Mass Effect Review

 By: Patrick Morris

Mass Effect, a term that refers to the foundational technology of an ancient alien race able to manipulate the fabric of space and time; the greatest discovery in the history of mankind and also the namesake of the 2007 space opera odyssey. With the release of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition this early Xbox 360 classic has been brought into the modern age while still maintaining the vast majority of its 2007 quirks. As an RPG Mass Effect set new standards for the genre and redefined what players were able to expect from the consequences of their choices in video games. Mass Effect is a game that is well deserving of it's legendary status and while it takes a significant shift in mindset to accommodate for the ways in which it's aged that shift is more than worth the effort for the ways in which the game continues to outshine even the best what the modern RPG genre has to offer. 

 

Based off everything I had been told about the game prior to playing I started my play through with the presumption that the game's main draw would be in its story telling. Within the spectrum of fictional space operas Mass Effect falls significantly closer to Star Trek than it does Star Wars. Full of well established societies and cultures brought to life by rich historical lore and tumultuous political relations the universe of Mass Effect feels as though it existed prior to the player's arrival and will continue to exist after they leave. As a result of this establishment of universe Mass Effect is able to create meaningful stakes while allowing for the players choices to create significant changes as individual character is more grand than the larger universe.

 

The story revolves around Commander Shepard during his or her pursuit or the rogue spectre agent Saren after suspicions of Saren's betrayal of the council and the Milky Way races alliance are confirmed. This conflict with and pursuit of Saren serves the game as a compelling "A" story to keep the player involved without overwhelming them with lore to build the larger conflict. After arriving on Virmire the player discovers that Saren has awoken an ancient synthetic-organic starship that is part of a race better known as the Reapers. In a captivating conversation between Shepard and the Reaper, the Reaper reveals that its name is Sovereign and it is one of thousands of Reapers, the rest of which have been left adrift in dark space with no means of communication or navigation back to the Milky Way galaxy. Weaving the primary conflict between Shepard and Saren into the larger plot of Sovereign's plan to recall the Reapers and lead a genocidal takeover of all the races of the Milky Way organically escalates the plot from the more contained Shepard vs. Saren to the grander Alliance vs. Reapers. This escalation functions as an excellent way to raise the stakes and make the first game feel capable of both standing on its own while also serving as the first part of a larger multipart story. 

 

The game opens with Shepard teaming up with a Turian Spectre named Nihlus in pursuit of Saren. Shortly thereafter Saren murder's Nihlus in cold blood and Shepard is unable to stop it. After coming in contact with a mysterious Prothean beacon Shepard has a vision the likes of which cannot be deduced and reports back to the alliance council to report on the events of Eden Prime and is promoted to the rank of Spectre then given the mission of investigating the rogue Spectre Saren. The player is then given the freedom to explore the Milky Way and undertakes story progressing quests on Feros, Noveria, and in the Artemis Tau cluster. After these three are completed the player is sent to Virmire where they experience three major plot points. Despite how enthralling the events of Virmire were they are also the game's biggest short coming. The encounter with Wrex that has the potential to radically change the dynamic amongst the crew of the Normandy, followed by the conversation Shepard has with Soverign, and capped off with the conversation between Shepard and Saren all provide hard hitting story moments and dialogue options that will greatly effect the outcome of the game. But despite how captivating the events of Virmire are I couldn’t help but feel as though stacking all those major story beats in quick succession made for less than ideal pacing. After reaching Virmire I was so hooked on the game that I finished it that day, but to get to Virmire the game was asking for roughly 7-10 hours of good but not great gameplay and story telling. Had those moments been spread out across the events of Feros, Noveria, and Artemis Tau the player would have had significantly more reason to continue to want to know what would be happening next in the story. 

 

At the core of the story are the characters and their relationship's with Shepard. It may sound cliché but the player gets as much out of those relationships as they are willing to put in. Obviously everyone will have different opinions of each character but in my playthrough the standouts were Wrex and Liara. Each character has significant backstory to explore giving the player not only the opportunity better understand the universe but also develop relationships with those characters. Wrex's instinctual loyalty to the preservation of the Krogan, Liara's curiosity of other species, and Ashley's…space racism, all offer deep and intricate dialogue options with lasting consequences in which choices are dictated by how the player has invested their stat points and their past dialogue decisions. 

 

Despite the excellence of the story, the gameplay is where Mass Effect shows its age in the most significant way and stands as the largest hurdle to enjoying the game in a modern context. Gunplay can be charitably described as serviceable at best, movement feels slow and stiff, and combat scenarios are almost entirely unimaginative cover based encounters. The game lacks any sense of variance in combat and exploration offering little to no verticality leaving me feeling as though the squad based abilities are superfluous and squandered.  Without a doubt the highlight moments of the game are in the conversations. Mass Effect doesn’t offer any massive set pieces that will stick in my mind the same way thing's like Uncharted 3's airplane sequence, Gear of War's train in the finale, or Metal Gear Solid 3's Shagohad chase but what it does offer is jaw dropping revelations that are provided to the character conversationally. So where the game excels at story telling it leaves something to be desired in the gameplay department.

 

The ultimate question surrounding Mass Effect with the newly released legendary edition is whether or not the game holds up in the context of 2021. Being someone who didn’t play the game until now I found myself so enthralled in it's story and characters that I was scrambling to download the second game within minutes of finishing the first. With a slight shift in mindset and expectations to account for the fact that it is a game that was originally released in 2007 and remains almost entirely unchanged the majesty of Mass Effect can still be fully appreciated. It is a game that is well deserving of it's classic status and should be played and enjoyed by everyone.