Monday, March 24, 2008

Xbox 360 - Mass Effect

Mass Effect by Bioware

While I want to love this as an RPG, I just can't. Unfortunately, Mass Effect has so many problems that it really ends up a mediocre RPG in among this genre of game. Frankly, with the poor level of graphics performance of this game, I'm surprised it was released at all.

Graphics Engine

Let's start with the graphics. Clearly, the 3D imagery is highly detailed with every attempt to make the characters seem lifelike in this world. On the one hand, this is one of the most visually detailed games I've seen to date. On the other hand, BioWare obviously worked so hard on the stunningly realistic visuals that they let too many other things slide. This makes for a rather overall disappointing game. Even as detailed and stunning as this game is visually, there are major performance problems that really hinder the game experience.

The 3D movement and performance is herky-jerky. The game pauses every time it has to load information from the media (which is extremely frequent). The game's graphics rendering has severe issues including screen breakup (striping as the entire screen moves), lagging, slowness and overall performance issues. These 3D issues are completely unacceptable in this day and age on a console. If the console doesn't have enough game power to display the game properly, the game should never have made it past the concept phase. Alternatively, they should have redesigned the graphics to give smooth 3D gameplay experience most of the time. To actually let Mass Effect get all the way into production with these major graphics performance issues is just incredibly stupid.

Granted, the performance issues don't prevent you from playing the game, but it does become a continual inconvenience as you progress through the game. Yes, it is even an inconvenience that really almost makes you want to stop playing, it's that bad. I, however, am continuing to play Mass Effect because I've started it and want to see the conclusion. Consider that Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR was BioWare's previous RPG) had none of these graphics performance issues on the Xbox.

RPG Aspects

Having played recent RPGs including completing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (and KOTOR), this game really doesn't much advance the RPG format in any substantial way. In fact, it takes a step back from Oblivion in several ways. It even takes a step back from some aspects of KOTOR. As examples of things missing:

  • KOTOR would let you swap team members and use a specific team member's skill to do a certain thing. Like, one of the team might be skilled at security, so you use that member to unlock doors or cabinets. Another might be skilled in the Force, so you let them use their Force powers.
    • With Mass Effect, you cannot swap your team and you cannot ask your team to do things like open locks. Your main 'Shepard' character must do everything.
  • In Oblivion, quests are stored in a journal as is Mass Effect's quests. But, Oblivion takes it one step further by letting you locate where you need to be directly from the Journal entry.
    • In Mass Effect, you are left to fend for yourself to find out where you need to be. While the Journal might tell you where you need to go, you have to back out of a ton of screens to get to the map and find the location. This makes finding where you need to be next a chore.
  • There are many many people wandering around on the levels, but you can only talk to a handful of specific people. In Oblivion, every wandering person was a potential new quest. In Mass Effect, other characters are completely ignored.
  • The Citadel is sprawling... and while it is huge, there's really very little to do in it. There're few people to talk to and even fewer things to actually do. While it's impressive to see the world they built, it really goes to waste.
  • Oblivion's objectives were always clearly documented in the quest journal. So, you knew exactly what to do next.
    • The Journal in Mass Effect is a bit on the confusing side. Yes, it's off the main menu, but then once you get into it, each quest expands and collapses. It also puts check marks beside the portion of the quest completed. But, it fails to really show you exactly what you need to be doing or where you need to go next.
    • With Oblivion, each quest objective was clearly marked on the map.
    • With Mass Effect, nothing is marked on the map. If you want it marked, you have to get out of the journal, open the map and then mark it yourself. So, you have to write down or remember what the current quest objective to know what you want to mark. Not impossible, but a hassle. Worse, if the objective is not on your present level, you can't get to that map to mark it.
Leveling Up

It's not very clear what levels you up and what doesn't. But, frankly, there aren't enough quests or battles per level to really help you level up. I found that the quests and battles were far too sparse and the dialog scenes were far too abundant. Ditch the dialog and add more action. Or, at least balance the dialog with action.

Because of this, leveling up is difficult. But, at the same time, it also looks like Bioware was aware of this issue and, thus, gives a LOT of experience points for completing even the tiniest little quest event. If there had been more quests and more action, then the game's RPG portions would have been more complete.

Character Creation

While I understand that Bioware kept the formula from KOTOR for this game (giving you a specific character with a specific history) and then letting you customize the look (to a degree), this really isn't an RPG. Yes, you can pick the 'class' your main character is, but unless you pick the combat class, you can't make it through the game. The other classes are so weak, you can't even make it through the first quest. So, this is a HUGE weakness for this game.

Even with Oblivion, there were weak classes, but you could make up for that weakness in other ways. In Mass Effect, there is no way to make up for those weaknesses. Maybe you call it making the game more challenging, I call it a defect.


The inventory system is limited to 150 items. This limitation isn't a problem until you pick up item 151. Then, it forces you into a screen that you can't get out of. You must convert one or more items into Omni-Gel (an all-purpose substance). This screen is extremely annoying. The inventory system works much like KOTOR's system, but with obvious differences.

