Mass Effect (Classics) reviews

At first glance, the Mass Effect is a typical Sci-Fi RPG blockbuster: the storyline is superbly written, the dialogue is well delivered, there are plenty of planet-exploring side quest shenanigans to take part in, and the graphics are just about the best I have seen from the Unreal 3 engine thus far, complete with astonishingly high resolution textures and effects made possible only by the sheer grunt of today's PC's.

What Mass Effect does differently is that it takes all this KoTOR-esque RPG goodness and combines it seamlessly with a equally awesome (if under used) combat system that employs a ‘cover & shoot’ mechanic similar to that found in dedicated shooters like Rainbow Six Vegas and Gears of War. That your effectiveness in combat is still effected by not only your own skill with a mouse, but your equipped weapon, upgrades, ammo and your experience level with said weapon makes the combat system almost as deep as the role-playing aspect, which is very deep indeed.

Like any ambitious game, Mass Effect isn't perfect: there are the occasional weapon overheating and loss of mouse control bugs, the odd side quest doesn't trigger properly and there are few quirks in the friendly and enemy AI, but Bioware is already working on a patch that is likely to fix most, if not all of these relatively minor shortcomings. Gameplay wise the game was a bit on the short side (around 20 hours) dialogue can drag on at times and I felt that the brilliant combat system wasn't used as often as it could have been, but hey – this is an RPG, right?

In short, if you like Bioware's past efforts, or just well-written Sci-Fi storytelling, then this game is well worth the purchase.

There's a lot to like about Mass Effect. The fun combat, the gripping plot, the awesome cinematics…the list goes on. This really is Bioware doing what they do best, a game which isn't just a whole heap of fun but is deep too.

The combat uses a cover based system, similar to Gears of War, so when you walk up to a wall your character pushes him/herself against the wall and leans round the corner to fire. This work really well and along with your team's abilities stops the combat getting tedious. You can pause at any time to give orders to your team mates which you'll want to do, as your AI friends have a tendency to not notice rockets headed straight for them.

The plot is fantastic. I won't give any spoilers about the plot itself, but I will praise the way in which it is told. Bioware have really outdone themselves with a smooth conversation system which lets you choose dialogue choices before the previous character has finished speaking, which creates a flow which feels natural without rushing you into decisions.

This is one of those games which you could niggle at it until it falls apart, but I'm not going to. The only major faults are the bad inventory interface (which throws hundreds of items at you and then expects you sort out the resulting mess) and the blandness of the uncharted worlds not related to the main plot, but again these are niggles. Buy this game now.

Note: Complaints of long elevator rides can be explained by the games readme. These extended rides are loading screens, which are made obsolete by the PCs faster loading times, which couldn't be shortened because of the conversations which often occur during them.

Mass Effect is one of the best space rpg of all time, the game play is solid, enviroments look great and the dialogue and story are superb. The game's main story is not very long and it can be completed in about 4 to 6 hours depending if you get suck on certan parts of the story, but the game also has a ton of side quest that help the story along.

These side quests can be given to you in ways that you dont relise that your getting them, for example the elevator rides have news messages that act as information for new missions. the biggest down side is the fact that the uncharted world exploration is not use as mutch as it could for missons and since there is so many worlds that you could explore it just seems very point less.

The games combat mechanic plays out diffrently to other bioware games, in Mass Effect its more of a realtime third person shooter with a slight touch of stratagy throne in to the mix, this system can be frustrating at times cause you are to fused on what you are doing to look after your team mates some times during epic battles, this really brings the game down, but otherwise its normaly realy good fun. This is a game worth getting just for the story alone, but apart from a few down side which will hopefuly fixed in the next game.

Inconclusion if you liked kotor ( knights of the old republic ) or any of bioware's other games you will definately enjoy this game alot for its price.

Mass Effect is set in the year 2183, you take control of Commander Shepard (male or female) and embark on your adventure.

Good Points: Very well done putting FPS into an RPG game, it's not based nessessarily on how well you can aim, but on the tactics you put into place in the fighting

Brilliant cinematics with you making choices on what you say, which makes a difference to your character Charm and Intimidate skills.

