Mass Effect has been pretty much everything it was cracked up to be. Now that I'm just about to finish what I think is the last boss battle, I'm very much considering playing it again.
This latest RPG has all of the good stuff from the Knights of the Old Republic game, and little of the more tedious stuff that turned it into an epic. It's a lot more straightforward and doesn't get me as a player completely bogged down in the arcane wonderment of a spacefaring battle story. In many ways, the tedium of Mass Effect plays directly into its appeal. You honestly get a good sense of, ho brother yet another planet we gotta deal with, as the protagonist.
Another thing that Mass Effect has got going for it is a broad assortment of characters to take with you as your battle squad. They do a good amount of work as AIs and don't need a lot of extra tinkering. Every once in a while, you point them at a particularly nasty baddie, but for the most part they handle their business. Additionally, most battles are a good deal more spontaneous than those of the Star Wars series. A rudimentary cover system, plus a basic squad control system add to the spontaneity. Good job on that.
The environments and characters are high quality as is the voice over acting. The fact of the matter is that if BioWare can crank out this level of quality on a regular basis, this kind of adventure will satisfy my sci-fi fix. Now I'm only about 15 or so hours into the adventure, and I find it highly unlikely that I'll ever do an Oblivion-length RPG again (But I said that about Morrowind) so this is about the right length. I'll probably double that time by playing it again at the fast pace, but because of the richness of the story I'm actually happy having played that relatively short period of time. Interestingly enough, I'm watching my boy play Half Life 2 for the first time and there is no way I could endure that full game.
The best thing about Mass Effect is its well-conceived plot and well-integrated universe. It's really one of the best in RPG land, not that I play that many. It feels very much like a television series which is why I think of it as a sci-fi fix. I could come back to the Mass Effect universe, and considering how little I interacted with a number of the species of it, I'm guessing that the Bioware folks have that in mind. If so, great. I'll be back.
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