Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages! Welcome back to the Assassin's Den!
Today, we continue with my retrospective on the Mass Effect series with the first game in the series. Originally released on November 20, 2007 on the Xbox 360 in North America, two days later in Europe and Australia and summer 2008 for PC, for a time, this was the only game in the series without the dreaded EA logo. Instead, it was released by Microsoft Game Studio. The last Bioware game without the EA logo, for a time. It was later released as part of the Mass Effect Trilogy, a boxed set containing all three Mass Effect games. The Trilogy was released on November 6, 2012 for Xbox 360 and PC.
A PlayStation 3 version of the Trilogy, which brings Mass Effect to
that console for the first time, was released on December 4, 2012
worldwide and December 7, 2012 in Europe. All version include the dreaded EA logo in the startup.
Anyway, you play as Commander Shepard, a human Systems Alliance Marine who becomes the first human Spectre and is tasked to hunt down Saren Arterius, who has been indoctrinated by the Reapers and is now working for their return. And Saren isn't the only one to return from the novel; Captain David Anderson is also in the game. He's Shepard's mentor and staunchest ally, who believes in Shepard no matter what, and is willing to do anything to aid Shepard's mission.
This game introduces others who become important to the franchise. There's Donnel Udina, the human ambassador, who fights for humanity in the political arena. He's a foil to Shepard, always frustrated with the consequences of Shepard's actions in Shepard's mission.
You also get your squadmates; Garrus Vakarian, a cop on the Citadel who gets frustrated with all the bureaucracy on the Citadel, and wants to feel like he's doing some good. There's Urdnot Wrex, a krogan mercenary who has a ton of stories, and is the most friendly krogan you could ever meet. He's also a bit of a romantic, and wants to bring his people back to who they were during the stories of the rachni wars. Then you've got Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, a quarian mechanic/hacker who is on her rite of passage to adulthood. You've got Liara T'Soni, an archaeologist and Prothean expert who is a powerful biotic. And then you've got the human characters, Ashley Williams, a human soldier who lost her unit on Eden Prime, and Kaidan Alenko, an L2 biotic with engineer training. You learn a LOT about these people over the course of the game and through conversation with them on the ship.
And then you have Commander Shepard, a man or woman whom you play as. Shepard has six classes they can play as, with three origins and three military highlights to choose. The Spacer origin has Shepard born to military parents, and having grown up on military installations around the galaxy. Shepard enlisted in the military at 18, following the family tradition. The Colonist has Shepard born to on the planet Mindoir, which was attacked by batarian slavers when Shepard was 16. Shepard's parents were killed, and Shepard enlisted in the military at 18, to either get away from Mindoir or make sure no one else has to deal with what Shepard dealt with. Earthborn Shepard was an orphan, and ran with gangs in their younger years. At 18, Shepard joined the military for a chance at a better life.
Military highlights include the War Hero, who fended off a batarian slaver attack on Elysium, Sole Survivor, who was the only one who survived an attack from a Thresher Maw out of 50 marines, and Ruthless, who wiped out a batarian slaver camp on Torfan, and lost 3/4 of their unit to do so.
The classes are Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Sentinel, Vanguard and Infiltrator. And these are not as distinct as they become in the subsequent games. Out of the box, the Soldier is your gun expert. The Soldier is the only class that gets the Assault Rifle, and is the only one who can put points into all four guns. The Soldier is the only who can wear medium armor from the start, and can train to wear heavy armor. The Soldier is the best at killing a single enemy at a time, but has no debuffs or crowd control.
The Engineer is your debuff class. The Engineer can bring down enemy shields, shut down their guns, shut down their biotics, and performs as a medic for the party. However, the Engineer is restricted to the lightest armor, and out of the box, is restricted to the pistol.
The Adept is your crowd control master. With the ability to manipulate dark energy to telekineticly throw your enemies around, lift them into the air, poison them, stun them, and create singularities, which lift your enemies up and and pulls them toward the point of gravity. The Adept can also create a barrier against damage around themself. But, like the Engineer, it is restricted to light armor, and out of the box, the pistol as well.
Then you have the "dual classes". The Sentinel is a combination Adept/Engineer, and like them both, is restricted to light armor and, out of the box, the pistol. But the Sentinel has the medic ability of the Engineer, as well as the ability to debuff your foes guns and shields. The Sentinel also has the damage barrier, throw and lift of the Adept. That said, the Sentinel is my least favorite class.
The Vanguard is basically the Adept, without stun and singularity, and replaced with the ability to train to wear medium armor, and use a shotgun with accuracy. And the Infiltrator is an Engineer without the medic abilities, which are replaced with trainable medium armor and the ability to use the sniper rifle.
And with certain achievements available, the classes become even less distinct, with the ability to train any class with any unlocked ability. Like giving a Soldier a damage barrier, or the Engineer the assault rifle. See the achievements below for details.
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Achievements
Now, this game is the shortest data wise, but longest content wise. It is the only one to be on one disc, but the with the massive amount of side quests. A LOT of side quests. I'm serious, you've got maybe 40 levels worth of story, but 60 possible levels you can achieve. Of course, you can't get all 60 levels in a single playthrough; that's what the new game plus is for. No, you can hit 55-56 on a single playthrough, depending on the DLC you have. And this game is DLC light; Bring down the Sky, which is essentially restored cut content worked into a story of its own, and Pinnacle Station, a combat simulator. That's it. I personally don't like Pinnacle Station, so I deleted it after I played it with all 6 classes.
As for the story, your job is to chase down Saren, and try to stop him from bringing back the Reapers. You learn more about the geth, the Reapers and indoctrination, which is how the Reapers control organic beings. I won't get into details, for two reasons; 1) this game is six years old at this point, and you can find the entire game posted on youtube and 2) if I've sparked interest in a game you don't own, I don't want to spoil the little bits.
The only thing I will spoil is this; there's a quest in Mass Effect 3 that require you to do three things in this game. The first is you have to complete the quest for Gavin Hossle on Feros. The second is pick up the Elcoss Combine license, which you'd be doing anyway. The third is complete UNC:Asari Writings, a long and involved space quest that you have to scan planets and land on others to scan probes. I'm including this tip because Asari Writings is a pain, and I've included the link which shows where they are to make it easier. I'll explain why you want to do these things in Mass Effect 3's review.
All in all, ME1 is fun, if slow at sometimes. You can pick up the Xbox 360 version for 6 bucks on Amazon, the Trilogy version for 30 on PS3 and 360, 10 for a physical copy on PC and 20 for a digital download. All but the physical copies of the 360 version include Bring Down the Sky DLC for free. So check it out on the cheap, and tune in for my review of the second novel, Mass Effect: Ascension.
Happy Gaming!
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