Mass Effect was my most highly anticipated game of the year. They didn't need the hype to sell me on this one. And 40 hours later I completed my first playthrough on Normal.

Mass Effect opens with a bang. The graphics are second to none, and the voice acting and plot are on a par with Bioshock for the best available on the Xbox 360. The first 3 hours are some of the strongest in the game as the plot develops and you get a good long taste of the cinematic conversations.

Then you finish with the Citadel (the only real 'town' section of the game) and journey into open space. At first, everything is exciting as there are hundred of worlds to explore. But here you have stumbled onto the weakest part of the game. The combat action is repetetive and not as fun as that in Jade Empire (in my opinion). There are tons of worlds to explore, but they are all the same in any but the most cosmetic sense. You can't even talk to your companions on a lot of worlds, and on others they cannot say anything buy a few scripted lines. When you talk to them on the ship (the only place you can actually have non-plotscripted conversations) they still have very little to say, and the few character specific side quests are incredibly weak, rushedand irrelevant. Even the romance plot line seems overlooked and was not especially coherent or believable.

SPOILERS

The side quests are the weakest part of the game. Even quests that seem like they should be a big deal seem skeletonized. For instance, the Consort in the citadel asks you for a favor and you complete it. She gives you a strange artifact that she mysteriously feels should be given to you. Ooooh! At that point my spider sense was tingling, as I sensed a deep side quest, a lot of interactions with NPCs and a juicy reward at the end. Imagine my surprise when I randomly stumbled upon a Prothean ruin on a no-name world that activated the artifact. I was rewarded with 3 pages of dry text and 500 experience points. What? No cosmic secrets unfurled? No hard choices that could ruin some race's reputation or change the face of a colony world? Most of the side quests were about as satisfying as those games that give you the 'go out and kill 10 orcs' type of quests.

SPOILERS OVER

The plot is great. When you are working on it, the game is at its best, and shows the old Bioware charm. The finale is one of their best works and contains one of their trademark plot twists. But I cannot feel satisfied with a meal with an excellent appetizer and dessert, but a bland main course in the middle.

My rating: 8.8