Picture this, it’s a late November night in 2008, and you’re watching some TV. That’s when it cuts to a commercial break, one goes by, two go by, and none catches your attention. Until the third one plays. It opens up with a stunning view of a planet, the dark side of it lit up from the devastation of war, with huge explosions on the surface. A slim, white and black spaceship begins to fly away from the planet with the word “Normandy SR-1” on the side. The sun begins to peak over the horizon of the planet as the spaceship flies into space. A haunting sounding radio transmission begins to play as somber violin music plays in the background. In the transmission you wear what you assume to be a female soldier requesting back up from the Normandy on Noveria, as the screen pans out from a digital map showing a solar system with a circle around the war torn planet seemingly selecting it. The screen pans out to a man with heavy armor that says “N7”. He is looking at the planet on the digital map, next to him a human woman in lighter armor, and an alien in armor as well. The alien man goes to speak to the man in the N7 armor, but the woman stops him to let the man listen to the transmission, with everyone seeming a bit upset by the transmission. An AI voice says, “Request denied,” and the transmission ends as the human man and woman walk out of the room. The AI again says, “Resetting course for Calleston.”, and the ship flies off into space to Calleston. It cuts to a dark looking planet with Synthetic, alien looking robots yielding weapons looking up at the Normandy flying low to the planet as it drops a vehicle that looks like a mini tank with wheels like a car. The voice of a man says, “Many decisions lie ahead, none of them easy.” Then the screen goes black and the Mass Effect logo fades into the screen.

What I just described was the TV commercial for the first Mass Effect game.

And for those who aren’t aware of what Mass Effect is, then let me fill you in. Mass Effect is a sci-fi RPG video game series by BioWare and published by EA. The game’s main protagonist, and the character the player controls is named Commander Shepard, a character that the player has a lot of customization option over, such as appearance, play style, first name, background, and gender. The game itself has elements of various different genres, such as RPG, sci-fi, third person shooter, cover shooter, and many more. When in gunfights, you can control what abilities and weapons your team uses, as well as the armor and skill points. It is a third person cover shooter, making the player utilize fast reflexes, and quick wits, using cover to avoid getting gunned down. When talking to other characters in game you can choose what you want to say, and if you build your stats right you can say special paragon or renegade dialogue options.

Now, before I start my review, I will be reviewing the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition versions of these games, as the only thing really different is graphics and frame rates. Now, onto the review.

WARNING THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS, PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Mass Effect (2008)

• IGN Rating (Xbox 360): 9.4
• Metacritic Rating (Xbox 360): 91/100
• GameSpot (Xbox 360): 8.5/10

Mass Effect was the first of the series that I picked up and played all the way through, and before I did Mass Effect was on my radar for a while. When I play these games I get a sense of nostalgia as I used to watch my brother play these games and always wanted to play them, and when I finally did I couldn’t put them down.

What makes Mass Effect 1 stand out from the rest of the series is the stunning atmosphere. From vibrant and beautiful environments, to dark and creepy ones. To gigantic and wonderful structures that inspire awe, to the enigmatic Citadel, the heart of galactic government.

Along with these jaw dropping environments and splendid atmosphere is a masterful soundtrack that at times can provoke curiosity, excitement, or a sense of adventure. Sometimes the soundtrack is eerie, making you wonder what lies behind each corner, or putting a sense of urgency in the player, propelling them into the universe of Mass Effect. Here’s a YouTube playlist for anyone who wants to listen to the soundtrack themselves.

Some background so that you can understand something within the Mass Effect universe, the Council is the highest ranking members of the Milky way government, and they are basically the leaders of their respective species and represent their species in government. They make big decisions, like declaring war, or making new laws.

The Citadel is an ancient Prothean (Protheans are ancient aliens that were wiped out in a galactic wide extinction event 50,000 years ago, many of their artifacts and old structures can be found throughout the galaxy, and they were the dominate species of they’re time, or cycle) construct that houses the government. Ambassadors of different species can be found there, along with general galactic politics, shopping, bars, clubs, the Alliance Military is based there, and there are a lot of housing options for those who wish to live there. There is a population of ~13.2 million people.

Mass Relays are giant relays that use mass effect fields to propel space craft to different relays throughout the galaxy for a faster way of travel. It is assumed they were built by the Protheans.

Spectre’s are the Council’s enforcers who can act outside the law to uphold and enforce the law. If the council has a problem, then usually Spectre’s are sent to figure it out and deal with it.

