Leveling Down

Commander Shepard discussing the next course of action with a couple party members

I’m on my second play through of Mass Effect now, having spent about twenty hours the first time through. The game’s main storyline is actually only about ten hours long, and I would have spent the extra thirty or so hours doing the optional sub-quests had I not been stuck in the storyline forcing me to go on and beat the game. Let that be a warning: if you start Mass Effect – try not to do so many story based missions before tackling the optional ones. Otherwise, you’ll be forced to beat the game.

Intro
Mass Effect was developed by Bioware, a company that was originally famous for its PC RPG titles and later Xbox titles. I loved Bioware back in college, as this development studio released Baldur’s Gate I and II for the PC (which I spent many hours on). After Baldur’s Gate II, Bioware released Neverwinter Nights, a multiplayer based AD&D game. I tried to get into that but it wasn’t my cup of tea since it required some heavy “role playing” online with other people. My individual opinion aside, Bioware had created a solid fanbase from the Baldur’s Gate games and Neverwinter Nights. It was after that that Bioware brought their unique PC RPG style to the Xbox.

Bioware released Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in 2003 to widespread acclaim. I tried it out, but couldn’t get into the game for a couple reasons. The first reason was that it was literally a dumbed down PC RPG. I was used to the depth and gameplay options available in Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights – KotOR seemed to have simplified many things to become console-friendly, making the game seem too simple to enjoy. Lack of customization made me feel like the game was more of a closed ride than a free world for me to explore. I also didn’t like how it was a Star Wars game that took place 4,000 years before the Star Wars movies. I wasn’t able to really recognize much in the game from the Star Wars universe and never enjoyed sci-fi games much to begin with. The abundant sci-fi feel without notable Star Wars made the game tough for me to play through so I ended up selling it before I could even beat it.

After Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Bioware wanted to release an original IP of their own design. Jade Empire was the name of the game: a martial arts based action-RPG. It contained many similar RPG formats that were present in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but I personally skipped the game since I had my hands full with World of Warcraft at the time. It was popular and well received, but because it was a unique IP based in an Asian universe it didn’t sell nearly as much as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. While KotOR sold over a million copies, Jade Empire didn’t even sell a quarter million.

With such a strong number of “RPG-heavy” action RPG games, Bioware attracted quite a following. Mass Effect is their first title for the 360, and it is planned for a trilogy within the Xbox 360’s life cycle. Many fans who were disappointed with the way Obisidan Entertainment handled Knights of the Old Republic II and the boring martial arts based universe of Jade Empire hoped that Mass Effect was Bioware’s return to grace. So far reception is positive. Mass Effect tends utilize many RPG features present in Bioware’s previous games, such as good and bad, a pausable action-RPG style combat system, and various optional quests that don’t always rely on combat.

Saren, the main villain of the game

Storyline and Premise of the Game
You play the role of Commander John Shepard in a fleshed out space opera taking place in 2138. In this futuristic sci-fi storyline, the human race is trying to get one of them elected as a representative on The Council, a small group of different alien representatives that govern the entire universe. Because the human race is not as advanced as other alien races, the humans have not been formally recognized as a race that is fit to help “rule” the universe.

In order to maintain order and balance in the universe, The Council has an elite group of twenty or so peace keepers that they send covertly throughout the universe to take care of any problematic situations. These peace keepers are called Spectres, individuals that have been recognized by The Council as noble warriors that demonstrate that they are not only willing to serve the greater good, but also have the ability to do so. Spectres answer to no one but The Council, and thus have power second to that of The Council itself. They are not trusted by civilians, as Spectres can kill anyone at will if they believe it to be necessary (they do not face any type of repercussions for doing so).

Commander John Shepard is the first human to potentially be considered for a Spectre position based on what he has already accomplished. In his first mission in the game, he discovers that a Spectre named Saren has done what many have feared: he has gone rogue. As the main villain in the game, Saren’s training and network as a rogue Spectre allows him to come to control a mysterious robotic “race” called the Geth. Saren despises the human race, and wants to eliminate the humans as well as all other living races using the robots, believing them to be the way of the future.

