Mass Effect Review
so no big deal but I gotta help you real big time there you are too kind
commander but I would not expect you to help me out of the kindness of your
heart I also have one more thing to give you if you're interested
one one one more thing oh hell yeah close your eyes and relax
all right we're taking a trip back memory lane back to one of my favorite
games that's right the original Mass Effect while a pretty heavy story face
game the lot of the gameplay revolves around the third person shooter
mechanics which feel pretty comfortable you can move around fairly well the aim
sites seem to work well I've been to the cover base mechanics were a bit lacking
you could crouch behind cover and do things like that but not really as
precise as some of the other third-person shooter games out there at
the time edition of the cool powers that you could use using your biotics or TAC
abilities was a cool addition to the you know third-person shooter formula
serving kind of as like a special type of grenade weapon that you could use
kind of progressively throughout the game they were very fun to use what I
found though was that the cooldown on them was quite long for the kind of
payoff that you could get from them often times there were larger groups of
enemies that you could use it once on and it was often more effective to use
your weapons so they were fun and had great effects but would've liked to find
a way to get a little bit more use out of them
dontrey and Mass Effect was fairly clear and easy to use you just picked the
option you want and you click it was a short description about what your
character would say but often it matched up pretty well and they they had the
renegade and Paragon system that kind of determining between a good and evil or
kind of a good and determined response that you could choose from often in your
dialogue and the system worked fairly well and often made for interesting
stories and conversations to keep things fresh and kind of give you some some
plot and kind of a break between these modes of combat
you've been given a unique position to represent our race is there anything
you'd like to say about it what kind of a question is that some
have said your appointment is the Citadel throwing humans a bone you
really do believe that don't you listen you you bitch the enemy AI seems
to work fairly well they seem to spread out and try to flank you at times and
use the cover well to stay hidden but do give the player opportunities to find
and pick them off and shoot them and there are varied enemy types to keep
things fresh so it's not just the same grunts you're shooting over and over
again there are larger enemies that offer large kind of blasts type attacks
snipers up close and personal enemies large big honkers walking minions all
sorts of varied enemy types that kind of push the player to change up their
strategy a little bit maybe push them out of cover or have them sit back into
cover and take potshots from a distance they vary a lot of different ways to
approach these varied enemies which tries to keep the gameplay and the
levels fairly interesting the biotics tech and combat kind of trio combination
with you and your your two squad mates as you vote on adventures it's a pretty
solid base to build gameplay from making you make choices about who you bring
with you based on your playstyle and whatever complements your style the best
sometimes different situations are going to call for a different type of attack
which means you could tailor your squad based on what you expect is upcoming if
you know that there's a lot of biotic enemies coming up then perhaps you can
bring your tech buddies with you to take out their shields and barriers and then
use your combat to finish them off you have those types of choices even if a
little bit minorly but they do exist in the game and are pretty satisfying when
it pays off the way you intended it to the weapons upgrades and commerce kind
of systems all the loot based and kind of the purchasing of stuff is not a
strong point in this game it's very hard and non user-friendly to use the
upgrades to your weapons and to your armor it's tough to distinguish what you
have there's these huge lists you often have do play
Kitson you've got to kind of to sub between your your new different
teammates and take one off one and give it to the other it takes a while you
gotta take it off and give them a new one switch over into
the new menu and go over just a little bit tough time consuming for what is
seemingly kind of a simple operation and as well the commerce system by the time
you're kind of at least halfway or three-quarters through the game you have
a shitload of money and not a lot of stuff to buy with it so it kind of makes
you curious well why do I have money what is there to buy do I buy cool
weapons but I'm picking them up as I go do I sell I have tons of money because
I've done all these quests it's it's seemingly pointless why they included
some of that stuff in the game in the current state that it is the character
progression system however is a favorite of mine not necessarily the strongest
part of the game but does give you options of which types of things to
pursue in level up your character that do make you incrementally stronger as
you level up if you do more side missions you'll get more experience and
you can level up things like your weapon damage your power damage your cooldown
time and unlock specialties and new things by using this progression system
if you do more side missions you will become stronger and that much more ready
to fight the stronger challenges later in the game but the game is still
completable even if you just do the bare bones and don't explore everything this
kind of gives a reason to explore and do the side missions meaning you can soup
up your character and explore the other avenues for example you can unlock
proficiencies and other weapons or different new powers that you can lock
by upgrading a different power this allows you to kind of give out a reason
for going out and pursuing more experience in more missions yeah one of
the main critiques that I hear about Mass Effect is that it had a pretty
decent start with that first mission where you come down and there's a lot of
combat you get a bit of story mixed in there it's pretty well balanced
but then it's followed by a lengthy just run and talk section at the Citadel one
you kind of enter an hour just talking to everybody there's a bit of combat in
there but for the most part answers can be running around this large area that
you know know much about just talking to people
the story in Mass Effect has some of real strong points there's it's an
interesting world an interesting concept humans have entered the Galactic space
and learned inter Gallic inter solar system travel and light faster than
light travel and we've entered kind of the Galactic political scene there's all
these races who you get to know different intricacies of their race and
culture that all the new tackett's it's a very interesting setting for a quality
