Mass Effect (Xbox 360)

BioWare reaches for the stars, again.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 3 of 4

Vague, looming threats factor heavily into Mass Effect's story. After a botched covert operation on behalf of the Normandy's crew at the story's outset (not to mention some particularly aggravating red tape courtesy of the interspecies Galactic Council), you discover that a Council operative named Saren is up to some pretty heavy stuff involving a fanatical Artificial Intelligence (AI) army; ancient, nigh-mythic alien technology; and an unfathomably powerful starship. From a human's perspective, the Saren situation brings with it some serious baggage. First, he's a Turian, which happens to be the alien species of which humanity ran afoul the moment it stepped out of its home solar system. Secondly, he's a member of the Spectres, the Council's covert ops arm, and an elusive organization that's thus far excluded humans from its ranks. They're also more or less autonomous, and seldom held accountable for their actions by the Council, which leads to a whole lot of plausible deniability before Shepard is actually empowered to chase him down and stop whatever unspecified apocalypse he has planned for galactic civilization.

But in spite the magnitude of his designs, Saren is largely absent throughout the proceedings; his name is vilified by every other significant character you meet, but your actual encounters with him are fleeting. Instead, Mass Effect focuses on narrative minutiae to engage you in its world, loosing the spigot on transitory information about the colorful characters you meet, and particularly those in your employ. A Codex is even built into the game's menu system that catalogues the often overwhelming barrage of information that's embedded into seemingly every computer console and instrument panel with which you interact in the world. Perhaps this focus on embellishing worlds in this manner instead of telling stories in the ways to which we're accustomed will give games a new narrative competency.

You've probably guessed as much by now, but Mass Effect is essentially space opera at its most grandiose. And while it's often difficult to get into the beat of the story, given its fragmented exposition and how hard the game tries to distract you from it, one can't deny just how impressive the whole presentation is. Mass Effect has essentially set the high benchmark for in-game voice acting, in terms of both quality and comprehensiveness. As you'd expect from a BioWare game, many of the characters you encounter during your galactic jaunt have a whole lot to say. What might surprise you, however, is how exhaustive the voice work is. Every line is spoken, and in most cases, it all sounds great. Facial expressions are nuanced and naturalistic, and even when the content of the lines isn't terribly compelling, the quality of the delivery will often fool you into caring.

The mechanics of conversation are an appreciable step ahead of BioWare's dialogue trees of yore. Rather than transcribing thoroughly every possible response you can give during a conversation sequence, the individual dialogue branches simply convey the tone of your options. As you play the game, you'll learn that the topmost branches tend to lean toward cooperative, generous replies; the ones on the bottom, meanwhile, usually entail a more ruthless approach. If you want expository information, the branches on the left will give you them, while the ones on the right will drive you closer to resolution. The way the system is set up truly succeeds at encouraging you to role-play via your gut instincts, rather than pore over every possible reply in hopes of effecting the most desirable outcome. The fact that the game's alignment choices -- in Mass Effect's case, whether your character is seen as a paragon of the human race or a renegade intent on finishing the mission by any means necessary -- don't constitute a zero-sum game similarly fosters this kind of dynamic approach to role-playing. The result is an RPG that's truly satisfying beyond its hard game mechanics.