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I'm going to try and not spoil anything with this review.
BioWare hyped up Mass Effect pretty well, and as a result everyone expected a Game of the Year candidate. I don't think it is.
I've spent hundreds of hours playing BioWare games, including MDK2, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire. Aside from MDK2, BioWare has found a niche in the third-person RPG segment and had dominated it up until the MMORPG explosion (WarCraft, Guild Wars, etc.).
There is a very linear relationship between NWN to KOTOR to Jade Empire to Mass Effect. Each game is built on the same mechanics, with the player stapled to the ground and forced down a narrow exploration path. The fighting mechanics have oscillated between turn-based (with NWN and KOTOR) and real-time (JE and ME), with neither system reaching the correct balance. Camera work for their series of games has been an issue and still is, but they have refined it to the point where it isn't a constant problem as it is with some other games.
The core of BioWare's gaming empire is storytelling. Their character design, dialogue, and story arcs are among the best in the business. KOTOR is an exceptionally strong story and that is the main reason it is still the crown jewel in BioWare's collection.
In a way I blame KOTOR for the failings of the games that came after it, including Jade Empire and Mass Effect. Both of those newer games are almost totally similar to KOTOR, sometimes in a good way but often in a bad way.
The gameplay, outside of combat mechanics, is a carbon copy of KOTOR. It has the same same kinds of force powers and skills with the same energy bars and skill point levels, the same kinds of proficiencies and character classes, the same good-neutral-evil dialog options, the same open-ended galaxy maps (in which you can choose the path you take to complete the game but the results vary only slightly), the same three-person party system with the same style of switching people in and out, the same 'keep talking to this NPC each time you level up to see when new conversation options come up', etc., etc..
Mass Effect doesn't quite understand itself, it seems. It is set in a future where humans have discovered an alien technology and used it to advance their civilization, eventually running into the other races of the systems within the galaxy. But in a remarkably similar fashion you're going to encounter an evil race of sentient droids (er... geth) led by a sorcerer with unnatural powers of persuasion. A strict sci-fi adventure would've prevented BioWare from using force powers/biotics so they went half-way between Star Trek and Star Wars instead, creating their own 'force' and, likewise, 'force sensitive' races and people. Honestly, it feels shoehorned into the game and you can go the distance with just a gun anyways.
One of the new elements they added to the game was driving. As you explore various worlds you'll be dropped-off in a six-wheeled tank you'll use to travel to the different parts of the very small and scarcely detailed world maps. The driving is borderline broken. The map makers decided to include small peaked mountains on virtually every planet and crossing them is excruciating. Almost as if they knew it wasn't working, they included booster jets on your tank that allow you to pop up about fifty feet to clear some obstacles--but if you aren't on flat ground, you'll wind up popping off the side of the mountain and drifting back down to the bottom, entirely defeating the purpose of the boost in the first place. Add to that they decided to forgo the Halo-style double analog stick point-and-drive style for their own forward-is-go method which is tricky even after you've done it for hours.
What adds to the frustration of the driving system is that 90% of the locations you'll arrive at are identical cookie-cutter buildings. The lack of map variation is embarrassing. It seems to me like in their rush to allow the player to travel to "so many worlds!" they lost their attention to detail. One visually interesting and large map is worth an infinite number of small, plain, identical maps. The game encourages you to visit every location by putting items, artifacts, and natural resources on each planet and giving you quests to retrieve them all. On your second play through the game I doubt you'll be bothering.
Another issue with the game is the treasure and equipment element. The game uses treasure chests to encourage you to explore every corner of a map. The issue with it is that treasure always comes in the form of equipment and upgrades, and after a while you start to have an enormous inventory of duplicate and triplicate items, even after you've spread out the good stuff among your party. As you collect equipment you can sell it to a merchant for credits and buy better items, but they are few and far between. By the end of the game (in my first go-round) I was a multi-millionaire with nothing to spend the credits on.
The real problem is that equipping and upgrading items for your characters is counterintuitive. You have party members who can only become proficient in pistols, for example, yet they still have to have sniper rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles on them at all times (visibly, too). Neverwinter Nights used a system where you couldn't control the inventory of your NPC companions and would automatically upgrade their gear and stats when they leveled-up. It seems BioWare has gone too far in the other direction since 90% of the equipment and upgrades you have access to won't be usable by the NPC you're tinkering with. Worse still, the vast majority of the equipment in the game becomes redundant when you get about half-way through. You'll always find good items on major NPC's you kill, and you'll hardly ever find anything worthwhile anywhere else, including in shops. Even when you do find something good, it's tricky to give it to your party members because of an awkward equip/unequip system they utilize where you'll be shuffling through items rather than just picking something and sticking it on somebody. It doesn't seem like much effort was put into this aspect of the game.
The music in the game is wonderful. At first it will seem odd but it plays well with the game. I'm happy they went with a more electronic sound as opposed to the usual sweeping orchestral score you'd expect from the genre.
The characters are well animated and they look good, but the NPC's, especially the aliens, get familiar looking pretty quick. As with BioWare's past games, voice over work is phenomenal, and a few voice's you'll recognize as celebrities or voices from past games. As usual the alien voices sound nice but are repetitive. In an ugly choice BioWare went the Gears of War/Halo 3 route and made the characters hold their extra weapons on their backs. It doesn't look right.
The loading screens and elevator loading screens--of which there are plenty--are better looking than in past games, and a bit faster, but they're still too common. You spend an unnatural amount of time in elevators going from one area to another. I don't know if they are true loading screens that BioWare has hidden or what. They break up the action.
The first time I finished KOTOR I almost immediately started playing it again in order to root-out all the storylines, quests and dialog I missed the first time through. Since finishing Mass Effect I haven't been compelled to play it again, at least not yet, which is a shame.
