Mass Effect - release date, videos, screenshots, reviews on RAWG

Good but surprisingly dated. Frequent visual glitches, somewhat infrequent bugs that cause quests to not mark as finished or certain quest flags not clear, enemies often get stuck in walls - walls of environments that are reused like crazy - and those Mako physics absolutely do not fit that Mako level design at all, felt like two separate games taped together and not playtested even a bit. After playing KOTOR and then this in close proximity, it's weird Bioware got the reputation as the "polished but not crazy deep" RPG house where Obsidian got the reputation as "technically flawed but deep" when Bioware is pretty buggy and unpolished.

I wish it did a bit more with its RPG systems. The choices don't seem to do much for this game, but I know they're supposed to carry over to the next game. In reality, there are only six or seven actual main quests and locations - the Eden Prime, The Citadel, Noveria, Virmire, Feros, Ilos, and The Citadel again but different this time. Five out of the six companions you get by The Citadel, the second main area, and have limited variety species-wise: two humans, two more might-as-well-be humans (because I guess they can't make any female aliens look unattractive - seriously, where are the male Quarians, female Turians, female Salarians, female Elcor, female Volus, female Hanar, etc. and why does anyone accept that bullshit about Asari being monogender), a more gangly humanoid alien, and then finally the weird buff alien guy. Where's my Volus, Hanar, and Elcor companions? You fight Salarians at one point, why can't those be companions, too? One of your companions will probably never be used since they have the same class as you. It's supposed to be a vast space opera but those faults all make it feel small and cramped, which is probably why they added sidequests. But the sidequests are kind of pointless. Again, I know choices will matter in the next game so I feel like I have to do them, but so many are fetch quests and a non-insignificant amount are just randomly collecting shit. Land on planet, check map, bounce along to the anomaly, resource deposit, debris, and finally the place you're actually going. Then it's a shooting gallery from one of three options: a mine, a research base, and an army base. The same layout for each over and over and over again. Some have animated and voiced cutscenes, most don't.

It's still worth playing. The main quests at least have high production values. The tech and biotic powers are a cool balance with the shooting, though I will say tech side feels overpowered since the main villain race is a synthetic race of robots. Inventory management is kind of trash but there are a lot of directions to take your character customization. It's smart to make every single response by Shepard a player choice, and all fully voiced, even if a lot of dialogue turns into the RPG menu diving exposition dumps. I wish the companions were a little more independent but they do make a point of giving them time to shine and putting only your "away team" in cutscenes.