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This thread has been linked to the game 'Mass Effect'.
Enjoy RPGs? Space? Meeting interesting, ancient, alien races? Shooting them? Good, then read on.
You could possibly go through the whole of Mass Effect with the impression that it was the third outing of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise (henceforth referred to as KotR for sheer laziness) - it was developed by the very same company, Bioware, its story is mish-mash of Star-Wars as well as many other sci-fi movies, and it even features the Force (well, sort of, in a non-George Lucas angering way), but this is not a criticism. Ever played KotR? It was bloody good.
Mass Effect is a science-fiction RPG, set in our very own galaxy of the Milky Way. The story follows you as Commander Sheppard, your ship, and Nihlus, a 'Spectre' - an agent sent on behalf of the galaxy's government, on a mission to recover an alien beacon on the planet of Eden Prime, built by a long extinct ancient race called the Protheans.
Things do not go as plan as you find out that the colony planet is being attacked by an army of robotic life-forms, the Geth, led by a traitorous Spectre agent, Saren, who becomes your friendly, neighbour-hood nemesis. From then on the story has you zipping off to some incredibly varied planetscapes that range from downright gloomy, to picturesque, exotic locales, in a plot that revolves the nefarious Saren and his scheme that threatens the galaxy.
Character interaction, more specifically, conversations make quite a fair portion of an RPG experience, and Mass Effect is no exception. This time, however, Bioware have shaken up this element a little way - instead of the limited few conversation topics and responses, you are now presented with a radial dialogue display with six portions of it that make up different responses. These dialogue choices are more mood-focused, for example, you can choose an aggressive, nice, or sympathetic, and all add to the cinematic experience
The action side of the game is just as fleshed-out as the aforementioned character interaction, and follows very much to the KotR rulebook. You can go off exploring, buy and equip items such as armour and weapons, or go and find some side quests to tackle if you want a break from the main story. Personally I would have appreciated a small tutorial at the start, just to get to grips with the controls and the pause menu, which was a little confusing at first. I was literally running around for hours in the first city trying to find where I was going, until I realised how to use the map properly!
Combat is dealt in real-time, where your teammates and you battle the Geth and other creatures. Each of your squad members have, and can learn, special abilities which you select through a paused, radial menu. These abilities range from destroying shields, to throwing the enemy about using the power of the Force, sorry, Biotics, though essentially you can get away without using them - classes such as the Soldier can just boringly just mow everything down with guns.
Biotics, among other powers depend on your class and level. When you start the game, you pick your first name (last name is always Sheppard), your facial details, back-story, and of course, your class. The six classes available range from the gun-heavy Soldier, the Tech-utilising Engineer, and the Adept, who uses Biotic powers. The rest, like the Infiltrator are a balance of two roles, but are not as specialised as the main three classes.
To accompany the on foot combat and exploration, you can also be dropped from your spaceship, the SSV Normandy, to the surface of uncharted planets in your Mako space buggy. From here you can drive around the terrain, blasting Geth and giant worms, to salvaging resources and exploring camps. This makes a bit of a change and breath of fresh air to the usual RPG-fare.
Graphically, I think it is a rather sleek-looking, spectacular game. Some vistas look exotic, beach holiday-worthy, and various slimy aliens actually look like slimy, due to the fantastic textures and shimmering effects. To nitpick, sometimes Mass Effect suffers from some pop-up in places, and the intergalactic capital of Citadel has some pretty drab corridors in an otherwise awe-inspiring city, but these are such small detractors to the whole experience.
The sound design in this game is some of the best that I have heard in a while, and I hope other game developers take this on board. The music seems to fit the atmosphere of whatever planet you have landed on, and the vocal talent is some of the best of the last couple of years in the gaming world, in fact there’s talent from the Metal Gear Solid series, and even the actor Seth Green.
If you're more into shooting and explosions, than talking and cut scenes*, this game is probably not your cup of tea, but if you enjoy a bit of both - an immersive story and some shooting with a slight touch of strategy, this should be right up your street.
Just to summarise:
Positives - Engaging storyline, the depth in characters, information to read, character creation, special abilities are great fun, brilliant sound, open world to explore
Negatives - Slight pop-up, combat can melt into a 3rd person shooter at times, side quests can be quite side-tracking! (There’s quite a few!), initially a little unintuitive
Picked this game up rather late but found it great fun - 4/5
*still not as much as the Metal Gear Solid series
You could possibly go through the whole of Mass Effect with the impression that it was the third outing of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise (henceforth referred to as KotR for sheer laziness) - it was developed by the very same company, Bioware, its story is mish-mash of Star-Wars as well as many other sci-fi movies, and it even features the Force (well, sort of, in a non-George Lucas angering way), but this is not a criticism. Ever played KotR? It was bloody good.
