The whole experience, warts and all, feels like a worthwhile venture. No small feat, for no small game.
For those of you who may have just come out of a coma (possibly caused by playing the last game I reviewed, Army of Two 2, ewwww), Mass Effect is a third-person-shooter-role-playing-exxxxxtravaganza of a game, wherein you play as John Shepard, a commander in the Alliance military (basically, you represent humanity to the rest of the crazy, alien-filled galaxy). Through your actions and dialog choices, Bioware's programmers will judge whether you are an true paragon of self-enlightenment (aka, god among men) or a renegade (aka, bunghole).
Rather than character creation being a separate section before the game (a là everything), the game claims that your character's file has been compromised due to data corruption and forces you to fill in all the blanks in their file (basically, except for the last name of "Shepard," they have absolutely no idea who you are). They even allow for you to select one of three pre-generated character backgrounds, though they seem too eager to bookend your choice into the game: after you press start, it's in the first ten seconds of the cutscene that follows.
Basically, you control Commander Shepard as he's given control of a high-tech human ship and allowed to roam the galaxy kicking ass in the intended narrative-following fashion or go on one of the dozens of samey-sidequests hidden throughout the dozens of worlds.
The basic gameplay plays very much like a slightly-more-clunky Gears of War. It's not so clunky that its not fun, and if you're a fan of RPG's, then you'll probably agree with me that the RPG elements and spells (whoops, I mean "skills") make up for the slightly dodgy cover mechanics and clunky controls. The controls most likely wouldn't be a problem if the game's framerate could keep up a little better. In combat, often times the framerate will chug if there's a lot going on. It never gets so bad that the game is unplayable or unfun, but it certainly hampers the controls (particularly the camera) a fair bit. (For the record, I played this on the 360 with the game installed to hard drive.)
Apart from the combat, BioWare has presented us with their (now famous) conversation wheel. Basically, you get to choose Shepard's responses during a conversation (the responses are arranged in a wheel-shape, hence the name). These parts of the game are, for me, almost nearly as fun as the combat sections. Although I should point out that I am one of the 0.1% of gamers that actually enjoys the minutiae of Romance of the Three Kingdoms games.
While the main story sections are nearly always very engaging, the side quests seem tacked on by comparison. They are very samey in terms of theme, content, and location. They use a lot of the same in-game areas with the furniture simply shuffled around a bit. I don't remember ever noticing the repetition during my first play through, but I definitely noticed in this one.
The game is also fairly glitchy. As I've mentioned before, the framerate tends to chug during combat. Textures constantly pop-out during cutscenes. One time, while walking down the middle of a hallway in the Citadel, my character got stuck on... nothing. I had to save and reload in order to continue. Also, I encountered some kind of glitch where my "Journal" submenu was ALWAYS blinking, no matter how many times I read and reread the information inside of it.
Along with the glitches, there are a few bad design choices. For instance, in one side mission, I parked my car (Mako) next to a mineshaft and went in to explore. Through some story events inside, I became unable to leave through the way I came in. When I got out, I didn't see my car, so I went back to get it. Problem was, once I got where I parked it, I realized it wasn't there. But now, the area where the car was was completely inaccessible to me. I had to reload and replay the entire mission, all because the developers decided to randomly move my car without informing me in any way, shape, or form. Thanks BioWare!
But that segues nicely into my main complaint about the game. The abomination of all things abominable, the unholy of unholies, the taint to shame all taints, the Mako. The controls to drive it are simultaneously too sensitive and too insensitive. The mounted gun on the car doesn't move up and down very well, so if you're on even the slightest angle while you're firing it, you can forget about hitting anything you're aiming at. See, the onscreen reticle, rather than being the "end-all" aiming device (like in most everything else), is, to the Mako, merely a vague directional suggestion rather than a firm command. Every time I died during Mass Effect, I was in the Mako. Every time I got pissed during Mass Effect, I was in the Mako. Every time I swore I was going to hunt down and beat every single member of the Mass Effect dev team senseless, I was in the Mako.
Not using the Mako is not an option. It's a large requirement of the game. Not to mention, some of the bigger enemies can kill even a high level character with full health in a single shot. From larger enemies, the Mako's shields will take two or three hits, and then the main car will take two or three hits as well. Which brings me to yet another problem with the Mako: the shields. Did your shields go down during battle? Want to let them recharge? Prepare to wait. Five plus minutes, that is. And don't think about going into your menus and checking equipment or anything while they recharge. That pauses the recharge as well. Fun fun!
I beat the game, all the DLC, and every side quest I could find in just under thirty-five hours. I would say that the main story is only a dozen hours long or so, and that someone playing the game for the first time could probably see and do everything in about forty to forty-five hours.
The main story is perhaps one of the more engaging sci-fi tales that I've heard, and I consider myself a fan of the genre. Despite how many times I got irritated by the Mako, or the lackluster autosave system (here's a hint, save often), the story was engaging enough to keep me going right to the end. The finale hits with a cinematic bang, that makes the whole experience, warts and all, feel like a worthwhile venture. No small feat, for no small game. I would definitely recommend this to action-RPG fans; I'd just warn them to have a little patience.
Bringing Down the Sky DLC
I have already differentiated the feel of main story in comparison to the side missions in my full review above, but if I had to sum up Bringing Down the Sky in a single statement, I would say, "It's a side mission that plays like a story mission." It uses a lot of the same cut-and-paste rooms from the disc-based side missions, but they are laid out better. The enemies are different though, consisting of Varren and Batarian soldiers. The final area of the mission is new, large, and interesting. Not a lot of exceptional loot though, for those of you driven by that. I've heard that the BDtS is supposedly three to four hours long, but I finished it everything in under two hours. I think I would still recommend it though, especially if you're jonesing for some more Mass Effect and you don't have the $60 for Mass Effect 2 yet.
Pinnacle Station DLC
The second set of downloadable content, Pinnacle Station, is not your average side mission. It's basically a set of thirteen combat simulations. Basically, you travel to this station and compete in these simulations. The final prize is almost worthless (except for the item randomizer function, which isn't as good as it sounds), and there's no real loot to be had. Also, all except for the time trials (defeat 20 or so geth as quickly as possible) is the only challenge that is actually... challenging. But it's not challenging in a good way. When I finally beat it, I didn't feel like I had personally done anything differently. I merely felt that my AI partners had helped more, so it made the victory seem hollow and pointless, which I suppose is a good way to sum up how I feel about this DLC.