Mass Effect

As technology continues to exponentially improve upon itself, videogames reach new levels of sophistication approaching parity with other, better established mediums. The crux that many videogame developers purposefully put themselves up against is the inevitable difficulty of harnessing technology to create something that either mimics as closely as possible a cinematic experience or carving out something completely unique and unattainable through any other medium. BioWare is one such developer that has established a reputation for creating games that embody this collision. Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire were, to say the least, expansive visions of storytelling in the digital era. They weren’t bad games either. Mass Effect was reasonably expected to be BioWare’s Xbox 360 coup de grace, a game that ended doubts of the viability of videogames as narrative mediums, and perhaps even pushed videogames in a new direction. Mass Effect does succeed in some respects: the story, universe, and how it comes to be could not have been accomplished in any other medium. Unfortunately, we find in Mass Effect a clumsy juxtaposition where story and the technology used to present that story are truly unique and captivating, but a game that is deeply flawed.

From the outset, Mass Effect demonstrates its flexibility and dynamic nature. You choose the background and identity of your lead, Commander Sheppard. You may also choose their gender. You can even customize their facial features to suit your tastes. As for his identity (we’ll refer to him for simplicity) you can choose preset upbringings and an event that’s shaped his career. Moreover, the gamer may choose from six preset specialties which will determine the mix of skills and attributes. As the game plays out, there are real consequences based on the decisions made at the outset. Your particular background will be referenced periodically throughout the game by characters you speak with. What class of character is chosen will enable some abilities while limiting others. There truly isn’t any real consequence in the end based on these decisions, but they are significant as they change the game itself considerably.

Once you’re decided on the shape Sheppard will take, you’re immediately thrust into a massive universe full of history and culture. The term “mass effect” is the name for the phenomena revealed after humanity discovered Prothean ruins on Mars. The Protheans are long extinct, yet were an incredibly advanced species. This lead to the further discovery of Mass Relays, giant terminals floating in space that send ships millions of light years in an instant using the same mass effect phenomena. It was through reverse engineering of these Prothean technologies that launched humanity into a new golden age, and into contact with the other denizens of the universe, for better or for worse. Centuries later, humanity is struggling to prove itself to the Council (the UN of the Galaxy) and earn admission into its ranks. Into this milieu enters a Spectre agent: Saren. The Spectres are a group of hand selected shadow operatives operating clandestinely as the invisible arm of the Council. Saren, it is soon discovered, has gone rogue, responsible for an attack on a human colony thus thrusting you into a chase across the galaxy to uncover his treachery and grand motives. Here’s a hint: he’s got more than raiding colonies on his mind. WAY more.

Many games create a universe in which they place the player, but that universe is an abstraction hidden in the background. Mass Effect, on the other hand, gives you everything - the whole universe at your fingertips. The above synopsis of Mass Effect is but a glance, a drop in an ocean, of what is truly discoverable throughout the game. As you progress through Mass Effect, the universe is revealed to you piece by piece in any number of ways: Conversations with characters, completing side quests, completing main story quests, exploration, and examining points of interest. Just about everything you come across, every little tidbit of information, is stored into the codex accessible through the main menu. Much of this information is even fully voiced (I’m almost certain it is done by the same voice actor who did the fantastic agency voice-over in Crackdown). By the end of the game, if you bothered to be even moderately thorough, you will have accumulated a near bible’s worth of information.

Mass Effect is a remarkably well fleshed out piece of fiction from one corner of the universe to the other, coming closer in scope to an epic sci-fi novel than it does a movie. You will have not just the most salient points revealed to you, but the cultural histories of many races within the universe, be it military, social, sexual, and what not. Moreover, these histories, although not critical, weave their way through the main narrative in fascinating and compelling ways. The manner in which these details are revealed is mostly in the form of conversations between characters, so it’s a good thing that this particular aspect is done well.