Amazing in depth storyline that will keep you entitained through your experience.

Bad Point: It takes a while to really get into the game and do much fighting. (but thats nothing to really complain about)

Conclusion: All in all a brilliant game which should be a must buy for anyone who loves RPG games.

Mass Effect is planned to be a trilogy of games, with Mass Effect 2 already in the making.

One of the best games to come out in recent years. great story and replay value.excelent graphics though you will need a high end computer to run it maxed out like I do.

Has a Much Better interface than the Xbox 360 counterpart. Dont get me wrong the 360 version is perfectly fine I just think the layout of the pc version just does a better job.

If you like RPG's and you like 3rd person shooters you will love this game. It is so immersive every time I play it I felt a connection to the characters and the story. It is beautifully designed the characters the story and graphics are all perfect. I have so far played the first and the second have probably clocked over 100 hours and am still wanting more it is the most personal game I have ever played can not wait for the third. THIS IS A MUST HAVE FOR EVERYONE

Great game, but currently has issues with the newer Nvidia graphics drivers. (Check the Bioware forums). I had to “hard reset” my PC after each crash, with an hour or so between crashes. Also a few graphics and sound glitches. A new patch is in development.

Has a few improvements in UI over the Xbox, combat is a little easier with mouse and keyboard. Inventory is a little easier to manage, and a tutorial was added into the first mission.

This game is awesome. No doubt about it. Its made by the same people who bought us Star Wars KOTOR, so you know it has to be good. The controls take a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, its really good fun. The vehicle controls with have you screaming with frustration, as going over bumps can get you really turned around. The universe is massive, however, there are only a few worlds that you can land on – the rest you can just survey.

Now for the bugs – this game crashes about once every couple of hours. It usually requires a restart to fix it. The latest patch (review wrote 11 March, 2009) does not fix them.

As an RPG, it is great. You don't need to go out of your way to score some xp to gain that elusive skill you've been waiting for. You gain a level basically hourly. It's also a pretty good FPS.

In summary, a great game, if you have the patience for the bugs.

I'm not much of an RPG fan,but after playing the Witcher and loving it,decided to give this very hyped game a go and personally found it one of the most frustrating games I've played,from the clunky combat controls to the annoying team mates who follow you around doing nothing except getting killed,can't say I ever worked out the inventory and upgrade mechanics.....maybe I'm just too dense for this game. You go into a lift [which there's a lot of]and it takes a painful amount of time for it to reach the level its going to,the map system is blah,every time you die you have to endure a little mini movie of a camera panning around your dead body while some very annoying music plays,its like they made every bit of this game take as long as it possibly can

The actual storyline of this game is great.....its just the way its executed that I have a problem with,plus it has a fair few bugs in it to boot.

To me this could have been a great game,if they hadn't made it soo annoying

To get this to launch correctly you need to download and install the v1.2 patch.

If it still doesn't launch, then right click on the Mass Effect desktop icon and check the box to run in SP3 compatibility mode and run as administrator.

If you still have issues, check the following link:

http://answers.ea.com/…/m-p/1435670#…

No matter how many times my friends told me to try this game for some reason I never would, until now! I simply can't believe I passed over this game. The storyline is exceptionally well written, the combat system is brilliant, and even though the game is old the graphics are still keeping up with newer games. In addition the replay value is excellent as there are so many different choices to make and many possible outcomes. Be sure to not pass this game over like I did! You won't regret it.

Good game if one wants to go back to the roots of the series. Plays well and will always have an interesting line to it.

I allways love a game with a great story and mass effects got that ass well as so many different paths to take its hard to play the same way twice

Fun SciFi RPG with the same basic ideas of mage-warrior-rogue in a SciFi setting with space-ships, stations and planets. Great Story and fun game-play, highly recommend.

If running windows 7 you will most likely need a patch (see biowares site) to be able to run, once installed the game ran perfect.

Mass Effect is one of the best RPGs of the decade, and deserves a place on any gamer's shelf. However, you will have to fight your way through a bevy of minor technical errors, and LONG ELEVATOR RIDES. But fight through them you shall, because the game is just that good.

