Mass Effect PC Reviews
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When you're first starting out, the game may seem like a pretty standard, narrow-focused 3rd person shooter. When you're dropped planetside from the ship on which your character serves, the game feels very much like it's on rails. It doesn't take long, however, to start peeling back the layers and, as you do, you'll find yourself with more and more freedom in determining where to go and what to do next.Then there's 1UP, also with an "A-":
To facilitate that freedom you'll eventually find yourself with a ship of your own and a team of six non-player character (NPC) party members, some human and some not, any two of which you can bring with you when you go on a mission outside the ship. Each of your team members has a specific set of skills that you'll want to consider when deciding who to bring with you.
Just like your NPC party members, your character, too, is schooled in a diverse set of skills, ranging from decryption to sniper rifles to how good you are at talking your way out of trouble. Bioware has done a marvelous job of investing you, as a player, in your own character. You can, if you so choose, make up a character in your own image, which is a nice option to have given the amount of face time your player character receives throughout the game. There are a handful of character classes that allow you to specialize in three main skill areas or some combination thereof: combat (weapons and armor), biotic skills (think magic) and tech (decryption, electronics, etc.). But beyond that, the game also lets you select a two-part back story involving how you grew up and a life changing event.
Mass Effect illustrates just how much the BioWare crew loves '70s-era sci-fi. The clean, white color scheme adorning the walls of the curve/archway-heavy Citadel Presidium (a sort of intergalactic U.N. building) makes the place look like an illustration for an Asimov/Herbert/Niven novel, and the harsh alien vistas and groovy space suits are things that Gene Roddenberry could have used in the creation of Star Trek. Heck, even the soundtrack echoes Vangelis' work for Blade Runner.
I pick up on these '70s-ish sci-fi homages because, well, Mass Effect for the PC is pretty much the same game as Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. OK, so these influences were already present in the 360 version, but I was preoccupied with the minor detail of, well, finishing the game at the time; for the PC version, I was able to leisurely take my time and soak in the ancillary details. The storyline remains unchanged; you play as Commander Shepard (gender and appearance of your own devising), who gallivants around the galaxy solving disputes involving medical reparations, freedom of the press, and the genocide of a thought-to-be-extinct-but-not-really alien species. It still follows the BioWare role-playing-game formula: A linear beginning eventually gives way to a central hub (in Mass Effect's case, a galaxy map) full of plot-advancing areas and optional side quests; you divide your time among map gazing, driving a gravity-defying space truck, walking, talking, and shooting. You still go through various galactic dilemmas as either the paragon of diplomacy and grace or as a renegade space jerk that quips first, shoots second, and then finally gets around to asking questions. Your decisions still have an effect on potential future quests and, occasionally, which party members live or die.
