Thanks to an Xbox 360, then PC release long before ever coming close to the PlayStation 3, Mass Effect was something I heard about but never played, and when in a position to play it, I'd heard an awful lot about the trilogy's shortcomings, and once you know about them, you find a way to not play Mass Effect. But I've watched it, long ago. And the sequel. I can't remember if I watched a playthrough of Mass Effect 3, though.
The point is, I've had some interest in it all, just not enough to jump in personally. Now that I've forgotten all the details and overarching story, and the first game has come up on this 1001 list, maybe it's time to change that.
Fun Times
I've got the PC port of Mass Effect, and while it shows its age already, I'm on board with the presentation. A film grain effect is an option in the settings, which gives you some hint towards this being a story worthy of cinema, or at least a little more substantial than 'just a video game'. Whether it actually is, I don't know. I've forgotten an awful lot of what I saw long ago, but to fair, I wasn't paying an awful lot of attention, either. This is, effectively, a blind run with the galaxy's newest hero: Me.
Mass Effect might be known for having a male or female lead, Commander Shepard, fully voiced throughout tens of hours of questing through space, but I don't identify as a tanned white guy. Hell no. Give me a pasty-white bearded guy, damnit.
You've got full third-person control of your actions and can run around the ship chatting to whomever you find for some more backstory and opinions on current events.
With voiced lines, lip-syncing, animation that looks vaguely human, and multiple-choice dialogue options to steer Shepard in a direction of your choice, you get a sense of how large Mass Effect seems to be. If this much effort has gone into a chat that could be missed, what's the core of the game like?
Unlike RPGs of old, you don't know exactly what you'll say when you pick a dialogue option, but the gist of the response is enough to make your choices, and, arguably, they don't make a difference anyway. Just immerse yourself in this world of alien politics and see where it takes you.
But then you don't really get a sense of what Mass Effect is if you don't follow the story.
We're not heading to Eden Prime to test some technology out. We're headed there to pick something up, something that could have huge consequences for the state of the galaxy. The very reason humans are involved with other species of the galaxy at all was the discovery of ancient technology allowing them to travel all over the place.
Unlike a great many other science fiction stories, however, humans aren't sat atop the pile. We're not highly regarded, as it happens, and need to prove ourselves capable in the grand scheme of things. And Nihlus here is tagging along to see if we, personally, are capable of becoming a Spectre, someone who acts outside and above the law to get the job done. No human has achieved the position of Spectre before, and it'd do an awful lot towards the race being accepted by everyone else.
I guess we better not mess this up then.
It doesn't look like it from up here, but Eden Prime is under attack. Or the bit we're interested in is, at least. We're to pick up a beacon, but it seems we might not be the only ones after it. Survivors are of secondary concern on this mission, we're told. Understood, sir.
Reading that the combat was a little iffy, I made sure to pick easier settings including some auto-aim assists. In general, just line 'em up and click the left mouse button a few times. In actuality, the feedback is a little weird.
I had no idea where my shots were landing at all until something exploded, and had no need to worry about reloading, which presumably means overheating would be the determining factor for not holding down the trigger everywhere. I honestly wasn't even sure what weapon I had equipped. Even with a graphic of it on the HUD, I wasn't certain. They all worked, and these buzzards aren't exactly a nightmare to fight, but my first skirmish with Mass Effect was a little awkward.
It rewarded me with a level up, however, where you can put skill points into a variety of character class-specific skills. I opted for the cold, no-nonsense soldier approach, but you can decide to be skilled in electronics, or fancy bio abilities or something, and blends thereof. I just got a bit scared of having more to learn by picking any of those classes, if anything. Soldier it is.
Luckily, you can let your squadmates pick up the slack, and they come in their own classes with their own skillsets, which you can micromanage or let the computer deal with.
After faffing around with a sniper rifle but ultimately watching new recruit Ashley Williams kill these two, we can have time to think about such questions. If we want. Right now doesn't seem like an appropriate time. Onward, squad!
Frustrations
The dig site is empty, and the nearby camp is home to several husks that charge towards you before you know what's even going on. There is a cover system in Mass Effect, complete with peeking and blind fire, but these guys give you no chance to get into cover before they're around it, punching you in the face.
