Nope. I won’t because there isn’t one. Controversy I mean. Sex scene is there but it was tame, PG-13 type material. Seriously, most R rated movies go far above and beyond that without being considered controversial. Hell, Indigo Prophecy was way more explicit than this, but didn’t get all that media coverage. Oh, wait – that’s because the thought police cut out all the naughty bits from the US release. Anyways, fuck it. Anyone who played the game knows the scene was rather tame. Anyone who didn’t can watch the full scene on Youtube. And the fact it is on Youtube is very telling since Google tends to remove stuff that is too raunchy fairly quickly.

That’s not what I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to talk about the Asari – the “all female race”. If you haven’t played the game, let me explain. They all look like blue skinned human females with little tentacle things on their heads instead of hair. So essentially: Star Trek space babes. How do they reproduce you ask?

Well, apparently they can absorb the DNA of another living beings by rubbing themselves all over them. Yes, any living things. Which means they can and do have sex with every sentient species in the known galaxy and in most cases they will give birth to perfectly healthy children. These kids inherit the looks from the Asari mom and other cool genetic traits from the “father” because apparently they have that much control over the cellular processes involved in conception. I put father in quotation marks because the Asari can mate with both males and females – they are not picky.

Oh hai! We Asari are built just like human females excluding the head squid. But that's just an evolutionary coincidence. Honestly!

What is even more interesting is that they consider mating with members of their own race sort of shameful. It’s not prohibited but frowned upon since it does nothing to “better” the gene pool of their species. So essentially they travel all across galaxies and bed down the most awesome specimens of the alien species they find in order to borrow their favorable genetic traits and reintroduce them to their gene pool. Which doesn’t really make sense if they don’t interbreed with each other to solidify these traits but whatever. In Mass Effect universe it is apparently working pretty well, considering that an average Asari tends to live for over a century.

Sigh… To summarize: bisexual, blue space babes who have sex with everything that is capable of sentient thought. That’s… That’s just a little bit juvenile, don’t you think? I mean, a one sex race is an interesting idea but only if you put some thoughts behind it. In Mass Effect the whole culture and biology of Asari seems to be a plot point. It’s all designed so that the the player character can have sex with them at different stages of the game.

And I would know how immature this is because I’m pretty sure I totally had that type of race in my imaginary Science Fiction setting when I was like 12. What, you never did any world building when you were a kid? Well, fuck you then – I still have some of my old notebooks filled with cryptic notes written about imaginary fantasy and SF settings. And I’m pretty sure I had an all female race.

Actually scratch that – even at that point I was to conscious of biological implications of a single sex race to design Asari. My space babe race was reproducing via straight Parthenogenesis and due to that fact they had astonishingly low genetic diversity, and were susceptible to adverse genetic mutations and some such. Large number of their children were born with severe mental and/or physical retardation. Some would be let loose and would turn feral, while others were kept as servants and slaves. Their scientists actually devised a way to reintroduce sexual reproduction into the species but it was culturally unacceptable and conflicted with most religions practiced on their world.

I also had ideas for almost-single-sex races. And by that I mean a sexually dimorphic race where only a single sex was sentient and/or able to communicate with other races. This included a species in which males never left the larval stage. They would be borderline sentient, symbiotic worm like creatures with intelligence of a dog. They would stay attached to their mother’s body, largely incapable of surviving on their own. The mother could then decide to gift one of them to a worthy female she respected. Once attached to another female the larval male would inseminate her periodically and also keep any male offspring also attached to her body in line acting as the alpha male of the group.

Frankly, my all-female races were never as sexualized as Asari. Every time I sat down to dream up an alien space babe race, the design would morph into something more squishy, and realistic. Sadly I couldn’t help this. Before I discovered science fiction, my favorite books to read on my spare time were my mom’s college level biology textbooks so there were things I could never abide by – like inter species breeding for example. It just couldn’t work in real world.

How about you? What do you think of the Asari? Silly? Juvenile? Or acceptable? Also, what did you think of the “sex scene”. Were you like me underwhelmed by how tame it was, or did you think it was a bit too much for a video game?

The story is ok – and I’m being generous here. Id say it’s better than KotOR2 but mostly because the game was released unfinished and never hand a proper ending. Mass effect does provide you with closure, but is also deeply flawed in the plot department.

