Mass Effect PC review

Todays review is going to be Mass Effect for the PC. This is a port from the Xbox version made by Bioware. Bioware is the company that brought us games like the Baldur's Gate series, and the Knights of the Old Republic series. Mass Effect is another RPG, which is typical for Bioware who are almost exclusive RPG based. Another trait of Bioware is to make an RPG with immense size and attention to detail. Mass effect is not exempt from this. You start the game by creating your character. You have a few choices of creatures (including human) and histories. You can act as the male or female version of each species. The only real limitation is that you have to b 'x' Sheppard ('x' being any name you like).

The game is in the style of an epic space action mystery movie. The plot (without giving too much away) focuses on you unraveling a mystery surrounding the antagonist Saren using the ancient relics of a highly advanced race to bring death and destruction to all races. Saren is a rouge Specter. A Specter is like a super agent who exist above the law as a 'first and last line of defense' against the forces of evil. Because of gates that make interstellar travel easier many alien and human races have come together to create a sort of galaxy wide governing body, and this body is who the Specters are supposed to work for. Saren starts behaving badly and becomes the focus of your mission as a newly created specter yourself. The rest, and the details of this I'm not going to give away because it would ruin the game for you.

Being a port from a console, you would think that there would be simplistic gameplay. This could have been true but it seems there are changes in the combat system to make it more in depth. The action-pause, and squad commands apparently aren't in the Xbox version (I haven't played the Xbox version though so I can't confirm this). The pause and squad commands give the gameplay an interesting dynamic. I found it seamless, albeit a bit rigid. If you are expecting the smooth and polished focus of a 3D shooter, DON'T. This is primarily an RPG, and the fighting focuses more on your character, and weapon abilities over reaction and 3D shooter skills. There is an ATV in the hull of you ship and it rocks! This will make up any driving sections of the game you come across.

Shoot the rock?

You'd think because the consoles have limited controls the menu item and quest screens would be simple. No way, at least for the item screens. This was a major annoyance of mine. The item and character screens are overcomplicated and poorly organized. All other game control and menus are polished, clean and effective.

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