Welcome to my review of Mass Effect 1 and 2. In the spirit of 3 coming out I decided to make my review of this franchise. This game is developed in the province next to me; by Bioware in Edmonton, Alberta (that's in Canada guys.) Published by the monolithic company EA Games.
Mass Effect came out in November 20th, 2007 and then came Mass Effect 2 on January 26th, 2010
The best way to describe these games is to put it in the Third Person Shooter/ Roleplaying Game Genre. I will review both games separately in this review as I did with my .hack review as they experience major changes between the two games. I played both of these games on the PC but Mass Effect is available on the Xbox 360 and Mass Effect 2 is available on both platforms and the Playstation 3.
Story:
Mass Effect-
Humanity reached a new apex of technology 35 years earlier allowing instantaneous travel to new systems in the galaxy utilizing “mass relays.” The Human Systems Alliance is a rising power in the galactic stage. The only war they have participated in was the "First Contact War" in 2157. A human exploration expedition was activating dormant mass relays which was disallowed by the Council races as it would cause unknown complications and danger opening new relays. A race known as the Turians attacked the small fleet and proceeded to capture the closest human world, Shanxi which caused backlash. I would go on but you can learn much history by actually playing the game or going on the wiki. However the main plot goes as follows; In 2183, the experimental SSV Normandy is sent to the human colony of Eden Prime to recover an unearthed Prothean beacon. To assist, the Citadel Council, the galaxy's primary governing body, sent one of their top agents, Nihlus, a Turian Spectre. He has also been assigned to observe you, a veteran soldier known as Lieutenant Commander Shepard, who is a candidate for Spectre membership. Spectres (agents of the "Special Tactics and Reconnaissance" office) are above the law and work directly for the Council. No human has ever received the title, and the human Systems Alliance, hope that by achieving the title, humanity will receive increased stature in the galactic community. However things get very complicated and more dangerous than anticipated and a new threat arises; “The Geth” it is up to you and some new friends you meet along the way to go on a dangerous journey of discovery, action and danger.
Mass Effect story score: 4.1/5
Mass Effect 2-
Mass Effect 2 begins only a short time after the original ended . While patrolling for remainders of the Geth, the Normandy is attacked by an unknown starship, and many crew members die. The remainder of the crew is then forced to evacuate. During the evacuation, Shepard tosses Joker into the Normandy's final escape pod before being blasted into space. After a suit breach, Shepard dies of asphyxiation and his body is pulled into the orbit of a nearby planet. With the help of former squad mate Liara T'Soni, Shepard's body is retrieved by a human supremacist organization called Cerberus and they spend two years resurrecting him/her. Once revived, Shepard awakes aboard a besieged station, where he/she helps Cerberus agents escape. Immediately after, Shepard is given an audience with the Illusive Man, head of Cerberus. He tells Shepard that a new problem has arose, entire human colonies have started disappearing off of worlds and it is you job to discover the truth. With new allies (and some old ones) Shepard sets off on another galactic journey that pushes him to his very limits.
Mass Effect 2 story score: 4.2/5
Both these plots have plenty of novel twists and turns for you, many choices you make will have an impact on the outcome of each game.
Gameplay:
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| Male or female, you can give Shepard a nice face or an ugly mug |
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Mass Effect-
Like most role playing games you get to design the face of Commander Shepard to your own specifications. You also choose a class for him, each class using different powers and specialties in and out of combat.
This Game's engine has many aspects to it. For story and plot you get a dialogue wheel. A more streamline form of a choose your actions and words type RPG style. Your respective choices will have a positive or negative or even a neutral impact on the plot.
The game uses a what I like to call the “velcro wall” cover system where you stick against whatever wall you are up against for cover so you can peek and shoot. While not that bad of a cover system it is finicky sometimes especially with corners that you get stuck taking cover on the wrong part.Combat is real time but can be paused to issue orders to your squad including but not limited to use of powers and weapon changes.
Furthering the Roleplaying Element, Shepard and his squadmates level up. You can assign points to the powers of the class you picked to customize to increase the power, speed or add new effects to your abilities. Another aspect is you can change the weapons, armor and tools of you and your squad as well as add special upgrades ; all that can be found throughout shops or even in the environment of the game.
