Incoming transmission from Ilos

I’ve just completed Mass Effect, and I feel satisfied yet disappointed. I’m struggling to put into words why but the main reasons were hype and KOTOR.

The hype was my own fault, as I heard more about the trilogy, I got more excited about this game, and well, to be frank, I expected better.

To be fair on Bioware, it was a valiant effort and genuinely enjoyable …so long as you kept changing what you were doing.

See, one of the biggest problem was, whilst each of the 3 main parts of the gameplay (Combat, Exploration, and Roleplaying) were interesting and entertaining, they only remained so in small bursts. Spend too long talking to people, or investigating secret areas and I’d find myself wanting to do something else as it became monotonous. Part of this problem is how I play RPGs. I like talk to everyone, search every nook and cranny for goodies, and complete sidequests (and I’d really appreciate it if the game would try and help me accomplish this). This means that I spend extended amounts of time doing one type of activity in particular before moving onto the next. Which just felt draining instead of the usual immersiveness that I normally get from RPGs.

Speaking of immersion, Bioware really did a good job in making the galaxy feel big. From the Milky Way map to each individual solar system, it did feel like a galaxy. I just wish that A) They’d put more work into making it not feel empty and B) They gave you a way of keeping track of all the places you’ve been. It’s hard to tell one star system apart from another visually and there was no indication of whether you’ve visited a system or not unless you find something you’ve already looted, usually on the sole planet in the solar system that you can actually land on. I actually stopped exploration on the galaxy level after I had been returning to a couple of places I’d already cleared out because I realised that I hadn’t been keeping track of where I’ve been and thanks to side quests, I’d covered about half the map in a seemingly random fashion. Retreading your own footsteps is only fun if you’ve got something new and interesting.

On the topic of new and interesting, the team in charge of making the planetside landscapes and terrain didn’t quite grasp the concept of “variation”. All the planets you could land on and explore were mountain ranges. Every single one of them. Sure, some might be hot or cold or green, but a mountain range is a mountain range. After the 3rd one, I just wanted something new, like Prothean ruins! There was this grand precursor civilisation, why couldn’t a couple of the planets have had, like, a village or something! But no, all the same.

As for the Mako, I don’t know where to stand on the vehicle. It’s main job of terrain climbing is only made awkward by the terrain design and how it’s unclear which slopes you can’t climb until you’re halfway up them. The combat makes up for it, mostly. See, combat in the Mako is fun, a cruel evil fun, like turning on God Mode just to mess with your enemies. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as to charge through a group of hostile to run the guy at the back over before turning around and firing a rocket at the sap who thought he was safe behind the barricade. Pity this only works on flat terrain. The Mako’s cannon was designed to only be used at a foe at level height, it can’t aim down. This gets worse if you’re on wall, shooting “up” at your targets, then you find that the targeting reticle is misaligned. This makes trying to snipe some long range Rocket Geth all but impossible as you can’t stay still for too long or get too close. I died a number of times in the Mako because just could not hit the people shooting me, some of which were sat right in front of the cannon as I drove past.

I could continue ranting about the Mako, but I want to move onto my final major complaint: the writing. I wouldn’t say it’s bad but…
At one point, during the romantic subplot, I noticed something. A line, I can’t even remember what it was, just sounded off. It was cliché, cringe worthy. It sounded like it came out of a geek’s wish-fulfilling, shamelessly self-gratifying, self-insertion fantasy. After that point, I kept noticing it, even in normal conversations Shepard had. I pointed this out to a friend, who said that all games with character creation are this. The thing is: other games mask it, you never think that it’s a wish-fulfilling, shamelessly self-gratifying, self-insertion fantasy, as the game manages to keep you immersed or entertained enough for it to become a conscious thought, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It made the rest of the romantic subplot painful to go through, which is a shame, as Bastila’s was fun.

And now we get to the comparison. I’ve played both KOTORs and loved them. As Bioware made the first, I can’t help but make comparisons, then get disappointed as KOTOR wins every time.
In KOTOR, the equipment menu is ordered and, if I recall correctly, the same items stack. This is something Mass Effect desperately needs. Sorting through your stuff and clearing space is awkward, especially when you aren’t sure if what you’ve contemplating scrapping is better than what a non-present party member has. Seeing as I cycle through about 4 party members, this really got on my nerves.
Another things KOTOR does is tell you about things like hacking or disarming in the character gen. When I asked for advice about which class to pick, nobody, not even Mass Effect told me about the Decryption and Electronics skills. KOTOR even has cross-class skills, in case you didn’t choose a build designed for that.
Overall, after the greatness of KOTOR, I’m amazed Mass Effect failed that bad. I hear the sequels make up for it though, so I still have hope.

At the end of the day, I still liked Mass Effect, but it definitely needs more work.

Also, in case you were wondering, I called him Tarrin Shepard, he was a Paragon Vanguard specialising in Shotguns, sacrificed Ashley to save a squad that seemed dead by the time he arrived, and made sugary love to Liara. How much of this will change by the end of Mass Effect 3, I don’t know.

No pictures this time. Maybe I’ll post more in the next one to make up for it.

Goodnight.