again, ever. This wasn't just a coincidence either, the members of my party had actually dynamically reacted to me because I had accrued enough renegade points.
And the story is phenomenal. I started out as an errand boy, solving mysteries fit for scooby doo, and worked my way up to the go to guy for the council that runs the galaxy. Yeah, no more mystery machine stuff, now when there's a rebellion on a planet that threatens peace and stability everywhere I'm the guy that goes to fix it. What was great is that the progression seemed so natural, there was no jump. Even despite how open ended Mass Effect is it managed to slip seamlessly between the overarching story that I slowly uncovered about a plot to destroy all of civilization and side missions. It didn't seem contrived either or like a rehash of another game. It was all fresh and highly entertaining.
DESIGN
My one real complaint about Mass Effect is that it's almost too open ended, there's no real tutorial that introduces you to combat or customization. It's almost assumed that the player already understand perfectly the mechanics of the game. While not being intuitive, I didn't have any challenge with it after an hour or so when I had the mechanics of the game down. I think Penny Arcade described it best with this analogy: "This giant pool is Mass Effect. It's vast and deep. We Made it for you. Now swim! Swim forever."
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| [January 14, 2008 01:34:55 PM]
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Gameplay entry #1
SUMMARY
In Mass Effect the player controls commander Shepard, a soldier in the year 2183. The gameplay is a third-person shooter combined with RPG elements to control which class Shepard progresses in. The various classes take the game from a cover based strategy game with magic powers to a more Halo based shoot everything that moves game, all controlled by the upgrades the player chooses. The game has very few cinematic sequences, and instead lets the player progress through the story by starting conversations with NPC's and choosing from several responses in the conversation. The responses a player chooses in the conversation change the personality of Shepard slowly from a xenophobic homicidal maniac to a philanthropist space crusader, all completely dependent on the choices of the player.
GAMEPLAY
Mass Effect is an incredibly engaging experience because of its frenetic space shooter gameplay and the literally thousands of options it gives the player in progressing the story. These two combined with an upgrade system, and a massive galaxy to explore make no two play experiences the same.
I had varied emotions while playing Mass Effect. When in combat I was pumped an excited. When a futuristic alien robot jumps out from behind cover and I waste him with my shotgun and watch him dissolve into a puddle of acid as a techno soundtrack blares and spaceships explode in the distance I was floored. But when I have to make a choice to save one party member over another that I've fought to save the galaxy with and both are pleading for their lives, and I know I can only save one it's nothing short of heart-wrenching.
The characters in Mass Effect are all very well done. None of them seem two-dimensional, and they all have a backstory that the player can investigate. This makes a seemingly trivial NPC come alive, for example I overheard a sulking alien and asked him what was wrong. After some persuasion he revealed that he was an ambassador to some backwater alien world and was being blackmailed. Talking to him unlocked a side quest that revealed a love triangle, a rogue general, a dying alien culture! This is just a glimpse of the depth in Mass Effect, I could have just as easily walked by the depressed looking alien and never even spoken to him.
Mass Effect flows impeccably well because it's literally completely dependent on the choices of the player how quickly or slowly the player progresses. There are a myriad of side quests to complete and hundreds of unexplored alien worlds the player can travel to. Alternatively one can blow through the main story and only scratch the surface of the game.
I took turns playing Mass Effect with a friend and we each had an incredibly different play experience. In conversations he would choose the more sensible option, and if possible spare enemies, hoping they would aid him because of his compassion. But I chose to play it more "bad cop" than him, running in guns-a-blazin' and coercing my way through the galaxy.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 14th, 2008 at 13:40:33.
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Eaubay's Mass Effect (360)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Sunday 13 January, 2008
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