The goal of Commander Shepard, the last hope of humanity, is to stop Saren from annihilating all living beings in the universe of Mass Effect. Shepard follows Saren through the galaxies of Mass Effect aboard the Normandy, an advanced spacecraft manned by a supportive crew consisting of humans and aliens. He has up to six different members in his party, and two at a time can accompany him when he leaves the ship.

It probably takes only ten hours to beat should the player only pursue Saren through the main questline. The game contains dozens of optional quests that can add a dozen or so more hours should the player wish to stop off at various planets throughout the game. Unlike traditionally linear RPG games, Mass Effect contains many choices the player has to make in the game. Certain choices lead to different optional quests due to how citizens perceive your character, and the result of these choices can potentially lead to one of several different endings.

Salarians are an intellectual race but not good at physical activity

Game Mechanics
Travel
Traveling in the universe of Mass Effect is accomplished through the Normandy. Fortunately for this game, traveling through the Normandy is automatic – you just pick the planet you wish to fly to and one load screen later you will be there. Some planets have docking bays that your ship can land at so you will come out on foot, but most planets are barren and you have to utilize your armored car called the Mako.

Instead of landing right on an uninhabitable planet surface, the Normandy drops the Mako off so that it hits the surface running. Once you land you drive the Mako around the map looking for the 3-4 points of interest on each planet. In general, 2-3 of the points of interest are just items while the last point of interest is an enemy base of some sort. The Mako reminds me of Blaster Master since not only do you have an unlimited supply of missiles and machine gun rounds, but you have jump boosters to hover and it can traverse up almost any incline that isn’t directly vertical. The Mako is pretty enjoyable to use in the main quest missions where there are actually paths and roads that you’re supposed to follow. Using the Mako on the optional planets and trying to climb up mountains can get pretty frustrating though.

Commander Shepard is able to take two party members with him on missions.

Classes
There are six class types in the game, based on three main classes: the soldier, the adept, and the engineer. The other three classes are “hybrids” of the three main classes – a soldier/adept, a soldier/engineer, and an adept/engineer. Soldiers can train in all weapon types and equip heavy armor. This is often a good starting class to play since it is most similar to what action gamers would expect. The adept is the mage class in the game, but unlike fantasy games where your spells are fire and ice based, the adept uses Star Wars-like “Force powers” where you can lift enemies into the air and/or throw them. The engineer class is best for interfering with enemy equipment and abilities such as disabling firearms and hacking enemy robots to fight for you. The hybrid classes allow your character to meddle in both classes that the hybrid is based on, but like most RPG games that enable hybrid classes you will not be able to reach the end specializations of the single classes (i.e. the red mage class in the Final Fantasy games uses both white and black magic, but cannot use the most powerful white and black magic spells).

Commander Shepard ends up with a total of six characters in his party, and unsurprisingly each character is one of the six character types. The party members to use in the field should be chosen based on what best complements Commander Shepard’s class.

Combat System
The combat in the game reminds me of am MMORPG. It’s real-time but it can be paused anytime you wish to change what weapon you’re using or what spell you want to cast. The game has an artificial way of managing combat with weapons. Unlike many first person shooter games where you can just point your targeting reticule at something and hit it, your skill in a particular weapon type determines the size of your targeting reticule. For example, if you are not trained in the assault rifle, when you try to use it you won’t even have a targeting reticule and you won’t be able to hit anything. But if you were to level up your assault rifle skills, your targeting reticule circle will shrink and shrink, allowing you for far more accurate shots during combat. Trying to snipe an enemy with a sniper rifle skill of 1 (the minimum skill level) is nearly impossible as your scope will move all over the screen. Adding points into the skill will make it more stable, and eventually at higher skill levels you should be able to easily pick enemies off at a distance without shakiness.

Skills for all classes are cooldown based. There are no magic points in the game so any ability can be used when it is ready. There are various ways to reduce the cooldown on special abilities throughout the game such as putting more points into cooldown reduction skills or equipping items that reduce the cooldown time on abilities. Unlike the soldier class that relies primarily on weapons, the adept and engineer classes rely more on their skills so the reduction of their cooldowns for their abilities is quite important.