Don’t get me wrong, there were things that I liked. For example, I thought that most of the so called “fluff” (ie. background information) was great. I enjoyed listening to and reading the Codex entries, which provided a ton of information about the in game technology, political structure of the galactic community as well as biology and culture of various races that inhabit the known space. It’s one of the few Space Opera type settings which actually attempts to explain the faster than light travel in a fairly original way. Most of the time people just hand-wave these things away using old stand-ins such as “hyperspace”, wormholes or unspecified “jump drive” technology that just works. Mass Effect doesn’t try to bypass or circumvent special relativity via inter dimensional travel or ripping holes in space-time continuum. It’s FTL works well within the boundaries set by special relativity – and revolves around manipulating mass of the moving objects using special properties of a rare Element Zero that can only be found in certain areas of the galaxy.

You can tell that a lot of thought was put into the background fluff of the game. This world building effort doesn’t always shine through in the actual game play so to really get into the background you have to read the Codex which is fairly extensive. I really do appreciate this level of attention to detail. Every time I had a question about how something works, I could usually find an appropriate codex entry.

I also liked parts of the main quest. For example the encounters with the Thorian and the Rachni were pretty good. But despite the seeming wealth of the background, the plot itself is not without serious flaws. Here is a list of my biggest gripes with the game:

Geth are Boring

Throughout the game you will be fighting mostly the Geth – the mute, synthetic minions of the main antagonist. While they come in various shapes and sizes (from regular foot soldiers, wall crawling sentinels, zombie like husks to flying scout drones and tank sized colossi) they are a rather boring bunch. You get to fight them mission after mission and nauseum. To add insult to injury, the game reuses the Geth models as stand-ins for other creatures as well. For example the Thorian drones are basically Geth Husks painted green. You get so used to fighting Geth and Geth like enemies than you get complacent. When the game gives you a different foe your company will likely get wiped out on the first try. For example, when I first encountered a squad of Krogan mercs I was totally unprepared for their bull-rush tactic and got wiped. My first encounter with the Rachni also ended with a TPK and a re-load.

The worst part is that there was no reason for this lack of variety. The game world was rich enough to offer a wide range of different enemies. You never actually fight with Turnan or Solarian forces for example, and there is only one point in the game where you actually get to fight a squad of Asari. It’s actually so bad that specking your weapons to deal high damage to organics is rather foolish, since you almost never actually fight them.

Too Short

If you skip all the side quests (all of which are an exercise in how many times you can flip over your Mako vehicle) the game is very short and very linear. Linearity is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this particular example it only adds to the brevity of the game. You seem to be rushed from one mission to another, and there are few worthwhile distractions in between. Once you leave the Citadel (your starting location) you are given a free reign and are able to visit any planet you want just like in the Old Republic games. There are 4 major planets you have to visit in order to move the plot forward, and a dozen side quests. This may seem like a fair amount of content but it’s not. The main quest missions usually consist of a small settlement with a trader and 4-5 NPC’s and an extended dungeon crawl with one or two mandatory driving sections. Each can be probably knocked out in 2-3 hours if you know what you are doing.

Once you complete the 5 plot related quests (which, btw are the only interesting missions in the game) you are forcefully pushed into the endgame sequence which is an additional 2-3 hour long quest. After that you are done.

Someone told me this game is massive – no it is not. It is tiny! Disappointingly tiny. Unless of course you are a modern FPS fan used to paying $50 for a 3 hour technology demo. In that case the game would indeed seem large. But not for me.

Unknowable?????

I said the story was ok, but it is very, very lazy. You see, almost from the very beginning, the game builds up for this great shocking revelation at the end. You discover that there is this ancient race of sentient machines known only as Reapers. Most of the time they slumber somewhere in intergalactic space millions of light years away from civilized parts of the universe. But every once in a while they wake up and wipe all technologically advanced races from existence and go back to sleep for few thousand years. Why do they harvest sentient species? What is their motive? What drives them to commit unspeakable acts of genocide over and over again.

Eventually you get to speak to a Reaper, and some NPC’s that fought Reapers. How do they explain their motives? Get this, the big revelation is that:

“Reapers are unknowable. They are beyond our understanding. Whatever purposes they have, it is not something that we mortals could ever comprehend”

Yep. That’s it. That’s all you get. Half the game you are wondering why the hell do these things raep sophont creatures up the bum, and the other half of the game everyone just hand waves it away. I mean, they are Reapers, right? That’s what they do. They reap. Oh, they have some secret agenda, but we are dumb mortals and we will never get it.

