Mass Effect - The One Game You Must Own This Holiday Season

As an avid gamer, I find that when I dive into video game with high expectations, I end up finishing disappointed. I avoided the hype with Fable, and I loved it. I absorbed all the expectations of Knights of the Old Republic 2, and was unsatisfied with a lot of the aspects. It's hard to purchase a BioWare role-playing game without high expectations, given their track record. The company set the standard for modern rpgs with titles like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, the original KotOR, and Jade Empire. Each game built on and expanded the features of the last, and Mass Effect is truly the next step in that evolution.

The simplest way to describe Mass Effect would be to say that it's the gameplay of Gears of War, combined with the nonlinear style of an Elder Scrolls title. Yes, there is an epic main quest to save the galaxy from impending doom, but all the side quests and chains are just as engaging. The real-time combat is executed flawlessly; it plays very much like Gears of War, which is the greatest compliment a next-gen action game can hope for, and the dialogue options are much improved over Jade Empire and Knights of the Old Republic. Whereas before the choices were an obvious good, bad, and neutral, now it's all about being a good guy that gets things done. Commander Sheppard is a man on a mission, and the choice given to the player is whether or not the means justify the end. The Renegade player will be ruthlessly efficient, disregarding collateral damage to find the quickest and most convenient solution, while the Paragon will try to minimize civilian casualties, and will go out of his way to make sure the best possible scenario comes about. Neither play style is harder than the other; it's all about what you as a player want to do.

I did have a few gripes about Mass Effect, but none that would keep me from buying the game if I knew about them beforehand. First off, the occasional graphical pop-in can take away from the ambiance, though this can't be blamed on production so much as the Unreal3 engine. It only happens now and again, but it is worth mentioning. Second, exploring planets may not be everyone's cup of tea, and it tends to get old once you realize that just about every planet is the same. Luckily, this is part of that nonlinear aspect, and you don't have to do any non-mission based exploring if you don't want to, although you'd be missing out on a lot of cool content. Now and then there was a pretty scary surprise when trying to recover a probe or save a mining team, and it made the few boring drive-and-pick-up levels worth it in the end.

All in all, Mass Effect is a must-own if you are a fan of great games. Though I wish that a game that played so similarly to Gears of War had more desperate last-stand style encounters, the combat was genuinely enjoyable. BioWare outdid themselves with the writing this time around, and it really shows; the conversation aspect really is a big part of the fun of the game. On top of all that, the story missions feel so much grander than they did in Jade Empire or KotOR; as cool as ascending to the Star Forge to finally face off with Darth Malak was, it doesn't hold a candle to the events that unfold on the beaches of Virmire. If you only buy one game this holiday season, make it Mass Effect - you will not regret it.