Mass Effect - the good

As promised, my impressions of Mass Effect. Sorry this took so long - but when you see the length of this post, I'm sure you will understand why!

In short, I think this game is awesome. Obviously, its not perfect and has some flaws (what game doesn't?) but in my opinion, a lot of the criticisms being directed at this game seem to be nitpicking. Anyway, I'll cover some of the stuff I wasn't impressed with and also some of the nitpicks I hear about this game in my next blog post - this post will primarily be about the stuff I liked.

Also, there won't be any gameplay examples as this is an RPG and I really don't want to put any spoilers into this post. If you really want to check out some of the cool stuff in this game and aren't worried about spoilers, then head over to YouTube. There are tons of videos there from people who played this game.

Story
As with all BioWare RPGs, BioWare have spent a lot of time and effort in writing a good story. And it shows. They have managed to create a very interesting and gripping storyline. In brief, the Reapers, an ancient race of synthetics ie non organic life, are about to awaken and these guys seriously dislike organic life. Your job is to stop them. If you fail, the Reapers won't just wipe out humanity, they will render the entire galaxy void of sentient life. No pressure!

What is really impressive about the story is that you really feel like you are in a space opera. At times, watching the story unfold, it made me feel just like a kid watching Star Wars.

At the end of Mass Effect, you are able to stop the initial threat. However, this story is far from over. BioWare have stated that this game is just the first in a planned trilogy. The story arc will span 3 games with each game being self contained. After having completed Mass Effect, I have to agree that the writers have done a fantastic job of giving closure to the first game while leaving room for future sequels.

This is hugely important as a bad ending to a game can really spoil the entire experience of the game. If you have ever played Halo 2, you will know exactly what I mean. The storyline in Halo 2 ended very abruptly and you never got that sense of closure. Halo 2 was panned heavily for this reason - and rightly so. It was also for this reason that I didn't feel comfortable giving my impressions of this game until I had completed it. Luckily, Mass Effect doesn't suffer here. The ending is superb and I can't wait for Mass Effect 2 - I guess I should have had more faith in BioWare.
:)

Universe
Unlike BioWare's previous space opera (Knights of the Old Republic), Mass Effect is a completely new Intellectual Property. What this basically means is that BioWare cannot rely on terms which people are familiar with. Lets face it, if you are in KOTOR and you mention jedi or lightsaber, 99% of people will probably already know what you are talking about. This makes it a lot easier for game designers as they don't have to worry about whether you understand what the game means when it mentions the jedi.

However, with a new IP, the designers have to do a lot more work. If they come up with a new term (eg Mass Relay), they have to find a way to explain that term to you so that you know what is happening within the game. For the record, this obviously isn't just a game designer issue - authors face this exact same issue if they are trying to create their own world. In fact, I believe it was some famous author (possibly Tolkien) who said something along the lines of - in order to create a new world, you have to come up with all of the lore and background of the world you are creating even though only 30% of it will show up in your novel.

And it certainly seems like the writers of Mass Effect have tried to do that. Throughout the game, you will pick up new entries in your Codex. The Codex is basically a giant encyclopedia that gives you more information about the Mass Effect universe. The good thing is that reading the Codex is never necessary. The game itself gives you enough information in-game to appreciate the story. However, if you want to delve deeper, then the Codex gives you that option.

Gameplay
The gameplay is surprisingly good. I will be honest when I say that the shooter elements of the game were one of my concerns about whether I would enjoy this game. BioWare aren't exactly famous for creating good shooters and their previous action RPG, Jade Empire, disappointed me a little in that I felt that the combat system in JE was too simple. When you spend a significant portion of time in combat, a simple combat system can be deadly to a games replay value.

However, the combat in Mass Effect is actually done quite well. To be fair, its nowhere near as good as some of the dedicated FPS's available on the market (which to be honest, is expected). However, the action is just good enough to keep me interested in the combat. Which is incredibly important as you spend a lot of time in combat - particularly if you take on the side quests on the uncharted worlds.

The uncharted worlds are basically BioWare's attempt to let you have a Universe to explore with your ship. Unfortunately, the uncharted worlds, overall, are one of the games weaker points. I'll elaborate on this in more detail in a later blog post.

Conversations
One of the big aims of BioWare in developing Mass Effect was to make the game, in particular the conversations, as cinematic as possible. The way they did this was to significantly change the way you approach conversations.

