When you start up Mass Effect, the first thing you notice is that the character creation scheme has been revamped quite a bit. Still keeping up with the three class, and other combinations and specialties gig, it follows basically the same formula however more in-depth. It actually gives you a story, a background, a way to live, and most importantly of all, interactivity. You then have your normal character choice of male/female. The biggest difference is here. With the upgrade to the 360, you can now design your own character by looks. To put it in relatives, it's more limited than Oblivion, but more flexible than say, Knights Of the Old Republic (either one). Personally, I like the pre-set female with a custom story line. She's hot, and can kick some ass.
As soon as your profile is created, you get into your game. The very first thing seeable is that the engine of the game itself has undergone a drastic change, and it's all for the good. Among the first things that you notice the graphics are just awesome. I still blown away by how real things look, and I've seen real looking graphics before (I've made them before). Yes there are times when stuff like shadows kind of deters from that realism, but on a High-definition screen using HDMI input, the amount of detail that you can see is more amazing than I have ever seen... Anywhere. However the drawback of this granted HUGE amount of detail is that there's a serious material pop-in problem. This is where the basics of a material are rendered, but then all the normal mapping and the rest of the material is rendered, in front of the user. While it does deter from the game play a bit, It's only really memorable for me in about two instances, and that's it, otherwise I've had really no problem of this type happening.
Then the voices start talking. They talk about your past, who you've been and what you are... According to your character creation prelims. There is nothing bad about this, and it only adds a completely new level of interaction with the game. In older BioWare games there was really more of a sense of the main character didn't have a past, either they had their memory wiped, or were a prodigy from a war, or something like that. Now you can actually have parents, be a hard-ass who grew up on the streets, a loner who lived out in space and your history comes up repeatedly (not as much as I like) as the game goes on.
The story of this game itself is HUGE. Completion of the main story line is still doable in about 15 hours which provides a nice lengthy story arc that one can really get into. Though it not being as long as say Jade Empire (which was 20-25 hours) there's really not as much build-up for the twist that is BioWare's fashion in stories. Yeah there's a couple, but none that really hit as hard as the one in Jade Empire, or the BIG twist at the end of KOTOR 1. Despite this it is still an excellent story, and even without the achievements, has excellent replay value. What I find though, is that the bigger the twist, the lesser the replay value. So despite not as big a twist as their previous games had, it's not a bad thing. The story arc is still very entertaining and very replayable which is really what a game developer should shoot for.
Going along with the story is their brand new speak system. Your character actually talks in this game and like many other things, provides a much more immersible atmosphere for the player to have. This new system is incredibly new and the best that I have ever seen and will probably ever see again. It allows you to pick your choice before the character you're talking to even finishes, but it doesn't do it too early so you get the biggest idea of what the person is talking about before you get the prompt. The way the choices are laid out are such that you can access a lot of choices (10 max in total) with just the easy flick of the right thumb stick and pressing the 'A' button. This doesn't interrupt anything and doesn't wait for the character to finish talking, and it happens so quickly that even if you have to go back and re-pick, you get it done quickly enough so that when the character you're talking to finishes, your personal character is right there with the vocal equivalent of what you just asked for. This provides for seamless story telling opportunities and along with your character talking instead of standing there staring, adds another level to immerse yourself in.
This brings us to game play. The controls could have used a little bit more work. I constantly found myself accidentally drawing a weapon, or hitting 'B' to get back into the menu system. User error? More than likely but the control scheme just doesn't work for me, and since there's only one set of commands for the buttons that you cannot change, you kind of have to force yourself to get used to it. The good news is everything else is practically flawless. The new decryption system is very intuitive, but somewhat confusing and demanding at the same time. You'll find yourself hitting the button just a millimeter of a fraction of a second too late, and you'll lose the decryption or hack, and then you won't find yourself with enough Omni-gel to hack back through it. It adds a lot to the game and doesn't take away a bit. The fighting system has only half changed. There are no more turn-by-turn, stacked attacks, bull crap. It's now a real-time fighting game where you have to make every shot count, or else you will count. As a statistic.
The last thing left to talk about is music. To which I normally don't pay attention to that much when it involves a game. It's more of a subconscious thing that I don't actively listen to, but am affected by none-the-less. The times that I did just sit down and listen to it, some of it seemed a bit misplaced. For example you're on the ship just standing there in character, and there's tense music going on. Very short, high, soft notes from the violins that really belong in a more tense moment. That's not to mean that they don't miss their mark everywhere, and when it matters most they get it, but in those lulls where it's more likely to get your attention, it feels somewhat misplaced. You really don't expect a really tense feeling if you're on the ship you love, to be quite honest, it just doesn't fit.
Overall the game is incredibly good, and despite its short comings there's more than enough reason to go back and play it again. There's the chance of being evil instead of good, or trying a new love interest (which actually does come into play towards the end, and why this game got an M rating here in the US). This is definitely a must-get game for the holidays and looks incredibly outstanding on a very nice TV; I must salute BioWare for making another outstanding, incredible game.
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