Mass Effect
Mass Effect is the first part of a science fiction RPG trilogy. It is set in a futuristic universe created specifically for the game, with its own history, various alien races, as well as cultural, political, and social background.
The story of the game deals with Commander Shepard, supposedly the first human candidate for the elite group of special agents (the Spectres), who serve the inter-galactic Council, comprised of the oldest and most powerful races in the universe. With or without the help of the Council, Shepard has to stop Saren, a Spectre member who went rogue and tries to exact revenge upon those he was once a part of.
In Mass Effect the player takes control of Commander Shepard, who is fully customizable in the character creation screen; his abilities, gender, and physical appearance can be shaped by the player. Both female and male versions of the character are fully voiced.
Combat in the game is action-based, and is similar to tactical squad-based shooters. As in most of BioWare's previous RPGs, the player can pause at any time to issue orders to other squad members. The squad members are AI-dependable, but general commands (such as run forward, take cover, target a specific enemy, etc) can be issued without pausing.
The six character classes in the game are Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Soldiers are good with weapons, Engineers can use tech abilities to sabotage enemies' equipment, and Adepts are able to use the disruptive biotic powers. The other three classes are combinations of the first three. Character growth features, beside the usual "level up" system, a skill-based advancement. When the characters gain a level, the player is allowed to distribute points into skills of his/her choice. These skills include weapon proficiency, tech abilities such as destroying enemy shields or hacking robotic enemies, and biotic abilities that manipulate the mass effect field to damage enemies and protect the party. Non-combat abilities for the main character include Charm and Intimidate, which influences conversation choices.
Mass Effect comes with its own morality system. There are two sides of morality in the game - Paragon and Renegade, with Paragon being a more diplomatic, official military courtesy following character, and Renegade being the "ends justify the means", damning everything to hell kind of character. The main quest with its choices and consequences is only a part of the experience - there are several optional planets that offer side-questing and exploration. Pursuing a romantic relationship with a companion is also possible.
The game introduces a slightly tweaked conversation system in which responses to NPC's are displayed and can be chosen before the NPC has finished speaking. This, combined with detailed facial expressions, allows for more fluid and natural conversations.
The PC version of Mass Effect differs in some points from the Xbox 360 release. Besides higher resolution graphics, the mini game about hacking a computer has been changed. Now instead of playing "Simon Says", the player has to get a triangle into the middle of a circle by avoiding the blocks that are constantly moving around in a Frogger-like fashion. The interface has also undergone massive changes. Besides a new quick slot bar in which the player can assign up to eight abilities for quick access to the number keys, the pause menu has been changed to give the player faster and better control over his teammates. It's now also possible to give every teammate individual orders instead of having both do the same thing. Item management has also been simplified to account for the new keyboard/mouse control scheme which also allows for better precision in the shooter-like fights.
The story of the game deals with Commander Shepard, supposedly the first human candidate for the elite group of special agents (the Spectres), who serve the inter-galactic Council, comprised of the oldest and most powerful races in the universe. With or without the help of the Council, Shepard has to stop Saren, a Spectre member who went rogue and tries to exact revenge upon those he was once a part of.
In Mass Effect the player takes control of Commander Shepard, who is fully customizable in the character creation screen; his abilities, gender, and physical appearance can be shaped by the player. Both female and male versions of the character are fully voiced.
Combat in the game is action-based, and is similar to tactical squad-based shooters. As in most of BioWare's previous RPGs, the player can pause at any time to issue orders to other squad members. The squad members are AI-dependable, but general commands (such as run forward, take cover, target a specific enemy, etc) can be issued without pausing.
The six character classes in the game are Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Soldiers are good with weapons, Engineers can use tech abilities to sabotage enemies' equipment, and Adepts are able to use the disruptive biotic powers. The other three classes are combinations of the first three. Character growth features, beside the usual "level up" system, a skill-based advancement. When the characters gain a level, the player is allowed to distribute points into skills of his/her choice. These skills include weapon proficiency, tech abilities such as destroying enemy shields or hacking robotic enemies, and biotic abilities that manipulate the mass effect field to damage enemies and protect the party. Non-combat abilities for the main character include Charm and Intimidate, which influences conversation choices.