One problem with combat is the AI of your party members. They definitely aren’t as good as the Rainbow Six: Vegas partners – in Mass Effect they’re clunky, they keep trying to shoot at enemies behind walls, they die easily, etc. With my first time through the game I was a soldier and I just had them wait in the back when I would go in and clear all of the enemies out of each room. Now on my second play through as an adept, I just use them as sort of cannon fodder since I can’t take the hits myself. Luckily, with such poor AI for your party members, they still get exp even if they die in the middle of battle (they come right back up after all enemies are cleared in the area).

Item System
The item system in the game is perhaps too simple for my tastes but it works. Basically there are about five or six of each weapon and armor type in the game. There are maybe five shotguns, five sniper rifles, five pistols, etc. Each type has certain tradeoffs in terms of damage, accuracy, and continuous shots before overheating. Bioware has simplified the item system greatly with how the weapons and armor appear over the course of the game.

For example, if I decide to use Shotgun A from Shotguns types A-E, all I need to do is acquire Shotgun A II later in the game to upgrade. Each type goes from I-X, with X being the best of its type. It’s easy to tell how far you are in the game based on the weapons and armors that you come across. Are you finding weapons/armors of level IV and V? That means you’re probably about halfway through the game. Armor is just one set piece – no individual helmets, trinkets, boots, etc. It’s that simplified.

The only other main item types in the game are weapon and armor upgrades. Each weapon and armor piece has at least one slot to insert an upgrade. Some weapon upgrades increase accuracy, some allow you to do more damage to organic enemies, etc. They can be taken off the weapon/armor at any time and like the weapons and armors, they follow the level I-X simplified system.

Leveling Up
Leveling up in the game is mostly done through either completing quests or defeating enemies. Several quests (especially in town) don’t necessary revolve around combat and there are often several ways of beating a quest that result in different experience point amounts rewarded. Enemies and bosses tend to level up with you, and quest experience rewards also level up with you. You could do a quest at level 1 and get 10 exp on it, or come back to it when you are level 40 and get 10,000 exp. Regardless, the quest experience is rewarded in terms of a ratio of your current level rather than a set amount each time it is completed, allowing you for a lot of freedom in the order in which you wish to tackle quests in the game. Each time you level up you are given skill points to allocate into your class abilities such as weapon specializations, armor, tech skills, etc. Regardless of your class, you can also put points into the abilities of “Charm” and “Intimidate” which can prove to be useful during conversations.

Mass Effect’s unique dialogue choice tree

Dialogue
One of the big features of Mass Effect is the dialogue system (everything is fully voiced). In fact, probably half of the game is probably spent just talking and listening. Well, maybe not half but more so than most people may want. Good thing you can “fast forward” dialogue if you want. There were some conversations that were just too boring so I didn’t bother listening to those.

In the game the conversing between Shepard and other characters is pretty realistic since you are given different choices in how you want Shepard to respond. This choice of answers is sort of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” type of tree since by taking a friendly, neutral, or unfriendly stance on your answer will determine how you complete a quest, how much experience you get from completing it, how you will be perceived by others, and what quests are open to you later. Ability points spent on Charm or Intimidate allow you additional conversation options with the Charm option in blue and the Intimidate option in red. The Charm route is often the most peaceful way through a conversation, and can surprisingly affect many life or death situations. It feels pretty good to be able to charm your way through a conversation for a peaceful solution. I haven’t tried going down the “Intimidate” path yet (forcing people to do things through fear) but I will try it on a subsequent play through.

Morality
Finally, there is the concept of “morality” in this game. Each action you do in the game can potentially give you Paragon or Renegade points. If you do a good thing, you’ll be awarded Paragon points, while if you do an evil thing, you’ll get Renegade points. The meters are separate for both Paragon and Renegade – they don’t share a bar where if you’re good you’re not bad. You can be both. Supposedly, you are perceived in the game based on how your Paragon & Renegade meters are. It’s a pretty neat way to play through the game since it provides another layer of depth that other RPGs seldom have. One example of this (I showed my friend one day) is when I was interviewed by an annoying reporter. I could have gone down the Paragon path and answered the questions politely and accurately but I wanted to see what would happen if I chose the Renegade path. My character simply said, “This interview is over.” Then he reached over and punched the female reporter and walked off. Pretty funny stuff!

