Here’s a story about a property that took me from heavy frustration and disappointment all the way through to being head over heels in love with it.
Mass effect reared its head in 2007, I got interested as soon as I heard about the story elements and gameplay that was dictated by the players choices, it didn’t hurt that the concept art resembled most of my favourite dark sci-fi properties like Blade Runner, Alien, 2001 and the soundtrack was mainly dark, brooding synth.
I bought it on launch day after months of reading previews and watching podcasts about its development, I couldn’t wait to immerse myself…and then the cold sting of anticlimax smacked me between the eyes.
The navigation was a little clunky and the combat didn’t do it for me, it all looked and sounded gorgeous but I just wasn’t feeling it, I kept going on the strength of the decision making and dialogue but the main hurdle I couldn’t get over were the impossible vehicle missions, really buggy and horrible to control I found myself sadly putting the game back in the box and giving up, I just couldn’t go any further.
After a small break I bought the soundtrack, watched playthrough videos on youtube and even tried to start again. I conceded defeat once more (although the soundtrack is awesome). I wanted to love this game so much and I just couldn’t.
Mass Effect 2 was announced and the main thing that struck me was the fact that the developers had taken all of the criticism of the flawed first game, and fixed, killed or replaced all of the negative aspects. Again, screenshots started to appear, hype started to grow and before I knew it I’d pre-ordered the damn thing, I was desperate to see if Bioware could get over the teething troubles of the 1st game and deliver a sci-fi epic.
Within the first 20 minutes it was clear that this game was going to be a winner, the opening scenes were epic, the music had gotten even better and finally the gameplay was enjoyable for me, even levelling up your character was less clunky.
I completed the game…5 times (fastest time is 23 hours), I bought all the DLC, I scanned every planet (and enjoyed it), I got the soundtrack, bought the comics, read the books (still not finished all of em). The relationships and politics of the game were all thoroughly engrossing and I’ll go as far as saying that so far, it’s my favourite game of all time. It was clear after this game there would be a final instalment of the story and I couldn’t wait!
Cut to last friday when my N7 Collectors edition arrived, I took the day off work, avoided all spoilers/reviews/articles/blogs and piled in head first.
So far the game has improved on my beloved ME2, I’ve already seen a character I love, die (There’s a memorial wall on the ship and it’s painful every time a name gets added to the list), met old acquaintances, made some really tough decisions and developed relationships with new, interesting characters and species. It’s an epic war story and it doesn’t hurt that Clint Mansell has been a part of the already amazing soundtrack team.
This game looks, sounds and plays better than the previous instalments, I just hope it keeps this pace up because it’s well on its way to topping my all time game list. I’ve been gushing about it over Twitter and the companion apps for iOS are proving very interesting
I’ll report back when I’ve finished but I am completely in awe of how this franchise has developed.
If you fancy some further reading that explains the franchise in more depth, read this amazing article by Kyle Munkittrick
I’m off to kill some reapers.
