Mass Effect (2007)

Lançado em 2007, Mass Effect é provavelmente um dos melhores RPGs de sempre e um clássico da BioWare.

No jogo você é o Comandante Shepard, que, apesar do nome, pode ser um personagem customizável, aproximando mais os jogadores dos elementos de RPG. Shepard pertence a um tempo glorioso da raça humana. Com o descobrimento dos mass relays, tecnologia alienígena que facilita o trânsito entre diversos sistemas interestelares, quase que instantaneamente, a humanidade pôde colonizar diversos planetas fora do Sistema Solar e descobrir e entrar em contato com raças alienígenas até então desconhecidas. Juntas, as raças fazem parte do Espaço da Cidadela, uma intergalática aliança dentro da Via Láctea entre diversas raças, incluindo a humana.

Cabe a Shepard, soldado experiente, participar dos eventos mais importantes da galáxia. A propósito, todo o enredo do jogo é competentíssimo, um verdadeiro sci-fi, que não perde em nada, ou é até mesmo melhor do muito que foi produzido em outros meios do entretenimento (filmes, livros etc). A narrativa adota elementos importantes também de clássicos do entretenimento como um todo, a exemplo dos livros de Lovecraft e Guerra dos Mundos de H. G. Wells.

A tomada de decisões dimensiona mais o jogo, aprofundando-o e fazendo com que cada decisão tenha um impacto, pouco importa seu tamanho. Isso faz evoluir a história de uma maneira diferente e é um dos pontos altos da trilogia, já que com a capacidade de importar salvamentos, você pode continuar nos próximos jogos (Mass Effect 2 e Mass Effect 3) com o mesmo personagem e com os caminhos da história que ele tomou.

A jogabilidade pode parecer um pouco ultrapassada. É um shooter em terceira pessoa com elementos de RPG. A visibilidade pode não agradar a todos. A mobilidade de Shepard também é estranha, mas alguns comandos são funcionais, como agachar, proteger-se e dar comandos ao time. As classes devem soar estranhas mesmo aos jogadores tradicionais do gênero, que em 90% dos títulos ambienta-se numa época medieval fantástica, com espadas, cajados, arcos etc; ainda assim possuem suas similaridades a esses elementos tradicionais do RPG.

Os gráficos são do seu tempo, nada excepcional para o momento desta análise, mas relativamente avançados naquela época. Eles dão conta de individualizar os planetas, mas não espere muita coisa além de texturas diferentes entre eles, salvo um ou outro. A expressão dos personagens segue o mesmo rumo, eles reagem de maneira muito parecida.

O som é repetitivo em alguns momentos, como a bordo da nave Normandy, mas o jogo tem uma trilha sonora que conecta você da melhor forma possível aos acontecimentos da história, a exemplo da conversa com um vilão e num momento chave do enredo, próximo ao endgame. São momentos verdadeiramente emocionantes.

Mass Effect é recomendadíssimo. É obrigatório jogá-lo.

The recent announcement about a new Mass Effect game got me all nostalgic, so I decided to revisit the original trilogy for the first time in years. Yeah, I could've waited for the remaster of the trilogy due to come out in early 2021, but I'm impatient like that.

A couple of things stuck out to me about this modern classic.

#1. I had kind of forgotten just how amazing the worldbuilding is here. How fleshed out each alien race is with their culture, history, technology and the way it all intersects is truly a work of art. Granted, some get more of a spotlight upfront than others but if you're not reading the dossiers that's on you.

#2. This game is a mere 10GB (with Mass Effect 2 and 3 not being much bigger). I can't remember the last time I played a non-indie game with a file size that small.

#3. This game is old enough that when you visit the Sol system, Pluto is still a planet.

#4. The first Mass Effect is different from the later ones in a lot of ways. I think I only played this twice back in the day before falling even more in love with Mass Effect 2 and obsessing over that. For one, the controls and combat are a lot clunkier. And maybe it was because I was playing it on PC instead of Xbox this time, but I do recall it wasn't until the 2nd game that the franchise becomes less of an RPG and more of a shooter.