Mass Effect is a science-fiction RPG, set in our very own galaxy of the Milky Way. The story follows you as Commander Sheppard, your ship, and Nihlus, a 'Spectre' - an agent sent on behalf of the galaxy's government, on a mission to recover an alien beacon on the planet of Eden Prime, built by a long extinct ancient race called the Protheans.
Things do not go as plan as you find out that the colony planet is being attacked by an army of robotic life-forms, the Geth, led by a traitorous Spectre agent, Saren, who becomes your friendly, neighbour-hood nemesis. From then on the story has you zipping off to some incredibly varied planetscapes that range from downright gloomy, to picturesque, exotic locales, in a plot that revolves the nefarious Saren and his scheme that threatens the galaxy.
Character interaction, more specifically, conversations make quite a fair portion of an RPG experience, and Mass Effect is no exception. This time, however, Bioware have shaken up this element a little way - instead of the limited few conversation topics and responses, you are now presented with a radial dialogue display with six portions of it that make up different responses. These dialogue choices are more mood-focused, for example, you can choose an aggressive, nice, or sympathetic, and all add to the cinematic experience
The action side of the game is just as fleshed-out as the aforementioned character interaction, and follows very much to the KotR rulebook. You can go off exploring, buy and equip items such as armour and weapons, or go and find some side quests to tackle if you want a break from the main story. Personally I would have appreciated a small tutorial at the start, just to get to grips with the controls and the pause menu, which was a little confusing at first. I was literally running around for hours in the first city trying to find where I was going, until I realised how to use the map properly!
Combat is dealt in real-time, where your teammates and you battle the Geth and other creatures. Each of your squad members have, and can learn, special abilities which you select through a paused, radial menu. These abilities range from destroying shields, to throwing the enemy about using the power of the Force, sorry, Biotics, though essentially you can get away without using them - classes such as the Soldier can just boringly just mow everything down with guns.
Biotics, among other powers depend on your class and level. When you start the game, you pick your first name (last name is always Sheppard), your facial details, back-story, and of course, your class. The six classes available range from the gun-heavy Soldier, the Tech-utilising Engineer, and the Adept, who uses Biotic powers. The rest, like the Infiltrator are a balance of two roles, but are not as specialised as the main three classes.
To accompany the on foot combat and exploration, you can also be dropped from your spaceship, the SSV Normandy, to the surface of uncharted planets in your Mako space buggy. From here you can drive around the terrain, blasting Geth and giant worms, to salvaging resources and exploring camps. This makes a bit of a change and breath of fresh air to the usual RPG-fare.
Graphically, I think it is a rather sleek-looking, spectacular game. Some vistas look exotic, beach holiday-worthy, and various slimy aliens actually look like slimy, due to the fantastic textures and shimmering effects. To nitpick, sometimes Mass Effect suffers from some pop-up in places, and the intergalactic capital of Citadel has some pretty drab corridors in an otherwise awe-inspiring city, but these are such small detractors to the whole experience.
The sound design in this game is some of the best that I have heard in a while, and I hope other game developers take this on board. The music seems to fit the atmosphere of whatever planet you have landed on, and the vocal talent is some of the best of the last couple of years in the gaming world, in fact there’s talent from the Metal Gear Solid series, and even the actor Seth Green.
If you're more into shooting and explosions, than talking and cut scenes*, this game is probably not your cup of tea, but if you enjoy a bit of both - an immersive story and some shooting with a slight touch of strategy, this should be right up your street.
Just to summarise:
Positives - Engaging storyline, the depth in characters, information to read, character creation, special abilities are great fun, brilliant sound, open world to explore
Negatives - Slight pop-up, combat can melt into a 3rd person shooter at times, side quests can be quite side-tracking! (There’s quite a few!), initially a little unintuitive
Picked this game up rather late but found it great fun - 4/5
*still not as much as the Metal Gear Solid series
Knew I had seen it cheap somewhere.Its £9.99 to reserve for store collection at Argos (item no.568/6852).Just checked and there was stock available in my area.
Very good review! Like pete said, good to have some new users who can actually post a helpful review!
Keep the reviews coming and good luck with winning!
