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Review: Mass Effect
Oct. 12th, 2008 04:43 pmI just finished the computer game Mass Effect. It was actually very good; if you like sci-fi RPGs, I strongly recommend it -- it's the best one since Knights of the Old Republic, which was also excellent.
One thing I really liked about the game was that this was the most fully-realized hard-SF world I've ever seen in a game that wasn't just taken from some other source (e.g. a franchise like Star Wars.) There was a large, detailed galaxy with a rich history in which humans had a significant but not paramount role -- it struck a balance between the "everyone is vastly more powerful than us" world of transhumanist sci-fi and the "humans, inexplicably, have far better technology than all the other alien races" world of Star Trek. Humanity had a role to play, but was not in control, either. It did trot out the usual sci-fi trope of "and there is this ancient, forgotten race called the Protheans who had vastly greater technology than all of us, but they mysteriously died out," which I've only seen a thousand times (Privateer, Star Control II, etc.), but it went somewhere very different with it that turned out to be quite interesting, contrary to my early expectation. There are a dozen alien races with interesting histories, and the game is fond of throwing moral dilemmas your way because of them: in several cases, the solution to a problem has gone on to create an even worse problem, and doing the "right thing" may have negative consequences. Also, there is a constant conflict between whether, as a human who works for the (non-human) Galactic Council you should do the right thing for humanity -- or the right thing for everyone, even if that harms humanity.
All the game's technology is predicated on the discovery of a new particle they nickname "element zero." When exposed to various radiation, this substance generates a field called "mass effect," which can raise or lower the mass of objects while they conserve velocity (not momentum.) This has a host of uses -- the Mako battle tank can drive up nearly-sheer surfaces and fall hundreds of feet without damage, since it's a tank with the mass of a beach ball. The problem of carrying enough fuel for maneuvering in space is nullified by reducing the mass of the ship whenever you want to accelerate. Kinetic barriers (force fields) work by nullifying the mass of incoming projectiles so they just bounce off you. Railguns can achieve phenomenal projectile speeds by reducing the mass of the projectile until it leaves the railgun. And FTL travel is made possible by this effect as well, though really fast travel requires flying your ship up to a huge concentration of the element (like a sphere a few hundred meters in diameter), so it tends to be point-to-point from established stations.
Combat is real-time and 3D shooter style, but based on an RPG stats system in the background, and with the ability to pause at any time to give orders to your squad, so it requires some dexterity without being "twitchy." Some people have complained about the learning curve, but I didn't think it was bad at all. The game has a lot of variety -- combat sequences, a lot of exploring & talking to people, and vehicle sections (your ship can airdrop a small tank called the Mako which you can use to explore planets.) The variety keeps anything from getting boring. There's a pretty big world to explore and a lot of side quests -- if you just did the main plot, straight through, the game would be very short. However, I did every side quest available, and while the game wasn't Morrowind-sized or anything, I was satisfied with it. Though doing it that way meant my party was absurdly overpowered by the end of the game, and defeated the end boss with barely an injury. You play with a party of 3 -- yourself and 2 others chosen from 7 people you accumulate through the game. At first it's tempting to bring combat-oriented characters all the time, to make battle easier, but as the game progresses, if your main character is very combat-oriented you get to the point where you can practically handle that yourself, and you need others for hacking computers and picking locks and such. Also, the biotic characters (a kind of psionic powers) start out weak but can become insanely powerful by the end -- in the late game, Liara could walk into a room full of enemies and have some stapled to the ceiling, others juggling around in psychokinetic winds, some smashed into the walls, etc., all at once. I didn't need help in combat anymore, because with Liara around combat was basically shooting fish in a barrel.
Overall, if you like sci-fi RPGs, especially KotOR, it's well worth picking up. It's a good 20-30 hours of fun.
One thing I really liked about the game was that this was the most fully-realized hard-SF world I've ever seen in a game that wasn't just taken from some other source (e.g. a franchise like Star Wars.) There was a large, detailed galaxy with a rich history in which humans had a significant but not paramount role -- it struck a balance between the "everyone is vastly more powerful than us" world of transhumanist sci-fi and the "humans, inexplicably, have far better technology than all the other alien races" world of Star Trek. Humanity had a role to play, but was not in control, either. It did trot out the usual sci-fi trope of "and there is this ancient, forgotten race called the Protheans who had vastly greater technology than all of us, but they mysteriously died out," which I've only seen a thousand times (Privateer, Star Control II, etc.), but it went somewhere very different with it that turned out to be quite interesting, contrary to my early expectation. There are a dozen alien races with interesting histories, and the game is fond of throwing moral dilemmas your way because of them: in several cases, the solution to a problem has gone on to create an even worse problem, and doing the "right thing" may have negative consequences. Also, there is a constant conflict between whether, as a human who works for the (non-human) Galactic Council you should do the right thing for humanity -- or the right thing for everyone, even if that harms humanity.
All the game's technology is predicated on the discovery of a new particle they nickname "element zero." When exposed to various radiation, this substance generates a field called "mass effect," which can raise or lower the mass of objects while they conserve velocity (not momentum.) This has a host of uses -- the Mako battle tank can drive up nearly-sheer surfaces and fall hundreds of feet without damage, since it's a tank with the mass of a beach ball. The problem of carrying enough fuel for maneuvering in space is nullified by reducing the mass of the ship whenever you want to accelerate. Kinetic barriers (force fields) work by nullifying the mass of incoming projectiles so they just bounce off you. Railguns can achieve phenomenal projectile speeds by reducing the mass of the projectile until it leaves the railgun. And FTL travel is made possible by this effect as well, though really fast travel requires flying your ship up to a huge concentration of the element (like a sphere a few hundred meters in diameter), so it tends to be point-to-point from established stations.
Combat is real-time and 3D shooter style, but based on an RPG stats system in the background, and with the ability to pause at any time to give orders to your squad, so it requires some dexterity without being "twitchy." Some people have complained about the learning curve, but I didn't think it was bad at all. The game has a lot of variety -- combat sequences, a lot of exploring & talking to people, and vehicle sections (your ship can airdrop a small tank called the Mako which you can use to explore planets.) The variety keeps anything from getting boring. There's a pretty big world to explore and a lot of side quests -- if you just did the main plot, straight through, the game would be very short. However, I did every side quest available, and while the game wasn't Morrowind-sized or anything, I was satisfied with it. Though doing it that way meant my party was absurdly overpowered by the end of the game, and defeated the end boss with barely an injury. You play with a party of 3 -- yourself and 2 others chosen from 7 people you accumulate through the game. At first it's tempting to bring combat-oriented characters all the time, to make battle easier, but as the game progresses, if your main character is very combat-oriented you get to the point where you can practically handle that yourself, and you need others for hacking computers and picking locks and such. Also, the biotic characters (a kind of psionic powers) start out weak but can become insanely powerful by the end -- in the late game, Liara could walk into a room full of enemies and have some stapled to the ceiling, others juggling around in psychokinetic winds, some smashed into the walls, etc., all at once. I didn't need help in combat anymore, because with Liara around combat was basically shooting fish in a barrel.
Overall, if you like sci-fi RPGs, especially KotOR, it's well worth picking up. It's a good 20-30 hours of fun.