Squad Mates:

As you progress through the game, you can recruit new crew mates onto the Normandy that you can take onto the battlefield with you. There are 6 crew mates you recruit throughout the game. These 6 are:

Kaidan Alenko is a Human alliance soldier who operates on the Normandy alongside the Normandy crew. Kaidan possesses biotic abilities, and is handy with weapons. He is quick and smart, usually pitching in to help with the Normandy crew and plan out missions. Being trained to use an L2 biotic model from a young age, the faulty and controversial L2 models cause Kaidan headaches and pain in his head when he uses his biotic abilities. If the player is playing a Female Commander Shepard, Kaidan Alenko is a romance option in Mass Effect 1.

Ashley Williams is the first crew mate you’ll get the opportunity to recruit in Mass Effect, and is a romance option for Male Shepard in Mass Effect 1. Ashley is a fierce soldier, focusing on her weaponry as she does not possess biotic abilities and isn’t good with tech. She is vocal and usually outgoing, and if she has a problem with something she’ll usually let you know about it. Her family background and military training seems to be an inspiration to keep her going on the battlefield.

Garrus Vakarian is a Turian crew mate that can be recruited on the Citadel. Before joining Shepard and the Normandy crew, Garrus worked for C-Sec as a C-Sec officer. Garrus is good with tech and a weapon, being a valuable asset on the battlefield and on the Normandy. Garrus is smart and witty, but is not a romance option for either Female or Male Commander Shepard’s in Mass Effect 1.

Urdnot Wrex is a Krogan crew mate that can also be recruited on the Citadel. Before Wrex joined the Normandy crew and Shepard, Wrex was a gun for hire, or better known as a mercenary. Wrex has some biotic abilities but his brute strength and handiness with a weapon makes him a deadly addition to Shepard’s crew. Urdnot Wrex is brutish and blunt, but can also be loyal if given the oppurtunity. He cannot be romanced by either Male or Female Shepard in Mass Effect 1.

Tali’Zorah Nar Rayya is a Quarian crew mate that like Garrus and Wrex can be recruited on the Citadel. Tali’Zorah is crafty and excels when it comes to tech. Before she joined Shepard she was working on proving that Saren was working with the Geth and led the attack on Eden Prime, and was about to be killed by mercs before Shepard showed up and helped Tali’Zorah. As a result Tali showed her evidence against Saren with Shepard to the Council and helped Shepard become the first Human Spectre. She cannot be romanced by a Male or Female Shepard in Mass Effect 1.

Liara T’Soni is an Asari scientist, and the daughter of Matriarch Benenzia. She can be recruited while on a mission to find her. Liara possesses biotic abilities, and is well acquainted with the Prothean culture, or as well acquainted as she can be. Unlike her mother, she doesn’t care so much for politics and would rather spend time studying Prothean ruins and artifacts to learn more on the ancient civilization that pre-dated the current cycle in the Milky Way galaxy. The player can romance Liara as both Male and Female Shepard’s in Mass Effect 1.

Jeff Moreau, or more commonly known and referred to as “Joker”, is a part of the Normandy crew. Although he doesn’t tag along with Shepard on missions, he is the pilot of the Normandy SR-1. What makes Joker special is that he was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which means he bones are more brittle and break easier, but that doesn’t hold him back much as he’s the best Pilot in all of the Alliance military, being a pivotal part in defeating Sovereign when Sovereign attacked the Citadel.

Jeff is called Joker for a reason, mostly because he constantly makes jokes, and usually tries to play some things down with humor. Normally, I would’t include squadmates that you can’t actually take into a fight, but Joker is an exception as he is an important part of the Mass Effect world, being one of Shepard’s close friends in the game.

Summary of the Story in Mass Effect 1, WARNING SPOILERS:

The story of the game is something to behold. You are Commander Shepard, a part of the Alliance Military, and are currently serving on the SR-1 Normandy under Admiral Anderson. You’re sent to Eden Prime, a planet similar to Earth which currently has a human colony on it, to investigate the recent emergency signals sent from the colony on the planet. Accompanying you on the mission is Kaidan Alenko, a human biotic (biotic have implants in them that allow them to control dark energy and have similar abilities to telekinesis), and Jenkins, who is also a part of the Alliance Military. Going alone on the mission, but still aiding you guys is a Turian Spectre Nihlus Kryik (pictured above). As you investigate you find out the colony has been attacked by Geth, synthetic AI’s made by the Quarians, and their leader influencing them to launch the attack, Rogue Spectre Saren Arterius with his gigantic flagship called Sovereign, which is suspected to be of Geth creation.