Keep the reviews coming and good luck with winning!
Nice review.Great to see another new member contributing to the site.
Forgot to add this game is quite often knocking about cheap now.Keep an eye on the 'grab a bargain' thread in the Games section if anyone's after it.
Forgot to add this game is quite often knocking about cheap now.Keep an eye on the 'grab a bargain' thread in the Games section if anyone's after it.
Enjoy RPGs? Space? Meeting interesting, ancient, alien races? Shooting them? Good, then read on.
You could possibly go through the whole of Mass Effect with the impression that it was the third outing of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise (henceforth referred to as KotR for sheer laziness) - it was developed by the very same company, Bioware, its story is mish-mash of Star-Wars as well as many other sci-fi movies, and it even features the Force (well, sort of, in a non-George Lucas angering way), but this is not a criticism. Ever played KotR? It was bloody good.
Mass Effect is a science-fiction RPG, set in our very own galaxy of the Milky Way. The story follows you as Commander Sheppard, your ship, and Nihlus, a 'Spectre' - an agent sent on behalf of the galaxy's government, on a mission to recover an alien beacon on the planet of Eden Prime, built by a long extinct ancient race called the Protheans.
Things do not go as plan as you find out that the colony planet is being attacked by an army of robotic life-forms, the Geth, led by a traitorous Spectre agent, Saren, who becomes your friendly, neighbour-hood nemesis. From then on the story has you zipping off to some incredibly varied planetscapes that range from downright gloomy, to picturesque, exotic locales, in a plot that revolves the nefarious Saren and his scheme that threatens the galaxy.
Character interaction, more specifically, conversations make quite a fair portion of an RPG experience, and Mass Effect is no exception. This time, however, Bioware have shaken up this element a little way - instead of the limited few conversation topics and responses, you are now presented with a radial dialogue display with six portions of it that make up different responses. These dialogue choices are more mood-focused, for example, you can choose an aggressive, nice, or sympathetic, and all add to the cinematic experience
The action side of the game is just as fleshed-out as the aforementioned character interaction, and follows very much to the KotR rulebook. You can go off exploring, buy and equip items such as armour and weapons, or go and find some side quests to tackle if you want a break from the main story. Personally I would have appreciated a small tutorial at the start, just to get to grips with the controls and the pause menu, which was a little confusing at first. I was literally running around for hours in the first city trying to find where I was going, until I realised how to use the map properly!
Combat is dealt in real-time, where your teammates and you battle the Geth and other creatures. Each of your squad members have, and can learn, special abilities which you select through a paused, radial menu. These abilities range from destroying shields, to throwing the enemy about using the power of the Force, sorry, Biotics, though essentially you can get away without using them - classes such as the Soldier can just boringly just mow everything down with guns.
Biotics, among other powers depend on your class and level. When you start the game, you pick your first name (last name is always Sheppard), your facial details, back-story, and of course, your class. The six classes available range from the gun-heavy Soldier, the Tech-utilising Engineer, and the Adept, who uses Biotic powers. The rest, like the Infiltrator are a balance of two roles, but are not as specialised as the main three classes.
To accompany the on foot combat and exploration, you can also be dropped from your spaceship, the SSV Normandy, to the surface of uncharted planets in your Mako space buggy. From here you can drive around the terrain, blasting Geth and giant worms, to salvaging resources and exploring camps. This makes a bit of a change and breath of fresh air to the usual RPG-fare.
Graphically, I think it is a rather sleek-looking, spectacular game. Some vistas look exotic, beach holiday-worthy, and various slimy aliens actually look like slimy, due to the fantastic textures and shimmering effects. To nitpick, sometimes Mass Effect suffers from some pop-up in places, and the intergalactic capital of Citadel has some pretty drab corridors in an otherwise awe-inspiring city, but these are such small detractors to the whole experience.
The sound design in this game is some of the best that I have heard in a while, and I hope other game developers take this on board. The music seems to fit the atmosphere of whatever planet you have landed on, and the vocal talent is some of the best of the last couple of years in the gaming world, in fact there’s talent from the Metal Gear Solid series, and even the actor Seth Green.
If you're more into shooting and explosions, than talking and cut scenes*, this game is probably not your cup of tea, but if you enjoy a bit of both - an immersive story and some shooting with a slight touch of strategy, this should be right up your street.