FUCK YOU BIOWARE! This is the laziest excuse in the history of bad plot devices. “They are unknowable” is not an answer. It is a shitty excuse for not writing a compelling antagonist into the story. The Sovereign could have been much more scary and creepy if he actually had a reason for what he was doing other than a long standing tradition of genociding sufficiently advanced races every few thousand years. It’s a cop out, plain and simple.

I IZ REAPER! I IZ UNKNOWABLE!

Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed. I literally felt cheated out of something good. The story could have been so much better if the writers made some effort and at least made up something plausible.

Hell, I’ll do it myself. We know the Reapers are these super-intelligent AI space ship like beings. However, they don’t seem to be a singularity level beings – which leads me to believe that they hit an evolutionary dead end. They developed as much as they can with their current technology and are unable to move forward. So they leave their Mass Effect technology all over the galaxy to see what Organics can do with it. The point here being, that organic life developing on hundreds of worlds brings a much needed diversity to this equation. They bring fresh minds with unique perspectives and unorthodox approaches. Where Reaper science reached stagnation point, a less developed species may accidentally stumble onto some breakthrough which will allow Reapers to evolve. Of course they can’t let the organics live for too long, out of fear they will become more advanced than the Reapers themselves. So once they notice the organic life getting sufficiently advanced, they make a sweep collecting valuable gadgets and resetting technology level throughout the galaxy back to stone age.

See, it’s not that hard. Much better than “ooooh, they are unknoooowable!” excuse.

Humans are Superior

Oh, btw – did you know why humans don’t have much political power in the galactic society yet? It’s not because they are the youngest race accepted into the fold of that society. It is not because they are the least technologically advanced race. No, most other species are actually a bit afraid of humans because they are so fucking awesome.

We are the most flexible, most adaptable, the fastest growing, fastest learning, most innovative, have the biggest hearts and etc. Cause fuck, HUMANS ARE SUPERIOOOR!!! Every time you speak with an alien, they go out of their way to let you know how awesome the humans are is compared to other sentient races. Unless of course you talk to one of the xenophobic characters that hates humans. But these characters hate us because they are afraid of us.

This is a really, really popular trope – and one I personally hate it. Why can’t we for once be an inferior race? Why do humans always have to be special? It really takes out all the fun out of playing an underdog, when you know you are a member of the chosen race, destined to lead the Galaxy. But again, I think this is just lazy writing.

In Conclusion

Mass Effect had a great potential. I liked the background fluff, and parts of the main quest. Sadly boring side quests and lack of variety in enemy types made the whole whole experience seem short, rushed and rather monotonous. This along with the Reaper cop out diminished the game play experience quite a bit. The game is definitely not the masterpiece some made it out to be. It had great potential but IMHO it was squandered.

Bioware is bragging that Dragon Age Origins is more than twice the size of Mass Effect. Ugh… That really doesn’t say a lot, does it? By my calculations this should be around what? 6 hours of non-boring gameplay, compared to Mass Effect’s 3 and a half hours? Seriously, I hope they did better than that, or else I will be forced to write another negative review here.

One day I’m sitting at my desk playing Mass Effect when suddenly, Ark materializes in my room. No, he doesn’t enter the room – he manifests. If your full name was pronounced Arkadius you wouldn’t just walk into rooms either, would you? No you would appear, manifest or coalesce into existence. Nothing else would do. One thing you have to know about Ark is that the man essentially has three modes of operation: shenanigans, “crazy scheme that might just work” and asleep. So unsurprisingly, the first words out of his mouth are “I just got the best idea ever”, followed by a description of a plan so intricate that it would require 3 weeks of preparation, cast of at least 20 extras and extended build of large scale props and a little person trained in martial arts dressed up as ninja. As he lays down the plan for me, I continue playing the game. Of course since this is the PC version of Mass Effect, I this the spinning wheel decryption mini game every time I open a crate or need to activate some item:

Mass Effect Minigame on PC

This thing pops up on my screen so often, that Ark eventually loses track of what he was saying and demands to know what the hell is it. He initially assumed that it was a loading screen, but no game released this century would require to load so often. Then he saw me moving the little arrow within the wheel, and just had to ask. So I explain to him that this is essentially how “lock picking” works in mass effect. You have to go through this silly exercise to open or activate just about everything in the game. Ark resolutely responds:

“So… To open crates you have to play… Frogger?”

Yep. That’s pretty much it. In the distant future, we will secure our valuables and computer systems with a circular version of Frogger. Ark proceeds to facepalm.jpg in real life, and we both die a little bit on the inside.

