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Mass Effect: Beginning of an Epic

There have been many games in history that have stood out from the crowd as shining examples of what can be done with storytelling in the video game genre.  One of the more recent ones is Mass Effect, telling the story of how every fifty thousand years a race of sentient machines, known as the Reapers, come to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy.  Mass Effect is a masterpiece from Bioware, and with this game the company has definitely lived up to its stellar reputation. 

There is a lot to talk about in this review.  I’ll start off with the story.  The story of Mass Effect follows the adventures of Commander Shepard, a now famous figure in the rogues’ gallery of video game heroes.  Like Master Chief, if the name Shepard is mentioned in video game discussion it is often instantly recognised.  Mass Effect has a very well written story, with interesting and likeable characters, excellent dialogue and brilliant voice acting.  First and foremost, someone I recognised was Seth Green in the role of Joker.  Seth Green is brilliant in this role.  While I didn’t recognise any of the other voice actors at first, they still do a great job.  Later in the game Lance Henriksen’s much appreciated voice crops up in the role of Admiral Steven Hackett.  The amount of voiced dialogue in the game is impressive – the player has a choice of what to say in each conversation, but this also varies depending on whether they’re using male or female Shepard and also whether Paragon or Renegade.  My first playthrough I used a mostly Paragon male Shepard, with the second playthrough as a mostly Renegade female Sheppard – it’s a lot of fun hearing the completely different attitude the character has.  Then there’s all the voiced dialogue for all the NPCs you’ll meet – and that’s a lot. 

Bioware have gone to great lengths to not only write a good story but to make a realistic and believable universe.  Mass Effect is filled with a myriad of races, each with their own culture and society, and while not on the same scale as Star Wars, it has much more depth and detail than most video game franchises.  There is a massive amount of detail in the game, including worlds, solar systems, technology, weapons and locations.  The level design is stunning – areas such as the Wards and the Presidium come across as real places that I would love to visit and experience in real life.  The amazing graphics in Mass Effect make these places so much more real, and are some of the best I’ve seen in a video game.  A special mention must go to the Normandy – this is truly a remarkable experience, even if it seems a bit bare in places (namely the captain’s cabin).  Being able to wander around your own starship and talk to your crew is pretty damn awesome when you’re not doing missions.  In addition, the design of the Geth are pretty inspiring – rather than your usual clunky, angular droids, the Geth look organic.  There is a particular type of Geth that look similar to robotic frogs, with the agility to match.  The Geth are organic-looking synthetics.  This is something I have yet to see in another franchise and so is quite original.  There is a large variety of enemies in the game too, so it doesn’t get bland fighting the same ones all the time.  Character customisation is also pretty good.  I think a few more hair and facial hair options would’ve been better, but combined with the awesome graphics Shepard looks very realistic (except for Bajo’s.)

Sound and Music: essential aspects of any great video game.  Mass Effect has excellent ambience, whether walking through the upper wards, chilling in the Flux nightclub or battling Geth on Feros, the sound of Mass Effect is always good.  I especially love the theme that plays when Shepard is inducted into the Spectres: it’s very heroic and uplifting.  Throughout the game the music is always appropriate and powerful.  It’s also worth noting that composer Jack Wall has the game Myst: Exile on his resume, so he’s no stranger to awesome soundtracks it seems. 

Despite having excellent presentation, I am divided on the gameplay of Mass Effect.  This is due to the main missions relying on a six-wheeled vehicle called the Mako.  Basically you get dropped from your starship onto the planet and have to drive across the planet’s surface to the mission destination in the Mako.  While the idea isn’t a bad one, the controls of the Mako are frankly quite terrible.  They are very sensitive, so it’s hard to keep driving in a straight line, and the machine gun is quite pathetic.  There is a cannon, but after every shot you have to wait 5 seconds or so before firing again and the targeting system while driving the Mako at the same time is very bad.  The amount of times I had the Mako destroyed whilst trying to fight in it during my first playthrough drove me crazy, and although during my second time I found it a little easier, it was still massively frustrating having to replay sections of the game due to the insane vehicle controls.  There were occasions where the Mako would get stuck on a mountain or a Geth shield wall during which I could do nothing but get shot, continuing to take damage.  I was very glad when the Mako is consequently destroyed in the final battle against Saren. 