In many other RPGs, you would hear or read the conversation on screen. When it came for your character to speak, you were given several options on what your character would say. If the game had full voice over, you would then hear your character say the words that you had chosen. The advantage of this system is that you know exactly what your character will say. The disadvantage is that this basically results in a large pause in the conversation while everyone waits for you to read all of the available options, think about what your character would say and then make the choice.

Mass Effect gets around this by having a wheel from which you choose your response. The wheel itself only shows a couple of words to give you a general idea of what that response will be. However, the words themselves aren't known to you until the character actually speaks them after you have chosen the response. Add in the fact that the wheel pops up just before the other person finishes speaking and you can basically queue up your response. Watching this in action is incredible. It really looks and sounds like two people having a normal conversation.

Role Playing
And so we eventually come to the Role Playing aspect of Mass Effect. The reason I left this for last is because, in my opinion, the role playing aspect of this game is its main strength and I have a lot to say here.

Some of the decisions that you have to make in this game are epic. Will you genocide or save another race? Which of your team members will you save - your romantic interest or the poor pleb who wasn't pretty enough to attract you? One of your alien team members is from a race which is slowly dieing out due to a genetic virus which results in most pregnancies failing. The main antagonist develops a cure - but in order to defeat the main antagonist, you have to destroy the cure. Can you still trust your alien team member? Or do you play safe and kill him first thereby not endangering your mission?

However, what really impresses me about the role playing aspect is that the responses you get are very believable. One of my gripes about previous BioWare games (in fact, most RPGs!) is that its very hard to role play an evil character. As a general rule, in resolving any quest or conversation, you can 3-4 choices which roughly correspond to:

a) choose to be a goody goody two shoes. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me lie down in it so that you can walk all over me and not get your shoes dirty!"

b) choose a neutral response which gets you the XP. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me put down my cloak so that you can walk over the puddle without getting your shoes dirty!"

c) choose a neutral response that gets you no XP. For example - "Oh look, a puddle."

d) choose the evil response. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me assist you in getting a closer view."


The problem is that the so called evil response isn't actually very evil. Most of the time, you just end up acting like a petty thug. Think of all the really evil characters in stories (Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, Dr. Evil - ok, maybe not that last one...). Seriously, can you see Darth Vader pushing people into puddles?

The thing with Mass Effect is that there is no good and evil. Your job is to save the Universe so basically, you are a hero. The difference is whether you follow or bend the rules. Someone who follows the rules and tries to be the "good" guy is basically labelled as Paragon. Someone who makes his own rules (and you can do that as a Spectre!) is basically labelled as Renegade. The Paragon/Renegade meters are counted separately. This allows you to create the character as you desire.

For example, on my first playthrough, I created a female Commander Shepard. She was a good person in that she would do her best to save lives. However, she was ruthless in that she was willing to do whatever it took to complete the mission. If you got in her way or jeopardised the completion of her mission - she would take you down without a second thought. No remorse.

In other words, she was a renegade. She had no problem with breaking the rules if there was a point to it. However, she would not break rules for the sake of breaking rules - it was always mission focused.

And this was how I played her. Most of my decisions got me renegade points. In fact, by the end of the game, I was able to max out my renegade meter. On the other hand, I also had a fair whack of paragon points simply because she was also out there to save lives. This was what impressed me the most about this game. The fact that the choices I had within the game allowed me to role play my Commander Shepard the way her character had been designed.

And not many RPGs can make that claim.

Commander Shepard

Currently playing Mass Effect on my X360. Mass Effect is the latest RPG from BioWare, my favourite RPG developer. So far, I've been having great fun with this game. I'll give you my proper impressions of the game at a later date (being an RPG, I don't want to rush the experience!).

Anyway, while we're waiting for my impressions of the game, I thought it would be useful to give you an idea of who my Commander Shepard is. At this point, I should apologise for the poor quality of the pictures you are about to see. Just bear in mind that they aren't screenshots but rather a photo taken of my TV screen.


Anyway, this is Commander Sarah Shepard. She was born in the slums of old Earth and spent her childhood running with various gangs in da hood. However, watching her friends being gunned down made her into the woman she is today.

Deciding that she didn't want to spend her life in the slums, she joined the Systems Alliance military as a Soldier the first chance she could. And she quickly demonstrated her ability in the field. She also developed a reputation for being ruthless. This culminated in the operation on Torfan during the Skyllian Blitz where she got most of her squad killed - although she did manage to complete the mission.