Yes, it’s that ridiculous! The Frogger decryption game has no redeeming qualities whatsoever:

1. It’s silly
2. It’s not even remotely challenging
3. Has nothing to do with security or hacking
4. Uses Frogger mechanic
5. It is used everywhere

I complained about the Fallout 3 hacking game, but compared to Mass Effect’s Frogger it is a brilliant little distraction. Hell, I’ll take the annoying Oblivion lock picking over this. Of course you never have to play this game if you don’t want to. You can for example expend the omni-present, omni-gel to bypass it. The gel can be obtained by scrapping your inventory items, which you will be doing a a lot considering you can only carry 150 of them. Then again, Omni-Gel is also used to repair your Mako which tends to get damaged quite a lot when you jump of high cliffs (read: during normal day-to-day operation considering the topography of most of the in-game planets). So you will be tempted to conserve the gel, and Frogger it out most of the time.

Does it get worse than that? Of course it does. There is one point in the game that asks you to play “Simon Says” to activate large mining laser, and “Towers of Hanoi” to reset the memory of an AI system:

Towers of Hanoi

That last game is somewhat passable mainly because it is reminiscent of that Space Odyssey scene in which Hal experiences death by slow sliding out of circuit boards out of the wall. It is also the only puzzle based mini game that requires some thinking (ie. those players who do not have computer science degrees will likely have to discover the algorithm for the first time) rather than quick reflexes of memorization. Still, it has nothing to do with the task at hand.

So my verdict concerning mini-games in recent RPG’s:

Oblivion: Sigh… Skeleton key.
Fallout 3: Actually, I can’t complain (even though I did… At length)
Mass Effect: Waaaaat? I don’t even…

Get it through your skulls people. Mini games SUCK! If you have to do them go look at Fallout 3 and copy their methodology because they are almost doing it right. If you really want to make me happy though, use skill checks. It’s a fucking RPG! Characters have skills. Fucking use them!

Some Mass Effect side quests are like that… Most however seem to be randomly generated “clense the area of enemies” missions. The first 3 or 4 will be entertaining. The remaining ones are usually carbon copy of the earlier ones. An average side quest goes like this:

You are essentially dropped on a planet in your trusty Mako (oh Mako, why can’t you fucking fly!) and you can see 3 marks on the map. Two of these marks are item caches that will dispense random generated loot. The third one is enemy bunker or base. The bases seem to follow 4 or 5 floor layouts so after a while you will have a strong sense of deja vu when you enter them. There is nothing wrong with reusing pieces of scenery, but I must ask: was this really necessary?

Quick aside regarding the Mako. It is supposed to be some sort of all terrain armored vehicle. It also has built in thrusters that go “pfft” and allow you to hop over obstacles and dislodge your car when it gets stuck in some hole.

And you will get stuck, because just about every random side-quest planet you land on is entirely covered with mountain chains and deep canyons. In other words, 90% of the time Mako is at a 45+ degree angle to the planet surface, climbing some fucking cliff wall. And I’m not the only person who noticed this. I Googled the word Mako the other day, and this is what I found:

Yes, it is right side up

Sometimes there is a road you can follow, and few planets have large open plains – but these plains are usually surrounded with steep mountains you need to cross to get to your destination.

All of this makes me wonder:

1. Why can’t we trade Mako in for a flying skimmer?
2. And if that’s not possible, why can’t we drop it closer to the target?

Seriously, if Mako had even limited flight abilities it would make navigating the mountain ranges on every single planet so much easier.

Let me put it this way – I did every single “land on a random planet” side quest in the game that I was able to unlock. I was pretty diligent in clicking on every object in my field of view and talking with everyone in my path. While I’m sure I missed some of them, but then again, I wasn’t really looking for them that intensely. Still, I did every mission I managed to stumble upon while completing the main quest which is probably more than an average player would do. The point is, that there was just not that many of them. I really think BioWare could hand-craft unique scenery for each one. Instead, they all seem to be cut out of the same template. It’s almost as if the creators play-tested the main quest and went “oh, shit – this game is way to short, let’s add some padding and quick!”.

The reward for doing the side quests is not that great. You usually find moderate level appropriate gear at these locations, and most main quest missions tend to have better drop rates. So these are not treasure hunting missions. Some side quests offer unique one-off encounters with semi-interesting NPC’s that tie into background of the main characters. Still, the lead up to the 5 minute dialog at the end is excruciatingly dull and identical to every other quest of that type, including the floor layout and the furnishings of the building you will be visiting. You pass these off as character development pieces, but then why wouldn’t they spend more time on important story pieces like that? Most of these “revelations” seem to be tacked on as an afterthought, and can be easily skipped.