The robotic geth are able to turn human corpses into zombie-like troops

Achievement System
The Achievement System in Mass Effect may very well be too much. Granted, thought was definitely put into it (not just linear Achievements that are given to you as you go through the game), but they are far too demanding of my time. I decided for my first play through to just play it without any thoughts so I could enjoy it how it was. Most games I don’t mind playing through again after I’ve beaten them, especially if I’m going through them differently. But even after beating the game once, how many more times am I supposed to go through it?

I applaud the fact that there is an Achievement for going through the game as a good guy and another Achievement for going through the game as a bad guy. That is of course the biggest contrast in gameplay and storyline you can get, so I’ll enjoy seeing what it’s like to be nice to people and being a jerk to people. I’m somewhat “meh” over the fact that there is an Achievement to beating the game one time, an Achievement to beat the game a second time on the second to hardest difficulty, and a third Achievement for beating the game on the hardest difficulty. Apparently it’s nearly impossible to beat the game on the hardest and second to hardest difficulties (there’s a total of five different difficulty levels) without carrying over your character from a previous game (New Game + style where you can keep your experience levels, gear, and money).

I understand the idea behind creating Achievements to playing with each of the six different members in your party. However, the Achievements aren’t clear enough in that you actually have to go through most of the optional quests with them too for the Achievements to unlock. Even though I used the same two characters in all my quests the whole game, apparently I didn’t complete enough of the optional quests in the game to be granted the two Achievements for spending almost all of my game time with either of the two characters. That just means I have to play through the game again with those two characters.

At some point after I beat the game the first time I had to sit down and really plan out how many more times I had to go through the game to get all 1000 Achievement points. Right now my best case is four more times – three “full times” (completing the optional quests) resulting in fifty hour play throughs and the final time on the hardest difficulty with just the main storyline only. I’m looking at 160 hours of playing here if I want to get all the Achievements. It’s like my first play through didn’t even count and I’m a little annoyed by that as the game will begin to feel more like work to get all of the remaining Achievements.

I like this guy – he always greets me with: “Hello, Earth clan!” Our clan must be pretty large.

Final Thoughts
Mass Effect is one of the hardest games for me to give a review score on. The strong and engaging storyline, great graphics and innovative dialogue system are offset by unintuitive Achievement design, bugs and long loading for certain parts, poor ally AI, an overly simplistic item system, and mundane optional worlds. Granted, Mass Effect’s positives outweigh the negatives, resulting in a game that still is fun to play. A simpler game would probably not be able to hold up based on all of those negatives.

I give the game a B. The main problem I have with the game is that it under-delivered. It feels almost like the game was rushed to the door for the Christmas season. The scope will make you initially go “wow” but after playing it for several hours, your feelings for the game will decrease. Playing through Mass Effect reminds me of watching the Matrix trilogy all in one sitting for the first time. You’re engaged with the storyline and the way the game is played initially, but the developers could not support the “massive” scope that they created for the game. They set the bar too high for themselves, and could not deliver.

The gameplay is solid and fun, but when the game has over ten different galaxies consisting of 10-30 planets each and you can only land on 1-2 of these planets in each galaxy, that’s just a let down. Only four of these planets are necessary to beat for the storyline (each taking two hours) – the other planets that you can land on are really just optional small maps that you land on to look for resources, items, or optional quests. These planets themselves feel more like stages since each is really just an expansive plot of land with maybe 3-4 spots of interest on the map. And what about cities and such? There are practically only two or three cities/villages throughout the entire galaxy. Everything else you come across is either barren planet surfaces or underground tunnels. How is it that a game like Mass Effect which takes place across a whole universe feels smaller than Oblivion, a game that takes place on just a region of land?

Regardless – the game is fun to play and the storyline draws you in quickly. I recommend it for anyone interested in an action-RPG with a sci-fi setting as this is the best (and only) one currently out there on the 360. Just don’t go in expecting game of the year material and you should enjoy it just fine.