“Mass Effect will continue” sounds more like a threat than a cause for celebration at this point in Bioware’s history, but whatever turn the franchise takes next, I’m glad we got this one out of it. Mass Effect 2 was my introduction to the series, and my brother and I agreed at the time that neither of us could understand what people saw in it. When PS3 peasants like us were afforded the opportunity to play Mass Effect 1 years later and it culminated in spacewalking up the side of the Citadel with Sovereign looming overhead, though, I remember my brother watching on and saying “I think I understand now.” Revisiting it almost 10 years later, I’m with him on that one more than even then.
That isn’t to suggest that spectacle does the heavy lifting, however. Mass Effect probably doesn’t get enough credit for adapting the structure of a real time with pause RPG to the format of a third person shooter, and not just for the novelty of bouncing people around with biotics. There’s a satisfaction in moulding your squadmates from total jobbers into spacefaring John Woos via fiddling with their equipment and stats that isn’t really there in this game’s successors, at least not to the same degree. Both the level up and equipment screens look a lot more complicated than they actually are, but a couple of slightly cumbersome menus are worth tolerating for that rewarding, palpable sense of progression.
More conspicuous is the fact that supersoldier Shepard can only run for about 5 seconds before running out of breath, but he at least retains more manoeuvrability than a rusty schoolbus thanks to a significantly less rigid cover system than what would come later. Of all Cerberus’ crimes, their most egregious may just be making sprinting, vaulting & taking cover all share the same input in the sequels.
Shepard’s believability as a roleplaying template is also at its best here. Picking Paragon or Renegade options as the situation demands rather than going all in on one or the other feels more natural, since they’re less perfection personified versus petty prick and more diplomatic leader versus get-the-job-done-no-matter-what hardman. I played my Shepard going mostly Paragon before he eventually got fed up with aliens’ nonsense (especially b*tarians), realised that human supremacy is the only way to go and became accordingly irritable – compared to later entries, it’s pleasantly surprising how much it felt like an actual character arc of my own making rather than him being a schizo.
Believability in general is something Mass Effect’s writers were great at. Picking the Paragon option when Ashley mentions her faith to you is such an understated moment, and yet it demonstrates a better understanding of faith than any number of works in and outside of this medium to the extent that I can’t believe something like it exists in a Bioware game. What further helps your squad feel like real fleshed out people rather than dedicated quest dispensers is that they actually interact with each other really regularly, discussing and disagreeing on the current state of affairs after each main mission. This, plus Saren is by far the best antagonist this series ever saw, founded on the pretty reasonable motivation of trying to minimise the damage done by a seemingly undefeatable omnicidal threat, as opposed to trying to trick you into not realising what a moron he is by way of Martin Sheen acting circles around everybody else.
Every optional planet you can visit having the same three warehouses on them is a harder sell, as is how often the Mako or even just walking around civilian areas amounts to mindlessly holding forward for prolonged periods of time, but there’s probably a case to be made for it being the slightest of net positives in that tangibly exploring the galaxy is preferable to looking at it through a scanner. Granted, the sense of discovery is lessened a bit when you see a bunch of chest-high walls and immediately know what’s coming, but you get used to it. It was the 7th gen, you know?
As much of a drag as those things can be, Mass Effect becomes better the more I dwell on it. The electronic rock soundtrack’s a perfect match for the setting and otherwise far cooler than the standard fare orchestral stuff they’d increasingly rely on afterwards, speaking to Sovereign is an enthralling moment that exemplifies why Bioware used to be spoken of in the same breath as the likes of Black Isle or Troika, and in general there just aren’t a lot of space opera RPGs with this kind of scale or ambition or colourful, tight knit characters. We never got the Stargate SG-1 game I dreamed of when I was little, but I’m happy Mass Effect’s here to sort of fill that gap.
It only feels right to cap off with this - most credit sequences simply can't compete.
That isn’t to suggest that spectacle does the heavy lifting, however. Mass Effect probably doesn’t get enough credit for adapting the structure of a real time with pause RPG to the format of a third person shooter, and not just for the novelty of bouncing people around with biotics. There’s a satisfaction in moulding your squadmates from total jobbers into spacefaring John Woos via fiddling with their equipment and stats that isn’t really there in this game’s successors, at least not to the same degree. Both the level up and equipment screens look a lot more complicated than they actually are, but a couple of slightly cumbersome menus are worth tolerating for that rewarding, palpable sense of progression.
More conspicuous is the fact that supersoldier Shepard can only run for about 5 seconds before running out of breath, but he at least retains more manoeuvrability than a rusty schoolbus thanks to a significantly less rigid cover system than what would come later. Of all Cerberus’ crimes, their most egregious may just be making sprinting, vaulting & taking cover all share the same input in the sequels.
Shepard’s believability as a roleplaying template is also at its best here. Picking Paragon or Renegade options as the situation demands rather than going all in on one or the other feels more natural, since they’re less perfection personified versus petty prick and more diplomatic leader versus get-the-job-done-no-matter-what hardman. I played my Shepard going mostly Paragon before he eventually got fed up with aliens’ nonsense (especially b*tarians), realised that human supremacy is the only way to go and became accordingly irritable – compared to later entries, it’s pleasantly surprising how much it felt like an actual character arc of my own making rather than him being a schizo.
Believability in general is something Mass Effect’s writers were great at. Picking the Paragon option when Ashley mentions her faith to you is such an understated moment, and yet it demonstrates a better understanding of faith than any number of works in and outside of this medium to the extent that I can’t believe something like it exists in a Bioware game. What further helps your squad feel like real fleshed out people rather than dedicated quest dispensers is that they actually interact with each other really regularly, discussing and disagreeing on the current state of affairs after each main mission. This, plus Saren is by far the best antagonist this series ever saw, founded on the pretty reasonable motivation of trying to minimise the damage done by a seemingly undefeatable omnicidal threat, as opposed to trying to trick you into not realising what a moron he is by way of Martin Sheen acting circles around everybody else.
Every optional planet you can visit having the same three warehouses on them is a harder sell, as is how often the Mako or even just walking around civilian areas amounts to mindlessly holding forward for prolonged periods of time, but there’s probably a case to be made for it being the slightest of net positives in that tangibly exploring the galaxy is preferable to looking at it through a scanner. Granted, the sense of discovery is lessened a bit when you see a bunch of chest-high walls and immediately know what’s coming, but you get used to it. It was the 7th gen, you know?
As much of a drag as those things can be, Mass Effect becomes better the more I dwell on it. The electronic rock soundtrack’s a perfect match for the setting and otherwise far cooler than the standard fare orchestral stuff they’d increasingly rely on afterwards, speaking to Sovereign is an enthralling moment that exemplifies why Bioware used to be spoken of in the same breath as the likes of Black Isle or Troika, and in general there just aren’t a lot of space opera RPGs with this kind of scale or ambition or colourful, tight knit characters. We never got the Stargate SG-1 game I dreamed of when I was little, but I’m happy Mass Effect’s here to sort of fill that gap.
It only feels right to cap off with this - most credit sequences simply can't compete.