Her ability to get the job done at any cost was exactly the attribute the Systems Alliance was looking for when it was looking for a Spectre candidate. Spectre's are basically the intergalactic version of James Bond. They are authorised by the Citadel Council (the ultimate authority in the explored universe) to protect galactic peace - at any cost. To this end, Spectre's answer only to the Council and are basically above the law. As a spectre, I can gun you down in cold blood and there is nothing anyone can do about it.


This is Liara - an Asari scientist and expert on the Protheans (a race of technologically advanced aliens who died out 50,000 years ago). She is a biotics expert (think magic in D&D) and is basically my bitch! If you have been following Mass Effect, you will know that there is a lesbian love scene. Well, Liara is the other party in the love scene - and now you know why my main character is female :p


This is Tali and she is basically my chief engineer. She is a Quarian - a member of the race that developed the Geth. The Geth are basically sentient machines which were created by the Quarians to serve as slave labour. The Geth didn't like being slaves and so they rebelled and kicked the Quarians off their homeworld (clearly, the Quarians never watched any of the Terminator movies).

Tali is always fully encased in armor because Quarians are used to living in a completely sterile environment. As such, when they are outside of the Quarian Flotilla, they completely encase themselves in their armor to ensure they don't catch any of our germs. I guess this is also why Tali isn't one of the romance options! :)


This is a picture of the Bitch Brigade (as I affectionately call them) on Feros, one of the colonies established by the Systems Alliance. You can tell I am expecting trouble as the helmets are down in case of sniper fire!


And this is a picture of us sightseeing on some hazardous planet. In this picture, our combat suits have been sealed in order to protect us from the harsh environment. Even so, we can only step outside our Mako (the Mako is the armoured car you see in the background) for short periods of time.

Game journalism integrity

I was really hoping to spend this weeks post talking about Mass Effect. Unfortunately, other events have intervened which I feel I have to comment on.

In brief, Jeff Gerstmann has been fired from Gamespot (a game review website). In itself, this doesn't sound like a huge deal. However, the problem rests with the circumstances in which he was fired. You can find out more about the controversy from these links (here and here).

Now, before I get any further, bear in mind that I don't actually know what happened. Although I have read a few news articles and blog posts, all I know can be summarised in the above couple of posts that I linked to. All of my following comments are going to be based on the gut feel and impression I get when looking at what happened.

Anyway, the key issue in the departure of Jeff Gerstmann is the reason that he was fired. Currently, the hot rumor is that Jeff was fired for a negative review of Kane & Lynch. Eidos, the publisher of Kane & Lynch had spent a ton of money on advertising this game on Gamespot. Apparently, the negative review was leading Eidos to push future advertising money away from Gamespot which would have made a huge dent in their pocket. As such, Jeff Gerstmann lost his job.

I believe the official position is that Jeff was fired due to negative tone in his reviews and that he had been warned about this before. This sounds like Gamespot are saying that he was fired because he wasn't objective enough when reviewing a game.

As I said above, I have no idea if this is true or not. In one sense, the general public will never know for sure simply because Gamespot can't divulge the exact reasons for Jeffs firing and Jeff has already stated that for legal reasons he can't disclose the reason for his firing either. In other words, all we will ever have is rumours and heresay from 3rd parties.

However, looking at the arguments both for and against the idea that Jeff was fired for a negative review, it seems to me that the truth (as always) is somewhere inbetween.

I highly doubt that Jeff was fired for 1 negative review. In this regard, I believe that Gamespot have indeed given him several warning about the tone of his negative reviews. To me, it seems likely that the Kane & Lynch review was simply the straw that broke the camels back.

Does this mean that Gamespot did the right thing? In my opinion - No. I read the Kane & Lynch review (and also saw the video review). Although Jeff panned the game, it seemed like he justified the reason that he thought the game was a piece of crap with examples. In a situation like this, it seems to me to be a fair review of his opinion on that game and he should be allowed to call out Eidos as having published a shitty game.

Based on this belief (and again, I have to stress that I don't actually know what happened), by taking the action to fire him (and by all accounts, it was done in a horrible manner - ie he came into the office and found his door locked), Gamespot have sent the clear message that their advertising revenue is more important than their journalists integrity. Granted, the review score for Kane & Lynch was never modified - however, other game reviewers at Gamespot now know very clearly the potential consequences for pissing off a big advertiser on their site. And you have to ask the question - will this affect futusre review scores?

Most likely yes (in my opinion). Which is a shame because Gamespot used to be game review site which I trusted highly.

Update - interesting article here.