          WARNING, HEAVY SPOILERS HERE -> You find out that Saren attacked and killed Nihlus after Nihlus became relaxed around Saren, and is now looking for a Prothean beacon. After dismantling so bombs set up by the Geth, Shepard finds the Prothean beacon after Saren interacted with it. Ashley walks up to the beacon to investigate, but it starts to pull her towards it, but Shepard intercepts, and the beacon lifts Shepard into the air, and gives him a vision from within the beacon. It shows what Shepard believes to be the destruction of the Prothean empire 50,000 years ago, and he believes it is warning anyone who sees the beacon of the Reapers, an ancient race of giant synthetic aliens. Later on into the game you find out the giant flagship Sovereign is actually a Reaper itself. Every 50,000 since their creation they destroy all advanced, sentient organic life in the Milky Way galaxy. Their creators are unknown, but it is known that they destroyed the Protheans, and created the Mass Relays, along with the Citadel. The Reapers have a uniquely strong ability to indoctrinate organic and synthetic life, or in other words mind control. It is a process that varies in length, with more strong willed individuals taking longer to indoctrinate, whereas mentally weaker people would be quicker and easier to indoctrinate. Their exact age is unknown, and real motives are also unknown. For each cycle of advanced life wiped out, the Reapers make a new Reaper, only adding on to their huge population, which is ~40,000.

          I will wrap up the story here, but again, HEAVY SPOILERS HERE -> After finding out that Saren is after something called the Conduit, Shepard now has to find a way to warn people about the Reapers and the Conduit. With Tali’s evidence, Captain Anderson, Ambassador Udina, Tali, and Shepard confront the Council with the evidence. But still the idea seems too outlandish to the Council, and they continue to believe that Sovereign is a Geth ship, but do believe that Saren is working with the Geth due to Tali’s evidence. The Council makes Shepard the first Human Spectre. Along with the title of Spectre, Shepard took Anderson’s role as Captain on the Normandy (but they still call him Commander Shepard). As the Normandy crew follow leads of Saren throughout the galaxy they get on a planet called Virmire, a lush and vibrant planet where Saren has set up a base to make Krogan that will loyally follow Saren and his cause. These Krogan are also cured of the Genophage that plagues the Krogan, causing a massive loss in the population of Krogan. The plan is to meet up with a Salarian special forces team that is attempting to stop Saren, and afterwards work with the special forces team to set up a nuke in the middle of the Krogan factory. Before they can get into the factory, the player will run into a problem with Wrex. Wrex is angry that they are choosing to destroy the factory and kill all of the lab born Krogan, since he wants to cure the Genophage. If the player is unable to convince Wrex that they have to do this, then they will have no choice but to kill Wrex, since he’ll just be a hazard. Now that they have dealt with Wrex, they start to put the plan into effect. After fighting through the factory and sending either Kaidan or Ashley with the Salarians and the other to set up the bomb, Shepard makes a giant breakthrough. Shepard finds Saren’s office where there is a Prothean beacon like the one on Eden Prime. Here you can speak to Sovereign, the “Geth flagship” that you know is a Reaper. You speak to it looking to find out it’s motives or reason with it, but are forced to accept the reality that it cannot be reasoned with and its motives are beyond your comprehension. Then, you are faced with a choice. Since both the nuke and special forces team are meeting heavy resistance, they need help from Shepard, but by the time Shepard finishes helping one team, the other will die. The choice is to save Kaidan or Ashley, and the squadmate you didn’t choose will stand their ground until the nuke blows up, killing anyone near or in the factory. After the devastation of Virmire, you finally find out that Saren is headed to Ilos, an ancient Prothean planet where Prothean scientists used to reside. The Conduit is on Ilos, and now it is a race against time. When they arrive on Ilos, they find an old Prothean AI that they speak to, and it explains that the Conduit is a Mass Relay connecting Ilos to the Citadel, and that can be used on the Citadel to allow the Reapers to start an all out invasion, and that is exactly what Saren is doing. Shepard and the two crew mates he brought along for the mission rush to get through the Relay to the Citadel that Saren opened on Ilos, since you only get one minute to get through. After successfully making it through they find the Citadel war torn from Saren’s and the Geth’s invasion. Shepard and his squad fight their way through the Citadel as the entire Alliance military fight the Geth and Sovereign outside of the Citadel, where on a ship called the Destiny Ascension that has the entire Citadel Council on board. Shepard and his squad finally catch up to Saren, where he is using the control board that the Council uses to control the arms and functions of the Citadel, and take care of him. As Shepard attempts to reverse the damage that Saren did, Sovereign latches itself onto a part of the Citadel where Shepard and his squad are in an attempt to open the Mass Relay within the Citadel to let the Reapers pour through. This is where Shepard must make a choice; let the Destiny Ascension be destroyed killing the Council by letting other ships focus on Sovereign instead of the Destiny Ascension, or focus on protecting the Destiny Ascension but running the risk of Sovereign doing more damage.