Character interaction is one of Mass Effect’s better aspects. When speaking with the fully voice acted characters of Mass Effect, multiple conversation paths open up. A circular menu at the centre bottom of the screen details the direction or tone you wish the conversation to take, rather than spelling out verbatim what you will actually say. So, if you’d like to be smart-alecky about something, you could choose the option that is appropriate, such as “Tough luck” or “So what?” The resulting line of dialogue is typically a lengthier expansion of that direction. Of course, the options you’re given aren’t exclusively dependent on tone: you can explore a particular subject without any connotation either way. The solutions to a particular task will fall roughly into either Paragon or Rogue methods; the Paragon is one who takes the high road, whereas the Rogue is one who treats the world around him as a means to an end, regardless of the cost. Unlike KOTOR’s dark-side or light-side decision making process having real consequences in the end, Mass Effect employs these decisions on a case-by-case basis. This really isn’t bothersome at all. Some of the decisions that you make will result in drastic actions, and the range of outcomes for any particular scenario elevate the game as a whole. In particular, playing a rogue will result in some brutally harsh outcomes, causing you to really think about what you’re doing.

Speaking of outcomes, Mass Effect hurtles towards critical plot points and demands the player to make brutally difficult decisions. These do not necessarily fall within the parameters of the rogue/paragon system. Rather, crossroads in the plot will result in some terrible consequence no matter what you do. You will be asked to make sacrifices, and they will cause you to falter. At one point, I spent a very long time genuinely conflicted over what to do, what course of action to take, and, ultimately, who would suffer as a result of my decision. My feeling of regret afterwards was equally as genuine. This is Mass Effect’s greatest achievement, and it opens up exciting possibilities for what might be faced in the future of the series. BioWare would do well to expand greatly upon this aspect of the game.

There are also less impactful yet very unique and welcome touches woven throughout the game. Characters that you pick up along the way all have their own stories, revealed in bits and pieces over time, which will eventually paint a complete picture. Most intriguing is how characters will interact during quests. You may only take two crew members along with you at any given time, and the choice is yours. During quests some crew members that tag along have their own motives and personal interests at play, which will occasionally result in a particular outcome. Had they not been with you, the story will play out differently. Moreover, the crew you bring along with you will also speak to one another, bringing up issues particular to those characters. The amount of work that must have went into planning these outcomes and conversations must have been a difficult task given all the variables at play.

Exploration of the Mass Effect universe is another particularly impressive aspect of the game. Navigable through an impressive looking Galaxy Map, solar systems clusters, along with the planets revolving within them, can all be explored… sort of. A handful of planets can actually be landed on and traversed either by vehicle (in the Mako) or on foot. While the landscapes of these worlds aren’t particularly well structured (they appear as though they were created by some random terrain generator), they provide a palpable sense of being on a barren planetoid in sometimes extreme conditions. Atmospheric effects look absolutely stunning and add to the feeling of exploring unknown worlds. The very design of the Mako, a space rover-like six wheeler assault vehicle, lends even more to this exploratory feeling as it bounces around as if on our moon. But it’s not all for show. Some quests can be completed on these worlds, and other artifacts and materials are discoverable. And if you’re really lucky, you might come across some very significant and surprising story elements. Of the planets that aren’t explorable, you’re at least able to scan them for information. Most planets have remarkably robust ‘biographies’ and statistics fleshing them out. All together it captures a feeling of watching an episode of Nova on PBS, and I mean that in a flattering way.

There is no doubt in my mind that Mass Effect does all of the aforementioned unlike any other game before it, with the exception, perhaps, of BioWare’s own preceding games. And it accomplishes these things with great success. But whereas the story elements and mechanics involved in conveying that story and universe are practically unmitigated, all of the other parts that make Mass Effect a game are mildly to deeply flawed.

Sheppard and his crew members are skilled in roughly three fields: combat, tech, and biotics. While the other character’s specializations are pre-set, you choose Sheppard’s at the beginning. You have the option of specializing in just one of these, or a combination of two. The choice of specialization will determine what abilities you carry with you throughout the game, and how far they can be improved. Like any RPG, through accruement of experience points your character gains levels and becomes better skilled at their abilities. Through an intuitive skill menu, you can manually apply skill points or have the game auto level-up for you. This particular aspect of character progression is quite well done. The benefits of each progression are explicitly detailed and progressing with a certain skill will unlock others. There’s a real sense, then, of your character becoming increasingly more powerful.

