Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
BioWare reaches for the stars, again.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 4
Once you're there, though, things take a turn for the exhilarating. There's a moment in most RPGs when your character reaches a certain threshold of power where big battles are still challenging, but strategic acuity affords you spectacular means to overcome them. In
Mass Effect, this moment is expressed in myriad ways: using the biotic ability "lift" to levitate a horde of attackers and pick them off with small weapons fire while they float helplessly; or hacking a 10-foot robotic walker in order to turn it on its allies. You definitely get access to some sensational abilities once you reach the higher levels in
Mass Effect, and the best encounters in the game force you to utilize them expertly and efficiently. At times like this, the real-time nature of the combat turns from a nagging liability into an immense asset, as it forces you to be mindful of what's going on in a battle, lest your enemies gain an inch when they catch you slipping. Given that the enemies' levels scale relative to your own, sometimes that inch is all they need.
When you're actively pursuing the game's main story thread, every battle you fight has an immediate, imperative context. Things never feel quite linear, however; once the story starts in earnest, you're given a few choices as to where to go. If you decide to experience
Mass Effect this way, you're allowing yourself to be propelled to its shocking endgame without needlessly fragmenting the experience. But given how frequently the various players in the cast try to sidetrack you, you'll probably give in.
Unfortunately, the farther you veer from the critical path, the more trivial things start to feel. Most of the side-quests feel woefully underdeveloped compared to scenarios that comprise the main story. Some will start out strong and putter into prosaic bunker-clearing-runs once you touch down on the planet where they're set. Many of these will trick you into thinking there will be a big, satisfying payoff once all is said and done, only to leave you with a sterile pop-up message of congratulations that someone must have put in as an afterthought. The best side-quests are the ones that manage to transcend this dull formula by incorporating some of the game's best elements -- like its amazing dialogue sequences. Unfortunately, these are few and far between.
It's too bad that the game's exploration elements largely focus on these sorts of side-quests. You can access a beautiful galaxy map from the navigation deck of the Normandy, and spending a few minutes plotting points through it reveals a staggering array or clusters and systems that are just begging to be explored. Relatively few planets, however, are available to land on, and apart from those where the main quest takes place, they're all pretty barren and lifeless, haphazardly populated by remote bunkers, mineral nodes, and a whole lot of (admittedly valuable) space garbage. If nothing else, however, these side-treks will allow you to collect scads of powerful loot, as well as experience points to inch you toward those supremelypowerful abilities.
You get to pilot an impressive-looking six-wheeled rover when the situation calls for you to touch down planetside. Apart from its ability to defy gravity by vertically traversing walls, the so-called Mako is equipped with heavy weaponry that is typically more than suitable for taking out the various foot patrols and encampments you'll encounter on these remote worlds. Again, the best Mako sequences are the ones that are integral to the story; all the rest are pretty forgettable. Even in the best cases, though, the rover is a bit of hassle to control -- three-point turns are sometimes a bit too much to ask of it, which can mean a lonely death on a backwater planet during tactically sensitive situations.
