<\/td><\/tr>Udina: Is that the kind of person we want protecting the galaxy?<\/p>\n
Anderson: That’s the only kind of person who can<\/em> protect the galaxy.<\/p>\n <\/td><\/tr><\/table>BioWare games are first and foremost character-driven games, story games second, and roleplaying games third. KOTOR set the bar unbelievably high in this regard, giving us a collection of characters so memorable that they’re still beloved today, even after their quotes and gags have been run into the ground by their well-meaning fans. <\/p>\n The premise is that humanity is the new race on the block. We’ve just recently dragged our sapient butts into space and found it was already populated by a half-dozen other races. So much for the final frontier.<\/p>\n One of the crucial locations in the game is the Citadel – a huge space station built by a long-dead alien race. Nobody really knows how the Citadel works, but it’s huge and powerful and the perfect place for the galactic Humanity seems to have figured out that you can only rule or serve in this galactic order, and so they have begun efforts to get humans into places of power. You play as commander Shepherd, a candidate to be the first human Specter, which one assumes is a stepping stone to humanity being on the council itself.<\/p>\n While all of this is going on, a unknown force rises and threatens the entire galaxy, and someone has to stop them. (That would be you.) <\/p>\n Some people are faulting Mass Effect for being too short. But I think what’s happened here is that the game has nearly as many quests and tasks as earlier games, but a majority of those have been offloaded into optional – and often obscured – sidequests. Once the game cuts you loose with your own ship, you only have five stops to make to reach the end of the game. (Get Liara on Therum, the cipher on Feros, the location of the Mu Relay on Noveria, the second beacon on Virmire, and then kick the galaxy’s ass via Ilos.<\/span>) This isn’t like KOTOR, where every other person you pass is waving you down and stuffing a laundry list of tasks into your hand. Mass Effect makes it very easy to jump on the central rail and ride it all the way to the closing credits, and if you want more to do you have to go looking for it. <\/p>\n The plot is interesting enough. The premise – that Bad Aliens Are Invading and Must Be Stopped – isn’t going to win any awards for originality, and it’s lacking the devious sucker-punch plot twist that earlier BioWare games gave us. But it’s engaging, consistent, and based in a new setting instead of pulling from the dregs of some played-out IP. <\/p>\n But the game is not without its faults, and I am going to enumerate them in excruciating detail in a later post. Partly because I think this needs to be done, but mostly because I build up my self-esteem by pointing out the faults of others.<\/p>\noligarchy<\/del> council<\/em> to make their home. The council employs the Specters – a small group of covert specialists who are beholden to nobody but the council. Think of them like CIA spies with diplomatic immunity, working for a small group of aliens who live in an unassailable fortress and who aren’t accountable to anyone. Given this power structure, it’s actually really impressive that the galaxy is only usually<\/em> torn apart by warfare. <\/p>\n
<\/td><\/tr>The Citadel is a fantastic location, its grandeur hampered somewhat by its incessant loading screens.<\/td><\/tr><\/table>This is actually a really good idea. In the past I’ve seen complaints from players who became mired in the maze of sidequests and lost track of what they were supposed to be doing or what their overall goals were. The approach used in Mass Effect lets those folks stay on task, while leaving players like me free to take the scenic route. I would have enjoyed my first play-through more if I’d realized this. It wasn’t until near the end of the game that I began to realize just how much content I was missing. <\/p>\n