RETRO! 'Mass Effect' | Part 1
With ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ just a few months away and the original trilogy now backwards compatible on Xbox One, now is the perfect time to replay the original trilogy of Bioware’s sci-fi roleplaying shooter series.
For posterity’s sake, Gigamov writer David Nolan has recorded his immediate reactions as he ventures through the action-shooter-RPGs for the fourth time in as many years. Check out his reaction to the flawed 2007 original, ‘Mass Effect’.
The main menu instantly hits you with a wave of nostalgia. The music and artistic design is on point, even this early on. Images of various important supporting characters appear in the background of the menu, giving players a hint towards the stories to come, and gauging returning players’ emotions.
Starting a new character is the hardest part of any RPG. What sort of character would you like to make and how do you want to play? In this series, the female version of the main character is more consistent than the male, so ‘FemShep’ it is.
The character creation is better than many other RPGs, with the ‘computer crashing’ reason for making the character creation a bit more interesting. The Shepard for this series will be a Spacer, Sole Survivor Infiltrator with the bonus of assault rifles; this means Shepard will play the game more as a shooter than typical RPG. However, with the first game being as rough as it is, shooting is more practical than using powers as your primary attacks. After fiddling with the settings for a while, Zoë Shepard has her face and can now begin her adventure.
While some criticise the loading screens in this game, the ones to show the mass relays and later on the Citadel are gorgeous, as is much of the artwork in this series. The introductory cutscene showcases the acting talent in the series right off the bat, with Keith David and Lance Henriksen introducing your Shepard. The characters jump right into their standard characterisation and techno-babble, expecting you to catch up. It’s a trope used often, and it seems to work ok here. There are times though when dialogue is clearly written for the benefit of the player, and doesn’t seem to suit the world or the characters saying speaking it.
After the first conversation in an RPG, there’s always that feeling that you could have designed a better character; we don’t have time for that here, so we’ll just continue.
The first steps down the hallway are rough. The game is showing its age and while the artwork holds up, the graphics are running on Unreal Engine 3 - a twelve year-old engine at this point. Following further dialogue, players are introduced to several ship-based characters including Keith David’s Captain Anderson and totally-not-going-to-die Spectre Nihlus, as well as galaxy lore, and hints towards the series’ Big Bad. Now it’s off to the first combat zone.
If you’ve played the first ‘Mass Effect’ as anything other than a soldier, you’ll pick up on one of the main issues with the combat very quickly. That is, if you try to use a gun you aren’t ‘trained’ in, you won’t be able to zoom in at all. That might be fine for a shotgun, but it makes the snipers useless; this wouldn’t matter so much, except the game forces you to have one on your person anyway. It’s an early alert to one of the major problems with the game: the inventory. But that will come later, for now let’s get to the actual fighting.
Sadly, the red-shirt gets red-shirted pretty quickly, fighting off the sentient robots that we know as Geth. Now that you have a spare slot in your squad, it’s convenient that there’s a lone Alliance marine just over the next hill!
Meet Ashley Williams - space marine with a chip on her shoulder; xenophobe and religious; these are her only character traits in the first game, but it’s still more than the other squad member you have at this point.
Kaiden Alenko - besides having a name way more interesting than he could ever be - should have had something more. His backstory related to the lore of how humans developed this galaxy’s version of magic/the Force; however, it never really comes into play and the character suffers throughout the game. When it comes to the later choice between the two of them, it comes down to character arc and your own personal preference. Still, this is not until after five other hub worlds, so let’s complete the prologue first.
Zoë Shepard - due to her background, is a Paragon. Some of the Renegade options are better and the interrupts are usually funnier (with the exception of the last game). But overall, Paragon is the better option, as a diplomatic approach seems to fit more with the universe.
When it comes to interacting with the few survivors on Eden Prime, the nicer option definitely fits. After coming across one person who’s apparently from Thedas (“Thank the Maker”? Where’d that come from?), it’s time to say farewell to our buddy Nihlus and meet this game’s antagonist Saren.
The introduction of the Reaper elements early on is nice and subtle, and it only becomes clear what the game is hinting at in hindsight. The husks (and Saren) have the blue mechanical-look that would become standard for most Reaper indoctrinated characters. At this stage, it almost looks like it could be Geth, which helps with the subterfuge. However, having experienced the other two games, it is clear that the Reapers themselves are present this early.
The final battle is a race against the clock to defuse bombs and save Eden Prime. It’s fairly easy seeing as the game gives you plenty of time, and there are few enemies.
After a cutscene in which Zoë saves Kaiden from an alien beacon, she receives the transmission straight into her brain, which gives her a strong migraine, and foreshadows the future games.
We also see Saren and his off-sider Matriarch Benezia, with her prominently displayed cleavage, dumping exposition. It all eventually pays off but it’s not up to the standard of other parts of the story.
After discussing the mission with Captain Anderson and being checked over by the ship’s doctor, it is time to see the galactic capital: the cleverly named Citadel. Its design is a lot better than its name, hinting at the universe’s backstory.
The designs for all the ships we see are further examples of the effort that Bioware put into this series - each species having different styles reflecting their place in the universe. After an argument with the Council, the galaxy’s main government, we are finally able to explore the Citadel for ourselves and begin the open-world adventure of uncovering Saren’s betrayal, discovering the Reapers’ existence and covering ourselves in all the glory.
And that’s where we’ll end this first instalment, returning periodically until the launch of ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ in March.
Who should we romance? What are our other major choices? Let us know what you think HERE.