All of the abilities are quite varied. Most notable amongst your abilities are your biotic powers, which are a direct analogue to Star Wars’ Force powers. There are, for instance, a lift and a push biotic power, which suspend enemies in mid-air and knocks them backwards. These powers are accessed through a command system brought up during battle which pauses the action when activated. Your squadmate’s special abilities are also activated via the same wheel, and it is possible to stack up special offensive powers upon one target. Each power takes a considerable amount of time to recharge, which presents a dilemma when playing with characters specializing in biotics: while waiting for your powers to recharge, you will have to resort to conventional weapons that you lack the proper skills to utilize effectively. What ends up happening, quite naturally, is that you will resort to firearms no matter what class of character you’ve chosen. With this in mind, going for the Soldier class (weapons specialization) or Vanguard class (weapons and biotics equally divided) will likely result in more satisfying play the first time through.

Besides abilities, all of your characters can be fully outfitted with a legion’s worth of gear. There is tremendous amount stuff here, from weapons, to biotic implants, to armour, to different types of ammunition and upgrades for all of them. Much like the character specialization and ability progression, this is a satisfying and compelling aspect of the game that has real consequences during combat. But given the rather large task of managing your crew members simultaneously and the reams of equipment, the menu system is woefully inadequate and downright frustrating to navigate. For instance, certain characters cannot be trained in certain weapons classes, but the only way to know whether a character can use a particular class of weapon is to either memorize that character’s abilities or back out into real-time gameplay and open up the weapons wheel which advises whether the character is “trained” or “untrained” for that weapon. Or the fact that you cannot access all of your character’s equipment menus unless you travel to their respective lockers located on your ship. That, coupled with the fact that there is no adequate layout that intuitively compares characters, their equipment, the spare equipment, and the attributes of all, leads to a lot of perturbed head-shaking.

But really, these are minor criticisms compared to Mass Effect’s greatest disappointment: the actual real-time combat. Here, Mass Effect falls apart. Mass Effect offers not some form of turn based combat or hybrid: it employs straight-up, real-time third person shooter combat. Given this direction, Mass Effect attempts to implement all the trappings one would expect from a third-person shooter, but bungles most of them. There are moments when the combat is just fine, and you’re progressing at a satisfying pace without issue. But that’s not often, and even then there isn’t much that feels really great, if at all. More often than not, you’ll be completely overwhelmed by bad level design, a broken cover mechanic, just god-awful AI, and other numerous issues to lengthy to detail here.

Enemy AI is the biggest culprit. Your opponents will typically do one of two things: stay behind cover or rush you. If they’re staying away and behind cover, it’s boring. When they’re running at you, it’s frustrating. On many occasions I found myself completely surrounded by enemies, who seemed to come from nowhere, beating me, shooting me, and throwing any number of biotic assaults my way. It seems entirely unrealistic, quite unbalanced, and terribly confusing. This confusion is amplified due to screen filling and distorting effects meant to indicate you’re under the influence of some enemy-issued biotic attack. It also doesn’t help that just figuring out whether you’re being damaged to begin with is a struggle. Moreover, level design, especially on side-quests, has you repeating the same building design over and over again, which typically starts you out in a cramped space without any immediate options for maneuverability. Could you move in any direction, you might be able to figure out a spot to send your squadmates for a flanking maneuver, but the idiot AI are in your face in mere seconds. But hey, don’t worry: The AI is so stupid that if you roll into a room and stir up the hornet’s nest, just back out into the passage that you entered from and back into the preceding room, and the enemy will enter the passage and no further, leaving them stationary targets ripe for picking off. Add in an ungainly cover system, enemies screaming “I WILL DESTROY YOU!” over and over and over again, squadmates getting their butts handed to them, and you’ve got yourself one bewildering combat scenario after another.