Mass Effect comes with its own morality system. There are two sides of morality in the game - Paragon and Renegade, with Paragon being a more diplomatic, official military courtesy following character, and Renegade being the "ends justify the means", damning everything to hell kind of character. The main quest with its choices and consequences is only a part of the experience - there are several optional planets that offer side-questing and exploration. Pursuing a romantic relationship with a companion is also possible.
The game introduces a slightly tweaked conversation system in which responses to NPC's are displayed and can be chosen before the NPC has finished speaking. This, combined with detailed facial expressions, allows for more fluid and natural conversations.
The PC version of Mass Effect differs in some points from the Xbox 360 release. Besides higher resolution graphics, the mini game about hacking a computer has been changed. Now instead of playing "Simon Says", the player has to get a triangle into the middle of a circle by avoiding the blocks that are constantly moving around in a Frogger-like fashion. The interface has also undergone massive changes. Besides a new quick slot bar in which the player can assign up to eight abilities for quick access to the number keys, the pause menu has been changed to give the player faster and better control over his teammates. It's now also possible to give every teammate individual orders instead of having both do the same thing. Item management has also been simplified to account for the new keyboard/mouse control scheme which also allows for better precision in the shooter-like fights.
Mass Effect 2
Saren and the Sovereign have been defeated and the Citadel has been saved. Depending on the player's choices made in the first Mass Effect, humanity may be all that's left of the Citadel Council. Of course that doesn't keep them from ignoring the former war-hero Shepard who knows that the threat from the Reapers is still real. Instead they send him or her on a boring mission to find some Geth in the Terminus system. The inevitable happens: a new enemy enters the scene, destroys Shepard's ship, the Normandy and kills the hero of the galaxy. End of game?
No, not really. Cerberus, a known right-wing network, believes the threat from the Reapers to be real and only sees one chance of saving the human race: Shepard. So they invest millions upon millions of credits into the Lazarus project, and two years after Shepard died floating in space, he (she) reawakens on-board the Cerberus Station. The main mission given by Cerberus: find out more about the mysterious race of Collectors who abduct millions of human colonists for an unknown purpose, and figure out their possible connection to the Reapers.
Mass Effect 2 is a hybrid of third-person-shooter and role-playing game. After the prologue, where the player witnesses the destruction of the original Normandy, he has to create a new character and choose from one of six classes each with its own powers. The decision also influences which weapons the player can use during playthrough as only the soldier can wield every weapon in the game. During the course of the game the player and his squad-mates earn experience points by killing enemies, fulfilling missions and hacking safes in order to get a level up. For each level up between 1-20, two talent points are awarded, from 21 to the maximum level of 30 only one, with which the character's powers can be upgraded in four stages. Once the last upgrade has been purchased, a specialization has to be chosen making the talent even more powerful in one aspect. All this goes also for the player squad mates. The player starts with two companions at his side but can collect up to ten during the course of the game. While he is only allowed to bring two with him into a mission, the collected experience points will be equally shared with those that are left behind.
Fighting is done in a Gears of War-like fashion, with the characters being able to storm into cover and look out to get in a few shots. In addition, health and shield energy are regenerated automatically if the protagonist or his squad mates avoid being hit for a few seconds. To fight the various kinds of enemies, each class has access to different types of weapons like the sniper rifle and heavy pistol for the infiltrator as well as five different kinds of heavy weapons. The weapons now require ammunition which is either dropped by killed enemies or scattered around the level, but there are only two types: one for the heavy weapons and one for all others. Heavy weapons like the grenade launcher come with a very limited supply of ammunition but are very powerful even against full-blown mechs.