story as well there are varied and interesting characters your squadmates
other characters that you mean along the way with their own strengths and
weaknesses often in games like this you'll see a lot of characters who are
just kind of based on their strengths and what they're good at which ends up
being very surface level in Mass Effect what I really appreciated was a lot of
these characters they played on both their strengths and their weaknesses so
that they seemed a little bit more relatable and and much more interesting
to get to know there are huge moments sad moments funny moments interesting
moments sexy moments awkward moments all sorts of varied moments that are big and
feel great in Mass Effect and just draw you in and really charm you and immerse
you in this world
your characters goals are clear and the stakes are very high making everything
that you do feel like it has some relevant context to the story not just
doing pointless random things some of the side missions can't feel that way
but all of the story missions have that tone of this is epic this needs to be
done I'm being counted on the world the galaxy is at stake and this must get
done creating a a really epic story these are a real quality piece about
this story's that there's a various choices for you to make throughout your
journey as Commander Shepard that start to form Shepards personality and the
different things that have happened in the history which makes you feel like
you're developing your Shepard that this isn't just some random character you're
playing and making a bunch of random decisions for them it starts to feel
like you are playing the part of this character and it's unique to you I've
talked to a lot of people who've also played this game and we discussed the
different choices we made and the different dialogue things that we said
and it ended up feeling like we were playing as two different characters when
they were really both Commander Shepard which i think is something quite special
that's hard to really capture when you make story based games like this the
level designs where your missions will take place I think are fairly well done
there's ample cover for you to hide behind and and different objects strewn
throughout the world that are are based on where they take place whether it's
debris or different you know tables - whatever it is it makes sense given the
context but the combat areas are very clearly laid out so even if you don't
see the enemies you kind of get the feeling that maybe some combats gonna
start soon so you are on guard and you're never really surprised by an
enemy attack or ambush when and that can get kind of frustrating oftentimes in
these missions I noted that there's sort of a bit of a circular / linear level
design to some of these levels you progress through the area as you go all
kind of on a linear path through to reach your final destination whether
you're infiltrating a base to get access to something but the game always says
you kind of exit and circle back through a small section of the level where often
and for story purposes something has changed either
something's been destroyed something leaves or an enemy or a boss shows up
having through a familiar part of the level
with a new twist which i think is a really creative way to reuse various
level spaces that they've drawn up but also kind of help players familiarity
with with the area not get lost oh I've already been through here so I know I'm
going back out it's very clear and I think the level design definitely serves
navigation and at some big story moments I think compared to the combat and
mission areas I think the story areas are a little bit less elegant and like
for example the Citadel is really sprawled out everything is very far away
it takes a little bit of time to run between these spaces yeah there's the
fast travel but if you don't know what you're doing and haven't spent a lot of
time there it's a little bit easy to get lost and with all the different names
and new things that are thrown at you at once that early in the game it's a
little bit of a jarring experience I'm not sure where to go maybe there's some
side quests here but I'm a little bit a little bit overwhelmed potentially so
and some of the other stories in the game I think are a little bit less
eloquently drawn out and more just a place to place NPCs and quest markers
rather than kind of the artistic in and interesting design ways that they've
laid out the combat areas it's no secret that the presentation and Mass Effect
has not aged well the graphics not aged well and could really use an update
would love to see a Mass Effect trilogy revamped or remastered that would be
awesome because I would love to see this game over again with the high fidelity
and HD graphics unfortunately the current version the older version leaves
a lot to be desired it's pretty grainy some of the lighting effects don't
really work that well on PC there's some areas where you get glitched and you
gonna have to do some console commands to kind of avoid some of the strange
lighting effects voice and and facial animations seem to work well for the
time and the voice acting is very well done with some with some quality voice
actors who really help to draw you and invest you in those characters as well
there's a phenomenal soundtrack in Mass Effect one of the most memorable
soundtracks of in any game I've played it's got this weird kind of space sci-fi
vibe that really draws you in it's kind kind of got a curious feel to it and
often in the in the right context is some descent songs that play and make
you really want to dance hey you wanna dance me no no all right
overall Mass Effect is one of my personal favorite games and I love the
series as a whole the first edition was kind of a solid entry at more of an art
action RPG than some of the some of its predecessors but I think it did leave a
lot to be desired and some of the things and issues that happen in this game they
did address and change up in later editions of the game but here if you
were to go back and play Mass Effect there are some things that can be a
little bit frustrating but overall I think given the solid 3rd person shooter
mechanics and the real quality storytelling and immersion and the the
whole presentation of Mass Effect is is one that is really well done and I hope
will stand the test of time so for that reason my final verdict for Mass Effect
is an eight out of ten it's a great game I would love to give this game a 10 out
of 10 it's one of my favorite series I usually replay it every few years and
and have a blast doing it every time that's good for laughs emotion lots of
fun quality gameplay but for all the things that I look back and look
critically at it does pull it back a little bit it doesn't leave room for
improvement which the company did with some of the sequels well that's it for
Mass Effect thank you guys for watching the video and staying all through the
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Mass Effect Review