"Why Skeleton King!", you say with mouth agape. "That game is almost two years old, why are you analyzing this!?"
Well, I would tell you that I am because the market today moves so quickly that it barely focuses good games that have gone by and exclusively on everything new and shiny in the world. Also, that I as a great researcher feel it is my duty to take a look at all these magnificent games that are a little aged, and bring them to the spotlight so I may share memories with those who have played, and expose people who haven't.
But, that would be a lie.
Fact is, as a poor college student, I don't have many resources available to me to review many new games artistically. And although I will be taking some newer games into account, I have to pace myself with my money, since other options *COUGHDOWNLOADINGILLEGALLYCOUGH* are not open to me. That is not to mention that I know the game pretty well, having played through it a couple times, and enjoyed it. So I think it's a good start to my little project here. Fasten your seat belts folks, it's gonna be a funky ride!
Ah unreal engine 3, how I love your pop up textures and weird plastic muppet human models. Mass Effect would do so much better with a little overhaul when it comes to the human models, maybe it is something to do with the imagination of the designers, but the aliens look much better than most of the human models. It seems like the faces had been made out of some sort of plastic, molded over a skeletal structure and the moving parts are jerkily animated by thousands of tiny clockwork gnomes. It's no secret that the human body is very hard to get right, so I can't complain too much about this part but I can surely point out its faults.
Other than the human models, and the pop-in textures that appear when loading a new area. Mass Effect pulls off the look of a space drama quite well, all the ships of the different races look very unique in style. The alien races themselves are imaginative and even likable in some cases. Although, they do sometimes fall into the 'various human personalities' problem where the races are characterized by standardized human psychological personalities. This kind of takes the edge off at first, but when you start to delve into the stories behind each race then you start to realize how amazingly detailed and different they are.
And this brings up one of the major strengths of Mass Effect, Story. When you first start the game you are fed a little data, and can get a feel for the universe around you. However, you don't delve in, you aren't immersed till you find out all the little details. When you first find the Codex, and you realize that there is a ever expanding encyclopedia of knowledge at your fingertips. It only gets bigger as you go further in the game and almost all of this is fully voiced. I cannot tell you the benefits this adds to the overall feel of the game. Sure you can read faster than the voice actor can say the text, but it gives you all the experience of a sci-fi universe. Everything is presented in a sleek and easy to use fashion within the codex. And it helps show you how deep the makers of this game have gone to make a very lively and rich world.
Another strength of Mass Effect is the music. At first some might be put off by the odd synth music that greets you at the title screen, its not like most sci-fi presentations now a day. However, it quickly gives you a sense of uniqueness for this game, it isn't just another space marine shooter with grunting men and aliens to blast away left and right. On the contrary, you can even form a romantic relationship with one. The music keeps a good temp and beat through the entire game, and helps move the action along with great effect.
Now comes one of the most disappointing parts of this game, the exploration levels. Once you are free to move about the galaxy, you get a feeling of freelance agent that can find all these wonderful and interesting worlds. This however, is not the case for the most part. The side-missions often send you to barren worlds, devoid of any life and dotted with things you can salvage and nodes you can mark. All these things serve to disappoint you. The worlds have no true schemes of their own, they are very barren for the most part, only offering you a couple color palettes, and some mild weather effects. Overall these sections are the most 'game-y' parts of the title and offer no real value aside XP and items.
With Mass Effect 2 coming up soon I hope they revisited these parts of the game, and improve an the already fantastic musical score and story. If I had my way I would have revamped human models (So their hair doesn't look like molded play dough) and breath some sort of life into the side-mission worlds. They have a world with a very rich history on their hands, all they need to do is feed it some more vistas, colorful textures, and realistic models. Let the environment artists go crazy, and let us explore another universe that seems just as real as our own.
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