Just to summarise:
Positives - Engaging storyline, the depth in characters, information to read, character creation, special abilities are great fun, brilliant sound, open world to explore
Negatives - Slight pop-up, combat can melt into a 3rd person shooter at times, side quests can be quite side-tracking! (There’s quite a few!), initially a little unintuitive
Picked this game up rather late but found it great fun - 4/5
*still not as much as the Metal Gear Solid series
You could possibly go through the whole of Mass Effect with the impression that it was the third outing of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise (henceforth referred to as KotR for sheer laziness) - it was developed by the very same company, Bioware, its story is mish-mash of Star-Wars as well as many other sci-fi movies, and it even features the Force (well, sort of, in a non-George Lucas angering way), but this is not a criticism. Ever played KotR? It was bloody good.
Mass Effect is a science-fiction RPG, set in our very own galaxy of the Milky Way. The story follows you as Commander Sheppard, your ship, and Nihlus, a 'Spectre' - an agent sent on behalf of the galaxy's government, on a mission to recover an alien beacon on the planet of Eden Prime, built by a long extinct ancient race called the Protheans.
Things do not go as plan as you find out that the colony planet is being attacked by an army of robotic life-forms, the Geth, led by a traitorous Spectre agent, Saren, who becomes your friendly, neighbour-hood nemesis. From then on the story has you zipping off to some incredibly varied planetscapes that range from downright gloomy, to picturesque, exotic locales, in a plot that revolves the nefarious Saren and his scheme that threatens the galaxy.
Character interaction, more specifically, conversations make quite a fair portion of an RPG experience, and Mass Effect is no exception. This time, however, Bioware have shaken up this element a little way - instead of the limited few conversation topics and responses, you are now presented with a radial dialogue display with six portions of it that make up different responses. These dialogue choices are more mood-focused, for example, you can choose an aggressive, nice, or sympathetic, and all add to the cinematic experience
The action side of the game is just as fleshed-out as the aforementioned character interaction, and follows very much to the KotR rulebook. You can go off exploring, buy and equip items such as armour and weapons, or go and find some side quests to tackle if you want a break from the main story. Personally I would have appreciated a small tutorial at the start, just to get to grips with the controls and the pause menu, which was a little confusing at first. I was literally running around for hours in the first city trying to find where I was going, until I realised how to use the map properly!
Combat is dealt in real-time, where your teammates and you battle the Geth and other creatures. Each of your squad members have, and can learn, special abilities which you select through a paused, radial menu. These abilities range from destroying shields, to throwing the enemy about using the power of the Force, sorry, Biotics, though essentially you can get away without using them - classes such as the Soldier can just boringly just mow everything down with guns.
Biotics, among other powers depend on your class and level. When you start the game, you pick your first name (last name is always Sheppard), your facial details, back-story, and of course, your class. The six classes available range from the gun-heavy Soldier, the Tech-utilising Engineer, and the Adept, who uses Biotic powers. The rest, like the Infiltrator are a balance of two roles, but are not as specialised as the main three classes.
To accompany the on foot combat and exploration, you can also be dropped from your spaceship, the SSV Normandy, to the surface of uncharted planets in your Mako space buggy. From here you can drive around the terrain, blasting Geth and giant worms, to salvaging resources and exploring camps. This makes a bit of a change and breath of fresh air to the usual RPG-fare.
Graphically, I think it is a rather sleek-looking, spectacular game. Some vistas look exotic, beach holiday-worthy, and various slimy aliens actually look like slimy, due to the fantastic textures and shimmering effects. To nitpick, sometimes Mass Effect suffers from some pop-up in places, and the intergalactic capital of Citadel has some pretty drab corridors in an otherwise awe-inspiring city, but these are such small detractors to the whole experience.
The sound design in this game is some of the best that I have heard in a while, and I hope other game developers take this on board. The music seems to fit the atmosphere of whatever planet you have landed on, and the vocal talent is some of the best of the last couple of years in the gaming world, in fact there’s talent from the Metal Gear Solid series, and even the actor Seth Green.
If you're more into shooting and explosions, than talking and cut scenes*, this game is probably not your cup of tea, but if you enjoy a bit of both - an immersive story and some shooting with a slight touch of strategy, this should be right up your street.
Just to summarise:
Positives - Engaging storyline, the depth in characters, information to read, character creation, special abilities are great fun, brilliant sound, open world to explore
Negatives - Slight pop-up, combat can melt into a 3rd person shooter at times, side quests can be quite side-tracking! (There’s quite a few!), initially a little unintuitive
Picked this game up rather late but found it great fun - 4/5
*still not as much as the Metal Gear Solid series