Inventory management has been removed entirely. The player is only able to change the weapons load-out of his team from the small set he will collect during the course of the game. His squad mates don't have different armor any more, only the protagonist's appearance can be changed by researching new armor parts and put them together to a full suit in his cabin aboard the Normandy. Through research the player also gets access to upgrades to the Normandy, his squad mates and their tools. To do research the player not only needs to find or buy the plans for the upgrade but also needs enough minerals. The four types of minerals in the game are either found in chests during a mission or collected through a scanning mini-game on the galaxy map. In the mini-game the player uses a cursor to move around the face of the planet and send in probes if he finds a mineral source. Side quests can also be found this way and are shown as anomalies on a planet.
Besides the combat, the second most important part of the game are the multiple-choice dialogues. The decisions the player makes here heavily influence the players path deciding if he will become a bad or a good person. To that end not only the dialogue choices are sorted by good, neutral and bad but special dialogue options are available for each path if the player has enough points in it that can end a dialogue prematurely to the heroes favor. Quick-time events have been introduced, where the player can perform an alignment action independent from his current path, such as hitting an obnoxious reporter in the face to shut her up.
As opposed to the first game, the PC- and the Xbox-360-versions are nearly identical. The only difference is the interface which, on the Xbox 360, features a radial menu with the ability to put four powers on hot-keys as opposed to the PC-version which features a mouse-controlled drag-&-drop interface and a quick-slot ribbon for up to eight powers to be activated by using the number keys. On both platforms the player can directly use the powers his squad mates possess.
One of the most important features of Mass Effect 2 is the ability to import a character from the first game. While the character itself including class and appearance can still be changed at the beginning of the game, he will get a huge bonus both in credits, experience points and minerals at the start of the game depending on the character level he had at the end. In addition, hundreds of decisions the player made in the first game will have an impact on more or less important parts of Mass Effect 2. This includes the state of the universe at the beginning of the game, which romances the player pursued and which of his squad mates died or survived the end as well as minor decisions like the survival of the Rachni queen. If Shepard survives the end of Mass Effect 2, the player will be able to carry him over to Mass Effect 3, too.
No, not really. Cerberus, a known right-wing network, believes the threat from the Reapers to be real and only sees one chance of saving the human race: Shepard. So they invest millions upon millions of credits into the Lazarus project, and two years after Shepard died floating in space, he (she) reawakens on-board the Cerberus Station. The main mission given by Cerberus: find out more about the mysterious race of Collectors who abduct millions of human colonists for an unknown purpose, and figure out their possible connection to the Reapers.
Mass Effect 2 is a hybrid of third-person-shooter and role-playing game. After the prologue, where the player witnesses the destruction of the original Normandy, he has to create a new character and choose from one of six classes each with its own powers. The decision also influences which weapons the player can use during playthrough as only the soldier can wield every weapon in the game. During the course of the game the player and his squad-mates earn experience points by killing enemies, fulfilling missions and hacking safes in order to get a level up. For each level up between 1-20, two talent points are awarded, from 21 to the maximum level of 30 only one, with which the character's powers can be upgraded in four stages. Once the last upgrade has been purchased, a specialization has to be chosen making the talent even more powerful in one aspect. All this goes also for the player squad mates. The player starts with two companions at his side but can collect up to ten during the course of the game. While he is only allowed to bring two with him into a mission, the collected experience points will be equally shared with those that are left behind.
Fighting is done in a Gears of War-like fashion, with the characters being able to storm into cover and look out to get in a few shots. In addition, health and shield energy are regenerated automatically if the protagonist or his squad mates avoid being hit for a few seconds. To fight the various kinds of enemies, each class has access to different types of weapons like the sniper rifle and heavy pistol for the infiltrator as well as five different kinds of heavy weapons. The weapons now require ammunition which is either dropped by killed enemies or scattered around the level, but there are only two types: one for the heavy weapons and one for all others. Heavy weapons like the grenade launcher come with a very limited supply of ammunition but are very powerful even against full-blown mechs.