Saren then rises from the dead, and from Sovereign’s implants in Saren start to take affect, turning Saren into a walking monstrostiy.

After finally defeating Saren in his Husk form, Sovereign’s mass effect shields drop, allowing all of the military forces post a full blown attack on Sovereign, finally destroying the Reaper and postponing the Reaper invasion. Sovereign falls off of the Citadel where it was latched onto, but a part of Sovereign falls off and onto the section where Shepard and his squad are. C-Sec officers run into the area where the squad were, finding the two squad mates, but no Shepard. Assuming Shepard had been crushed, they begin to walk away to attend to the injured and come back later, but Shepard pushes rubble off of himself, revealing he lived through the debris crashing into the Citadel. A bit after Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel, Shepard has to choose either Anderson or Udina as the first human Council member, which is a choice left up to the player.

DLC:

Since my reviews are based off the Mass Effect Legendary Edition’s of these games, I will not cover Pinnacle Station, but I will cover the Bring Down the Sky DLC.

Bring Down the Sky is a story DLC for Mass Effect 1. It was released on March 10th, 2008. The story is about Commander Shepard and his choice of squadmates stopping Batarian terrorists from crashing an Asteroid into a populated planet.

It takes place in the Exodus cluster on Asteroid X57 where the people who have been working on the asteroid have been taken as hostages. The Batarians have also set up giant thrusters on the asteroid that propels it towards the planet. Commander Shepard must first shut off the thrusters, then go to the main building where Shepard and crew will run into the Batarian terrorist leader. The Batarian sets up bombs in the building and gives Shepard a choice, either Shepard kills the Batarian leader, but in doing so allowing the bombs to go off, killing all the hostages within the building, or Shepard disarms the bombs and rescues the hostages, but lets the Batarian terrorist leader go. This choice is entirely up to the player.

Gameplay:

Mass Effect is a RPG, Sci-Fi, third person shooter with cinematic cut scenes. Combat consists of using a wide variety of weapons such as guns, grenades and special abilities. During combat the player can take cover behind solid objects, and can order their crew to go to a certain position on the battlefield, take cover, choose what weapons or abilities their squad mates use, etc.

Choices are important, as they carry weight and affect the Mass Effect universe. If you choose to let a character live, later on in the second or third game, that character could show up a new and better person, or could come for revenge. Or choosing whether or not you do certain things can affect dialogue, or negatively affect something in the future.

Dialogue is an important aspect of Mass Effect, as you get missions from talking to NPC’s, build relationships with squad mates, further missions by talking to NPC’s, you can learn more about the world of Mass Effect, buy or sell items, or gain Paragon or Renegade points (Paragon = Good Cop, Renegade = Bad Cop essentially), etc.

You can customize what weapons you use, what armor you wear, if you choose to wear your helmet or not, what perks you’ll equip to your weapons and armor, what armor your squad wears, what weapons your squad uses, and what perks your squad will equip to their weapons and armor.

You can level up attributes of your Shepard that you choose, along with your squad. For example, when you level up you gain x amount of points for Shepard to add to certain attributes and x amount of points to add to your squad mates attributes. If you wanted to add half of your points to Paragon dialogue options and half to assault rifles you could, or add one to each one, it’s all up to you.

The codex holds information about a certain subject from within the Mass Effect universe that you discover through the game by interacting with NPC’s or the environment. There are codex entries for each species you encounter in the game such as Asari, Turian, Salarian, Krogan, etc. There are codex entries for planets, the Citadel, the Council, weapons, armor, vehicles, religion, companies and groups, certain beliefs, and the list goes on. You could spend countless hours in the codex alone reading all you can about the Mass Effect universe as you interact with it.

The atmosphere provokes wonder and awe in the player with its beautiful scenery and thought provoking ideas. As you navigate around the galaxy map you can click onto different systems, clusters, planets, and explore the huge galaxy. As you investigate planets you get a small description to read on that planet if you so choose along with statistics from that planet.

When you find a planet you can land on with the Mako, there are usually some things that can make your visit worth it. Such as side missions, anomalies, ancient alien artifacts, etc.

Finally, when you finish the final mission in the game, and the credits begin to roll, M4 Pt.2 by the Faunts begins to play, which I believe personally is the best song they could’ve chosen for the games credits, and overall fits the bill for Mass Effect.

Now, overall Mass Effect is in my opinion, one of the greatest games ever made. Now, I have a strong bias as I grew up around it and have always liked Mass Effect, but I also believe that it is also just an outstanding product. From gameplay, to the atmosphere and lore within the game, I’m rating Mass Effect 1 a solid 9.4/10.