Monday 14 January, 2008

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."

Well put together gamelog. You have a keen eye for looking in-depth into the game. Next time, please elaborate more on the Design section of the gamelog entry, otherwise you did very well.

~Sheena Marquez (TA)