Recently I decided to finally get round to playing a game I should have played before, especially since I picked it up dirt cheap around Christmas last year. For some reason I never played Mass Effect 2 when it came out, I played the original and enjoyed it but the sequel was one of those games that I wait for but don’t pick up. Before I dived back into the Mass Effect universe I bought myself a 360 copy of the original so I could replay that and have a save file carry from 1-3 when I play that next year. In light of my experience re-running Mass Effect that one will definitely be a day 1 purchase, special edition already on pre-order. At time of writing I have still not started Mass Effect 2 but this piece is actually about how incredible the original game is.
At the heart of this epic Sci-fi action RPG lies the incredibly written story, as you can expect from a Bioware title. The game follows your own created Commander Shepard in your quest to save the galaxy from a rogue Spectre, a special agent of the Citadel Council which is the governing body of the central hub serving Citadel. Early on Shepard is promoted from a marine to a spectre him/herself and you must travel around the galaxy chasing leads and gathering information to locate and stop your quarry. One of the things that really makes the game stand on its own is a genuinely good morality system. You can often choose to be neutral, good (Paragon) or not so good (Renegade) and these choices effect a variety of things including character interactions and even the side missions you are allowed to take. Naturally for these my own Commander Shepard is a Renegade who takes no shit from anybody and puts bullets in the heads of people who try to give it. That said I ended up with a few dirty Paragon points because I was nice to my team, partly because I wasn’t sure if any of them would leave if I was a bitch to them but mainly because that’s how I feel I would react if I was in the shoes of Shepard in reality. Given the situation you are thrown into from the offset I don’t understand the Paragon approach but that’s just my feelings on it.
It’s this freedom of choice which makes it so easy to identify with Shepard and thus it feels as close to you yourself making the choices and having the conversations as I have ever experienced. You grow to be close to your team, you will of course have favourites and I quickly settled on Garrus and Tali as my primary squad mates and ironically the characters I felt most separate from were the other 2 humans available. That said I still cared about them and when… actually I’ll stop there, spoilers and stuff! Suffice to say there by the end of the game there was a bond that I haven’t felt in a game since Final Fantasy VII.
Now to hark back to a subject of a previous article, why are new games not as good as old? Well Mass Effect is an exception to this rule, as obviously there will always be. The weirdest thing to me is that I didn’t remember how phenomenal the game is even having played it the whole way through before. On top of the story is a sound cover based shooting system, a good character development and ability set and more side missions than I’ve seen in a while so it keeps you going if you want to do everything. I am relieved that I replayed this game. I wish to thank a few of my friends who know who they are if reading this, for re-introducing me to an incredible series and an amazing gaming experience. Now Mass Effect 2 beckons.
I should go.
No comments:
Post a Comment