Not all that great to be honest, but I didn't play this till after ME2 (ME2 is so much better). Got this from MA on a good special, so I figured I'd play it to get the backstory, and also get the chance to import a ME1 character to ME2. Bring on ME3!!

I started with ME2, which is one of my favourite games. Regressing to 1 was a must due to the massively involving storyline.

Skill selection is highly important as you can not select all of them. However when it comes to the FPS side of the game, it is slightly lacking. Accuracy is only attained if you specialise in a weapon which limits your weapon selection greatly. I feel ME2 found the perfect balance with this.

But overall due to the brilliant storyline and almost great FPSRPG balance I'd recommend this series to everyone.

Fantastic Story. Graphics still hold up well even though its starting to age. The voice acting is really good. It's like ‘Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic’ but I love that fight scenes are first person and real time (not cuing up moves like KOTOR)

The main downside for me would be the way the ‘Journal’ is structured. I found it a little confusing to know what to focus on and where to go.

But generally it's a fantastic game, with a real original flavor to it. I can't wait to play the second one, as I've heard it's even better.

I recently purchased Mass Effect after all the hype about Mass Effect 2. I can't believe I didn't get this game earlier! It's a fantastic game. Outstanding story (typical Bioware goodness), decent gameplay and good graphics. I couldn't believe I was playing a three year old game – Mass Effect is pure gold. Make sure you pick this up with Mass Effect 2 from MightyApe :D

If you've played the KOTOR series and liked them, then you'll love this game. When you combine great gameplay, an intriguing storyline and likable characters you really can't go wrong.

Go get it!

Definitely worth playing if you're considering buying ME2. However wait till the price drops below $25ish again. Great storyline, great ideas. It's biggest strength is the ability to change the story/direction of the game based on your choices. But it's showing it's age already with poor AI, average graphics (the PC version looks about the same as the Xbox version – bit disappointing). You can currently buy this on Steam for far cheaper.

As I slowly work my way through the game it always finds ways to surprise me time and time again – and to top it all off the added feature of what you do in this game effecting the next game in the series is truly an amazing feat by Bioware that just makes the game so much better and personal at the same time

Yet Another Success From Bioware And Electronic Arts Fast Passed action with you controlling how your character turns out, whether It Be By The Books Or A Rebel

Being a fan of PC RPGs and Bioware I had high expectations for Mass Effect, and I did not go away disappointed – I found it a worthy spiritual successor of sorts to Knights of the Old Republic. The game mechanics are a good hybrid of third-person shooter and RPG elements.

The reason it does not get 5 stars is length: the actual story component of the game can be knocked over relatively quickly, and the optional sidequests are extremely repetitive – surveying a planet and tearing around on the surface is interesting for the first couple of times, but the re-using of the same tilesets starts to really drag.

Overall worth every penny and a worthy addition to the Bioware pantheon.

Loved the film grain filter. Really made it feel like an interactive movie. The story was great. The generic planet landings get a bit repetitive but all the plot related missions are great. Had a few issues with it crashing but I think it was more Vista's fault than the game. Can't wait for the sequel.

This is a pretty good game and there is loads of content. Initially it seemed a bit confusing and I was unsure of how well the combat system would pan out. However after sticking with the game I found it really stands out as a great sci-fi RPG! The sound is amazing, especially on my 7.1 system. I also got the free downloadable content and have found that to be quite a neat bonus.

The story line is good up until the last mission. This is unfortunately very typical of games with a story line, including Crysis, where the last missions seems like the producers are sick of making the game, so they want to make it end as soon as possible. Game play wise, this game requires some thinking, and it's very involving. Also, idea of having 2 other characters backing you up is good, as you won't feel lonely!

Graphix is interesting, and doesn't require a powerful computer to look good, which is a bonus. One thing that bothers me is the amount of time you spent on escalators. One website has called this an “Escalator Simulator” and in many ways, I have to agree! Online will also be welcome!

Great game, awesome story line with some cool characters, good graphics and a nice RPG feeling to it, if you loved knights of the old republic you will love this too. However there are some technical issues on PC for some nvidia cards, i found reverting back to older drivers helped. but i loved this game and if your computers powerful enough go buy it!