Inventory management has been removed entirely. The player is only able to change the weapons load-out of his team from the small set he will collect during the course of the game. His squad mates don't have different armor any more, only the protagonist's appearance can be changed by researching new armor parts and put them together to a full suit in his cabin aboard the Normandy. Through research the player also gets access to upgrades to the Normandy, his squad mates and their tools. To do research the player not only needs to find or buy the plans for the upgrade but also needs enough minerals. The four types of minerals in the game are either found in chests during a mission or collected through a scanning mini-game on the galaxy map. In the mini-game the player uses a cursor to move around the face of the planet and send in probes if he finds a mineral source. Side quests can also be found this way and are shown as anomalies on a planet.
Besides the combat, the second most important part of the game are the multiple-choice dialogues. The decisions the player makes here heavily influence the players path deciding if he will become a bad or a good person. To that end not only the dialogue choices are sorted by good, neutral and bad but special dialogue options are available for each path if the player has enough points in it that can end a dialogue prematurely to the heroes favor. Quick-time events have been introduced, where the player can perform an alignment action independent from his current path, such as hitting an obnoxious reporter in the face to shut her up.
As opposed to the first game, the PC- and the Xbox-360-versions are nearly identical. The only difference is the interface which, on the Xbox 360, features a radial menu with the ability to put four powers on hot-keys as opposed to the PC-version which features a mouse-controlled drag-&-drop interface and a quick-slot ribbon for up to eight powers to be activated by using the number keys. On both platforms the player can directly use the powers his squad mates possess.
One of the most important features of Mass Effect 2 is the ability to import a character from the first game. While the character itself including class and appearance can still be changed at the beginning of the game, he will get a huge bonus both in credits, experience points and minerals at the start of the game depending on the character level he had at the end. In addition, hundreds of decisions the player made in the first game will have an impact on more or less important parts of Mass Effect 2. This includes the state of the universe at the beginning of the game, which romances the player pursued and which of his squad mates died or survived the end as well as minor decisions like the survival of the Rachni queen. If Shepard survives the end of Mass Effect 2, the player will be able to carry him over to Mass Effect 3, too.
Mass Effect 3
As a result of Commander Shepard's affiliation with the Cerberus organisation in the past, he or she is removed from active service by the Alliance military upon returning to Earth. It is at this point that the alien machine race known as the Reapers launch an all-out assault on the planet. The Defense Committee asks Shepard for assistance, and Captain Anderson re-installs him as a member of the Alliance and Commander aboard his old ship, the Normandy. While Anderson stays on Earth, trying to hold its defenses against the overwhelming power of the Reapers, Shepard is sent to the Citadel to convince the galactic council to provide military aid for the struggling planet, and unite the alien races in a battle against the common enemy.
Mass Effect 3 is the third game in the series and forms the final part of the trilogy. As with previous games in the series, gameplay combines tactical, squad- and cover-based third-person combat with role-playing, in the form of different classes, customizable upgrades and dialogue choices. As with the second part of the trilogy, save files from the previous games can be imported with decisions being made in the first two games having an effect on the new situations.
In addition to combat difficulty selection, the player is offered a choice of three modes before starting the game. The "action" mode bypasses conversation choices, displaying them as non-interactive cutscenes; the "story" mode keeps choices intact, but lowers combat difficulty. The "role-playing" mode reflects most closely the gameplay of the two previous games, containing both choices and more challenging combat.
Most of combat-related and character development features have been carried out from the preceding installment. Melee combat plays a somewhat larger role: certain classes possess the ability to execute powerful charged close-combat moves. Weapons can be modified with two enhancements each, gaining more firepower, large magazines, increased accuracy, etc. Like before, abilities and powers can be upgraded when leveling up; each of them now offer two upgrade choices per level, and selecting one of them will lock the other enhancement permanently.
Entirely new to the series is a multiplayer option in the form of the co-op game mode Galaxy at War. It involves up to four players cooperatively taking over enemy strongholds. Players can take part in Galaxy at War as any race in the game's universe.