BioWare hyped up Mass Effect pretty well, and as a result everyone expected a Game of the Year candidate. I don't think it is.
I've spent hundreds of hours playing BioWare games, including MDK2, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire. Aside from MDK2, BioWare has found a niche in the third-person RPG segment and had dominated it up until the MMORPG explosion (WarCraft, Guild Wars, etc.).
There is a very linear relationship between NWN to KOTOR to Jade Empire to Mass Effect. Each game is built on the same mechanics, with the player stapled to the ground and forced down a narrow exploration path. The fighting mechanics have oscillated between turn-based (with NWN and KOTOR) and real-time (JE and ME), with neither system reaching the correct balance. Camera work for their series of games has been an issue and still is, but they have refined it to the point where it isn't a constant problem as it is with some other games.
The core of BioWare's gaming empire is storytelling. Their character design, dialogue, and story arcs are among the best in the business. KOTOR is an exceptionally strong story and that is the main reason it is still the crown jewel in BioWare's collection.
In a way I blame KOTOR for the failings of the games that came after it, including Jade Empire and Mass Effect. Both of those newer games are almost totally similar to KOTOR, sometimes in a good way but often in a bad way.
The gameplay, outside of combat mechanics, is a carbon copy of KOTOR. It has the same same kinds of force powers and skills with the same energy bars and skill point levels, the same kinds of proficiencies and character classes, the same good-neutral-evil dialog options, the same open-ended galaxy maps (in which you can choose the path you take to complete the game but the results vary only slightly), the same three-person party system with the same style of switching people in and out, the same 'keep talking to this NPC each time you level up to see when new conversation options come up', etc., etc..
Mass Effect doesn't quite understand itself, it seems. It is set in a future where humans have discovered an alien technology and used it to advance their civilization, eventually running into the other races of the systems within the galaxy. But in a remarkably similar fashion you're going to encounter an evil race of sentient droids (er... geth) led by a sorcerer with unnatural powers of persuasion. A strict sci-fi adventure would've prevented BioWare from using force powers/biotics so they went half-way between Star Trek and Star Wars instead, creating their own 'force' and, likewise, 'force sensitive' races and people. Honestly, it feels shoehorned into the game and you can go the distance with just a gun anyways.
One of the new elements they added to the game was driving. As you explore various worlds you'll be dropped-off in a six-wheeled tank you'll use to travel to the different parts of the very small and scarcely detailed world maps. The driving is borderline broken. The map makers decided to include small peaked mountains on virtually every planet and crossing them is excruciating. Almost as if they knew it wasn't working, they included booster jets on your tank that allow you to pop up about fifty feet to clear some obstacles--but if you aren't on flat ground, you'll wind up popping off the side of the mountain and drifting back down to the bottom, entirely defeating the purpose of the boost in the first place. Add to that they decided to forgo the Halo-style double analog stick point-and-drive style for their own forward-is-go method which is tricky even after you've done it for hours.
What adds to the frustration of the driving system is that 90% of the locations you'll arrive at are identical cookie-cutter buildings. The lack of map variation is embarrassing. It seems to me like in their rush to allow the player to travel to "so many worlds!" they lost their attention to detail. One visually interesting and large map is worth an infinite number of small, plain, identical maps. The game encourages you to visit every location by putting items, artifacts, and natural resources on each planet and giving you quests to retrieve them all. On your second play through the game I doubt you'll be bothering.
Another issue with the game is the treasure and equipment element. The game uses treasure chests to encourage you to explore every corner of a map. The issue with it is that treasure always comes in the form of equipment and upgrades, and after a while you start to have an enormous inventory of duplicate and triplicate items, even after you've spread out the good stuff among your party. As you collect equipment you can sell it to a merchant for credits and buy better items, but they are few and far between. By the end of the game (in my first go-round) I was a multi-millionaire with nothing to spend the credits on.
The real problem is that equipping and upgrading items for your characters is counterintuitive. You have party members who can only become proficient in pistols, for example, yet they still have to have sniper rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles on them at all times (visibly, too). Neverwinter Nights used a system where you couldn't control the inventory of your NPC companions and would automatically upgrade their gear and stats when they leveled-up. It seems BioWare has gone too far in the other direction since 90% of the equipment and upgrades you have access to won't be usable by the NPC you're tinkering with. Worse still, the vast majority of the equipment in the game becomes redundant when you get about half-way through. You'll always find good items on major NPC's you kill, and you'll hardly ever find anything worthwhile anywhere else, including in shops. Even when you do find something good, it's tricky to give it to your party members because of an awkward equip/unequip system they utilize where you'll be shuffling through items rather than just picking something and sticking it on somebody. It doesn't seem like much effort was put into this aspect of the game.
The music in the game is wonderful. At first it will seem odd but it plays well with the game. I'm happy they went with a more electronic sound as opposed to the usual sweeping orchestral score you'd expect from the genre.
The characters are well animated and they look good, but the NPC's, especially the aliens, get familiar looking pretty quick. As with BioWare's past games, voice over work is phenomenal, and a few voice's you'll recognize as celebrities or voices from past games. As usual the alien voices sound nice but are repetitive. In an ugly choice BioWare went the Gears of War/Halo 3 route and made the characters hold their extra weapons on their backs. It doesn't look right.
The loading screens and elevator loading screens--of which there are plenty--are better looking than in past games, and a bit faster, but they're still too common. You spend an unnatural amount of time in elevators going from one area to another. I don't know if they are true loading screens that BioWare has hidden or what. They break up the action.
The first time I finished KOTOR I almost immediately started playing it again in order to root-out all the storylines, quests and dialog I missed the first time through. Since finishing Mass Effect I haven't been compelled to play it again, at least not yet, which is a shame.
