Mass Effect, Played, Dissected and Loved

Role playing games have a couple of varieties. There are Japanese RPGs, where there are tons of menus and all combat is turned based (Final Fantasy, Lost Odyssey, etc) or there are the hack and slash category where you play in real time and improve your character (Diablo, Dungeon Siege, Titan Quest etc). But then there is the open ended category which has so recently been introduced by the titles like The Witcher, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and S.T.A.L.K.E.R, which gives you an open environment to go to and develop your character as you want.

Then there is the 4th category introduced by Bioware in the shape of Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic (KOTOR), Jade Empire and now Mass Effect. The beauty of these type of games is that, the entire story continues in a cinematic way. You have a lot of say in all the dialogs and whatever you do changes the entire story and your character. I had been waiting to get my hands on Mass Effect and ever since I have bought it, I cant stop playing it.

The total play time, if you complete all the quests and search all the minerals and scan every star system is close to 30-40 hours. Otherwuise this game can also be completed in 20 hours if you play through the story line and do not go out of your way to explore the environment.

The story is really well crafted and the best thing is that, the choices you make during the course of the game, makes the other characters respond to you differently. So, it is possible that every time you play the game, you will get a bit different experience. This totally enhances the replayability of the game and makes you want to come back over and over again to see how the game turns out based on the choices you make. An even better thing is that, this is the first part of a trilogy and the choices you make in the first game will carry on to the next two games, which will totally change the outcome of the next two games when you play them.

The combat this time is real time and no turn based attacks as it was in SW:KOTOR. You can be a technology specialist, a biotic specialist (you can all it special physical powers) or a soldier. You can even mix the two specialties together if you want. Each specialty has its own advantages and disadvantages. Plus, as you finish the game, you get the opportunity to pick a special ability that you had honed in previous characters.

the voice acting and graphics are excellent. I however did not like the inventory screen which requires a lot to be desired. you do not get to see how different weapons look and they do not change appearance based on the upgrades that you install in them.

When you land on a planet, you normally need to go around in a vehicle, Mako and sometimes the places that you need to reach are almost impossible to get. We also do not get to upgrade Mako, which is a shame considering that this is an RPG.

In short, if you are a fan of games with good story and playability, this is a game to get. Make sure that you have a lot of time to spare as this game demands time and you cannot have small runs of it if you want to enjoy it. Those who liked KOTOR, will love it and those who haven’t played such games, must give it a try, provided that they have an Xbox 360, or wait till May to get the PC version. As for Xbox players, downloadable content will be made available to them, so that they can explore more of the galaxy that they ventured out to save.

I am playing it for the third time now and am a really bad ass by nature. I am putting up pictures of the three characters that I have made so far, namely John, Ranor and Gulabo :). Gulabo is the maxed out character of level 50 and it took me 30 hours to complete the entire game with it (I did skip a few dialogues). This just shows how much engaging this game is. Do give it a try!