The Good, the Bad, and the Boring.. Didn't live up to the hype.

User Rating: 7 | Mass Effect PC
I've always been a fan of Bioware's RPGs. They always have a good story, great NPCs and character interactions, and interesting gameplay. To me, no one beats them in making RPGs. When I first read about Mass Effect, I too was swept up in the hype surrounding it, and I just couldn't wait for it to release and start playing it. Well, I'm afraid, for me, it hasn't quite lived up to the hype....

THE GOOD: Mass Effect has a very good story. The space opera setting is great, with some cool alien races. Any sci-fi fan will love it. Some of the cutscenes are really cinematic, and make you feel like you're watching a movie.

The dialogue system is innovative, and the ability to choose your answer before a character has finished speaking keeps the conversation going without a break and gives it a cinematic feel.

The graphics are beautiful, with a cheerful color palette. There are some glitches here and there, but not enough to even make the slightest difference. The character animations are very good, although facial expressions in Half-Life 2 still have no match.

The sound is good, with things sounding alien enough to be believable. The music is good, but keeps a low profile through the main game, but ramps up during important cutscenes.

THE BAD:
The dialogue in this game is really cheesy, and though it looked nice during the first playthrough, it really annoyed me during my second time during the game. Its not all bad, but some of it really sounds like it was written by a 10-year old. Also, all that advertising about being able to interrupt NPCs while they were talking was just for show. After you select a response, the game always waits for the NPC to stop speaking.

The voice acting, although not bad, is nothing special. Commander Shephard, the player character, delivers most of his/her dialogue without any emotion or expression. Captain Anderson, one of the important NPCs, voiced by Keith David, always seems to be all worked up while voicing his lines. The other characters voice their lines convincingly, but no one deserves unquestioning praise.

And my biggest complain against this game is the lack of character interactions with your party members. You can only talk to them while you're on your ship in between quests, and that too, only about a limited number of things. During the quests, you cannot start a conversation with any of your party members. They'll just reply with one liners during the quests like "Area Clear" or "This doesn't feel right". Really disappointing, especially for a Bioware game.

The gameplay is nothing spectacular, neither feeling like an RPG, nor like a first person shooter. All the guns look almost the same. Bioware ended up with a mediocre gameplay which doesn't have much fun or excitement.

Also, the sex scene in the game was completely unnecessary. There was no need to put something adult in a game otherwise so clean in its language and dialogue.

THE BORING:
Mass Effect has got to have the most boring and unimaginative side quests in RPG history. 99% of them have the same structure: land on a planet, drive the M35 Mako to the anomaly, kill the bad guys, then return to the ship. Its really boring to go riding on a planet just to salvage some junk, which is almost never useful.

Final Words:
Mass Effect is good, but the bad and boring parts really weigh it down. I'm giving it a 7, because even despite all its faults, I had fun playing the main campaign. Now all I can hope is that Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware's next RPG, will be better, and more like the previous Bioware RPGs that we've come to love.

PROS:
Good, exciting story and plot
Beautiful graphics that run pretty smoothly
Innovative dialogue system
Good voice acting..

CONS:
Average gameplay
Voice acting could have been better
Lack of interactions with party members
Really boring side quests