While I had a little more confidence of which weapon I had, the lack of feedback I got from it all had me wondering what use I was. I'm sure my squad took most of these husks down. They definitely got the ones I had absolutely no knowledge of, even with a mini-map highlighting their position.
I'm sure it's a combat system I could get used to, and it's not an absolute hassle to use, but there is something about it that I'm not on top. Still, let's see what we can learn from this camp - after a quick game of Frogger to unlock this door...
Further Fun Times
It's dark and grainy, but that's because we're inside on a dark day with the film grain option turned on. Mass Effect looks dated in some sense but looks nice in others. There are subtle blurs and camera motions that look like they're inspired by the world of film, as well as some lovely lighting effects that are a bit J.J. Abrams, yes, but are definitely as stylish as Mass Effect wants to be as a whole.
The cinematic look often falters, don't get me wrong. Some close-ups are a tad too extreme, some establishing shots show a little too much of the low-resolution textures, and the film grain can't hide everything, but I am liking what I'm seeing for the most part.
The beacon isn't here, either, so it's off to the train station next. It's where Nihlus already finds himself. He's supposed to be seeing how capable I am, but has instead gone to scout ahead - he works better alone, he says. It is here that he unexpectedly meets Saren, a fellow turian, and a fellow Spectre.
Further Frustrations
From time to time, the tutorials have told us that pressing the spacebar will effectively pause the game so that we can order our squad around. We can move them into cover, tell them to use their abilities, even tell them which weapon to make use of in the situation you find yourself in.
I'm sure that to seasoned players, this all makes sense. To me, it was overwhelming. I was told to make some hotkeys, but not really told what the ability I hot-keyed just did, for example. And yes, I could mouse over things or head into the menus to learn more, but I'm chasing down a weird ship and trying to kill a load of Geth before they kill me - I don't have time to worry about whether an ability is ready to be used, or which bit of cover to send my squad to.
Thankfully, they seem capable to do it all on their own. I do hope that holds true for the rest of the game.
Further Fun Times
I am far more comfortable navigating the dialogue options, but then that's hardly a challenge. Speaking to some farmers hiding from the attack, I see my first renegade choice of the game. You can be a good Shepard, you can be a bad Shepard. You can float between the two, or dip your toes into one side or the other as the situation demands, it's up to you.
Here, partly because I had the option to actually do so, and partly because I wanted to play an angrier Shepard, for no real reason, I had to explore what this option leads to. Is this guy hiding something?
Naughty, naughty. Locking some weapons behind a game of Frogger? I'll be taking these, thank you. Throughout my run, I've been hoovering up stuff from crates and lockers, not really knowing what any of it is, but there are lots of weapons. You can swap them out not only between your inventory and your equipped items but between the rest of your squad too, ensuring those skilled in long-range weapons actually have the better long-range weapon, for example.
Truth be told, I found this menu to be more hassle than it's worth, especially if you dive into it each and every time you come across a new weapon. It's bad enough making sure you're equipped, let alone your squad, and there's been no tutorial pop up regarding mashing everything into 'omni-gel', or what that's used for. I really don't have much of a clue how the inventory or currency system works in Mass Effect, so I hope to either find out or for it to not be a problem.
I also need to find out what happened to Nihlus, whose corpse we've just discovered.
Through sheer dumb luck, we have a survivor of the attack tell us that Saren shot Nihlus in the back of the head, and now we have more questions regarding this beacon. The plot so far has been different. You probably can dig out the sci-fi tropes and influences, but in terms of video games, Mass Effect hasn't started with a massive explosion and instant action. It has deliberately set the scene point by point, drawing you into the universe with each conversation, and each of those conversations giving a reason to move towards to the next.
It's exactly what you'd want from an action RPG, and with BioWare's pedigree in the genre, you know you're in good hands.
Let's just call them little niggles and be done with it. They're not game-breaking, they're not a reason to abandon it, they're just not sitting right with me, and who am I to listen to with regards to what games should or should not be doing? Just play the damn game, or move on.
And so play the game I do. We chase down Saren, we shoot a load of Geth, disarm a load of bombs, ignore a few notifications from P2 and find the beacon we've been looking for. It looks a bit rubbish, really. Not what I was expecting. Ashley is drawn towards it, though, but in that kind of dangerous way that we need to not have happen and-oh, whoops, now we're mind-zapped by it.
