Mass Effect

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Mass Effect
"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite game in the Citadel." — Commander Shepard
Protagonist(s): Commander Shepherd Genre(s): Action role-playing Developer(s): BioWare Publisher(s): Electronic Arts (PS3) Microsoft Game Studios (Xbox 360, PC) Country: Canada Successor: Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect is an action role-playing video game created by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts and Microsoft Game Studios for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 version was released on November 20, 2007 in North America, November 22, 2007 in Australia, and November 23, 2007 in Europe, the PC version was released on May 28, 2008 in North America, June 5, 2008 in Australia, and June 6, 2008 in Europe, and the PlayStation 3 version was released on December 4, 2012 in North America and December 7, 2012 in Europe.

A remastered version of the game, along with the rest of the original Mass Effect trilogy, was released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows on May 14th, 2021 as Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

Why It Has A Mass Effect

1. Great story, as the concept of having to go up against a highly-advanced machine race of synthetic-organic starships was a new and interesting take at the time.
2. Engaging dialogue choices, as every decision you make in the game can end up having serious consequences. This also adds tons of replay value to find out the other choices you can make.
3. Interesting world building as it encourages you to visit many planets and scan their inhabitants or find information on how they were created. You can also get involved in tons of conversations from civilians that unveiled details about how different groups found out about the universe and others.
4. Great graphics for its time, which showed off what the Xbox 360 was capable off.
5. Wonderfully detailed character models and facial animations unlike any game that came before.
6. Amazing voice acting, with notable highlights being Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale as Male and Female Shepard.
7. This game focuses on emotions and moments that most games don't concern themselves with.
8. Awesome mix of third-person shooting and RPG gameplay. During battles, the game basically plays like a third-person shooter, though it's possible to give other characters orders from a particular screen. This last feature was also used (and improved) in the Dragon Age series.
9. Many of the missions have multiple paths to completion which can persuade you to replay the game multiple times for alternative routes.
10. The key decisions not only matter in this game, but the second and third game as well, thanks to their ability to import completed save files.

Bad Qualities

1. While the gameplay is fun, the mechanics have not aged well, with the shooting lacking a lot of punch and the cover system being very clunky and almost unreliable. Thankfully Bioware took note of this and fixed some of the problems in the remastered version Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
2. The artificial intelligence of your squadmates is poor, as they'll often run into enemies and not follow your commands properly.
3. The Mako driving mechanics aren't very fun, as the controls are slippery and the worlds you drive them on are boring and repetitive. Also, if you kill enemies with the Mako, you get less EXP. This is fixed in the remastered version of Mass Effect 1 by removing the EXP penalty and giving the Mako a boost to its speed.
4. Horrible texture pop-ins, as areas can look very low-res once you first see them and take a few seconds to render properly.
5. Garrus and Tali'Zorah aren't romanceable in this game for some reason, despite being so in the sequels.
6. Very poorly designed inventory system that quickly gets full, forcing you to frequently stop to either sell items or turn them into Omni-Gel.
7. Some major choices were scrapped, such as the option to preserve Saren's genophage cure on Virmire and the option to save both Ashley and Kaidan from the nuclear bomb blast at the end of the Virmire mission.

Reception

Mass Effect received critical acclaim. On Metacritic, the game has a Metascore of 89/100 on the PC, an 85/100 on the PlayStation 3, and a 91/100 on the Xbox 360.

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