Mass Effect - the bad

In my last post, I talked about some of the things in Mass Effect that I liked. This post will be about what I perceive as the flaws of this game. Bear in mind, although I will be talking about the flaws, overall, I think this game is awesome (as evidenced by the fact that I'm on my third playthrough!).

Conversations
Interestingly enough, one of the games strengths also highlights one of the games weaknesses. In my last post, I talked about how good the conversation is and how it can sometimes feel like you are watching a movie. The problem is that, although there is a lot of conversation, the NPCs don't seem to have much depth.

If you are familiar with previous BioWare games, this will catch you by surprise. BioWare are famous for providing a good story with good characterisation for the NPCs. Although you do get to talk to your NPCs and learn more about them, it just feels like the majority of the NPCs aren't really fleshed out.

To be honest, I was expecting this. I have followed this game closely during its development so I was very much aware that BioWare were focusing most of their effort in developing the game engine and the conversation engine. I knew beforehand that the characterisation wouldn't be up to the same level of their previous games. Having said that, it is still a flaw of the current game.

Uncharted Worlds (UCWs)
As I mentioned before, the UCWs are one of the games weaker points. The UCWs were basically an attempt by BioWare to give you the feeling of a universe to explore. I'm guessing that all the story developers were working on the main storyline quests and hence there weren't very many people working on the UCWs.

Each UCW has a slightly different reason for you being there. In this regard, there is quite a large variety of different backgrounds. For example, you could be chasing pirates. Or talking to a former marine who has setup some kind of cult. Or the Geth could be setting up a staging area for an advance into Alliance space and you need to take them out. Or there could be hostages that you need to rescue.

However, despite the wide variety of raison d'etre for you going to a UCW, the end result in practice is usually the same. You fly in, drive around in your Mako (a lunar buggy) until you get to the enemy base and then you kill everyone there. The feeling of sameness is exacerbated by the fact that all buildings have the same layout. All mines have the same layout. All ships that you can board have the same layout. The only difference is that the furniture is arranged differently.

Basically, whether you enjoy the UCWs or not will depend entirely on whether you like the combat system.

Inventory
BioWare have a history of bad inventory systems in their games. However, the system used in Mass Effect is poor even by their low standards. To understand how poor the system is, let me give you an actual example from the game.

I've been wandering around the UCWs and picking up lots of loot. Eventually, I get to the stage where I have over 130 different items. At this point, the game lets me know that I am nearing the limit of 150 items. So I decide to head back to base to sell off some of my stuff.

I get to the equipment sell screen. All 130 different items that I have are listed in one huge list. The list isn't sorted alphabetically. Nor is it sorted by the relative power or value of the item. Furthermore, 2 identical items count as separate items so I see the item Cryo Round III show up several times in different areas (identical items aren't grouped together either).

As you can imagine, this makes it frustrating when you are trying to identify which items you want to sell.