"Bloated But Competent"
BioWare's "Mass Effect" trilogy has grown to represent a pretty legendary high point of RPGs since the series' end over a decade ago, and it's a strange consideration after playing through the first game. There's a massive universe introduced with some in-depth lore, a few memorable characters, and a large space-faring journey of revenge...and more. Unfortunately, it's held back by some average components like its combat system, the lack of many interesting side quests, the sloppy and limiting dialogue trees, and the worst vehicle in modern gaming. It's a hugely mixed bag, but at the end of the day it still manages to stick out as a worthwhile entry to consider.
BioWare has always seemed to be best at crafting a game world, and with "Mass Effect" it's no exception to that rule. The diverse alien races you encounter all have in-depth background, politics, and personalities, yet they feel like potentially real races that could exist just out of our current scientific lens. This series takes these new species and crafts an interesting space opera out of it, essentially throwing humans (and thus you, the player) into the mix without much else to do but tag along for the ride. Without delving into spoilers, "Mass Effect" manages to capture the feel of an epic movie while providing the player with some depth towards shaping their personal experience in the game.
Unfortunately, it is not without its flaws, and man can they be rough to experience. The combat is pretty clunky here, mostly boiling down to a shooter where you have squad-based commands and special powers. While the shooting is fine, it lacks a lot of punch. The extra components also feel a bit tacked on, though there is something interesting when it comes to the dynamic between tech hackers and "force-like" biotics running around causing mayhem. Future titles would do this much better, and it's appreciated that they tried this right off the bat, but it's pretty sloppy.
The world, or well "universe", is also huge. You have dozens of planets to explores in dozens of systems, which adds a sense of scope and scale...at least on a surface level. See, "Mass Effect" allows you to explore these areas, but the missions don't really extend to anything more than simple fetch quests, small combat encounters, or some slight lore-based quests. It gets super repetitive and stretches the game out by a few dozen hours as well. This should have been cut back a bit, as the repetitive nature of landing on a planet, slowly exploring it, and walking away with minimal interaction and reward starts to wear thin after the first few times. Despite this, the planets that do make an impression do so strongly, though these are generally the main mission planets due to their potential for stronger questlines and more diverse interactions.
The game is very dialogue driven most of the time, and this is both super cool and frustratingly limiting due to the karma system and unclear responses from the "dialogue wheel". Conversations are generally well-paced, but the players is pretty much forced into becoming either a "paragon" or "renegade" type. Most of the time, the "paragon" route involves a more sane, courteous, and logical Shepard, whereas the "renegade" route involves a childish, immature, and illogical Shepard. This gets frustrating for two reasons: first, the more you focus on one route, the more you're locked out of the other; second, the developers abbreviate the responses, but are sort of inaccurate more times than not, leading to situations where you say something you didn't intend to say.
This is still a fine system for dialogue, and the saving grace is that the writing keeps situations interesting and tense. Yet it could have been much stronger had BioWare been clearer with their dialogue design alongside easing the restrictions that were put in place.
Finally, I have to mention the stupid Mako. This vehicle is probably the worst I've ever seen in a game, and it's the primary reason why side quests are so frustrating. The handling is atrocious, it's boring to drive, and the armor/weaponry make it simultaneously weak as all hell yet brokenly overpowered. The planets you explore are also horribly designed, with what feel like randomly generated landscapes that provide little to no traction for movement. A complete failure from BioWare, and something that actively ruined large chunks of the game for me.
"Mass Effect" is a fine example of a flawed but fine game. It manages to set up some solid plot points for the trilogy, and it establishes the core of the franchise. However, it has so many flaws that it is a bit hard to recommend. It's worth it for the main quests, but the side content is just not good. This goes for the remastered version as well, since I felt like little was improved outside of some technical issues and graphical fidelity. This title manages to capture the spirit of BioWare's overall vision, but I don't think they managed to nail it until the release of its sequel two years later...