It feels like a good point to call it, but Mass Effect wants to keep rolling this film forward, so we get some more cutscenes, and make ourselves an even bigger target for the villain, Saren.
Can you tell what you're looking at here? Me neither. I get that it's meant to be dark and mysterious, but this might just be a little too dark and a little too mysterious. And those subtitles... why are they supertitles?
We've been out for 15 hours, dragged back to the Normandy by Ashley and Kaiden, and have had visions of a possible future, perhaps, thanks to the beacon. A possible future that doesn't look good for the galaxy, learned after a series of events that will need to be reported to the council at the Citadel.
Ooh, sounds very exciting. Very political. Very wordy. I like it. Don't like how I made Frank Shepard look like that, though. Did I really choose those eyes?
Mass Effect has you do loads of things. Some of it is optional. Some of it, for some reason, is controversial. Most of it is distinctly Mass Effect and kicks off this grand trilogy in fine fashion. But how will I explore it next?
Final Word
It has taken me so long to get around to playing Mass Effect that there is an upcoming Legendary Edition which will spruce up the trilogy, remaking or remastering it for a re-release next year - and it's next year because, I read, of delays in trying to get the original Mass Effect to play nice. It's showing its age even to developers trying to put it into more players' hands, but I welcome efforts to do so.
Yes, I've got a playable version right here that I can carry on playing for another 20, 30, 40 hours, however long it takes me to work my way through it, and I've even got Mass Effect 2 after that, which will make an appearance on this 1001 list later, too. But I don't have Mass Effect 3, and maybe a nice little updated bundle of the trilogy is worth waiting even longer for.
Having seen it from the outside, I know that the decisions you make will steer you towards the same endpoint, regardless of how far you stray in one direction, good or evil. The reason for it is that you can't really be evil. You're the good guy, after all.
Whether you're a dick or a decent member of society on the way is your choice, and it'll lead you down different paths, and reward you with different cutscenes that make your playthrough of Mass Effect very much your own, like the Star Wars RPGs before it, for example. It may not be as completely free as some fans wanted, but let's face it, there's a lot to sink your teeth into, whether you're being lead or not.
So some of the mechanics are a little iffy and frustrating, and the look might not be to your liking, but we've glossed over worse in other games. If you want a sci-fi novel to dive into, that happens to require you shoot as many enemies as there are dialogue options, then what better place to look than Mass Effect?
I don't know if I'll restart with a better character or a different class, or whether I'll look into mods or anything to give me a better experience, or if I'll just wait to play a remaster, but I know that getting around to playing Mass Effect for myself will be better than just watching someone else do it.
FILLING YOU IN
And 20 hours later I heroically emerge from the rubble as the saviour of the galaxy - for the time being, at least. In truth, I thought I'd be playing it for much, much longer. I did lots of side missions, but I guess they weren't too galactic in scope, and with a main story that is almost literally two missions finding your target, and another one bringing them to justice, Mass Effect perhaps seems to have been hyped up a little more than it should have.
But, when you think about it, while I didn't spend as much time as I thought with my crew, I cared about them quite a bit. Well, some of them. Sorry, Kiaden. You were never going to make the cut. I cared about the story, the setting, the ideas presented, but it's almost like a promise that the next time out will be the actual main event and that this was just the novella prequel that got you hooked.
Ol' Faithful can't run the Legendary Edition, so I modded Mass Effect somewhat to have a good time. Would I have had a good time with an unmodded game? Sure, but all those gigabytes of textures and the promise of shorter elevator trips must have done something.
I've just spent the evening downloading and installing the same kind of mods for Mass Effect 2, and I'm most likely going to jump right into that tomorrow, all the more eager to find out who Cerberus is now that I came across a single line of dialogue that mentioned them in my playthrough here.
It perhaps wasn't the absolute epic that I thought it was, but it was a damn good ride nonetheless.
Fun Facts
Mass Effect was always considered the first chapter of a trilogy, and this sizeable first chapter clocked in at over 400,000 words, with 20,000 lines of spoken dialogue. It's not just one sci-fi novel, but five, and there are two more games after this.
Mass Effect, developed by BioWare, first released in 2007.
Version played: PC, 2008.