“Hang on, Mark. Mass Effect is an RPG first and a third-person shooter second. Go easy.” Sorry, but that justification doesn’t hold up. Mass Effect is both an RPG and third-person shooter equally, and any other assertion to the contrary is foolishness. It should go without saying, but the very fact that Mass Effect has its combat in full real-time third-person means that combat should be measured against the genre fundamentals. One shouldn’t expect Gears of War perfection. Heck, one shouldn’t expect even Lost Planet’s mediocre gameplay. But one should expect a game that at the very least does not unreasonably frustrate, and when even set at these low expectations, Mass Effect frequently disappoints.

To top it all off, the learning curve is steep, and the game does very little to ease you into the multitude of mechanics at hand. It will take you about five to ten hours of play before you’ll feel like you’re actually getting a firm grasp on things.

To soothe your battered mind after combat (or during, for that matter), you can rest your eyes on beautifully rendered worlds and character models. Employing the Unreal 3 engine (yet again), Mass Effect is stunning in many respects. Sheppard’s mug is phenomenally detailed, and witnessing his expressiveness is one of the games’ high notes. Some alien races, like your Krogan crewmate Rex, look phenomenal and are animated with great sophistication. Since so much of Mass Effect involves conversing with characters, you will come to greatly appreciate the artistic effort that went into the characters. Mass Effect also offers the option to view the entire game through a “film grain” filter, transforming every scene into a riff on seventies sci-fi flicks. The game appears to have been designed with this film grain effect in mind, as the game looks considerably better with it on.

It is really too bad that the visuals are marred by constant frame rate interruptions and loading issues. Mass Effect never stops stuttering for long. Even the title screen skips a beat for goodness sake. You can’t travel more than 20 feet without the framerate hitching up, and it is very noticeable. To be fair, it appears as though this may have to do with how the game streams its data, as the disc drive is in a constant state of noisy activity. Despite what appears to be perpetual loading, you’re still subjected to long loading times between areas, and the kicker is that none of these areas is very large to begin with. It feels like you spend half your time riding in elevators listening to you squadmates’ banter. Mass Effect also repeatedly loads texture maps well after any particular scene is entered into, be it conversation, levels, or cut scenes. Whole faces of characters are left in drab, flat texture maps even as they begin speaking. Ditto for level architecture as the textures spawn in one after the other as though the world were constructing itself one Lego block at a time. Do try to stay still, as you might avoid some of these issues.

Sound design is yet another area of the game that equally ‘wows’ and frustrates. The soundtrack is a beautifully ethereal and subtle synth mix, reminiscent of something from obscure sci-fi films of old, but more akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey and nothing like Star Wars. This, coupled with the film grain visuals, gives Mass Effect an atmosphere purely distinct unto itself, and it works. There is also an absolutely fantastic song for the end credits: M4 Part II by the Faunts, which everyone should check out on their MySpace page (it will also give you a good idea of the direction the sound design takes). Moreover, all character dialogue is fully voiced, and shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with BioWare. This, since KOTOR, remains a very impressive aspect of the game. But there is one sour note with the voice acting, and it is a big one: the voice actor for the male version of Sheppard assaults your ears like a rogue Q-tip. He is bad, Resident Evil bad, and only barely tolerable at best. BioWare needs to remedy this in the sequels by ejecting him altogether. And while they’re at it, they might as well light a fire under Marina Sirtis (The Matriarch) who sounds like she’s phoning it in, pull the reigns in on Keith David (Captain David Anderson) who chews the scenery (uh, with his voice…), and put a muzzle on Seth Green (Joker) who comes off like a gigantic tool.

There is an art to storytelling and an art to gameplay. Mass Effect is nearly masterful in interactive storytelling, weaving together so many disparate parts of a universe with so many well executed methods. Indeed, in this respect, Mass Effect does inspire awe from time to time. On the other hand, Mass Effect is routinely amateurish and frustratingly so in its execution of combat gameplay. This is impossible to ignore.

Mass Effect feels rushed, despite being in development for some time. The technical issues, the unpolished gameplay, the frustrating menu system, and even glaring spelling and grammatical errors in some of the planet bios is evidence of this. What’s odd is that so much of Mass Effect’s structure is aped from KOTOR, that one would expect plenty of time spent polishing and refining that structure. It is striking just how much Mass Effect simply feels like KOTOR, to the extent that Mass Effect doesn’t come off as very fresh or original.