Mass Effect is all I hoped it would be minus one issue I'll. I wanted an expansive world to play in where I was guaranteed to find stuff to do no matter which direction I chose to travel. In fact, my quest log is already swelling to the point where I have difficulty choosing where to go next. I like how they separate story missions and side quests, however, allowing me to maintain some form of order when choosing my next location to explore. New gameplay elements are still being revealed close to 10 hours in. That's one of the common points most reviews are giving right now that there's just too much to deal with early on in the game. Before you know it, exploration opens up on a galactic level where you not only choose which solar system to travel to but which planet as well. 

The game has a knack of making you feel extremely insignificant while zooming out to view the entire Milky Way, prompting you to choose your next location to warp too. The vastness of this game is what really captures me. From the dawn of our creation humanity has gazed upon the stars and wondered whats lies beyond our world. What could be more fulfilling than putting that power of exploration in the player's hands? Albeit, a fictional experience but pretty damn cool regardless. The game just taps into the explorer within all of us, the need to cross over that horizon.

The conversation system is just flawless, always impressed by great dialogue, cinematic camera and voice acting. Combat is fluid and includes several cool shooter mechanics like recoil, weapon heat levels and reticule bobbing (more bobbing for unskilled users). The cover system is great and makes every battle feel rewarding by making good use of cover and various dynamic elements in the room. I play as an engineer so combat is super challenging at times. This is good since I won't just blow through all the combat encounters but its also bad because the party AI system can make some rather silly decisions at times. Playing an engineer has been satisfying since I can easily hack through security systems and find all sorts of interesting information. (which unlocks new quests and rewards.) I've also put a lot of talent points into conversation skills to further that cause of unlocking dialogue options for quests which has been very rewarding at times with surprising results. Its nice to play a game where less combat centric characters are still viable and actually allow you to experience more content by playing smart.

My only real gripe with the game are some of the loading systems, elevators. Some have interesting VOs playing in the background but most are just plain and boring. Having taken part in extensive load system design for the last 2 years might have something to do with why this is such a sore point for me. Every single corridor in the my current project is rich with content so the player should never feel like they're in a loading section. That's why this game loses a few points with their elevator system. I can understand why this might be necessary in some areas but we find them EVERYWHERE. Elevators are cheap and effective but in my opinion pull you out of the world, killing some of the immersion.

Elevators really aren't that big of a deal when you see how just about everything else is so flawlessly executed. I would recommend the game to anyone who loved the Kotor and NwN games since many of the innovations from those games are replicated and improved in Mass Effect. I look forward to getting more time into this great title!

Tags: gaming, mass effect
Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Music: Revolting Cocks - Dead End