RETRO! 'Mass Effect' | Part 6
In anticipation of ''Mass Effect: Andromeda' to be released later this month, gamer David Nolan completes his retrospective 'Mass Effect' gameplay, taking readers right through to the very end of the first game of the series...
We are at end.
Your Mako crashes out of the miniature mass relay in the centre of the Presidium ring on the Citadel. A clever bit of hiding-a-story element in plain sight, but confusing that no-one noticed that it was an actual mass relay - not just a model of one.
Shepard and her team get into the lift to get up to the Council chambers where Saren is trying to open the Citadel relay to let the Reapers through. He must be stopped! However, on the way up, a cutscene reveals Sovereign has attached itself to the tower and drained the power. Now Shepard is fighting up the side of the tower, walking towards a giant monstrous ship! This action sequence is really paying off.
The mixture of combat is fairly well balanced. There are enough long range sections, close quarter fighting and even a few twists on standard shooting. One involves rocket turrets shooting at you, while the other involves using rocket turrets to shoot at a Geth drop ship. Both are tough, but both really good tests of your developed skills.
Once you reach the Council chambers, there is a surprisingly small amount of Geth soldiers protecting Saren. Once they’re taken care of, it’s time to deal with the man-bird-thing himself…
It is one of the best parts of this game that you can actually skip half the final battle depending on which choices you have made. You can actually talk Saren into killing himself to allow you to aid the Citadel fleet. Zoë Shepard manages to do this and quickly opens a channel to Joker.
The pilot mentions that he has a large human fleet ready to swoop in and save the day; now, here is the second of the two biggest MAJOR CHOICES of the game: to sacrifice human lives to save the Council, or focus on Sovereign and let them die.
Zoë realises that a government is necessary, so she tells the human fleet to save the Council. In one of the best cutscenes in the series, a massive space battle ensues between the various fleets. The human fleet manages to give the Council’s ship enough time to escape, while the remaining vessels move to attack Sovereign.
While the battle outside rages, Saren’s implants activate, turning his corpse into a form of super advanced husk: this is the final battle. The fight takes place in two stages, with a brief cutscene and shield regeneration in the middle, but the whole thing is pretty much the same all the way through.
Shepard’s team needs to use their powers and guns to whittle down Saren while also avoiding his powerful attacks. It’s a good final battle, even if a little cramped.
The power whereby Saren overheats your weapon and all your powers is a little cheap, but is rare enough that it doesn’t quite become obnoxious. Once Saren is down, the fleet manages to destroy the Reaper Sovereign, ending the immediate threat.
The post-battle chat differs wildly depending on your choices. With the Council still around, humanity is offered a spot, and Shepard can choose to endorse Anderson, Udina or opt to stay out of it.
Zoë endorses Anderson because, well, she’s not a moron. With one final statement of intent, she marches off to pursue the Reaper threat and any others that would threaten the galactic peace.
The first instalment in any sci-fi or fantasy series must establish a lot in terms of story, setting and characterisation in order to be successful. It needs to introduce the various rules and characters of the world as well as all the normal elements a narrative requires to work. ‘Mass Effect’ does a decent job of doing all these things while falling short in many of the gameplay choices.
The design of the world is great, but the mission design tends to fall into repetition a little too often, most likely due to time or budgetary constraints. However, the series’ biggest drawcard, and also its most fallible point, is its story.
The problem with introducing a super powerful, conquering faction of sentient ships begins with trying to explain their origins and motivations. While there won’t be spoilers for future games, it is clear that if Bioware had any idea where the series was going with this plot, the writers did not agree upon the storyline, as there remains a sense that they tried to keep their options open.
Right before you set off for Ilos, the Council explains that they have fleets guarding all the paths to the Citadel, yet the Geth manage to attack while the Council is still on the station. The human fleet enter the fight through the same relay so it can’t be something secret that Sovereign gave them.
Then there is the fact that in future games, people mention the lack of proof of Reapers, even though you both spoke to one and to a Prothean computer that knew of them. So, Shepard never thought to make a recording of these conversations? Just one of those really odd narrative failings that exist only to generate tension - an annoying recurring trope of the series.
This isn’t to say that the games aren’t a good experience. But all good experiences should be critiqued just as much as any other work to ensure that improvement is always sought.
The other games improved the gameplay in various ways, and often the narrative was a little more tightly controlled. It will be interesting to see whether ‘Andromeda’ can pull together the elements that made this instalment unique, mixing it with the ones that made the other games work. Most crucially, how will the narrative explain its existence?
But before then, we have two other games to get through.
Next time we’ll fire up ‘Mass Effect 2’ to see what new adventures Zoë Shepard will get up to in the ‘darker, edgier’ middle chapter. Stay tuned...