Mako aside, the gameplay is very good.  Mass Effect is a mix of third-person shooter and role-playing game.  While I have heard it claimed that it will neither satisfy fans of shooters or rpgs, I have to disagree.  Mass Effect perfectly blends the two genres, giving the satisfaction of blasting bad guys with the fun of levelling up and growing more progressively powerful as a result.  It is not a strictly linear game – while you do have a main mission, there are many side missions, called ‘Assignments.’  Apart from a few frame rate issues, I found the squad gameplay very smooth.  I played this on the XBOX 360; it could differ on a PC.  Whenever you initiate conversation with an NPC you choose what you want to say, and the conversation plays out in mini cut scenes.  It looks gorgeous.  Also, missions and assignments can play out differently depending on what responses you give in conversation.  Mass Effect is a very slick and beautiful world to explore.  While the map is very simple, it’s usually easy to navigate.  The Galaxy Map is a visual delight.  I would have liked a little more planetside exploration outside the Mako, but on the whole exploring the galaxy and wandering around is pretty awesome.  You always have two squad members with you.  Different squad members have different skills and abilities, and although sometimes the AI can act stupidly, such as getting in the player’s way or shooting at walls, squad members usually act intelligently in combat.  Squad healing is another annoying aspect of the game, as you can only heal yourself with medi-gel and once used you have to wait a rather long time as it ‘recharges.’  Therefore sometimes you find yourself with no means of healing whilst taking serious damage.  Health regen, while it is available, is only applied to armour upgrades.  Upgrades are useful, as you can enhance your weapons and armour with passive abilities.  The downside is that you collect a hell of a lot of these; it is quite tedious going through them all trying to decide which ones to get rid of and assigning them to various squad members.  Also something I find quite superfluous is the fact that each squad member, including Shepard, has four weapons – assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle and a pistol.  While it is advantageous to have a couple different ones at your disposal, it undermines the point of having multiple squad members – the idea is that you have different squad members with different weapons to give variety.  Giving each squad member four different weapons takes it a little far I think, especially if you have to apply upgrades to all weapons on all squad members.  Now that is tedious.  Both playthroughs I pretty much stuck with one type of weapon.  If you do this, and also stick to the same team throughout the game, it minimises inventory management and makes the gameplay much smoother. 

A special mention should go to the romance option in Mass Effect.  Assuming you choose the right dialogue options you can actually have a relationship with one of your team members, and be rewarded with a sex scene at the end of the game.  This is particularly satisfying for a video game, as you get close to the characters in a game such as this.  I would like to see a lot more of this sort of thing in video games, as it increases the facets of game characters and makes them a lot more likeable and believable. 

I should also mention the different classes to play in Mass Effect.  There are six different classes, three of which are basically full combat, full techie and full biotic.  The other three are variations on the combinations of these.  My first playthrough I used a Soldier, (full combat) and found it very satisfying.  My second playthrough I decided to try out the biotic powers with a Vanguard (combat/biotic) and although I had a slightly harder time in the battles, it was much more satisfying as I had to strategise what abilities to use against certain foes instead of just blasting everything.  The difficulty in the game can be changed at almost any time during play so if you find a particular fight too hard you can do it again at an easier difficulty.  The game also auto-saves quite often, although it is advisable to save manually before and after fights to save yourself unnecessary frustrations if it doesn’t go down as well as you planned. 

Mass Effect has secured its place on the stage of video game legends.  It’s not a perfect game, but it has definitely established itself as a massive, beautiful world filled with detail, action and adventure.  It certainly tells one of the greatest stories in video game history, and still has the awesome gameplay to back it up.  Mass Effect’s beautiful graphics and story, likeable characters, great gameplay and flawless music combine to overcome its few flaws.  If it wasn’t for the Mako, I would definitely give Mass Effect a 9.  As a result it still earns an 8.5 from me.

