Mass Effect

I actually recall when this series of games came out in the late 2000s and early 2010s. I was oddly hyped for them even though I had no intentions of playing them. I must have been hyped on behalf of gamers somehow. Perhaps I read it in a magazine or watched a commercial and fell for the marketing. What I garnered was that Mass Effect is supposed to be a more action oriented version of Knights of the Old Republic. Now, I did play the first KOTOR back in the day. While I did have quite a bit of fun, I was disappointed that the real time combat didn't exactly feel like real time combat. I was confused exactly how it functioned and how turns where determined. Luckily, it's not important to understand how each turn is determined. You could easily just select your actions and hack away at enemies.

Real Time Combat

I've digressed. The action in Mass Effect is indeed action oriented. There are no turns and there are no lightsabers. In fact, you don't use melee weapons at all. You just blast plasma into bad guys with a variety of weapons. You also have access to specific powers depending on the members of your three party team. Some members are experts in electronics, hacking, combat, force-like physical manipulation, and other specific talents. Somewhere along the way, I'm suppose to pay close attention to who I have as my squad, what talents they possess, and how to use them to their full potential. I suspect that's a problem to solve for a higher difficulty since I only played on medium (typical) and based my squad selection on who I thought was cool at the time.

Overall, the combat is straight ahead third person shooter with the option to take cover behind walls or barriers. Moving around can be a bit sticky as taking cover is automatic upon running up to a barrier. There was also a few instances where my character got stuck. Basically, movement wasn't always smooth, but for the most part, it was good. Only rarely was I frustrated with the controls.

Typical but Entertaining Story

The story follows Commander Shepherd, a soldier in charge of the Normandy, a space ship. A human colony is attacked by a race of robots being lead by Saren, another high ranking soldier that betrayed the alliance of the various races in the galaxy. Your first job is to expose Saren's betrayal to the council. Upon doing so, it becomes your mission to hunt down and execute Saren. It is later revealed that Saren's motivation is to serve the Reapers, an ancient race of super-machines, in their quest to exterminate organic life forms.

This story is straight out of an old sci-fi flick. I do appreciate it, but it's not something that's particularly engrossing. If this where a movie, it would be something you watch once, maybe twice, and think to yourself "That was cool!", and then put it out of your mind until it appears randomly on TV or similary viewing channels.

Sidequesting

I only completed a handful of the sidequests. Most of them involved navigating to a specific planet, killing a bunch of hostiles, and retrieving an artifact. Basically, a bunch of fetch quests. Some of them did have a vaguely interesting sub-plot, but not enough to keep me engage and definitely not enough to spurn me to complete more sidequests.

Finale

This game feels outdated yet comfortable at the same time. I think the reason for that is how the story ended. It was left wide open for sequel. So, it feels as if this entire game is a proof of concept of source. It's like a pilot episode that gets released to the public in order to test the reaction. If the reaction is positive enough, more episodes and sequels are greenlit and released. Now, I remember this game receiving quite a lot of attention back in the day. I also distinctly remember Mass Effect 2 receiving much higher praise and is often touted as the best of the trilogy. I will definitely be playing that at some point.