That being said, the RPG elements are strong here. It's like a more polished Knights of the Old Republic or Dragon Age: Origins in a sci-fi setting. Makes sense given the developer. Picking up literally hundreds of armor, weapons, and upgrades is only fun for so long, especially with inventory limits. I hope you like spamming buttons to sell items and convert them into Omni-Gel. Plus you better juggle the characters on missions regularly if you want to get the most out of their story arcs. And what's an RPG without that one part of the game that's crazy annoying (the Mako)? But flaws aside, this game is still incredible. A bit of a product of it's time, but incredible nonetheless.

I actually had a hard time with this playthough at first because I used a different class for once. I'd always gone with the default Shepard before (Soldier class, Earthborn, Sole Survivor background) throughout the entire trilogy. This time around I played as a Vanguard with the Colonist, War Hero background because biotics are awesome. But man, did I miss being tanky. Finally unlocking medium armor severely cut down on how often I was mashing the quicksave button.

Anywho, given how much the nostalgia kicked in for me with this game, I can't wait to start replaying the 2nd one.

The period between 2007 and 2010 is what I would consider to be the Golden Age of BioWare. They had a string of straight back to back hits with the first two Mass Effect games and Dragon Age: Origins. While DA was more of their traditional bread and butter, ME was whole new territory, and thankfully, they succeeded. Well over a decade after its initial release, however, its flaws have become more pronounced, but the fact that I still love going back to play through it to completion speaks volumes to its overall staying power.

You take on the role of Commander Shepard. You'll recruit various characters to your mission and make difficult decisions that not only affect you personally, but the galaxy as a whole. ME may take cues from many well-known sci-fi properties, but they were also able to put their own spin on them, with various races with their own distinct style, personality and culture. More importantly, your party members are interesting and fun to talk to. The more I play ME, the more I appreciate certain details about this game that I never did the first time around.

At its core, it is an RPG with elements of a third-person shooter. The general shooting mechanics, on their own, are functional but not nearly as smooth as their contemporaries. You can be either a Soldier with access to every available weapon and armor, Biotic with magic-like force abilities but with a limited load out, or Engineer that can break hard-to-crack safes and mess with synthetics. Depending on your class you'll need to choose a team that best suits your needs.

One of the defining characteristics of Mass Effect is its emphasis on choice. Right out of the gate you can choose a basic background for Shepard, which can effect how characters interact with you and what side missions would be available. How you interact with people fills up either a Paragon or Renegade meter that further unlocks additional choices you can make. This system isn't perfect, but still gets the job done.

As I've said, ME has definitely begun to show its age. While the game for its time looked incredible, some of the environments come off rather dull and uninspired. Conversations with characters are also pretty static, but thankfully the solid voice acting carries them through. General sound editing is all over the place and much of the music is repetitive and rather forgettable. Mako is simultaneously floaty and stiff, making traveling on more rugged terrain a nightmare. There are a good variety of planets to explore, but most don't contain much to do. Much of the sidequests take place in like four locations that are laid out exactly the same and it is visually dull, and yet I still go out of my way to do each of them because there is still an addicting quality to the exploration and side missions.

While far from perfect, I still believe ME is definitely worth looking into, especially since you can import your save data into ME2 and see where things progress. I'd say you can probably get away with calling the original ME a "flawed masterpiece". Dated in many respects, but a classic nonetheless.

This has to be one of the best moments of the whole game. Sovereign's lines are impeccably written and impeccably delivered. It shows no emotion, is gives no importance to what's happening. Sovereign is utterly unaffected by pleads or threats from insignificant, inferior beings. It is neither angered, nor entertained.

I love the almost lovecraftian ethos. This sort of incognoscible, detached being whose motives are beyond our capacity of comprehension is what the Reapers should've never stopped being. It's a bit of a shame that the sequels (especially the Leviathan DLC) ended up banalising them so much.

As an aside, I always believed that in Mass Effect 3, the reaper laser sound effect was incredibly lame. It's uninspired and not at all menacing. What I've always though it should sound like is thunder, but more... mechanic. Think about it. The laser must be ionising the air around it and the sudden expansion of the hot air is exactly what causes thunder! But unlike the lightning that causes natural thunders, reaper lasers are straight, they are much simpler structures. Therefore, their sound should be also more simple with less harmonics. I think something like that would sound powerful, but also eerie and unnatural.

