Mass Effect review

Exceptional

by bgsmith3

What a joy it is to finally be able to experience the one that started it all, free from (most of) the bugs and rough edges of the original. Mass Effect 1 has usually been seen be me as the black sheep of the original franchise, even in spite of the controversial parts of Mass Effect 3. Mostly due to my inexperience with this entry compared to the other two, but also I would say due to the radically different direction this one takes to side content, with it being heavily focused on exploring uncharted planets in a big tank not entirely dissimilar to what No Man Sky would attempt nearly 10 years later. This, almost sandbox exploration aspect is probably one of the most divisive things about the game and I’m not entirely surprised BioWare canned it for the sequels, driving around an uncharted planet is fun the first time but it quickly becomes repetitive due to how similar the planets themselves are and the activities you can do within. I did find the Mako fun to control this time around though, even if its quite cartoonish, but ramming Geth never gets old. The side missions are such a massive and detailed part of its sequels it is just odd to see them kinda slapped on here, with them only seeming to exist to pad out the surprisingly brief main story, and as an excuse to ogle the beautiful skyboxes of course. Another thing I have to criticise is the gunplay. Now part of this may be me choosing to play Engineer on Insanity difficulty but nearly all of the tech powers seemed to have little bearing on the outcome of any given combat situation, usually relegating me to exclusively using the surprisingly powerful pistol and popping a shield boost whenever things got too hot. This may just be me being too used to the sequels, but the cover mechanics and overall choice in how to approach combat seemed rather rudimentary even for 2007. Still though, I will have to wait until my Adept playthrough to experience it fully. Although not a critique, I was rather startled by how easy Insanity difficulty was. Even though I was playing exclusively with light armour, I could reliably tank most weapons short of rockets or sniper rifles, it was only really on Noveria with the shield-bypassing Rachni that I felt underpowered and cautious, oh and that one side mission on the spaceship with the husks and their bullshit AoE attack. And it was only really the Krogan enemies that felt spongy (although not in an unfair way), with everything else going down in a rather sufficient amount of headshots. But as far as negatives go, that’s really all I got. It’s clear BioWare’s main intention for ME1 was to set up a beautiful and intriguing sci-fi universe for them to explore in the sequels, and oh boy does it do that and then some. The lore and worldbuilding crafted here is nothing short of astounding, maybe even the best seen in a singular video game. The amount of time and effort put into a space encyclopaedia of virtual history and culture pays off in creating and absolutely one-of-a-kind world full of interesting, well-written characters and an ominous, foreboding plot that is all raised to unforeseen heights by and inspired art design and just a plain commitment to quality. Although this does come at a cost of a lack of distinct weapon and armour design which can cause gameplay to feel a a bit samey at times. I must restate again just how beautiful this remaster looks and sounds, giving not only new life to the gorgeous cinematics, but also to its wonderful, synth-heavy soundtrack that although repeats itself a fair few times, has a nostalgic quality that is renders it impossible to get old. A imperfect masterpiece and a true pinnacle of narrative-focused gaming.

Good but surprisingly dated. Frequent visual glitches, somewhat infrequent bugs that cause quests to not mark as finished or certain quest flags not clear, enemies often get stuck in walls - walls of environments that are reused like crazy - and those Mako physics absolutely do not fit that Mako level design at all, felt like two separate games taped together and not playtested even a bit. After playing KOTOR and then this in close proximity, it's weird Bioware got the reputation as the "polished but not crazy deep" RPG house where Obsidian got the reputation as "technically flawed but deep" when Bioware is pretty buggy and unpolished.

I wish it did a bit more with its RPG systems. The choices don't seem to do much for this game, but I know they're supposed to carry over to the next game. In reality, there are only six or seven actual main quests and locations - the Eden Prime, The Citadel, Noveria, Virmire, Feros, Ilos, and The Citadel again but different this time. Five out of the six companions you get by The Citadel, the second main area, and have limited variety species-wise: two humans, two more might-as-well-be humans (because I guess they can't make any female aliens look unattractive - seriously, where are the male Quarians, female Turians, female Salarians, female Elcor, female Volus, female Hanar, etc. and why does anyone accept that bullshit about Asari being monogender), a more gangly humanoid alien, and then finally the weird buff alien guy. Where's my Volus, Hanar, and Elcor companions? You fight Salarians at one point, why can't those be companions, too? One of your companions will probably never be used since they have the same class as you. It's supposed to be a vast space opera but those faults all make it feel small and cramped, which is probably why they added sidequests. But the sidequests are kind of pointless. Again, I know choices will matter in the next game so I feel like I have to do them, but so many are fetch quests and a non-insignificant amount are just randomly collecting shit. Land on planet, check map, bounce along to the anomaly, resource deposit, debris, and finally the place you're actually going. Then it's a shooting gallery from one of three options: a mine, a research base, and an army base. The same layout for each over and over and over again. Some have animated and voiced cutscenes, most don't.

It's still worth playing. The main quests at least have high production values. The tech and biotic powers are a cool balance with the shooting, though I will say tech side feels overpowered since the main villain race is a synthetic race of robots. Inventory management is kind of trash but there are a lot of directions to take your character customization. It's smart to make every single response by Shepard a player choice, and all fully voiced, even if a lot of dialogue turns into the RPG menu diving exposition dumps. I wish the companions were a little more independent but they do make a point of giving them time to shine and putting only your "away team" in cutscenes.