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Rental Review: MASS EFFECT


I've come to the conclusion that I don't wish to become someone else in a video game. Mass Effect from developer Bioware and published by Microsoft Game Studios, is a role playing game that has been anticipated since the 360 came into existence. I rented this two days ago and decided that I'm not a role player at all. That doesn't mean that I won't keep playing until the rental is up, and I'll probably buy it when the price comes down in a few months (unless Bioware wants to send me a copy, or a relative wants to purchase it at full price).

Graphically this game is pretty decent. The character face models bring out a certain humanity that most games don't have at the moment. The different locations are beautifully laid out and do a convincing job of creating the mood necessary to the story. The character speech isn't completely in sync with the mouth, and the eyes of most of the human characters creep me out a little. The alien species are typical sci-fi characters, but don't always follow a humanoid form (nice touch, even though Kirk probably wouldn't mate with them).

Gameplay is divided into a few different segments (possibly more, but since it's taken me a week to write this I have might have missed something).
1: 3rd Person Shooter. This part is fun and full of action, but a little hard to control. You can take cover and order your team to do various tactical moves. This generally ends up in them dying. 2: Quests. Doing things like helping to analyze an alien species to mediating an argument between two species. I personally don't consider this fun, but it could be with enough incentive (like money).
3: Walking around. I don't even like walking in real life, so I don't like it in virtual life.
4: Dialog wheel. Bioware has a way for the player to speak to others the way that they want. You just select your response and your character interacts
And last, but not least, 5: Cutscenes. Probably the best part of the game for me. I really enjoy watching the story in most games, especially if they are good. Mass Effect has a good story line for the soldier campaign, and I enjoyed all of the cutscenes immensely. I'm hoping to explore the other campaigns when I actually buy this game.

Mass Effect isn't the end-all and be-all of RPG-action games. If it were I would have bought 6 dozen copies and distributed them to everyone that I come in contact with. It is very well done for the genre and the Xbox 360 console. I have heard from people in the gaming community that there is a good amount of re-playability in this game.

Bottom line: Mass Effect should be bought instead of rented because there is not enough time on a rental to play this game in it's entirety.
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