Final Fantasy who? Mass Effect was heralded as the next great RPG series, but does it have what it takes to get folks off their chocobos and into a faster-than-light starship?

Mass Effect was created and developed by BioWare (who was recently bought by Electronic Arts) exclusively for the XBox 360. Microsoft Game Studios published the game, and was released November 20-23 worldwide.

Story - You take on the role of Commander Shepard, a soldier in the Human Alliance in the year 2183. You’re tasked with hunting down a rogue Spectre named Saren. To do so, the Galactic Council grants you the title of Spectre as well, essentially making you their above-the-law agent. You and your crew, composed of fellow soldiers and aliens that you meet along your travels, must hunt Saren down before he unleashes his plot to deliver all sentient life into the arms of an ancient and very powerful race of machine-beings.

Despite the story sounding fairly cut and dry, there are many points that are quite well done — better than that, actually. Mass Effect’s writing is well above the majority of most games’ stories. The main storyline is intelligently written, and deals with issues such as race (in terms of various alien species) and morality. In fact, morality plays a huge role, as you are often given tough decisions that can mean life and death.

Mass Effect features an abundance of sidequests as well — roughly 75% of the game takes place away from the main quest. As a Spectre, you’ll be policing the galaxy by finding criminals, answering distress calls, and solving problems for various individuals.

Your character, Commander Shepard, can be customized to your liking. You can make the character male or female, and you can choose from a variety of backstories for him/her. Your choices will affect some side-quest events and dialogue options, but won’t really have an effect on the main story.

Graphics - Mass Effect features some of the best character models I’ve ever seen. BioWare did a great job by giving the characters you interact with realistic movements and emotions. They even managed to give the aliens the same treatment. Considering the amount of time that you’ll spend having conversations in this game, it’s a good idea that BioWare made everybody comfortable to look at.

With that being said, though, the rest of the game suffers from the same problem that plagued Halo 3 — boring environments and uninspired level design. Each planet you visit and explore could be one in the same, save for mountain placement and atmospheric coloring. The biggest complaint is that sidequests take place in one of four maps. The only difference between them is the placement of objects such as barrels and crates. While you can argue that buildings and spaceships use the same blueprints in the future, there’s no excuse for the several different archaeological sites you visit to have the exact same layout and tunnel structure. Thankfully, main quest locations are unique in their settings, but there’s nothing about them that are memorable.

Gameplay - A playthrough of the game will break down something like this — half third-person shooter, half conversation.

Action sequences are basic. You move around and shoot the bad guys with your arsenal of standard weapons for your soldier class. Or, if you choose your Shephard to be a “biotic”, you can use Force-like projectiles to assault your enemies and protect yourself. You can also have Shepard be an engineer, giving him/her the ability to hack your robotic enemies (which are the majority of baddies) into fighting for you for a short bit. You can also use special abilities such as shield recharging, resurrecting fallen squad members, and increased damage for your attacks, but these must be earned through building up enough levels and spending experience points on them. Experience is gained from killing enemies, as well as hacking crates and lockers, as well as completing non-action oriented sidequests. While basic and easy to grasp, I did have a problem with my character automatically taking cover whenever they’re close to a wall or object with their weapon drawn. Lastly, the button setup for combat isn’t so good. Lastly, when exploring the surface of a planet, you’ll most likely be driving the Mako, a six-wheeled rover with a handy cannon for fending off the bad guys. Unfortunately, the Mako controls are very spotty when it comes to making quick turns and reverses. But as long as you’re driving straight on a smooth surface, it’s pretty good.

Thankfully, the conversational portion of the game is well-defined. When engaged in conversation, you’ll be presented with a dialogue tree of things you can say in response. However, instead of a word-for-word transcription of your response, your choices will only give you a hint of what Shepard will actually say. In most cases, you can act virtuously, take a middle ground, or be a total dick — it’s completely up to you. You can also build up charm and intimidation levels with your experience points, giving you new dialogue options. While progressing the game, you also use the conversations you have to learn about situations, alien races, and worlds. Pertinent information is kept in a journal, as well as a list of your available sidequests and a general idea of where to go to complete them.

Sound - The musical score is minimal, but very effective. Even though Mass Effect’s vision of the future involves dozens of alien races, the music evokes a very strong sense of isolation. The title screen’s music is very evocative, and makes you really feel the vast emptiness of the universe.

Since conversation is a key point in Mass Effect, the voice work needed to be strong — and it is. In what had to be a first, I wasn’t annoyed by one single person’s voice. The actors and actresses lending their talents to the game really give a fantastic effort. The cast features some well-known and not-so-well-known folks, but they all combine for a stellar effort.

Multiplayer - None, unless you and a friend take turns holding the controller.

Achievements - The achievements aren’t hard to get, with the hardest being beating the game on the highest difficulty level. However, getting a full 1000 points will require playing through the game three to four times, as some require finishing the majority of the game with specific squad members (you have six to choose from, but can only bring along two at a time) and using a specific character class. For a full list of the achievements, check out the list from the fine folks at xbox360achievements.org.

Intangibles - Mass Effect has been the target of some controversy recently, with falsehoods that it featured graphic sex. Not true! While there is a sex scene (or two) in the game, they are very tame — a profile naked shot where you don’t see anything, while the actual sex itself is skipped in favor of the post-coital pillowtalk. Plus, the sex scenes are optional — you have to actively work on cultivating a relationship in order to trigger it.

- Since we’re on the topic of sex, the pre-release buzz was the lesbian sex scene. In the context of the game, though, the alien girl that FemShepard can get with is technically pansexual (despite being referred to as “she” and having all of the girly bits). However, there’s no option for your male character to engage in a homosexual relationship. While BioWare could have made a progressive decision, they instead opted for the exploitive route.

- The Turian race reminded me quite a bit of the Kilrathi from Wing Commander.

- I think it’s a federal law that Keith David provide a voice in every video game.

- It’s 2008 — why do we still have to suffer through mid-gameplay loading screens?

- After one completion of the game, you can play through again using your character’s stats and weapons from the previous game. This is essential if you want to make it through the hardest setting.

- Doing most of the sidequests and thoroughly exploring the planets, you should finish the game in about 45 hours.

The Bottom Line - I’m not sure if Mass Effect will become the next great RPG series, but it’s a good start in the right direction. Despite that I didn’t shower the game with praise in my review, I really did enjoy the game, as the outstanding story compelled me to continue. The gameplay is simple, but its style is accessible to those who typically wouldn’t touch an RPG.

Mass Effect has enough substance and replayability to warrant a purchase, but you may want to rent it first to see just how well you like it (unfortunately, there’s no demo available for download). It’s not quite as great as a lot of people have made it out to be, but it’s an overall positive experience and worthy of being called one of the 360’s top tier titles. If BioWare can take care of some of the smaller problems and improve the non-character visuals, the Mass Effect series will be a force to be reckoned with.

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1. EA buys Bioware, Pandemic Studios; internet panics
2. The Halo 3 Review
3. The Fallout 3 Review
4. The Bully: Scholarship Edition Review
5. Final Fantasy XII - A Review

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