Mass Effect is finally available on the PS3 five years after its initial release. This is obviously a port from the original Xbox 360 version and allows PS3 owners to experience the full Mass Effect trilogy, being able to import their saves the whole way through. Mass Effect is a RPG developed by Bioware, set in the future where humans have access to technology that allows them faster-than-light travel. You take control of Commander Shepard and journey onto various different planets, encountering alien species and carving the story into your own thanks to the freedom of choices. While this is a third person shooter, the shooting mechanics are not as sensitive or satisfying as other shooters. When hitting enemies, it does not feel like you are causing them physical damage. It feels like they are absorbing your bullets. That's not to say that they are bullet sponges, but enemies don't stagger when they get hit. Shepard uses four types of guns, a sniper, pistol, assault rifle and shotgun, each with their ranges and advantages. Guns have unlimited ammo but can overheat if you shoot too often at once. The cover system is weak and clunky. This means you are likely to get overwhelmed by enemies at times, especially when some of the stronger enemies like to rush you.
In addition to shooting, you have access to abilities in battle. Each time an ability is used, it enters cooldown and takes a few seconds before you can use it again. The abilities include throwing enemies, recharging your shield and overheating enemy weapons. Your class dictates which skills you can use and various classes have other stat bonuses such as the Soldier best suited for players who like to charge in while Engineers work on disabling enemies. It gives variety for different playthroughs as you cannot change class after you've chosen. Other RPG elements include leveling up and being able to distribute the points after each level on various stat or ability enhancements. Shepard has a shield which blocks most attacks, and once the shield runs down, the damage then starts reducing your actual health. Both health and shield can recharge slowly overtime. You also always travel with two of your squadmates which you pick from a party of six characters. This port has various glitches, including missing sound effects and music during cutscenes, visual glitches and texture pop-in. It can also freeze midgame forcing you to restart the console and losing any progress you had. Mass Effect gives you so much freedom in that you can explore other planets and delay the main story missions until you're ready to do them. It's unfortunate then that the game is plagued with constant loading screens where the whole game will pause to load an area.
You will frequently travel in long elevator rides where the purpose is to mask the loading when traversing between two segmented areas. Shepard will constantly open doors, even when you have just entered them and turned around to exit after you realized you didn't want to go there. Opening these doors forces you to stop and pause for a second or two, which is annoying when you want to seamlessly run from one area to the next. If you have autosaving on, then this breaks the immersion even more. Be prepared for the game to pause everything while it autosaves, taking upwards of 20 seconds to complete the save. It is recommended to turn it off but have to be wary to keep saving frequently because if you die, it reverts to the last save. The story of Mass Effect is its strongest aspect. The game begins with Shepard on the Normandy, an advanced human spaceship with state of the art stealth systems. He discovers a beacon left behind by a technologically advanced species that died out 50,000 years ago. After retrieving the beacon, he returns to the Citadel to report to the intergalactic council and it is here that you understand the world that you're in. Various alien species exist and humans, being the newest species to discover intergalactic travel, works hard to join in the upper echelon and have influence in decisions that affect the whole universe.
Of course, Shepard goes on to discover that there is an ancient race called the Reapers who is slated to return and kill all galactic life. Shepard pursues an alien who wishes to call the Reapers and stop them before it is too late. It is an interesting story and as the lore behind the universe is revealed, it is amazing to realize the scope and how much effort the writers have put into it. Near the end, the story takes an unexpected turn and the ending is fantastic. In most conversations, you have various dialogue choices, including a morality system. These choices affect alter plot elements, and also later games such as if you decide to kill a character or not. There are a lot of sidequests, with your typical fetch quests and collectibles, which are fairly mundane and boring. A lot of missions unlock when speaking to NPCs but the sidequest mission structures are largely the same. You travel to a planet, touch down and get into the Mako, an all-terrain vehicle which is hard to control in the beginning. Then you head to spots in the plent and enter a facility to turn something off, retrieve something or just to kill all enemies. Rinse and repeat. What makes sidequests even more repetitive is that all the planets are just reskins, since the environments are all featureless with tall mountains making travel harder. The buildings you enter have the exact same layout but only with different placements of boxes for cover.
There are still some great sidequests which add significantly to the background of the plot but by the time you get near the end of the game, it gets so sickening that you'll probably give up on the notion of completing them all. The variety in the environments are nice, the game has a strong sci-fi feel and really immerses you in what an explorer of planets feel like. You'll go to planets with huge snowcapped mountains, and then travel to another where it is filled with running lava. With that said, the game is quite linear in terms of environments. You aim is to get from point A to point B and you will not get lost. The minimap is pretty useless though since it only shows nearby enemies, your squad members and a destination marker if you placed one. This means you have to keep opening the Start Menu and then selecting Map to check out where you want to go next. This could have been easily solved by either showing the paths on the minimap or a hotkey for pulling out the Map straight away. Overall, Mass Effect is a great game only slightly let down by the long load times and constant pauses. It has a fantastic soundtrack, solid gameplay and a wealth of stuff to do. The plot is one of the best in a game and really hypes you up to play the second game once you've finished it.
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