They are also not really grind quests since Mass Effect does not require tedious grinding. Experience is dispensed liberally, and even if you skip the side quests you should be able to max out the skill with your primary and secondary favorite weapon, your armor stat and you favorite special power(s). Not to mention that the main storyline dispenses XP much more generously than all these sub quests.

So why are these missions there? If they are not treasure hunting quests, grind quests or character pieces, then what are they?

It’s padding! Pure and simple. I was trying real hard to give each of these missions a chance. I was hoping for variety. But in the end, every single side quest in which they drop you down in Mako seemed like a dull chore rather than entertainment. It was very disappointing, especially since the main quest was well paced and offered a wide variety of environments and objectives.

Mass Effect Cover

Ok, so my KotOR 2 review sounded like I hated the game. But I really didn’t. I was criticizing it out of love. It’s funny how we always reserve our harshest criticism for the things we love. Yeah, we may mercilessly bash the stuff we hate but when you criticize something you love – oh you will meticulously and systematically take it apart. That’s just how it is.

It seems that when BioWare shook down the KotOR formula to clean it up for a new game more than just the Star Wars branding fell out. Id say the game lost it’s heart and soul but that would be a bit harsh and for it’s flaws (multitude of them) Mass Effect is still fairly decent.

So I wanted to complain a bit at first before talking about the stuff I liked because complaining is usually funnier.

Companions

As many other games of this type, Mass Effect allows you to pick up companions that will assist you in your quest. Just like in KotOR you can only have two of them following you at a time, while the rest must wait in the ship somewhere. I have never really understood this restriction. It doesn’t really make much sense story wise. You have assembled a crack team of heroes, all of whom have a score to settle with the big bad final boss of the game. And yet, when the final battle is to be fought only two chosen ones get to accompany you, even if it would make much more sense to take everyone. But it’s an old game mechanic which I’m already used to, so I won’t complain about it.

Ooops, I guess I already did. Oh well. The fact that it’s silly doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. It does. That’s not why I bring it up. I’m talking about it here because Mass Effect manages to ruin it by allowing you to assemble the whole team in the first hour of game play.

It’s like this: on your company switch screen there are 6 silhouettes that depict the available and non-available characters. These 6 slots are all you ever get. You start with two of them pre-filled. You pick up your next three companions before you actually leave the Citadel (which is really an extended tutorial area) and the game proper begins. Your final companion joins you on your first or second story driven mission out of the citadel (depending on which path you choose first). After that you are done. No more new companions ever.

For comparison, KotOR games you would be picking up new team members unexpectedly at different points in the game. Some of them would show up early, while others wouldn’t join you until the third act or so. It was fun, and exciting to seek these folks out, and you could always look forward to fining new cool companions ever past the middle point of the game.

Mass Effect gives you all the companions up front, making it painfully obvious you will never meet any other allies out there. So it sort of takes the excitement and wonder out of that part of the game. At least for me.

Inventory

One word: train wreck. Ok, that was two words, but you get the idea. Whoever designed this system needs to be sent to a mandatory US design camp for a week. I seriously don’t know what happened here because KotOR games had decent inventory screens that just worked. Mass Effect tries to be stylish and modern like, but fails at usability.

The Inventory Screen

For example, why can’t a character not carry an assault rifle? In my team I have several individuals who are not trained in rifles. They are great with pistols and/or shotguns but not rifles. And yet, the game insists that each of these characters have each of their weapon slots filled with an appropriate item. None of these slots can EVER be left blank. It’s just not possible. What is worse, there is just no reason for it.

This flaw means that to swap two weapons between characters you have to have a third weapon of the same type at hand. If you want character A to give his pistol to character B and you just sold/scrapped all the pistols in your inventory you are out of luck. You’ll have to wait till you find a pistol, or go to a store and buy one.

Which is an interesting experience in itself. You see, Mass Effect trading screen sucks even more than the inventory screen. Why? Because there is no way to identify items at a glance. Instead of showing you a picture of the actual item, armor or upgrade you are buying, the game will display a large, detailed image of the suitcase in which the item is sold. It’s not just one suitcase of course – the designers took great care do design different cases for each item – the all have intricate color patterns and look very pretty. There is only one problem: there is no way to distinguish which suitcase contains a weapon, armor or an upgrade item. Item descriptions usually look like this:

In huge font: Stiletto IV (ie. the brand name)
In smaller font: Foobar Technologies (the manufacturer)
In tiny, barely readable font: Pistol (ie. what this is)

Each time you shop, you have to literally squint at the screen to find out what you are looking at.

