Mass Effect

27.11.2007

First, you must select a character. Whether you want to roam the galaxy as a bearded scar face or as an elegant lady is up to you. You can also select your own first name, although your family name always remains Shepard. Your previous history and origins crucially determine the development of your game, and you determine yourself if you are a scrupulous colonist or a legendary Earth battle hero. All that then remains is for you to choose a class. Your class determines the means with which you fight. Take on the evil hordes with bio- and technological weapons to throw aliens into the air with a deadly toss, or weaken their defence shields to that your squad can complete the dirty work. Otherwise, you can fall back upon the default profile of John Shepard and as a soldier, allow your weapons to speak for you. Awaiting you is an extremely gripping and varied story, whose development is determined to a large degree by your actions and your interaction with other characters.

And the weapons come in useful! Because there is always an pig-headed villain somewhere in the galaxy who could do with a whipping. The robot-like race of the Geth has already established itself as the villain, and it is now up to you to put an end to their foul race. The high Citadel Council itself, a galactic administrative body, has selected you to prevent the worst. With your ship, the Normandy, its crew and a squad of up to six fellow fighters from different races, you set off on the hunt. Your squad can be individually equipped and once they collect a certain number of experience points, you can use these for different abilities. If necessary, you can also automatically distribute these points. The class of each squad-member is crucial for upgrading capabilities, and for the correct distribution of points. While as a Soldier you focus your capabilities on your weapons and distribute points accordingly so as to achieve an Overkill (a high firing rate), as an Engineer you specialise in overheating opponents’ weapons, or as an Adept, in the debilitation of opponents.

Mass Effect is a game with a galactic reach, in the true sense of the word. While you normally stroll through virtually generated worlds and kingdoms or innumerable dungeons and cities in normal role-playing games, Mass Effect takes this a step further. The Milky Way, and thus an entire galaxy, is your precinct, in which you must maintain law and order. This concept may make you dizzy, and at times you will feel completely, beautifully lost. Luckily, the game provides you with a fully developed Milky Way, in while almost all solar systems with planets can be explored using a chart. Almost, because initially, not all of the clusters are identified on the star charts. Every now and then, you will need to first figure out the correct sequence in order to identify your new target location. Unless you have done this, you will be unable to approach different planets, some of which are specifically for the search and evaluation of specific raw materials and special objects, such as the Asari scripts, which must be collected. After a certain amount of play time, everything becomes a little clearer, and thus only appears figuratively monumental. The variety and specific descriptions (as voiceovers!) of each of the planets nevertheless allow the appearance of creatures from all sorts of origins.

The Citadel, a gigantic space station, serves as the departure point for new orders and missions. You will also find there the Citadel Council, fun side quests, traders and other welcome variations on space travel and battles on inhospitable planets. If you want to have a little fun, the best is to head for one of the two local clubs and get yourself a private dance from one of the attractive alien ladies. There are numerous possibilities for interaction, and you can have interesting conversations with fantastic characters everywhere. The conversations are a cornerstone of Mass Effect. Exciting dialogues, believable lip synchronisation and a very consistent audio output ensure that you think twice before skipping a text passage. Your answers are crucial to the development and behaviour or the opposing characters. You can either ask for the necessary information with a drawn weapon and a firm grip on their collar, or you can use friendly back-slapping and smooth words. More than anything, your chosen approach on the basis of your status level, which can either lean in a scrupulous or exemplary direction, is noticeable, and directly affects both the events and the environment.

In Mass Effect, of course, you don’t only jaw away, you also get to fight. Two members of your squad, whom you must select, accompany you in each case. The fight system offers both maintenance and tactical elements – at least in the higher levels of difficulty. You can switch at the touch of a button from a pursuer’s perspective to target mode, where the camera gives you a practical shoulder perspective. Walls, stones and other level items serve as in Gears of War as protective covers from behind which you can take aim. The side buttons allow you to unleash your abilities and select weapons. Your team-mates perform automatically in combat, although you can give them orders as necessary. Maybe to draw out enemy defences or to shift the opponent to a dormant state with a Stasis attack.

Aim to kill your enemies with sniper or assault rifles, while also preserving the health of your men. You will find so called Upgrades everywhere, which allow you to modify and rig everything from body armour to your pistols. You can fit your machine gun with a stabiliser for better aim, and equip your Deathmaker with chemical munitions, as these are particularly effective against organic opponents. Certain Upgrades have pros and cons, however, for example by allowing shields to be overcome, but also leading to lower effectiveness. There are more or less no limits to the modifications you can make, and clever geeks will soon establish a highly destructive troop with overwhelming weaponry. Your computer-controlled squad can carry out complete tasks and is, except for some input required in the level inventory, beyond criticism. The AI works and they will look around for cover, or protect themselves with bio-shields. The different opponent types in particular make for engaging combat.

However the fights in the Mako, a six-wheel, cannon-equipped armoured vehicle, are less fun. When you first sit behind the steering controls, it is a lot of fun to manoeuvre over uneven terrain and make hops with a press of the appropriate key – a function which is useful for avoiding incoming projectiles. Unfortunately the fun dies in the first fight. It is not only that the Mako is unbelievably stubborn, but shooting from an elevated position at a lower-lying target is nigh impossible. Your cannon, which is roof-mounted, cannot logically fire below the edges of the vehicle, which makes many fights a painful undertaking. So you must manoeuvre it to a more suitable position, but unfortunately this is also no easy task. As in other games, the Mako is steered with a single stick, but the dumb thing is that the control of your cannon as well as the camera also affects the vehicle control. If you are travelling forward and aim to the left, you must immediately steer the left stick to the right in order to avoid drifting to the left. Fortunately, you can disembark at any time.

Vision is well-honed, and that is also fine. Mass Effect also in no way disappoints when it comes to its graphics. Every world and every area has its own unique atmosphere. Meteors rain from the skies over golden deserts, snow storms whirl around your clothes on a bleak planet, a blood-red sky backlights the panorama of a green world. There are occasional sterile complexes and linear level sections, but by and large the game is still a real eye-turner. The segue sequences work well and provide action with good changeover effects. The faces of the characters are amazingly detailed and even pores and wrinkles are fully visible. Overall, the effects are breath-taking. An excellent soundtrack, which copies from Halo, underscores this stunning beauty. A penetrating, energy-loaded sound erupts if you open fire on a Geth with your sniper rifle, which then dies down with a sort of electronic purr. A few small clipping errors, the reuse of textures, tearing and a couple of wrinkles reduce the overall view somewhat, but the overwhelming splendour of the game move these into the background.