Mass Effect 3 is the third game in the series and forms the final part of the trilogy. As with previous games in the series, gameplay combines tactical, squad- and cover-based third-person combat with role-playing, in the form of different classes, customizable upgrades and dialogue choices. As with the second part of the trilogy, save files from the previous games can be imported with decisions being made in the first two games having an effect on the new situations.
In addition to combat difficulty selection, the player is offered a choice of three modes before starting the game. The "action" mode bypasses conversation choices, displaying them as non-interactive cutscenes; the "story" mode keeps choices intact, but lowers combat difficulty. The "role-playing" mode reflects most closely the gameplay of the two previous games, containing both choices and more challenging combat.
Most of combat-related and character development features have been carried out from the preceding installment. Melee combat plays a somewhat larger role: certain classes possess the ability to execute powerful charged close-combat moves. Weapons can be modified with two enhancements each, gaining more firepower, large magazines, increased accuracy, etc. Like before, abilities and powers can be upgraded when leveling up; each of them now offer two upgrade choices per level, and selecting one of them will lock the other enhancement permanently.
Entirely new to the series is a multiplayer option in the form of the co-op game mode Galaxy at War. It involves up to four players cooperatively taking over enemy strongholds. Players can take part in Galaxy at War as any race in the game's universe.
Mass Effect Andromeda
Mass Effect: Andromeda takes place some 600 years after the events in the trilogy. Alien races from the Milky Way galaxy, including Humans, Asari, Krogan, Salarians, and Turians, dispatched several arks toward the Andromeda galaxy after discovering several suitable planets for new colonies using deep space scans based on Geth technology.
After modeling your protagonist, male or female, and setting some very basic info in regard to the original trilogy, basically just setting whether Commander Shepard was a male or female, you start the game by being awoken from a 600 year cryosleep. Due to malfunction, your twin sibling (brother or sister, opposite of your character selected sex preference) didn't wake up and ended up in a comma.
The arks have reached the Andromeda galaxy and it is time to visit those promised new worlds. However, it turns out that none of them is habitable as the climates changed in the last 600 years, some naturally, and some due to terraforming by an AI-like race of machines known as Remnant. Their technology is far beyond anyone else's, but their goal is unknown and other races you meet in the Andromeda galaxy all seem eager to unravel the mystery behind Remnant technology. Things didn't go as anticipated upon your arrival to Andromeda galaxy, and your father, the Pathfinder on your vessel, is tasked to find out new worlds that could be colonized. But after giving his life to save yours, you end up being the next Pathfinder and hope for mankind.
Following the plan to regroup at Nexus station, which is basically a smaller version of Citadel from previous Mass Effect games, you find out that none of the other arks were heard of and that Nexus is in dire need of food and supplies - which initiated riot and fight among militia and other personnel. Not many are eager to put faith in you, being new and unrefined Pathfinder, but you are assigned a spaceship called Tempest, and a crew to help you search and explore uncharted new worlds.
Similar to previous games in the series, in between missions your crew may have new things to talk to you about, and you can try and pursue a romantic relationship with some of your crew. You can upgrade your character's skills, you can trade weapons and items at various merchants in Nexus, and travel between planets.
Mining is not done in a typical way, and you only send a probe when you have an alert of possible minerals in the area or some stranded ship or some other phenomenon. Moving between planets and asteroids is done completely in 1st-person perspective (not free movement, but navigating pre-set paths) and can be skipped.
Research and development is also supported, but this time you have technologies from different galaxies that can be researched and developed. Weapons also support mod slots which vary from having bigger ammo clip capacity to doing more damage or having better stability. Armor works in a similar way to before, and also support removal of your helmet during cut-scenes, assuming you're not in a hazardous area which requires a helmet. While on board the Tempest, you have your personal outfit which can support full color radius change, though you can only change your own outfit while in your captain's room, and not the outfit of your crew.