That’s not all though. You actually don’t get to see the stats of the weapon you are buying unless you press a “compare” button on the UI. It then shows you the stats of the item, compared with the items you have currently equipped. There is of course no easy way to compare the sold items with each other.

Then again, you hardly ever have to make such comparisons anyway as Mass Effect items come in distinct tiers. Regardless of brand, manufacturer and designation each item is marked with a roman numeral which is a bit like a level. All items in the same trier have comparable stats. So you know that if you are carrying bunch of VI items, you can safely scrap or sell most of your V. IV, III, II and I crap.

Besides, you don’t really have to trade in this game at all. I mostly use stores to unload my gear when I’m nearing the carrying capacity. I can count items I actually bought on the fingers of one hadn. Looted item are usually better than anything you can buy in the stores and they are dispensed quite generously throughout the game.

Looting

Did I mention that you can’t loot the bodies in this game? Yeah, it is not allowed. Dropped items just auto-magically appear in your inventory. What’s worse, you never know that you picked up loot until you open the inventory screen.

To me, this is deeply, deeply unsatisfying. I think most of crpg players enjoy looting corpses. Yes, it is not a very heroic thing to do, but damn it, its a fucking tradition. I just expect enemies to behave like gold and weapon filled pinatas that will dispense awesome rewards upon death.

I think in the past I ranted about how silly this system is. I think I even used a rat dropping a plate armor as an example. Still, even ridiculous loot system like that is better than what Mass Effect is doing. Enemies just drop dead, and nothing happens. WTF?

Oh, wait no – I’m sorry. There is a little message popping up in the corner of the screen that says “+INVENTORY”. Gee, thanks! It totally only took me half the game to notice that it was there.

Oh, and guess what happens if you accidentally auto-loot or open a container when you already have the maximum 150 items in the inventory? Will the game let you scrap some old items to make room? No, of course not. Will it allow you to cancel out of the pick-up screen so that you can come back and loot the container later? Hell no! It will force you to manually destroy every single item you just picked up by hand. Yup – if you forget to clean out your inventory, you will be punished. This is the worst looting mechanic I have seen as of yet. And the best part is that there is absolutely no reason why it has to be this way, other than poor UI design.

Dialog Trees

Guess what else got irreversibly broken in Mass Effect? Dialog trees! You know, the age old mechanic that dates all the way back to the point and click adventure games. You know what I’m talking about, right? Someone says something and you see bunch of responses you can make on the bottom of the screen.

Yeah, Mass Effect removed that and replaced it with a little wheel that lists “topics” for the conversation. Why? I have no fucking clue. Maybe because they were releasing it on Xbox and they assumed that most of users of that console are illiterate? I don’t know!

The end effect is that you don’t actually know what your character is going to say until you pick one of the options. And what the wheel says does not always sync up with what comes out of your mouth. Let me give you an example. At one point in the game some guards wanted to disarm me. I clicked on the option that I assumed was polite refusal, at which point my character whipped out his gun and started spewing insults and taunting the guards. Ugh!

Eventually I learned that upper right option is always the “nice guy” response, whiled the lower right is the “total jerk” one. The responses on the right are merely for asking questions, unless they are colored in which case they are either “charm” or “intimidate” options. I mean, they might have just labeled them as such. You know “click here to be nice” and “click here to be a dick”. It would work exactly the same, and it would avoid the initial confusion.

Summary

To summarize: Mass Effect is like KotOR that was repeatedly punched in the face until it suffered enough brain damage to forget most of the things that made it such a success. Inventory is absolutely atrocious, trading is a harrowing experience that I seek to avoid as much as possible, and the fun of looting is mostly removed from the game via lack of corpse drops. The dialog mechanic is needlessly altered from the old working standard, making it shallower and less fun than it should be. In other words BioWare took all the parts that us RPG types usually enjoy, and replaced them with some weird, experimental, dumbed down crap. The only thing that is left is the level ding which somehow is still somehow enjoyable.

So what’s left? Well, there is the setting and the story. Former is actually quite interesting, while the latter seems passable at this point. I can’t really comment on it as I haven’t finished the game yet but it keeps me interested. I say this: despite all the flaws I listed above I’m still playing the game. So you can expect few more Mass Effect related posts in the next few weeks.

Oh, I haven’t forgotten about the mini games. Have no fear, that’s a topic for a whole separate rant.