In the review for Chrono Trigger, I mentioned it was once my favorite game of all time. After I had spent some time with StarCraft and Shenmue, I had to revise that a bit, dropping it to the position of best RPG I had ever played.

After playing Mass Effect, I had to revise that once again, this time saying it was among the best I had ever played. Bioware had finally done what I thought was not possible: make a game on par with Square’s masterpiece.

A pedrigree of great RPGs

To say people were anticipating the release of Mass Effect is a bit of an understatement. Not only did the game itself look amazing, but it was being made by one of the most well known producers of role playing games, Bioware.

Bioware has made some of the most well known RPGs on the market. Baldur’s Gate is the game that brought the company into the forefront, establishing it as a serious contender in PC RPGs. It followed this up with the critically acclaimed sequel and then the popular and acclaimed Neverwinter Nights. These games borrowed heavily from the tried and true RPG formulas of the day, though Bioware definitely put its own twist in each of them. The company had proven it was here to stay, at least in the PC market. The company’s biggest surprise was yet to come, however.

In 2003, Bioware released its first console RPG, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. People were stunned at just how good a game it was, if for no other reason than it was the company’s first foray into the consoles. The game was very well received by both critics and players, and for lack of a better way to put it, Bioware had arrived. The company’s next offering, Jade Empire, did not do quite as well, but at this point it could afford to have a game that just fell a little short.

So like I said, there was a lot of aniticipation surrounding Mass Effect. People could not wait to see what Bioware, who had revolutionized the way you interacted with NPCs in its earlier RPGs, was going to do with its first game on a next gen console. With such high expectations, it would have been easy for the game to fall short.

It doesn’t.

Amazing back story

To craft a game like Mass Effect, one of the first things you need is a credible back story. Bioware went out of its way to create one. The year is 2183, and humanity has made its way to the stars, only to find out it is not alone. They are now in what is known as Citadel  Space, which is ruled by the Council. For the last several years, the humans have been pushing for inclusion in this council, but to no avail.

Mass Effect combines story, graphics and RPG elements to make one great game.

The Council has a group of hand picked agents referred to as Spectres. They operate above the law that normally governs most police forces, which leads to others treating them with both reverence and more than a little suspicion. Saren, one of the most respected Spectres, has turned rogue, aligning himself with a murderous group synthetic lifeforms called the Geth. It is up to you as Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre, to stop him. You will assemble a team that of several different characters, including both humans and aliens who all have their own reasons for wanting to see Saren stopped. At stake is the fate of the universe, though the true threat is much more than just the Geth.

As you begin to get the full picture of just what is going on within the game universe. you see how much time and attention Bioware paid to make Mass Effect so much more than just a game. It truly becomes an epic, culminating in one of the most amazing final hours of gameplay I have ever experienced.

Want to know what is even more amazing about the back story of the game? There is more than one. When you are designing your character, you get the normal customization you have come to expect from a company like Bioware: sex, facial features, build, hair and eye color, character class, etc. You also choose two part to your character’s back story. One is where you were born: space, a colony or Earth. The other is your character’s reputation, where you are given the choice of war hero, lone survivor of an alien attack or a ruthless soldier. Though these choices may seem rather minor, they will affect how others relate to you in the game and can influence certain side quests. It is a really nice touch.

The conversations are the key

When people talk about Mass Effect, they generally do not start talking about the combat. It’s not that the combat is horrible, though people who did not understand the game is an RPG at heart and expected it to play like a first person shooter were disappointed when they were not getting head shots with sniper rifles. The reason it is not the first thing that comes to mind is the combat is not what stands out about the game; it is the conversations.

Bioware took its conversation system from Knights of the Old Republic and overhauled it, adding to what was already considered one of the best in the industry. What makes the system in Mass Effect so impressive is it is so dynamic.

Whenever you enter a conversation, you are given options to choose just like in any RPG. One of these is usually considered a positive response, one more neutral and one negative. That is where this game breaks company with those that come before it, however, because you are not actually choosing what your character is going to say; you are choosing the attitude with which you are going to say it.

The intricate converstaion system really sets this game apart.

It’s really hard to describe this without giving an example. One of the earliest conversations you have in the game is with your pilot, who expresses concern that, for your first mission in this new ship, you are being accompanied by a Spectre (Shepard has not been elevated to Spectre status at this point). One of your choices on the conversation wheel is “You worry too much ,” which is a valid response and the one I chose. What Shepard actually said, however, was “You always look for the worst in any situation.”

So why is this important? It makes the conversations feel more fluid, more lifelike. You become much more interested in them because your character will not just parrot back the response you choose. What is even more impressive is that you are rarely taken out of this mechanic. Even in the games “cut scenes,” you are still choosing what Shepard is saying. When I took over the Normandy after being made a Spectre, I sat back for what was undoubtedly going to be the “motivational speech” from the captain. I had to pick the controller back up because, instead of just giving a wrote speech, I was given the ability to choose the overall theme and attitude with which it was presented. Bioware does not take you out of the game by going to cut scenes that play out some pre-programmed way; if Shepard is involved in the scene, it is a safe bet that you will have input.

BTW, you gain experience in the game based on how you handle the conversations.

The game is not perfect

Though Mass Effect is one of the best games I have ever played, it is not without its faults. Three stand out:

1) Technical Issues: Bioware was really pushing what the 360 could do for this game, and that lead to a few technical issues. One is texture popping, where the overall amazing graphics will take a little time to full load in an area, with finer textures “popping” into existence. This can be annoying, but it is nothing compared to the elevator load times. You will spend a lot of time in this game waiting in elevators, and though you will at least get a little bit of story while within the ones in the Citadel, their is nothing to help deal with the tedium of the one in the Normandy. In fact, Penny Arcade took a rather humorous stab at this in its Nitpicking: Mass Effect comic (warning, language is not safe for work, which is why I am not posting the comic in the article).

2) Combat Issues: As I mentioned earlier, the combat in Mass Effect is in no way broken. It can be a little unwieldy, however. It is a hybrid between third person shooter and RPG, with much more of an emphasis on the RPG side, something many gamers did not understand. You can pause time to choose your attacks and biotic powers (sort of akin to The Force in Star Wars) and to assign targets for your team members, which is a good thing. The biggest problem, however, is you cannot really direct your team mates to where you want them to go, at least on the 360 version. You can issue commands like stay or go to a certain location via the D-pad, but it is imprecise at best, and it can lead to your comrades getting in the way of your shots or just standing out in the open to be shot. From what I understand, the PC version corrected some of this.

3) Recycled Areas: Each of the major, story driven planets and areas of the game are unique and impressive. The side mission planets, however, pretty much all fall into a certain formula: barren land, a couple of outposts that look exactly alike on the inside, and maybe a cave. While the side missions themselves are often interesting, the areas themselves are not.

Even with these issues, Mass Effect still excels as a gaming experience. By the time you get to the end, you will not really care about the issues; you will be so engaged in the storyline they just will not matter. This game will make you laugh out loud, scream in fury and possible even choke up a bit, especially after having to deal with the consequences of one rather difficult decision.

I never thought I would find myself playing an RPG where I wanted to get past the combat to get to the conversations, but this game made me want to do just that. For forever changing the way I will think of storytelling in an RPG, Mass Effect gets a 5 out of 5.

One more to go. Funny thing is I would not really consider myself a serious RPG player, and yet 3 of my top 5, including the one I will review tomorrow, are RPGs.