Does this space odyssey hold up nearly 20 years after its release?.
What Is It? Mass Effect is a third person RPG. You take control of Commander Shepard, either in male or female form based on your choosing, and quickly find yourself in the middle of a covert mission to save the universe. BioWare had developed Knights of the Old Republic four years earlier and Mass Effect was intended to take that mantle and run with it.
Most of the game is spent on foot, running around as Shepard with two teammates tagging along. You will spend a lot of time fighting and a lot of time talking.
Fighting is quite good considering the age of the game. It’s a super functional third person shooter, with some incredibly satisfying sound effects and rumble feedback to make it a very engaging experience. It is a bit bare bones, with a light cover system that doesn’t do much that you can’t achieve by simply running behind walls to hide. The game has four gun types: sniper, pistol, shotgun, and rifle. I spent time with each and found all of them to be powerful and satisfying. There is no ammo, but each weapon has a heatsync rating which affects how many shots you can fire before the gun overheats. Nothing about this system is groundbreaking, but it is good, fun, and holds up many years later. That’s a win.
Conversing in the game involves a series of dialogue choices which feed into your reputation, this is typical good vs. bad type stuff. If you stick to the main story, you will not be able to get far enough down either path to make a major difference. The special dialogue options will be greyed out. The goal of conversation is to open up story points, both main and side quest related. You will get to make some difficult decisions in the game, which put some weight behind your decisions.
The story is a good one. A bit classic sci-fi, but there’s nothing wrong with that. A rogue agent attempting to aid an unprecedented superpower in their takeover of the universe. Again, nothing groundbreaking, but good and fun. A lot of the story beats are tucked into side quests. The main story can be completed in under 13 hours which is kind of wild for a galaxy-spanning adventure like this. There are only four or five main missions in the game. I didn’t realize this and mostly did keep to the main stuff during my playthrough, I was never underpowered enough to block me so it wasn’t a big issue, but I am curious about everything I missed.
When not running around, you will spend a bit of time in a land vehicle. This thing has Halo controls which I was not able to re-acclimate to during the course of my playthrough. I could go straight and turn a bit just fine, but fine-tuned controls were rough. You will spend most of your time in the Mako gunning down enemies with a machine gun and stronger missile attack. These sections are nice breaks in the standard gameplay loop, but nothing amazing.
On the RPG side, you will earn skills through a leveling system, for yourself and your companions. You also get a small bit of weapon customization through attachments. These elements are light, and there is even an “Auto level-up” button if you don’t want to get too far into the weeds here, but it does provide a bit of depth and customization for those who want to engage with its systems.
The primary thing that stands out nearly 20 years after its release is how competent and fun everything is. No system is revolutionary, no mechanics are mind blowing, but the entire game moves at a brisk pace, gives you some fun decisions to make, and ensures you have a good time along the way.
The Best Part: If you run through the main story you are basically getting a half season of a good sci-fi show in video game form. The story beats move quickly if you want them to and you’ll be wrapped up in political backstabbing, espionage, alien hordes, and all out war by the time the credits roll. It’s a lot of substance and the game doesn’t draw it out over 20+ missions like it could have.
The Worst Part: There are some minor RTS elements in the game where you can control your party’s actions during combat. You can choose their weapon, position them, or instruct them to use a special ability. This seems good, but is not really necessary as you can simply allow them to do their best blasting away enemies for pretty much every fight and just be fine. Maybe some of the optional stuff is more difficult, or maybe it is vital on higher difficulty levels, but this aspect can be safely ignored on normal settings.
The Verdict: Mass Effect is a good game that remains fun today. It falls short of being something truly special, but that’s fine. The biggest compliment I can give is that it does not feel extremely dated playing it nearly 20 years after release. Some of the voice acting is suspect and there is an unnecessary mechanic here and a poorly controlling tank-on-wheels there, but the gameplay is still really good.
Wrapped in the Legendary Edition along with the second and third games, I venture most people will have a good time playing this if they want a space-based action RPG.
How to Play: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360. Legendary Edition: PlayStation 4/5*, Xbox Series, PC
*console played on for this review
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