Okay, as many of you know by now, I hate Mass Effect with a passion. I hate it so much I could draw nourishment off my hatred. Of course, despising a game to the point where your writing is full of naught but venom is not the right of frame of mind to write a well-balanced, informative review. Aaron read my piece and suggested I look it over and be more explanatory of my complaints, but sadly I just didn't have the time to rework it. When Aaron asked me for an update on the rewrite, it was 3:30am and I'd only just gotten home from my other job. It was horrible to have to do, but I told Linde they'd have to go ahead without me.

Well, at least a few people would like to read it, so I'm posting the version I couldn't get around to altering in the Cblogs here for those of you who are interested. Even if you don't agree with it, I hope you enjoy it. As with all our reviews, this is my personal opinion and really, you know I don't like the game by now so you're wasting your time if you want to get all uppity and bitch me out for daring to dislike something you like.

Y'know, it's not like I whine when you all remind me how shit Dynasty Warriors is. ;-)

Mass Effect review: Director's Cut

Mass Effect is a bad game. I'm not going to sugar-coat it, or give it some sort of special treatment just because BioWare made it. Mass Effect is a bad game and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. Not being a BioWare nut, I was very skeptical about this title from the beginning and didn't buy a single word of hype. It failed to impress me in trailers and it lived up to that failure perfectly. Had I been truly excited for this one, I think the disappointment would have been crushing.

The realtime combat upon which Mass Effect's gameplay hinges is sloppy at best and unfinished at worse. To lack polish is one thing, but to be caked in filth is another. Firstly, the game tries to implement a cover system, but in the worst possible way. Unlike in Gears of War where you tap a context-sensitive button to cling to cover, your aim in Mass Effect is to nudge Shepherd against a wall and hope that maybe, 50% of the time, he/she'll stick to it. It doesn't want to work properly, and even when it does, it's awkward, obscures your view, and barely protects you once a volley of splash-damage weapons are unleashed your way.

Your character is also slow and ponderous, presumably to give the false impression of methodical, tactical shooting. This, like so much to do with Mass Effect, is a lie. All it does is make things harder for you when enemies move at ridiculous speeds. You are forced to move slowly and methodically while a bunch of enemies bumrush your position. This also completely eliminates the point of cover. It's like the whole combat system is set up to contradict itself.

Talking about lame setups, I barely want to think about how BioWare mapped the controls. When you have grenades mapped to the back button, you know something's messed up. Not only that, there are three buttons that draw your weapons, and yet only one button you can hotkey your special Biotic abilities to. It just ... it defies all logic. If the aim was to produce the most convoluted and confusing button layout known to gaming, well Mass Effect succeeds.

Considering only one Biotic is particularly useful though, perhaps I can't complain too much about one hotkey.

The game tries to stitch together several genres and it doesn't know what it wants to be. The combination of RPG and shooter have been blended together without any kind of thought, proving that maybe BioWare needs to stick to turn-based games. Mass Effect event attempts some vehicular action in the form of the Mako. The developers seem to think that in the future, cars are made out of extra bouncy rubber, if that pile of crap vehicle is anything to go by. The all-too abundant Mako sections were horrible and worthless, all filler to make up for how pathetically short the whole experience is.

There are some good elements to Mass Effect, don't get me wrong. The writing is very interesting, and minutes before the game throws the premature final boss at you, things begin to get interesting. Themes of racism and the nature of the "greater good" are explored within the game context and there is a lot of compelling promise which could have been capitalized upon had the game been given longer to develop the plot. The universe of Mass Effect threatens to be as engaging as the Star Wars universe, but just falls short of truly capturing the imagination.

The game also looks stunning when there aren't any graphical bugs. Some of the alien races appear almost tangible thanks to some amazing skin textures. This all comes at a cost on the 360 though, as long loading times, often disguised as ridiculously slow elevators, get in the way of the action.

Rev said it best. This game is a disappointment, and when you have to lower your expectations dramatically just to have a bit of fun with the thing, I fail to see how that's the mark of a good title in anybody's book. Even outside of glaring flaws, a slew of minor issues add to the horror. The game is ridiculously vague, full of areas that are just a complete waste of time (spending ages on an unchartered world just to find an object you can't interact with because your decryption skill is too low is disgusting) and the less said about the maps, the better. Oh, and get used to saving often if you don't want to replay the last twenty minutes of your life, unskippable cutscenes included.

It is beyond my comprehension how some people can claim this is a truly terrific title. Even at just "decent," it's pushing things. Personally, I stick by what I said when I started this review. Mass Effect is a bad game. As someone waiting for more RPG content this generation, the game leaves one sour, bitter taste. I honestly tried to like it (after spending more money than I usually do on a game, I definitely tried) but couldn't bring myself to have fun even once. I spent hours waiting, just waiting, for things to improve, but suddenly realized I was at the final boss, and not once had it gotten better.

That's about all I have to say on the matter.

Score: 4.0

On a side note, Aaron did not ask me to raise my score or sugarcoat my tone of voice. He was willing to let me share this opinion and score on the frontpage and the only reason it didn't run is because I couldn't find the time to remove the overbearing personal bias that tainted the legitimacy of the review. This is why I love my job here -- no other site would let a high profile game's sole detractor from contributing to its review.