There are two modes of travel in Mass Effect. One is your ship the SSV Normandy that allows you to travel systems to various worlds and other exotic places through use of the Mass Relays to jump. There are many worlds that you can land on with your trusty transportation vehicle an all-terrain armored personnel carrier called the M35 Mako coming armed with a machine gun and a rocket launcher. You can roam and explore planets and discover many interesting things including side missions. However sometimes planet roam can be tedious and downright even boring.
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| Nice Scenery |
The vast amount of characters are very well done, many exciting alien races to talk to and learn their stories from.
Mass Effect Gameplay Score: 4.4/5
Mass Effect 2-
The gameplay of Mass Effect 2 is vastly changed; while it still utilizes the dialogue wheel, velcro wall combat and leveling, a few things became severely limited.
Character customization is back, you can import your save from Mass Effect which will retain a basic custom and the name of your character. You can tweak the face once again and choose a different class as well.
The combat system is the same even including the finicky corner cover issue I had.
The roleplaying element is severely downgraded due to confusion from people less fortunate with their genetic disposition to having a low brain capacity. The weapon/armor customization virtually gone,absolutely no omni-tool customization. The power upgrades crushed down to a smaller tree size. This turned focus on Mass Effect 2 being alot more story/ combat oriented which isn't a bad thing by any right but it is disappointing to severely limit choice.
The transportation allows you to once again control your destination with the Normandy, you can interface with the galaxy map and steer your ship to different sectors, planets and jump to many different systems. Planet exploration is mostly cut from Mass Effect 2 because of the Tedium from Mako roaming, however this gets replaced by an equal, if not more tedious and boring mini game where you scan planets for minerals and some distress beacons. You will be making alot more runs back to refueling stations for more probes and more fuel for the ship than you want to. Some DLC reintroduces a smaller scale planet exploration with some other neat little things but still doesn't compare.
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| THIS IS NOT FUN,BIOWARE. |
More characters, old and new make appearances and promise to deliver many interesting plot points to the game.
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| Band of badasses |
Mass Effect 2 Gameplay Score: 3.9/5
Graphics:
Mass Effect-
Nowhere on the general level of a game like Far Cry 2 or the Witcher 2 but still has very beautiful design for different environments and characters. It's clean enough to pick out enemies from the background and the biotic powers have some neat effects. This complements the type of game well enough for what it is.
Mass Effect graphics score: 4.0/5
Mass Effect 2-
A step up from Mass effect, but not a major one. The levels are fairly nice looking in the background but I noticed a distinct lack of object variation on cover and other things after a while. Biotics are still pretty and has some other nice effects. My only problem is that some objects were harder to discern from a distance in Mass Effect 2.
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| Im gunna shoot that guy..then maybe that guy |
Mass Effect 2 graphics score: 4.0/5
Sound and Music:
Mass Effect-
Jack Wall put out some brilliant musical pieces that fit with the mood of any given situation, the use of some electronic elements with symphony was outstanding. The voice actors did a great job for the most part (the most disappointment actually came from Shepard, especially the female version who sometimes didn't display proper recognition of the emotions required.) The sound effects we're fairly standard but still sounded nice and powers sounded..well, powerful. The environments had great ambience to them.
Mass Effect Sound and Music score : 4.2/5
Mass Effect 2-
Jack Wall returns with powerful symphonies. The urgency of the mission was felt at many twists and turns, the emotional parts conveyed well through music. The voice actors returned with generally positive results, however female Shepard still struggled and some romance dialogue sounded forced and sometimes downright corny. The sound effects made a more distinct return sounding more memorable. Environments kicked it up a notch and gave off all the right feelings.
Mass Effect 2 Sound and Music score : 4.6/5
Overall: These games have been a great experience for me, a thrilling story that kept you interested, very well put together graphics and sound gave off the right ambience. Mass Effect 3 will be the final installment in the trilogy as far as we know. It will be sad to see this go but I hope it ends brilliantly and conclusively . I will review Mass Effect 3 in due time and look forward to playing it.
Total
Mass Effect: 16.7/20
Mass Effect 2: 16.7/20
Average:
Mass Effect: 4.17/5
Mass Effect 2 : 4.17/5
...imagine that. Same overalls.
Image sources:
http://images.wikia.com/masseffect/images/4/41/ME2_Combat_HUD_smaller.png
http://www.gameseyeview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/shadow_broker-01-p1-640x250.jpg