Ejem.. sorry, I veered offtopic. The point is. Mass Effect is awesome.

So the EA Access page for PS4 supported games includes all of the Mass Effect games and Dragon Age and DA2. Can anyone verify that you can actually play these on PS4 (streaming), or is this a goof made by EA's web team?

Edit: never-mind, it was a website error. I think the PS4 page was showing the full list instead of just the PS4 titles.

I'm gonna start off the review with this simple verdict. If you're going into the Mass Effect series, you're going to suffer with this one. However, the lore, story and characters are so intriguing it was the factor that pushed me to finish this game. I'm not going to delve into the story but I will be commenting on the gameplay and other aspects of the game.

First of all, the gameplay is dated, but for an 11 year old game, I could see where some of the innovation lied. It's a third person shooter with heavy RPG elements. Anytime during a gunfight, you can hold the spacebar (PC version) to pause the game and have free camera control. With this, you can command your comrades to take cover and activate your and their abilities that they get throughout the course of the game, as well as switch weapons. It's a really cool system that is wonky, but works fine nonetheless. Combat is your basic shooting system, with third person tropes such as cover and sprinting to avoid enemy fire. The game's gunplay is a little stiff, and few guns actually feel satisfying enough when you pull the trigger. Also the AI is not so good now for both sides, so you'll have your teammates doing the most random actions while the enemy decides to rush in and get hit with a mass effect ability. Outside of the gunplay, the standard controls are not too bad, however the exploration is mainly boring, but some of the best lore and conversations happen during this time.

On your ship, the Normandy, you're able to talk with your teammates and develop friendships and relationships with them, and between every mission it's worth going to everyone and have a quick conversation. It's especially important if you wish to engage in a relationship with either your male or female comrades.

The single worst part of the gameplay is the MAKO sections. This is a tank that is one of the worst things I have controlled in a video game to this date. The MAKO sections are some of the most finnicky, more clumsiest vehicle sections ever. It's never fun when you're dropped in it, as the awkward controls kill the experience of controlling a badass space tank. On top of that, the main cannon's reticle is basically useless, as the shots the main machine gun and the cannon make are dependent upon the physical direction the model is pointing the gun at. There's no aim assist to help alleviate it so when it seems you're shooting directly at an drone or something, you're actually pixels away from hitting it because the gun isn't at the right angle. It's probably the most frustrating thing about the entire MAKO experience.

However, the game does shine with it's characters, locales, and story. I wasn't too hooked on the game, until 4 hours in, when I played through most of the story in a single session. The characters are amazing, and fun to interact with, and the lore is so deep I spent a lot of time in the codex menu reading about the different races and kinds of technology that this universe has. It's truly magical. The locales themselves are amazing, with cities up in the clouds, and one of the best home bases in video games (by concept, not execution). As I said before, that was the main reason why I kept going through this game instead of putting it down.

However, the main thing that hindered me throughout the run was how terribly optimized the game seemed to be. In two locations, the models turned into black blobs, and I had to go into the control console and disable the lighting in game to play properly. The game chugs, even on powerful systems, and becomes a nightmare in some sections because you'll be in the MAKO and the game decides to run at 15 fps. I'm sure there might be performance patches and even patches to make the game look better but honestly I wanted as an experience that was as pure as it can get.

All in all, I ended up enjoying Mass Effect. I ran through the main scenario of the game in around 10 and a half hours, and ignored all of the side content since I wanted to get to Mass Effect 2, which I have heard is MILES above this game. I'm excited to see where the universe goes and what decisions I have to make in the later installments of the game.

This is a good read on the current state of BioWare. But I just about squealed when I got to the following section:

As for BioWare’s own space-opera franchise, Darrah says, “We’re definitely not done with Mass Effect. There’s a lot of stories to be told. We could pull on the threads we put down with Andromeda; we could pull on threads from Mass Effect 3. There’s a lot of interesting space to be explored.”

“In my mind, it’s very much alive,” says Hudson. “I’m thinking all the time about things that I think will be great. It’s just a matter of getting back to it as soon as we can.”

Mass Effect is the first AAA game I've played with a 20+ hour single-player campaign. For the first ~4 hours, I wasn't really feeling it: the combat and gameplay were clunky, and I wasn't 'really' feeling the story.