Game Saves

While I applaud BioWare for giving a 'save anywhere' system, the limitations of this system are abundant:
  • You can only have a limited number of saves (15-20, I think). After you have used them up, you have to overwrite previous saves. Not smart if you want to be able to go back to a critical point and rework what you did.
  • When you die and the game 'resumes' it assumes you want the last Autosave rather than the last actual save. Because it autosaves so infrequently, you're likely loading an extremely old save point. So then, you have to waste time loading another save.
  • This goes with the previous point. The Autosave system saves too infrequently. The resume functionality assumes you want to use the last Autosave rather than using the most recent save. You can end up playing through an entire level before it Autosaves again. Bioware should have dumped the Autosave feature altogether and required only manual saves.
  • The system prevents you from saving while enemies are present. I don't get this one. Oblivion would let you save anytime, even during battle. I guess Bioware didn't want to have to deal with programming a save system that would save a battle sequence in action.
Audio / Soundtrack

While I wanted to like the audio, the backing tracks while you are roaming the levels are too repetitive and annoying. It's not soothing, it's not calming, it's just there and annoying. The backing tracks repeat far too frequently to not be completely repetitive. Oblivion's soundtracks got old after while too, but the rotation of the soundtracks and the length/differences were often enough that it kept from becoming completely boring. Even as I play Oblivion today, I've heard them all, but I can still listen to them without being annoyed.

Music should ALWAYS be under the volume control for Music. In the Hotel on one of the planets, the background music is considered a sound effect. This is wrong. Music should never be a sound effect. The music in the hotel is very annoying. I also wanted to play my own music from the XBox 360. But, because it is a sound effect, it mixed in with talking and other effect noises. There's no way to turn the music down as a result (or at least, no way without affecting dialog and other sound effects). Bioware needs to fix this issue.

Combat System

The combat system is downright horrible. For one thing, each 'enemy' gets completely blocked visually by this HUGE red triangle. So, instead of aiming at a character, you just see the triangle. This means, most of the time you don't really even know what you're shooting at visually. You have to rely on the identification text. It's also very difficult to determine exactly when someone has shot you. The character's response to being shot is not responsive. In Oblivion, the health meter was plainly visible and you knew how much health you had left. With Mass Effect, it's extremely hard to gauge the health.

Team Effort

While Mass Effect let's you build a team up, it really doesn't give you much to do with the team once you have it. With KOTOR, you could at least rotate among the characters and use the skills they offered. With Mass Effect, there is no such rotation. You can't choose to use any characters in your team for anything other than combat. Even then, they do what they want and the best you can do is tell them to move to a specific position. More often than not, your team members get in the way. They stand or crouch exactly where you want to be.

In fact, there was one battle where they were so stupid, they just stood and took fire until they died. It wasn't a particularly hard gun battle, it's just that their AI wasn't sophisticated enough to deal with the situation. I ended up waiting until they 'died' and I finished the battle myself so I didn't have to compete with their stupid AI.


The gameplay is fair. Not great, not excellent, but fair. You wander the levels hoping to find things, but you find relatively little to do. Shepard runs very slowly, so it takes an age to go from one side of a level to another.

Renegade vs Paragon

As with KOTOR, you can choose to be 'bad' or 'good'. In Mass Effect, you can be both at the same time. The problem is that there is no clearcut distinction in the dialog which specific dialog leads to which outcome. Sure, you can sometimes tell based on a smart mouthed comment, but in other cases it's not that clearcut. So, you're constantly trying to find which leads to paragon and which leads to renegade. I guess it doesn't really matter much unless you're trying to get 100% paragon or 100% renegade. It's still frustrating.


Here's where Bioware dropped the ball. While there are many choices of dialog, the words in the menu almost never match the outcome dialog. This is extremely frustrating. So, while the menu says one thing, Shepard ends up saying something completely different. The menu dialog should have matched the actual dialog word for word.. another Bioware failure.

Character movement

The character moves reasonably well, but about as well as can be expected from this kind of game. I would have preferred an eye level view so I don't have to watch the character from the back all the time. As I said above, he runs rather slowly.

Story Line / Ending

The storyline is not horrible, but not the best I've seen either. Because this is an RPG, there really should be many stories here. Not just one main one. However, because this game is mostly linear, the side stories don't mean much. The side stories are also just offshoots of the main story. On completion of the game, the entire game ends. You can't complete any uncompleted quests, you're just tossed into the credits and given the heave-ho. If you're a true RPG, the ending of the main quest shouldn't end the game. The Darkness (review coming soon) also followed this ending and I also didn't like that ending either. Again, I go back to Oblivion. Oblivion got all of the pieces right in terms of the RPG aspects of the game. Even the way to handle the ending of the main quest story line.

Xbox Live

There is no live component to Mass Effect. This is a single player game.


While I would like to give this game an 8 or a 9 rating on a 10 point scale, I can't. The flaws are graphical performance issues are too numerous and problems too abundant for this style of RPG. The lack of side and free quests make this game more or less linear. These issues really preclude Mass Effect from being a full out RPG. Yes, it does have some RPG aspects, but overall it lacks in too many ways to really be what Oblivion was.

If Bioware wants to make a real RPG, they need to sit down in a room and play Oblivion. Then, from that game craft a new better game from the same things that made Oblivion work.

  • Graphics: 6/10 (9/10 for details, 2/10 for gfx performance)
  • Music: 6/10 (too repetitive, not inspired, out of context)
  • Sound Effects: 9/10
  • Control: 9/10
  • Gameplay: 6/10
  • Combat: 5/10 (combat system really bad, lack of proper team commands)
  • RPG: 7/10 (works, but not outstanding)
  • Replay Value: 3/10 (little replay value unless you want to pick up game challenge points)
  • Overall: 5/10 (needs work)

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