Soundtrack to your Life

Recently, a friend of mine made a series of posts about his favourite tracks from video game soundtracks.  As a fan of game music myself, and a bit of a collector of game soundtracks, since I have over 150 of them, I thought I'd post a few of my own favourites.  I won't be saying that much about the music as I don't really want to rabbit on that much, but have a listen and see what you think. 

Morrowind was a great game in its own right, an open world RPG that was staggering in its beautiful landscapes and scope for adventure.  While a lot of the music didn't really stand out to me, this theme tune in particular did - it speaks of a vast, spectacular adventure filled with tales of heroism and glory.  The new Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim harkens back to this game with its dwemer ruins and I'm sure some of the music for Skyrim has been taken from Morrowind. Credits to Jeremy Soule, he's da man.

Dungeon Lords - while the game may have been the worst RPG of all time, and led me to buy a new computer, this theme tune is ultimately what drew me in.  It lures in the adventurer with the promise of clashing weapons, dark dungeons and high adventure.  Pity about the end results.

I have yet to finish Dungeon Siege, as I was playing a borrowed copy, but this music, speaking of a vast journey across a land filled with danger, makes me wish that one day I could return to the world of Dungeon Siege.  Composer - Jeremy Soule again.

Vast, sweeping fantasy soundscapes such as this is part of the reason I love fantasy games.  Guild Wars: I wish I'd played it more, but I just couldn't get it into it.  Perhaps that will change with the upcoming MMO Guild Wars 2, which promises to revolutionise RPGs.  The music however is the fantastic stuff of legends.  Oh by the way, guess who composed this - that's right Jeremy Soule again.

  Speaking of MMOs, this song from MMORPG King World of Warcraft proves why WoW is one of the greatest RPGs of all time - not only does it have the great gameplay, the high sales, the awesome presentation, the really good people fanbase, and the creative talent but also the composers to make a truly epic masterpiece. 

Another massively awesome theme tune from a great RPG.  These songs are all fantasy by the way.  I am a fan of fantasy games, so naturally most of my soundtracks are fantasy or science fiction.  Like Dungeon Siege, I never got to finish Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, this time it was something to do with having to control more than one character.  The music however, is epic, its from Jeremy Soule - again.  That man is a LEGEND AMONG VIDEO GAME MUSIC PEOPLE. 

Dragon Age (a review of it can be seen elsewhere on this blog) had two sides to it.  The good side was its presentation, of which it was epic.  The music is classic fantasy adventure but this theme in particular was awesome, telling of a dark world beset by a rising evil. 

Now THIS song is truly epic fantasy action adventure!!!  This song makes me want to seize up a sword and charge into battle - FOR GLORY!!!  While the music of Castle Crashers is pretty awesome on the whole, the main theme really does give the impression of a mighty adventure filled with heroic battles and sweeping landscapes.

Soul Reaver - this has some of the best music out there.  This main theme gives a sense of darkness, of danger, and wild adventure in a land corrupted and wasted by one man's greed.  This is definitely one of my fave tracks of any soundtrack, game or otherwise.  Halfway through it also tells of a fall and redemption and ultimate revelation at the end.  This is a masterpiece, composed by Kurt Harland, of the band Information Society. 

So that's a look at some of my fave fantasy video game themes.  Hope you enjoyed listening.

Aef

Into the north...into Skyrim!

A Night To Remember

With the release of Bethesda’s latest Elder Scrolls game Skyrim, I, along with many other adventure-hungry gamers have set out into the northern, snow-clad province of Tamriel.  And it was here that I had quite an interesting experience. 

It all started one night in the Bannered Mare tavern in Whiterun.  I was looking for a mercenary to hire, my previous bodyguard having fallen in battle against a vile Falmer in the bowels of Shimmermist cave.  I was approached by a man offering a drinking contest, and, though I’m not usually one for the ways of alcohol, I begrudgingly accepted, thinking what harm could this do.  After all, he said something about a magical staff as a reward if I could beat him.  Next thing I know I’m waking up in Markarth, the city of stone on the far western side of the map.  I’d never even been here before.  Apparently, after winning the drinking contest, I’d been drugged and tricked into doing some rather unwholesome things that I couldn’t remember doing.  One of which included fondling the Nibella statue (but when you look at the statue of her though and how much she’s showing how you can blame a man.) 

