Mass Effect - PC Review

worshipme

Golden Master
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Mass Effect Review for PC



First impressions:


First I'd like to say that I had no problems with the copyright protection on this, I'm OK with it. After all, we should buy our games. So if you are on a pirated copy, you have no right to complain. I'm fed up with people complaining about bugs that are caused by a poor crack. If you want to play the game, BUY IT!

Anyway, the first impressions I had was that it is very much an RPG, not a cross RPG/third person shooter etc etc. You can fully customize your character's appearance and traits based on your style.

I am lazy, and couldn't be bothered to go through that process, so I started out as the pre-created Commander Shephard.

Mass Effect is powered by the Unreal 3 engine, also used in Bioshock, and, yep you guessed it, Unreal Tournament 3. It is very pleasing to the eye, although you might need to apply some AA to smooth out the jaggys, or perhaps that's because I was running it at 1600x1200, usually I run at 1920x1440, but my GT couldn't handle that. Time for a HD 4870 I think! :D

There is also a "Film Dust" effect, which makes the look more, errr, dusty... and slightly darker. I preferred that option to be turned off.


Storyline and main quest:

Wow, what can I say? It had me captivated all the way through! I just could not stop playing and I always wanted to know what was going to happen next. I know that sounds kind of lame, but I haven't played a game with a storyline this good since HL2. I don't know about everybody else, but the story is one of the most important parts of a game to me. The music, the cutscenes all make you feel apart of the world and what is going on. It's all very cinematic and it's Bioware have done a great job at immersing the player in the game.
And the end is not conclusive, I just can't wait for ME2! Concluding, the storyline was EPIC, full of emotion and very involving.

Gameplay:

The third person shooting took a little getting used to, but half an hour in and I felt fully accustomed to the controls. At first, I found the my two squad members to be a little annoying. They never seemed of much use, and I had to do everything for them. But then I started to use them more, and I took a more tactical approach to fight, ordering them to flank which I distracted the enemy, that's when they really started to come in useful. Plus, some of the suits are pretty tight :p .

The game is not hard. I played through fine on the hard setting. Once you've got used to the third person view, and learned how to use your squad properly, gun fights become very fun.

All dialogue is fully lip synced and voice acting is decent. But the main character's voice actor is always so angry. Can't he ever sound nice? How am I supposed to pull when he is always so nasty? :cool:

Conclusion:
Any conclusion I could write would just be a roundup of everything I've already written anyway, so what's the point?

But my advice to anyone who hasn't played this game yet would be firstly:
- Well, duh! Buy it!
- And then don't bother exploring, it's not worth it, and neither are the side quests I've found. But the main storyline more than makes up for those factors.
 
Screenshots:

Here are a few screens from my game, not from another website:

Game and customization menues:

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Dialogue options and lip syncing:

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looks really good i heard its a bit like knights of the old repubic which is a good game pity my comp cant handle mass effect :(
 
looks really good i heard its a bit like knights of the old repubic which is a good game pity my comp cant handle mass effect :(

thats because the same developer produced both games
bioware was too busy with mass effect to make KOTOR II so someone else did
with their consent of course
 
Nice review. Just ordered it online and can't wait to play this game. This received pretty good reviews at IGN and gamespot..
 
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