While your armor has the ability to act as a semi-jet-pack, in order to explore the planet in full you will also be given a rover, similar to that in the original Mass Effect game, which has the ability to jump, boost speed, or make itself more capable of traversing steep terrains. It can also have different paint jobs if you don't like the default white one.
The rover also gives you additional protection from the planet's hazards such as radiation or extreme cold. But this time, exploring planets isn't just for gathering resources and materials, but also for building colonies on a suitable places. You can select what type of colony you wish to build, whether it should be military outpost or a scientific colony, but make sure you don't leave your colonists unprotected against the Kett, a new hostile alien race you will first encounter in the Andromeda galaxy.
Aside from weapons, the Pathfinder has a scanning tool which helps you scan objects and people and it also interacts with SAM, an AI that is part of every Pathfinder, and can help give you necessary information almost instantly.
After modeling your protagonist, male or female, and setting some very basic info in regard to the original trilogy, basically just setting whether Commander Shepard was a male or female, you start the game by being awoken from a 600 year cryosleep. Due to malfunction, your twin sibling (brother or sister, opposite of your character selected sex preference) didn't wake up and ended up in a comma.
The arks have reached the Andromeda galaxy and it is time to visit those promised new worlds. However, it turns out that none of them is habitable as the climates changed in the last 600 years, some naturally, and some due to terraforming by an AI-like race of machines known as Remnant. Their technology is far beyond anyone else's, but their goal is unknown and other races you meet in the Andromeda galaxy all seem eager to unravel the mystery behind Remnant technology. Things didn't go as anticipated upon your arrival to Andromeda galaxy, and your father, the Pathfinder on your vessel, is tasked to find out new worlds that could be colonized. But after giving his life to save yours, you end up being the next Pathfinder and hope for mankind.
Following the plan to regroup at Nexus station, which is basically a smaller version of Citadel from previous Mass Effect games, you find out that none of the other arks were heard of and that Nexus is in dire need of food and supplies - which initiated riot and fight among militia and other personnel. Not many are eager to put faith in you, being new and unrefined Pathfinder, but you are assigned a spaceship called Tempest, and a crew to help you search and explore uncharted new worlds.
Similar to previous games in the series, in between missions your crew may have new things to talk to you about, and you can try and pursue a romantic relationship with some of your crew. You can upgrade your character's skills, you can trade weapons and items at various merchants in Nexus, and travel between planets.
Mining is not done in a typical way, and you only send a probe when you have an alert of possible minerals in the area or some stranded ship or some other phenomenon. Moving between planets and asteroids is done completely in 1st-person perspective (not free movement, but navigating pre-set paths) and can be skipped.
Research and development is also supported, but this time you have technologies from different galaxies that can be researched and developed. Weapons also support mod slots which vary from having bigger ammo clip capacity to doing more damage or having better stability. Armor works in a similar way to before, and also support removal of your helmet during cut-scenes, assuming you're not in a hazardous area which requires a helmet. While on board the Tempest, you have your personal outfit which can support full color radius change, though you can only change your own outfit while in your captain's room, and not the outfit of your crew.
While your armor has the ability to act as a semi-jet-pack, in order to explore the planet in full you will also be given a rover, similar to that in the original Mass Effect game, which has the ability to jump, boost speed, or make itself more capable of traversing steep terrains. It can also have different paint jobs if you don't like the default white one.
The rover also gives you additional protection from the planet's hazards such as radiation or extreme cold. But this time, exploring planets isn't just for gathering resources and materials, but also for building colonies on a suitable places. You can select what type of colony you wish to build, whether it should be military outpost or a scientific colony, but make sure you don't leave your colonists unprotected against the Kett, a new hostile alien race you will first encounter in the Andromeda galaxy.
Aside from weapons, the Pathfinder has a scanning tool which helps you scan objects and people and it also interacts with SAM, an AI that is part of every Pathfinder, and can help give you necessary information almost instantly.
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