So I set out into the city and soon hired a mercenary by the name of Vorstag for the return trip to Whiterun.  Unfortunately, things soon heated up – I was approached by a man needing help checking out an abandoned and haunted house.  So, with my new hired muscle at my side, I agreed – only to find out that it was all a trap planted by the Daedra Molag Baal to get someone to retrieve his axe from far in the north.  Agreeing to go on the mission at a later date, we left the house and soon, by accident or design, got caught up in something called the Forsworn Conspiracy.  Basically we were set on the trail of a group called the Forsworn – men who had ruled Skyrim before the Nords conquered them and who ‘champion the downtrodden.’  Though I highly doubt they actually champion anything except their own bloated egos.  After a rather intriguing set of clues, threats and blackmailings, we were cornered in the temple of Talos and told we were being arrested.  I now know that the city of Markarth is full of corruption and injustice and this was a prime example of the bastard guards in action.  In a swirl of blood and steel we fought against the guards.  I managed to fight my way clear of the temple – but with even more guards closing in I was forced to flee the city.  Fortunately I escaped but I feared that Vorstag had fallen. 

So I found myself in the middle of nowhere at 3 AM, trudging down a road that would take me across the many miles between here and Whiterun.  I was stopped by a thief – but I was in no mood for negotiation.  He said something about gutting me like a fish, but my blood was up, and in a few short moments it was he that ended up being gutted like a fish, blood spattering the cobblestones.  Another thief stopped me and the same thing happened – I was hating the world at that moment, having all the bad luck of Tamriel dumped on my doorstep, and all because of some bastard and his drinking contest.  And then I came to a crossroads.  There was an abandoned cart with a body nearby.  Of course it stank of a trap.  And unsurprisingly I found myself surrounded by four thuggish bandits.  Blood rising, I drew my sword and hacked and slashed, one, two bandits down.  The others were shooting arrows at me, but I rushed one of them and soon her body was tumbling down the mountainside.  The last one tried to run but my sword found itself plunging between her shoulder blades.  Exhausted, battered and bloodied, I took what I could loot from the bandits’ corpses and trudged on. 

And then, just when I thought I’d reached the town of Rorikstead, I heard a terrifying roar and a giant shadow passed across the stars.  Yep, it was a dragon.  I’d fought dragons before; the dragon battles are pretty epic.  This one had cold breath and soon huge blasts of freezing ice were smashing into the road.  Engaging a dragon in battle is one of the most satisfying moments I’ve ever had in an RPG.  Shooting flaming arrows at it, trying to avoid the breath, slashing at it with my magical sword when it was on the ground while getting a face full of ice breath, and even using my own Shouts, it was truly an epic battle.  I had to constantly heal myself as well, switching between my heal spell and my shield.  Without that magic I probably wouldn’t have made it.  When I finally brought the dragon down, I absorbed its soul and unlocked the ability to breathe fire (the latest Shout I’d learned.) 

And so I trudged into the sleepy village of Rorikstead.  And after a good night’s sleep I awoke to find a man in armour standing nearby. 

It was Vorstag.  He’d survived the attack from the corrupt guards of Markarth, escaped the city and tracked me down.  Now that’s what I call commitment to service. 

In the few hours since I’ve discovered that while I was drunk I stole a goat, gone with Vorstag to beat up a giant and retrieve said goat, battled bandits and wild animals and finally arrived back in Whiterun.  Well I can definitely say having a merc like Vorstag around is certainly welcome.  Next I’ll be setting out to Witchmist Glade in the east of Skyrim to find a ring that I borrowed from this chick Ysolda during the intoxication...

What have I learned from all this?  Never enter a drinking contest.  I look forward to the adventures to come.

Duke Nukem Forever – A Pathetic Waste of Time

When I heard all the hype about how Duke Nukem Forever was on its way, I was mildly intrigued.  This was a game that had been in development for 14 years, and supposedly would be groundbreaking when it was finally released.  Now it’s here, and is groundbreaking in only one way: it’s possibly the worst console game ever made.  To be completely honest, this game is crap.  To say Duke Nukem Forever is fun is an enigma.  This is my review of the Duke Nukem Farce, for that’s all this game really is, a complete and utter waste of gaming time when you could be playing something else.  Anything else, actually, because chances are it’s not as bad as DNF.  This is such a shockingly bad game, I’d rather watch grass grow.  Seriously, it’s that awful. 