Final Verdict: 6/10 (Above Average)
BioWare's "Mass Effect" trilogy has grown to represent a pretty legendary high point of RPGs since the series' end over a decade ago, and it's a strange consideration after playing through the first game. There's a massive universe introduced with some in-depth lore, a few memorable characters, and a large space-faring journey of revenge...and more. Unfortunately, it's held back by some average components like its combat system, the lack of many interesting side quests, the sloppy and limiting dialogue trees, and the worst vehicle in modern gaming. It's a hugely mixed bag, but at the end of the day it still manages to stick out as a worthwhile entry to consider.
BioWare has always seemed to be best at crafting a game world, and with "Mass Effect" it's no exception to that rule. The diverse alien races you encounter all have in-depth background, politics, and personalities, yet they feel like potentially real races that could exist just out of our current scientific lens. This series takes these new species and crafts an interesting space opera out of it, essentially throwing humans (and thus you, the player) into the mix without much else to do but tag along for the ride. Without delving into spoilers, "Mass Effect" manages to capture the feel of an epic movie while providing the player with some depth towards shaping their personal experience in the game.
Unfortunately, it is not without its flaws, and man can they be rough to experience. The combat is pretty clunky here, mostly boiling down to a shooter where you have squad-based commands and special powers. While the shooting is fine, it lacks a lot of punch. The extra components also feel a bit tacked on, though there is something interesting when it comes to the dynamic between tech hackers and "force-like" biotics running around causing mayhem. Future titles would do this much better, and it's appreciated that they tried this right off the bat, but it's pretty sloppy.
The world, or well "universe", is also huge. You have dozens of planets to explores in dozens of systems, which adds a sense of scope and scale...at least on a surface level. See, "Mass Effect" allows you to explore these areas, but the missions don't really extend to anything more than simple fetch quests, small combat encounters, or some slight lore-based quests. It gets super repetitive and stretches the game out by a few dozen hours as well. This should have been cut back a bit, as the repetitive nature of landing on a planet, slowly exploring it, and walking away with minimal interaction and reward starts to wear thin after the first few times. Despite this, the planets that do make an impression do so strongly, though these are generally the main mission planets due to their potential for stronger questlines and more diverse interactions.
The game is very dialogue driven most of the time, and this is both super cool and frustratingly limiting due to the karma system and unclear responses from the "dialogue wheel". Conversations are generally well-paced, but the players is pretty much forced into becoming either a "paragon" or "renegade" type. Most of the time, the "paragon" route involves a more sane, courteous, and logical Shepard, whereas the "renegade" route involves a childish, immature, and illogical Shepard. This gets frustrating for two reasons: first, the more you focus on one route, the more you're locked out of the other; second, the developers abbreviate the responses, but are sort of inaccurate more times than not, leading to situations where you say something you didn't intend to say.
This is still a fine system for dialogue, and the saving grace is that the writing keeps situations interesting and tense. Yet it could have been much stronger had BioWare been clearer with their dialogue design alongside easing the restrictions that were put in place.
Finally, I have to mention the stupid Mako. This vehicle is probably the worst I've ever seen in a game, and it's the primary reason why side quests are so frustrating. The handling is atrocious, it's boring to drive, and the armor/weaponry make it simultaneously weak as all hell yet brokenly overpowered. The planets you explore are also horribly designed, with what feel like randomly generated landscapes that provide little to no traction for movement. A complete failure from BioWare, and something that actively ruined large chunks of the game for me.
"Mass Effect" is a fine example of a flawed but fine game. It manages to set up some solid plot points for the trilogy, and it establishes the core of the franchise. However, it has so many flaws that it is a bit hard to recommend. It's worth it for the main quests, but the side content is just not good. This goes for the remastered version as well, since I felt like little was improved outside of some technical issues and graphical fidelity. This title manages to capture the spirit of BioWare's overall vision, but I don't think they managed to nail it until the release of its sequel two years later...
Final Verdict: 6/10 (Above Average)
Reviewed on Mar 13, 2023