The game started to click for me after rescuing Liara from the lava planet. I talked to all the crew members on the Normandy, and the lore in Mass Effect was really compelling, this being the first time I've found 'lore' in a game to be interesting.

Hearing how the Quarians were driven about by their own mechanical creations, exiled to roam the cosmos in 'The Floatilla', listening to Wrex talk about how the Krogan race is nearing extinction as a result of another race unleashing a virus to quell a Krogan uprising, a virus that kills 99% of infant Krogans. This lore is the 'something' that I've been waiting for. I'm only 5.5 hours into Mass Effect right now, but I'm eager for more.

Just played Mass Effect for the first time and loved it. It's really dated mechanically, but almost charmingly so. I've been playing a lot of late 2000's open world-esque games and I'm really starting to appreciate how games like this actually encourage exploration. I feel like so many 2010's games like this tell you exactly where to go, filling up your map with interest points. There's so much freedom to not knowing anything and just discovering as you go. Breath of the Wild was kind of a return to that for me, and I hope that trend catches back on.

Anyways, made this little video essay about ME.

Rating: 9/10

Just what you want from a Bioware RPG. It has a great story that moves at just the right pace. I love how it builds up the main villains, making them truly something scary. On top of that, you have plenty of input into how your character is seen, with the extensive dialogue choices. There's a lot of customization for your character as well, as you choose a class and craft the type of soldier that you want within said class. Some may say that the gameplay seems dated but it was fine to me because while the shooting is not the most mechanically sound, it's still good enough, especially when you consider that this is an RPG first. It never detracted from the experience for me.

For some reason I started playing Mass Effect with the third one, so I'm trying to go back and play the other two. Onto the second.

Just finished my first playthrough. Really awesome game. Good story, cool characters, and several side missions. Lots of customization too, for both your character's look and for your weapons. You can also choose different classes that each play a little differently, as well as choose dialogue. These options allow for a lot of replayability. Probably gonna play again as a different class before I move on to the second. Highly recommend for fans of sci-fi, RPG's, shooters, or all three. If you've played Knights of the Old Republic, it's pretty similar.

*EDIT AFTER SECOND PLAYTHROUGH*

Basically everything I said the first time still applies. Fantastic game, definitely a new favorite for me. As both playthroughs took me around 18.5 hours to beat, with half or most of the side missions, I did think it was a little short (especially since KOTOR, also made by Bioware, takes me about 30-35 hours). However, that isn't a huge issue. I played as a Soldier (1st time) and Vanguard (2nd time) and both are fun, but I'd recommend Vanguard over Soldier since you can use some cool biotic powers. Side missions are good, and some have interesting stories to them. However, many base environments are copy-pasted. That's not really a very bad thing, but a little more variety in the environments would have been nice. Driving the Mako is also fun at times, but it was often tedious and boring for me. Combat is fun, although some have said it's a bit clunky, which I'd agree with at times. The story is good but nothing great, although the lore and backstory is absolutely fantastic. I loved learning more about the universe that the game built, as it was very interesting and intriguing. By the end, there were things that I'd learned that I thought were really cool and quite fascinating. Some missions weren't really too interesting to me, like the second half or so of Feros, some of Noveria, and the beginning of Virmire, but the rest was good. I really enjoyed the last two missions, especially the very last one. I won't spoil what it is, but it's just really cool visually, and also pretty fun. Overall, highly recommended, especially for fans of the genre.

This game was the second big video game I played and it has ruined me for all other games. Bioware consistently has good female characters that aren't fridged, eye candy, damsels in distress, or a reward for the male protagonist (and you can play as a female character); brilliant plot, and fun gameplay. Because of Mass Effect, I now expect these elements in all story-based games I play.

This first game in the trilogy is dated as far as game play goes, but if you're willing to push through for the story elements, it is so worth it.

Probably the best "space opera" RPG to date. Although ME1 looks a little dated now (in terms of graphics) it still has one of the most compelling and engaging stories of all RPG's. And while some people don't like the end (of ME3) the story arc is complete, twisting, and with enough challenges and cast to keep most players enthralled.

If you have never played it, do it. And if you have, it's worth a revisit just to be Shep all over again.