Starting with presentation – on the back cover of the game it says “Duke Nukem is pure, unadulterated FUN.”  On the contrary, it’s actually pure, undiluted crap.  It’s as if the game is trying to force you to believe its fun, when it’s truly just rubbish.  There are the usual screenshots, and a retarded looking idiot wearing dark sunglasses.  There is also the quote “You’ve got yourself one awesome thumb-sprainer – Zoo Weekly.”  The only thing you’ll be spraining whilst playing DNF is your wrist as you wrench the disc out of the drive and hurl it ferociously across the room.  On the front cover is a rather unflattering picture of the Duke, which is automatically a turn off.  Something also has to be said for the vulgar humour in DNF.  I don’t find it funny at all.  Rather, its childish, tasteless, amateurish crap from a bygone era, which may be a result of the game’s prolonged development.  It fails to amuse, and it fails to entertain.  It’s not good material for a video game, it makes for a terrible game because it’s not entertaining and worse, it actually harms the reputation of gamers as this is the sort of game that appeals only to single, male teenagers and young adults who still live in their parent’s basements.  I doubt many women would be interested in this game, as girls are depicted as nothing more than sex objects to be exploited by the Duke at every possible opportunity.  The game also promotes binge drinking, smoking, and American patriotism, reinforcing the belief that Americans are better than everyone else.

Now to the story.  Hang, on, did I say STORY?  What story?  There isn’t a story at all in DNF.  Aliens attack and it’s up to Duke to “kick their ass.”  That’s not a story, it’s a scenario.  And a pretty lame, unoriginal, cliché one at that.  The people developing this game have absolutely no imagination whatsoever.  The characters are forgettable in an instant, and even the Duke himself is not a hero in the normal sense of the word.  A hero is someone people look up to, someone who does heroic deeds because it’s the right thing to do – Duke Nukem kills aliens for the kicks – for the glory, he does it because it’s COOL.  He drinks, smokes, womanises, is narcissistic, self-centred and sexist.  He is quite a contemptible character.  He is no “hero”, and has absolutely no personality and no redeeming qualities – he’s just a dickhead and doesn’t deserve the title hero at all, let alone the King.  Why would anyone look up to such a violent, unintelligent loser? 

The graphics of DNF are pretty poor quality.  Due to the game being developed in the Triassic Age, most of the game’s graphics are painful to look at.  Water coming from a shower head is a prime example.  Jumping in pools of water causes no splashes.  Statues and rockfaces look like heaps of angular lines filled with blandness.  The sky is rife with pixelizations.  Characters are blocky and don’t look realistic at all.  Some graphics are OK, particularly the alien tentacles which look pretty wet and slimy but most of the graphics are still pretty bad compared to the standard of video games made in the 21^st century.  Overall, rubbish.  Level design is pretty bland, suffering from a total lack of creativity, ranging from Duke’s typically luxurious mansion, underground installations and smashed up cityscapes.  The only two that really struck a chord with me were the Alien Hive, which was suitably wet, slimy and dark, giving a really threatening and horrifying feel, and the sandy, blasted wasteland of the Ghost Town, which was pretty much a western setting.  These levels still however were not really anything new or different, and have been ripped straight out of other games.  There really has been no effort put into the levels, which is just plain slack.  There is no map in DNF so sometimes it’s confusing where the hell you’re meant to go, although overall the game is an incredibly linear path – you’re simply travelling from one fight to the next (and you’re doing more of this than actual combat.)  There’s one senseless night club level that is just plain ludicrous, where your job is to hunt down a pack of popcorn, a vibrator and a condom.  Maybe this is supposed to be a side quest.  Put popcorn in the microwave.  Fun.  What a load of pointless shit. 

