Mass Effect is a brilliant game composed of different elements that make it exceptional to other games out there. It combines beautiful near photo-realistic graphics with a definitive story-line and excellent gameplay to create a truly marvellous experience. Now there are a few low points in Mass Effect but the sheer amount of goodness from the rest of the game make these points barely discernible and only those that are truly really picky will feel this as a game spoiler.
Story:
Mass Effect has a superb storyline that will really immerse you in the Mass Effect world. You play as Commander Shepard, a man representing the Human Alliance. The Human Alliance is a political group that represents the human race on the Citadel, an enormous alien ship that is home to different alien embassies and the citadel council. The citadel council is composed of three head leaders that help guide the galactic races and make important decisions that benefit them. You soon become in charge of the Normandy, a highly advanced prototype ship that you use to travel to different solar systems and planets. You also gain crew members as you progress and can even develop a love-life with one of them. To build up a relationship with one of your crew you will have to make the right choices when choosing what to say in your conversation with them. This is one of the features of Mass Effect that really allows you to take control of the game and make you feel like you’re in it; speech selection. You can select from three base responses; a Paragon response, a neutral response, and a Renegade response. A paragon response will gain you Paragon points, which means that you are solving problems in the right way; a way that minimizes death and fighting and upholds as much of the law as possible. A Renegade response is the complete opposite; gaining you Renegade points and making you more ruthless and means that you complete an objective by any means necessary, no matter the deaths. Apart from the main story there are also many side-quests that require you to get into the MAKO, an all-terrain vehicle, and explore different planets and complete objectives.
Gameplay:
The gameplay in Mass Effect is solid and really well built. When you press Y you go into combat mode and have full control of you and your team. You can equip different weapons and armors and even equip upgrades to these weapons and armors to strengthen or enhance them. You can easily change weapons and direct the biotic powers that you and your teams can use. Biotic powers are powers that you can use that can throw your enemies into the air or suck them into a chosen spot. Holding the left bumper, a circular wheel appears where you can choose the equipped weapon of you and your team. Holding the right bumper another wheel appears that allows you to choose the powers of you and your team to be used against your enemies. When you kill enemies, you get experience points and money. The more experience points you gain the higher your level. When you level up you unlock points that you can spend on upgrading the skills of you and your team. Also, with the money gained from combat and side-quests you can buy equipment and upgrades to make you and your teams better. You can also sell your old equipment and upgrades to get some extra money.
Graphics:
As stated previously, the graphics are beautiful. Mass Effect is filled to the brim with lush, highly textured terrains with different weather systems and beautiful suns. The only down-side of the graphics is the occasional stuttering and loading of the terrains. You may be walking through a hallway and the xbox will skip a frame and you’ll see the textures being loaded. Although this occurs regularly, it has absolutely no impact on the game and how you play the game. In fact, you don’t even acknowledge it after the first half hour of gameplay.
With all that being said, Mass Effect is truly an amazing experience and I highly recommend anyone to buy it without a doubt. If you play through all the side-quests and get as much as you can out of this game you can easily rack up 70 hours of gameplay.
-Nauras
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