Audio in DNF is utter crap, definitely one of the worst aspects of the game.  The voice acting is terrible, with dull, lacklustre NPCS and the Duke constantly spewing his clichéd one-liners.  The dialogue is so bad a child could write better material.  As for the music – what music?  Constantly looping, poorly synthesized guitar and other forgettable sounds are not what I call music.  I have no respect for a game in which the developers have spent next to no time at all writing a good script and getting decent actors to record the voices. 

The gameplay – the heart of any game.  Even if it doesn’t have a good story, if the gameplay’s good then its fun, right?  The gameplay, sorry to say, is so bad I’m surprised I got over half way through the campaign.  It is shit.  The controls are clunky, the jump is so poor Duke feels like an overweight hippopotamus and the long, boring sections between the fights are often populated with bizarre puzzles which are confusing, simplistic and frustrating.  There is also a lot of platforming in the game, which is some of the worst platforming I’ve ever seen.  You’ll see better platforming in downloadable, 2D games (not that they’re bad in any way nowadays but if there was going to be some in DNF I would’ve expected it to be at least average quality.)  One of the most horrendous levels sees Duke jumping from shelf to shelf around the edges of a kitchen.  The pathway leads to a stove top, where burgers are cooking and you have to jump from burger to burger.  This is appalling for a first person game.  It’s hard to see how much room you have to either side and because of the poor controls one move slightly in any direction means you die and have to start over.  Speaking of starting over, the game has a dreadful save system, relying on a series of checkpoints.  This must be because that’s how it was made early in the development, but today such a system comes across as primitive and results in much frustration in having to replay entire sections just because of one mistake.  Punishing the player is never welcome, and DNF does it all the time, with little reward. 

There are some levels in DNF that puts Duke in control of a vehicle – first a remote control car when he gets miniaturized.  The handling on this is positively ghastly.  Also the question must be asked: why the hell does this car have a hand break?  Later Duke drives around in his monster truck, which handles a lot better and is slightly reminiscent of the vehicles in Borderlands.  However, the Borderlands vehicles are much better, being equipped with weapons.  Duke’s truck has nothing, and in one level must swerve from side to side to avoid explosive barrels being thrown from the back of a truck by a pig-man.  The truck also runs out of gas every now and then, and Duke has to go find a bottle.  When he finds one, he finds not one but three, yet you can’ take the others for the next time you run out.  This is shit in my opinion, as that would be logical course of action.  Why even bother having the other bottles sitting there at all? 

As for the combat, some of the shooting sections are OK and there are usually various guns littered around the place.  You can only carry two guns, which I guess makes sense.  Sometimes there are these large crates that have unlimited ammo inside them.  However the guns themselves feel incredibly inaccurate and lack any sense of punch.  In addition the game often puts guns in the most absurd of positions – for instance early in the game I just got hold of a new, better gun only to be confronted with waves of enemies and have to use a turret instead.  The reliance on turrets and explosives is endlessly frustrating – the bosses in the game can only be harmed by these weapons which is just plain stupid.  The Boss fights are extremely exasperating affairs, especially the Octoking, in which you are blasted constantly by Octobrains and given no cover to get your health back.  This is a broken boss fight and it’s this point that I rage quit in disgust.  The Ego bar (your health bar) is very short and is depleted very easily, but to make it worse it takes an incredibly long time to recharge.  In an age where regenerating health/shield bars are increasingly popular for shooters, DNF’s version is crude and ineffective.  There are various items littered throughout the game that increase the length of the Ego bar, but it rarely makes a difference in combat due to the horrifically overpowered and imbalanced enemies.  I tried this game on easy, and still had a hard time in every battle. 

Duke Nukem Forever deserves its nickname Did Not Finish.  It deserves to be spat upon in contempt.  It’s a terrible game, seeming like an old piece of crap which was rushed with minimal time, little skill and almost no effort.  I do not recommend DNF to anyone, and I hope game companies don’t waste any time or money on a sequel.  The gaming community don’t deserve to be insulted like that and frankly, with a loathsome, unlikeable character such as Duke Nukem as the protagonist, there shouldn’t be another game.  If you think any part of this game would be fun you’re better off looking elsewhere.  DNF is a boring, broken experience.  I’m giving it a miserable score of 1.